#ive seen several of these scenarios

[amarshmallownamedo]

Is the christian baby in the room with us right now?

[plasma-packin-peep]

Fantasy setting where we DONT use the word "race" to describe what is clearly different species of sapient humanoids. Because race is constructed, and the difference between an elf and an orc isn't.

[magnoliamyrrh]

its been insane witnessing the full force of propaganda and american imperialism with my own two eyes as an adult these past few years. obviously ive known abt it plenty and seen it before, but witnessing it at this age with this much force is... dystopian and crazy

[gremsnleir]

You see, my Midas is four meters tall because one of his gods is a lobster and cursed him with immortality for the sake of having an eternal follower for a group of gods that are hiding in Midas' Cave, wishing to survive the bishops' genocide of fellow gods. Miss Fortuna is Midas' main goddess and a totally real eel : ] Kallamar is fairly tall even now as a mortal, Midas is just that much of a freak due to being at the will of many gods. Love that seastar : ] i am aware this all sounds insane but i've been here since the start of Cotl and i am nkt chnaging stuff

woa h

[fratboykate]

I'm totally in support of the writers in theory but I'm trying to understand more of what you're fighting for because I've seen some people on twitter claim writers make more money a week than most of us make in a month so I'm trying to understand what the issue is. Also if that info is accurate. This is a genuine question. Not trying to have a "gotcha moment". I really want to hear from a writer.

people have always had wild misconceptions about how much a writer earns because of their lack of understanding of how the industry actually works. there's so many posts about how "you guys make 5k a week. what more do you want?!" yeah...let's do some math on that.

5k a week for 14 weeks (and that's a long room. a lot of rooms these days are 8-10 weeks. those are the dreaded mini-rooms we're trying to kill) is $70,000. for roughly three months of work. you'd think we're cooking with gas...BUT HOLD UP. that's gross! let's see everything that has to come out of that check:

10% to our agent

10% to our manager

5% to our entertainment attorney

5% to our business manager (not everyone has one but a lot of us do. i do, so that's literally 30% immediately off the top of every check)

most of these breakdowns ive seen downplay taxes severely. someone made one that says writers pay 5% in taxes and i would like to ask them "in what universe?". that doesn't even cover state taxes. the way taxes work in the industry is really complicated, but the short of it is most of us have companies for tax reasons so we aren't taxed like people on w2s/1099. if we did we'd be even more fucked. basically every production hires a writer's company instead of the writer as an individual. so they engage our companies for our services and then at the end of the year we (the company) pay taxes as corporations or llcs (depending on what the writer chose to go with). my company is registered as a "corporation" so let's go with those rates. california's corporate rate is 9% and the federal corporate tax rate is 21%. there's other expenses with running a business like fees and other shit so my business managers/accountants/bookkeepers have recommended i save between 35-40% of everything i make for when tax season comes.

you see where the math is at already??? 25-30% in commissions and then 35-40% in taxes. on the lower end you're at THE VERY LEAST looking at 60% of that check gone. 70% worst case scenario. suddenly those $70,000 people claim we make are actually down to $28,000 as the take home pay. and that's if you're only losing 60%. it goes down to $21,000 if it's 70%.

lets pretend you worked a long 14 week room (that's the longest room ive ever worked btw) and let's also be generous and say you only have 60% in expenses so the take home is $28,000. average rent in los angeles is around $2,800-$3,000. if you're paying $2,800 in rent that means you need AT LEAST $4,000 a month to have a semi decent life since you need to also cover groceries, gas, medical expenses, toiletries, phone, internet, utilities, rental and car insurances, car payments, student loan payments, etc etc etc. and again, this is los angeles. everything is more expensive so you're living BARE BONES on 4k. and these are numbers as a single person. im not even taking having children into account. so those $28,000 you take home might cover your life for 6-7 months. 3 of which you're in the room working. the reality is that once that room ends, you might not work in a room again for 6-9-12 months (i have friends whose last jobs were over 18 months ago) and you now only have about 3 months left of savings to hold you over. we have to make that money stretch while we do all the endless free development we do for studios and until we get our next paying job. so...3 months left of enough money to cover your expenses -> possible 9 months of not having a job. this is how writers end up on food stamps or applying to work at target.

this is why we're fighting for better rates and better residuals. residuals were a thing writers used to rely on to get them through the unemployment periods. residual checks have gone down from 20k to $0.03 cents. im not joking.

they've decimated our regular pay and then destroyed residuals. we have nothing left. so don't believe it when they tell you writers are being greedy. writers are simply fighting to be able to make a middle class living. we're not asking them to become poor for our sake. we're asking for raises that amount to 2% of their profit. TWO PERCENT. this is a fight for writing even being a career in five years instead of something you do on the side while you work retail to pay your bills. if you think shows are bad now imagine when your writer has to do it as a hobby because they need a real job to pay their bills and support a family. (which none of us can currently afford to have btw)

support writers. stop being bootlickers for billion dollar corporations. stop caring about fictional people more than you care about the real people that write them. if we don't win this fight it truly is game over. the industry as you know it is gone.

[junesilk]

HIII omg ive been looking for a hxh blog for a WHILE there’s barely any that’s very active😭😭okok so since i’m a kurapika simp could you write headcanons and IF YOU WANTT, a mini scenario of jealous kurapika? hmm if you want an idea it could be smth like the reader has a guy bsf and kura got jealous from the lack of attention :(( THANK YOUU!

JEALOUS, JEALOUS BOY!

hxh main 4 x fem!reader

characters included: kurapika, leorio, killua, gon

i absolutely will, i have always loved jealousy prompts!! i’ve got several of these asks so far, so i’ll just kill multiple birds with one stone and go ahead and put them all together into a list of headcanons

not beta read ☝️

kurapika—

WHEN HE’S JEALOUS…

He’d be quiet in the moment, withdrawing himself from the conversation while staying by your side.

You most likely wouldn’t notice it right away because he is naturally a quiet person—

The most he would do is send a glare at the man taking all of your attention away, but other than that he’d avoid conflict.

As soon as you two were alone in a private setting, he would be much more clingy than usual

Which, in of itself would be unusual, as he’s not the type to be so physically attatched.

Perhaps it was his more possessive side coming out to play, but it certainly was new.

WHEN YOU’RE JEALOUS…

He’d know. Out of all of the main four, he’d pick it up fastest.

If the conversation wasn’t important, he’d find a way to end it quickly, to save you the jealousy.

If it is, he probably wouldn’t speed through it quite as much, but he’d place his hand on the small of your back,

His little way of assuring you he’s all yours.

He’d bring it up once you were alone, assuring you that he only had eyes for you.

leorio—

WHEN HE’S JEALOUS…

You’d feel his hand slide around your waist, looking up to see him staring at the other person

It was weird, you’d never seen him like… this!

If he was actively speaking in the conversation, every sentence referring to you would include some form of a pet name.

You could’ve sworn he said the words honey & babe at LEAST seven times

Once at home, he’d remind you who you loved most, pressing kisses to your flushed face.

WHEN YOU’RE JEALOUS…

Oh boy.

He’d be so proud, honestly. You loved him enough to be jealous? Heart melted.

You’d take his hand, tightly pressing your palms together and squeezing.

It’d take him a while to realize you’d been giving the other girl nasty looks for a few minutes, but once he did, he chuckled.

He’d make an excuse, wave goodbye to the poor girl, and then turn his attention to you.

“Woah, babe. If looks could kill..” He’d joke about it for a while, but in the end, he’d assure you there’s nobody he loves more.

killua—

WHEN HE’S JEALOUS…

He’d be extremely mean. Not to you, but to the man you were speaking to.

Killua is naturally really sarcastic, but he takes it to a whole other level.

Scoffing whenever the man made a joke, crossing his arms and looking away when you laugh.

He might use his assassin lineage to scare the other man away, but it’s rare he would need it.

He’s scary enough.

After freaking out the other man to the point where he’d left, he’d flick your forehead and roll his eyes. “That guy was looking at you weird!”

WHEN YOU’RE JEALOUS…

You wouldn’t know that he knew.

Not until the day afterwards, when there’s a chocolate robot laying beside your head when you wake up.

It’s his way for apologizing, or just letting you know that he did, in fact, know you were jealous

When asked, he’d shrug it off.

gon—

WHEN HE’S JEALOUS…

Gon’s not the type of person to get jealous.

He simply just doesn’t. It’s not because he doesn’t care for you or anything.

It’s because he’s too busy becoming friends with the new person!

Sure, he may pout if he’s not very interested in the conversation being held, but that’s the most he’d do.

WHEN YOU’RE JEALOUS…

We’ve all seen the movie.

Gon is oblivious, and remains to be that way unless you flat out tell him.

Feels bad for not realizing it earlier, but once told he tries his best to make it up to you.

He’d take you out on a date the next day, perhaps a picnic or something out in nature.

You can’t stay mad at him. After all, he just doesn’t pick up on these kinds of things very fast.

i hate how this got progressively shorter…… but wtv!!!

[weskie]

A New Dawn (Albert Wesker x gn!Reader)

descriptions of injuries, descriptions of violence, tentacle murder, tentacle affection, yeah that's a thing, shared shower, wesker lives au | Fic Directory

You found him by sheer luck.

That rock he’d crawled onto could’ve simply crumbled.  The volatile lava could’ve risen higher and submerged him completely.  Despite the odds being stacked so incredibly high against any hope of recovering Wesker, you managed to pull his legs from the impossibly hot liquid with the help of a small rescue team and loaded his charred body into a helicopter for what was arguably the worst moment of your life.

All you can do is stare at what he’s become– at the autonomous slithering of tentacles that, by some miracle, contained themselves to their host and did not spread to your shaking hands.  His lower body is marred entirely with burns and blisters so severe that you’re unsure if taking him out of there was even humane.  If, perhaps, letting him be swallowed by the earth would’ve been kinder than putting him through whatever is to come next.

Once he’s placed in a containment room, you call in every favor you’ve ever known him to be owed.  But it’s all for nothing.

The first attempt to prick his skin with an IV catheter results in bloodshed.  The entire team of medics stood stock still as the head doctor was impaled and dangled overhead by a mass of black, oozing tentacles emerging from Wesker’s body.  It happened so fast that you only realized it once the blood hit the observation glass.

Such would be the result of any attempts to address his injuries.  Not even a blanket was able to be laid over his bare form without retaliation. It was like the mass of tendrils had a mind of their own, geared only toward protecting their host– though it raises the question of why the initial recovery of his body hadn’t produced the same response.  Regardless, you wager they’re the only reason that Wesker is still alive.

For that, you’re thankful.

You talk to him through the intercom regularly.  You tell him about the BSAA’s seizure of Tricell and its assets, of how you’ve turned one of his hidden facilities into something livable for when he wakes.  That you’ll be there when he does, and how excited you are for the day.  That you hope he can hear you but feel none of the pain.

You pray he doesn’t.

At the end of the first week, you come to the realization that the tendrils are slowly engulfing his body.  Every day, more seem to appear until his legs are cocooned.

You take notes and photos of everything as best as you can, just as you know he’d want you to.  After all, this is his creation in action. The seed for his perfect world that was now seemingly consuming yours whole.

By the fourth week, they’ve risen as high as his clavicle. 

By the fifth, you feel as if you’re losing your sanity.  Alone in a massive underground facility, having not seen the sun for weeks on end, eating only MREs and having what little sleep you get plagued by stress and worst case scenario nightmares… 

You crack.

“I don’t know how to make it better, Al…”  You whisper brokenly, forehead pressed to the glass. “I can’t– I don’t know how to help you.”

Any assistance you could have possibly had turned their backs the moment the danger far outweighed the payment– which had been the case from the very start.  Though you can’t find it in yourself to fault them.  If it wasn’t for the fact your heart was lying on that table, you’d have probably followed. The threat of death can be very convincing. 

When the tendrils creep onto his face, you break containment.  And why not?  Why shouldn’t you go in?  You helped make this mess.  You helped create the organism consuming him.  For years, you worked alongside him to perfect the cure to humanity’s wretches– to cull the species destroying this planet and dragging the rest down.

Perhaps you deserved the same fate for sharing in his endeavors– for even having goals so similar and selfish.  But was it really?  Was it so selfish to want better for humanity? 

You drag your swivel chair behind you as you tread over dried blood smears and dehydrated viscera. 

“You always did like making me do things the hard way,” you jest as you approach him.  But you’re not in there to take notes or vitals.

You set foot inside to relieve your madness.

Your hand quakes as it hovers above his forehead.  You’re unsure if you should even touch him due to the blistering and ripplings of infection marring his skin.  The burns have healed a tad since bringing him in, but not nearly as much as they should’ve.  Then again, it’s been weeks since he’s had a dose of suppressant to keep his strength balanced.

You lower the back of your hand toward his nose, relieved to feel the faintest tickling of air.

“Thank god,” you whisper tightly.  “I really miss you...”

Which was the honest truth.  You miss your mundane nights with him, sitting near as you both worked independently. Stacks of paper, the clicking of keyboards, endless hours in the laboratories spent refining mere dreams into reality.  You miss his cold affections and strange ways of expressing that he, too, had been infected with that parasite known as love.

You let your hand rest shakily over a section of his hair that hadn’t been burnt down to the scalp.  You hold your breath and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

You are not added to the stains of violence on the walls, nor are you impaled in the blink of an eye.

But you are greeted with a much thinner tendril creeping up over his brow and forehead to inspect you.  It nudges your thumb and your whole body goes tense, veins chilling as if your blood had turned to ice.  It slithers over the bumps of your knuckles, leaving a thin layer of ooze over every inch of skin it touches as it trails to wrap around your wrist.  For a brief second, you’re petrified of it taking hold of you like that.  Would it try to bind with you?  What if it did to you what it had done to your precious Albert? What if it rejected you?

And if it did, how would you continue to try to help him? 

But it doesn’t.  It does nothing of the sort, just simply continues snaking up the length of your arm.  The tip rests atop your shoulder in a strangely… docile manner. You cease petting Wesker’s hair for but a moment to calm yourself, and then you feel it do something odd.

The head of the tendril lifts itself and plops back down on your shoulder, stroking backward little more than an inch before repeating the process.  You watch with wide eyes, both fascinated and terrified.

It’s mimicking you.

You pet Wesker’s hair once more and it ceases its movements.

You stop; it begins again.

Was Uroboros itself doing such an act?  Could it?

A flicker of hope flashes in your mind and tears prick at your eyes.  It’s so fucking unlikely– nearly impossible even.  And yet–

“Is that you?”  You ask softly, inching just a little closer to him.  You can see the way his eyes dart around beneath his eyelids– an entirely new development.  Was he dreaming? 

The tendril wraps the slightest bit tighter around your arm. 

“Can you hear me?”

The head of it lifts and falls against you once more.

It couldn’t be… but, at the same time, it had to be.   The tears you’ve fought against so hard fall and you grin from ear to ear.  All of that fear fades away, the desperation, the depression and hopelessness– it’s all gone.

You lean forward and press a kiss to his brow, suppressing your silent cries as you revel in the joy that your love is still in there.  This is no mere corpse kept alive by the resilience of a virus. The tendril wraps tighter the second your lips brush his skin, and you know in your heart that it’s how he’s able to reciprocate.

“We're going to figure this out,” you promise him. “I love you.”

Two weeks pass before his flesh starts to peek from between those slithering lengths.  You’d almost lost hope again.

It’s his lower body that starts to emerge first, bit by bit, starting from the feet up.  Flesh that was once marred an angry red, blistered and scorched beyond recognition, was now a scarred pink.  Amazingly, some patches seemed to have healed flawlessly, as if he’d never submerged in the fires of the earth to begin with.

Notes and photos.  Tests where possible.  Anything you could do to make sure Albert had every scrap of information possible about his otherworldly creation.  

Uroboros works.

Not only that, but it can bring its host back from the brink of death– if not perform a complete resurrection. 

Day by day, more of him is revealed until the pink line at his waist shows you just how deep he’d been submerged.  There are splatter patterns elsewhere, you notice.  Tiny specks of scarring from where lava had touched him long enough to burn through the dermal layers.

You decide to finally attempt to cover his body again.  A simple blanket, but hopefully one that’s warmth would not go unappreciated in the chill of the sterile room. 

When his hands are freed, you hold and press countless kisses to them.  You rest your cheek in his palm, telling him about your findings– that he’s almost healed and that you’re so goddamn excited.

“Uroboros is a success, my love.  You’re proof of it.”

The most fascinating of all, though, is the amber-like formation embedded in his chest.  From what you can tell, it is from this that the tentacles on his body are emerging.

You dare not touch it. Not yet, anyway.

Six days later, you find yourself kicking around in the barren kitchen of the complex.  There’s nothing but crumbs, and you’re miserable.  You haven’t left since arriving, and these compounds of his were never meant to be more than a brief hideaway.

You drag your feet as you make your way back to the bedroom.  Seems there’s little more to do than throw yourself in the shower to start your day, so you do exactly that.  Though not with any degree of enthusiasm.  Instead you sit on the ground and hug your knees, eyes shut as you ignore the complaints of your stomach.

You’ll have to find transportation to and from the nearest town– if there even was one.  It’d be lucky if you spoke the language or could even find the currency, but you’ll figure it out.  You have no choice.

In the absence of your awareness, coupled with the white noise of the shower, you fail to hear the door creak open.  Not even the disoriented shuffling against the tile floor rouses you.

Suddenly, the shower curtain is ripped open, and you startle– damn near knocking your head off the floor as you slip around like a fool.  But you clamber to your knees in an instant, arms flinging around the intruder who had fallen to your level.

You can’t help but weep.

“Al?!  Oh my god!” you exclaim through the tightness of your throat. Your hand strokes at the nape of his neck.  “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry.”

You should’ve been there when he woke up.  You should’ve fucking been there.

He shouldn’t have had to find you.

You move back and cup his face in your hands, pressing a smiling kiss to his lips despite the torrent of emotion rocking you to your core.  You pull away and find that he looks exhausted.  Completely and utterly drained.  His eyes are hooded, but the blue irises peeking out from under his lashes confirm that he is, in fact, exactly that. The formerly bright formation on his chest is dimmed nearly black.  All of his energy had gone into merely surviving.  Your poor, sweet love looked death in the eye for a second time and emerged victorious.

You help him get under the stream of water where you sit and hold him close.  You’ve never seen him like this before.  Vulnerable was an understatement.

He’s quieter than ever, staring straight ahead at the wall.  Shame, you surmise.  Humiliation.  He was defeated again– maybe even flat out killed.  His pride has always been its own Tower of Babel, built high enough to reach heaven and godhood.  But now it was truly shattered.  Crumbled to bits and buried in the sands of his failure.

There are no words to say.  Not yet, anyway.  He’s already heard them all.  Instead, there is shampoo to massage into his scalp and soap to trail over his body.  You may not be able to fix his pain, but you can wash away the remnants of volcanic ash and ooze tarnishing him.  The burden of grime is at least gone by the time the water runs cold.

You dry him with a towel, taking note of how his hands shake and how he balls them into fists to hide it.  You wonder if he still hurts, but you know he’d never admit to it even if he was truly in pain. Even wincing was out of the question, so you pretend not to hear it when he does.  You pretend like he doesn’t lean on you for support as you walk him to the bed, like he doesn’t need your help to lift his legs high enough to settle in.

He lets you hold him while he sleeps, something so out of the ordinary it leaves you blinking in confusion the second his head lays upon your chest.  Nevertheless, you do it anyway.  You pet through his hair, even occasionally running your fingertips over the healed sections of his scalp.  Normally he would stir if you so much as shifted, but he doesn’t even groan in his slumber.  

You hold him as though he's made of ceramic, basking in the tenderness of hope until your own eyelids grow heavy.  The world can wait.  Rebuilding can wait. Hell, even revenge can wait.  All that matters is this– is him. Your precious Albert, safe and very much alive in your arms, is more than you could ever ask for.

For the first time in weeks, your eyes flutter shut without fear of tomorrow.

loose followup fic here

another loose followup here

[sleepyhutcherson]

while we were getting high

“how many special people change? how many lives are living strange? where were you while we were getting high?” — ‘champagne supernova’ by oasis.

pairing: clapton davis x gn!reader

word count: 1.1k words

summary: where clapton and you get high almost every weekend except this time some words are exchanged.

tags: fluff, smoking, underage smoking, marijuana use (not mentioned though), honestly the smoking part isn’t really in detail but they’re high, best friends to lovers, oasis being praised and blur hate (i do not condone!), use of y/n, feelings being confessed sort of?

author’s note: i should be working on requests but i really had to urge to write for clapton since there is barely any content for him. why am i writing a fic about smoking when i have asthma. there’s brief discussion/debate about which of two bands are better (the bands being oasis and blur) but is that worth tw? like i feel like some people (by what ive seen) can take that stuff really seriously but i really don’t mean any hate towards oasis nor especially blur, i simply think that clapton would definitely be the type of guy to get into a debate over bands, or which band is better in this case, but don’t take anything seriously!

Your focus is not on Clapton’s rambling, instead you’re drawn to the familiar glow in the dark stars that stick to his ceiling within the many band posters he stuck up there. You’ve counted these stars several times before as this wasn’t your first time getting high in his bedroom.

You groan when you hear the same song start again from Clapton’s Ipod. He was the type of person that would obsess over a song and play it nonstop until he grew tired of it. His latest victim: ‘Champagne Supernova’ by Oasis. You don’t know how he hasn’t grown tired of listening to it on repeat, I mean, you have already! “Do we really have to listen to it again?” You whine, shifting around uncomfortably in his twin sized bed. The two of you were pressed up against each other, it was incredibly uncomfortable and yet you both always ended up in his bed for some reason.

A dumb smile curls up on his lips that you manage to catch briefly before returning your gaze back at his stupid ceiling. You don’t know why your heart quickens but you blame it on the amount of weed you smoked. I mean, it was probably that. “Yes, come on, Y/N, this is music! Real music.”

“‘Real music’?” You question, only to piss him off. A part of you liked seeing him angry, honestly. And you knew just how to push his buttons.

“Yeah. Unless you can name a better band.” Clapton challenges with an arrogant voice.

You could name so many other bands that have had a better discography than Oasis but you choose to name the band that you knew would rile him up. With a grin on your lips now you answer with what he would consider the worst band to name in this scenario.

“Blur.”

The words strike Clapton. Maybe he was being dramatic but honestly he found your choice offensive. He props himself on his elbows, no longer laying down completely. His face is scrunched up with slight disgust and confusion, an expression that resembles a child who’s just had a taste of a lime. “Blur?” He says with disgust in the word.

“Yeah,” you reply with a calm attitude. “They’re pretty good.” You continue to look up at the ceiling but Christ would you love to see the look on his face. “Better than Oasis.” You add for good measure.

You don’t know what reaction you expected from him, or well you did. You figured he would go on a long rant you wouldn’t be able to escape about how Oasis was in fact better than Blur. You did not, however, expect him to get on top of you, it’s so swift and sudden that you don’t even know how to respond. He pins your hands on either side of your head, your eyes now meeting his dark, mischievous eyes. Was he…grinning?!

Now you’re confused.

“Oh, come on, Y/N,” he teases, his body pressed up against yours. This is…not good. It feels good, sure, but Clapton was on top of you. Clapton, your best friend who you’ve known since grade seven. “We both know you’re just saying that to get a reaction from me.”

His hands grip onto your wrist, holding you in place. It doesn’t hurt, or maybe you just liked how he held you down. “Am I?” You play along, acting dumb.

His grin only deepens, his eyes frantically flickering from your eyes to your lips, your own eyes glued to his pretty pink lips. Fuck this wasn’t good. “You are,” his voice is deep now, a tease in his tone.

Before you know it, he’s inching closer to you. His fucking grin mocking you. “Clapton, we—“ shouldn’t, you think about saying but fuck, fuck, fuck his lips were grazing the skin of your neck now, his warm breath tickling you a bit. And that stupid song was still playing!

His thumb softly traces circles around one of your wrist. A part of you wishes your hands weren’t restrained down so you could tangle one in his hair. “We what?” He asks, his breath hitting your delicate skin.

“We—“ you can’t even finish. He doesn’t let you, his lips gently pressing a soft kiss against your neck, one that makes you tense up. Such an innocent kiss and yet that locked you. He continues to pepper gentle kisses on your neck, it’s so pure and sweet, especially when you feel his smile in each kiss.

“I’ve wanted this for so long now,” he admits before continuing to kiss your neck, his thumb continuing to trace around your wrists.

“You have?” You ask. A part of you thinks about telling him that you’ve secretly wanted this too for a bit now.

He stops to look at you now, his cocky grin replaced by a gentle smile. He nods with such a soft expression on his face. “Mm-hmm. I thought about what it would be like to kiss you every day, even while we were getting high.”

A crimson colour tints your cheeks. Clapton smiles more at that. God, you look so lovely now: flustered and underneath him, his hands wrapped around your wrists, your eyes boring into his. He would gladly count every eyelash, memorise every colour that paints your eyes.

“You’re high.” You giggle trying to play it off, though you don’t try to move away. Not that you could due to how he was holding you down.

“Yeah, you are too,” he says with a soft chuckle. His eyes don’t leave yours, he desperately wants to hold your gaze for as long as he can, honestly. “But even when I’m not high I still adore you.”

Fuck.

Your eyes widen a little, your mouth slightly hanging open due to his words. Clapton grins at that and before you can say anything else, he leans down to kiss you. Your lips move with his, not resisting his lips. You honestly don’t think you’d be capable of resisting him after all of this.

One of his hands laces with yours, the other still pinning you against the mattress. He continues to kiss you and he really doesn’t want to stop. He’s desperately craved this for so long now. He smiles in the kiss then, realising he has the privilege of kissing you.

His smile felt so great against your lips.

After some time you both pull away, a huge dumb smile on Clapton’s face that makes you smile at how adorable he looks. He plops down, laying his head against your chest, wanting to be near you for longer. You don’t even have to kiss, you really don’t have to do anything but be close to him. That’s really all he wants. All he’s ever wanted from you.

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[grandlinedreams]

Hello, I've been reading Ur fics lately (esp with law) and I love them

I was wondering if you could make angst? Like... Let's say there's this big battle, like the one in wano, where reader and law gets separated, but after the battle Law finds reader unconscious and being treated by chopper who then explains they had severe wounds and might need blood transfusion.

It also just happens that he was gonna confess to them after all of the chaos so that they'd be safe in his arms. And that might not even happen since now they have each foot on both worlds.

I'd imagine Law going along with talking to them even if they're unconscious just to keep them here in the living. (If they're alone ofc)

I hope that's alright

OUGH some angst my beloved,,,i can absolutely do that, I hope I do this justice for you!!

[Heads up!: angst, serious injuries, some brief medical talk, hurt/very little comfort, keeping in line w Law literally calling none of the Strawhats by their names, open-ended]

Truth be told, Law doesn't keep much of an eye on you during battles. It's hard enough keeping an eye on what the enemy is doing ㅡ especially if the Strawhats are involved. They ㅡ especially their captain ㅡ have a knack for blowing careful plans out of the water and he's forced to play damage control until it's over.

You're also fully capable of looking after yourself, and he trusts you and your skillset. So when he doesn't immediately find you once things have started settling down, he doesn't think much of it.

When five minutes turns to ten, then to fifteen, then half an hour, however, alarm bells start going off in his head. You've never taken this long to check in with him. Has something happened? Have you beenㅡ

No, he won't let himself think of that option. Not now, not ever. So he keeps as optimistic as reality will allow him ㅡ until he hears his name being called.

"Oi, Law!"

It's Sanji. "What is it, Blackleg?"

The blond's expression is his first warning that whatever it is, it isn't pleasant. "Chopper told me to come get you."

That's his second warning. Eyes narrowing and trying to rifle through potential scenarios from best case to worst, he follows Sanji silently until they reach where Chopper is ㅡ and Law stares at who the little reindeer is desperately trying to patch up.

It's you.

Part of him whispers harshly that this is par for the course, that he's worn out his luck in terms of keeping you safe ㅡ another notes that he's never seen you look more fragile.

"What happened." It's a demand as he takes in the bandages all over you, trying not to think about how most of them are already soaked with blood. Your blood.

He barely hears the explanation above the rising ringing in his ears, but he gathers enough to find it in himself to mentally curse your perchance for heroics. He's told you time and time again that your self-sacrificing attitude will get you into trouble, and now it has. (As if he isn't guilty of it too from time to time, but that's neither here nor there.)

"They need a transfusion," he says, kneels to gather you into his arms, trying not to focus on how limp you are. "I'll take it from here."

If Chopper protests, he doesn't stick around long enough to hear it. From the second he sets foot back on the Polar Tang, it's a blur.

Bandages are stripped from you and replaced, an IV of fluid in one arm, blood in the other. One of the defaults to joining the crew is letting him know blood type so he has it on hand, and he's never been more grateful to have it and less so that he needs to use it.

For the next few hours, Law hardly blinks, barely lets himself breathe ㅡ afraid that somewhere between, you'll slip from him. He can feel the cold circle of death around you, measuring, evaluating. Deciding if you go, or if you stay.

He wants you to stay. If there were ever a way to guarantee that you do, he'd do it now ㅡ but there isn't. So he sits, counts your breath (in, out. Up, down.), and waits.

And he talks.

He tells you that you're a pain, that you need to stop thinking so much of others before yourself, that a quality like that is only admirable until it means a grave instead of life. That you shouldn't be so cavalier with your time, that there are people who care about you, and what are they supposed to do if you die?

He means himself in that too. He's gotten accustomed to your presence, the way you've slotted your way into his routines and habits like you belong, and perhaps, were he a romantic, he'd say you always have. But he hardly has time for that, barely lets himself entertain it ㅡ too soft, too ideal, too good to be true. Always too much of something.

But he wants it, wants you ㅡ wonders if he'll even get the slimmest chance to tell you now. Law could tell you now, but he doesn't. He's afraid if he does, it'll tip the scales further from his favor and he'll undoubtedly lose you.

He can't do that.

It isn't fair ㅡ but when has the world ever felt fit to treat him in a way that could ever be seen as kind enough to be called fair?

[balioc]

Thoughts on the Barbie Movie

Hoo boy. Here we go.

This is long. Spoilers abound.

I

The movie is not, in any normal sense, a Barbie movie (like this or this or this or whatever). It is not a story of Barbie doing the kinds of things that Barbie does in stories. It is an endlessly postmodern and self-referential movie about Barbie, which is to say, about the Barbie franchise and its role in culture. Which is, at least plausibly, an interesting thing for a movie to be.

You probably knew all that already. But it does give us a baseline of "this movie kind of had to be political and discourse-y, one way or another." Or even, to be more specific: "to some large extent this movie had to be about feminism, explicitly, if it was going to exist at all." How could you talk meaningfully about Barbie's role in culture without touching on that stuff?

II

The evaluative TLDR:

Barbie is very ambitious, and in many places very fun. It is also deeply confused, and fragmented, about what it's trying to say and do. Often it raises genuinely interested problems/scenarios and then totally fails to address them, or else addresses them in ways that are incoherent. The text knows that it's doing this, and on several occasions kind of apologizes for it; a couple of times it more or less looks into the camera and says "sorry, we're not going to deal with this properly;" but, well, that's not a substitute for dealing with things properly.

There is also a streak of genuine political nastiness running through the film, in a place where the story really cannot afford it. It...doesn't match up, tonally or thematically, with some of the surrounding material. I have no background at all in cinematic stratigraphy, but I would be fascinated to learn about Barbie's editorial history, because I have the vague sense that a more-cogent (and more-interesting) story got hacked apart and then Frankensteined together into something much cheaper and worse.

III

The opening sequence of the movie is wild. You've seen most of it -- or you can, if you haven't, and you want to -- because it is the film's first teaser trailer. Girls are playing listlessly with baby dolls; a giant Barbie appears like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey; and then the girls enter a frenzy of destruction, bashing their baby dolls' heads against the ground.

I don't know whether I would have found it as disturbing as I did, if I didn't actually have a baby of my own. But speaking from the standpoint of a parent...yeah, wow, it's more viscerally horrific than most actual horror I've seen recently. The narration says some stuff about Barbie providing a new and more rewarding set of imagination games to play, but the visuals by themselves tell a message loud and clear, which is: Barbie will turn your daughters into infanticidal maenads. It wouldn't need any editing at all to be part of a shock-you-silly Reefer-Madness-y moral panic film.

Which is really good! And really interesting! It starts us off on an undeniable thematic note: there is something primal and powerful and very dangerous about Barbie.

IV

The very best part of the movie is probably the part that comes right after the opening, when we explore the movie's depiction of "Barbieland" by going through Barbie's Typical Day, before we get into any of the notional plot or metaphysics. It's joyful and charming in a consistent way. The gags are (mostly) great. The movie is in love with its base premise, and that love is palpable.

This sequence makes one thing very clear:

Barbie treats Ken like absolute dogshit. She is a bad girlfriend.

And it's taken seriously. I mean, it's played for laughs, almost everything in this movie is played for laughs, but...it's not mean-spirited, not here. It's not, like, "ha ha, Ken, what a contemptible loser." He's Pierrot, asking for very basic forms of affection and attention and respect, and getting the door slammed in his face over and over. It's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

That colors everything that comes later.

The movie doesn't forget this, or fail to acknowledge it. At the end, after everything, Barbie does apologize to Ken for her treatment of him. It's a halfhearted and supremely unsatisfying kind of apology, especially in context, but...it's there, in so many words! I'm not making it up! This thematic foundation was laid down, not-very-subtly, right at the beginning!

V

This movie, which is at least trying to be ambitious, is juggling a million themes. Many of them are dumb at their core, and have no real promise; many of them lack any kind of narrative synergy with the others. But there are at least two which, I believe, (a) are genuinely worthwhile individually and (b) work well together in a story.

One is: What does it mean to be a symbol rather than a person? To exist, not for your own sake, but for the sake of influencing the dreams and culture of entities that you don't know and can't really understand?

The other is: What is the proper ordering of the relationship between Barbie and Ken?

I've seen a number of Takes in which people say, essentially: Couldn't this have ended with the Barbies and the Kens just being decent to each other and treating each other like humans? Couldn't there have been equality and mutual respect, instead of the weird uncomfortable girlboss-supremacist stuff that we got? And I sympathize with that impulse tremendously, but the honest answer has to be: No. We cannot have simple equality and esteem between Barbie and Ken, not in a movie like this. That would be a lie. Because this is a movie about Barbie-as-symbol, and when you're looking at Barbie through that lens, it is true and unavoidable that Ken is an appendage and an afterthought. You can have toys for boys; you can have dolls for boys (even if you call them "action figures" or whatever); for that matter, you can have dolls of boys for girls, so that girls can tell stories centering on male characters; but that's not what Ken is, and never has been. There are no Ken stories, and no one particularly wants them. Ken exists to be Barbie's boyfriend.

(One of the most painful moments of the movie comes during the resolution wrapup. Ken wails to Barbie that he has no identity outside her. She says, basically, "you have to find one, because I'm leaving you." And he...acts like he's had an epiphany, and does a little silly celebration. But his "insight" is just literally "I'm Ken," there's absolutely nothing there, and of course it's the most hollow and awful thing in the world because he really does have no identity outside her.)

VI

The movie's metaphysics are not even slightly consistent. The nature of Barbieland, and the ways that it affects and is affected by the real world, are completely different in every scene. In large part because the film can't ever pass up a gag, whether or not it's funny, no matter how much damage it does to the narrative and the theming overall.

The worst part is that the movie is not capable of saying anything remotely coherent about the real world, because its version of the "real world" is as weird and fake as its Barbieland. Will Ferrell's CEO of Mattel character is more of an absurd cartoon than any of the Barbies or Kens. Mattel HQ is some kind of surreal labyrinth tower out of The Matrix. A random receptionist can handle herself like James Bond in a car chase, for reasons that are [handwaved in a gag].

VII

So. Yes. There is the sequence in the third act where Ken takes over Barbieland with the power of patriarchy. This is pretty much as bad as it can be. And I say this as someone who thinks that the movie probably did actually need a plot thread doing roughly that kind of thing.

Almost as bad as it can be. The wannabe-patriarch Kens are gleefully goofy in a way that you can't help but love, or at least, I couldn't help but love it. Which has something to do with the writing and something to do with the charisma of all the Ken actors. The main Ken, Ryan Gosling's Ken, really seems to believe that being a successful patriarch has a lot to do with riding majestic horses and wearing a giant fur coat without a shirt, and when he takes over Barbie's Dream House he names it Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House -- that kind of thing.

But. Apart from that, it's real unfortunate. The justification for Ken's ability to conquer Barbieland with patriarchy, instantly and effortlessly, is -- in almost so many words -- they had no defenses against it, it was like the American Indians encountering smallpox. I...don't think I need to spell out the problems with that.

Worse yet, the whole sequence is soaked in, uh, let's call it "2014-era upper-middle-class social-status-oriented feminism." The real bad behavior on the part of the Kens, the stuff they do when they're not being adorably weird, is: mansplaining their extensive opinions about cars and movies, and wanting to show off how helpful and knowledgeable they are to "damsels" who are having trouble using machines or computers. Apparently that's the real problem at hand, the causus belli of the gender wars. The way that you deprogram a patriarchy-brainwashed Barbie is by...ranting to her about the stereotypical social irritations of upper-middle-class women (e.g. "you have to keep yourself thin but not act like you care about being thin," "you have to be a confident leader but also be nurturing and supportive," etc.) [note that the Barbies of Barbieland have never encountered these irritations, at least not at the hands of men]. And the girlboss victory montage consists of having the Barbies put on deceptive manipulative bimbo acts to stroke the Kens' egos, which sure is one way to depict girlboss feminist victory.

But the most unforgivable thing of all is the depiction of the patriarchy-brainwashed Barbies. They're lad-magazine caricatures, endlessly offering their Kens "brewski beers," dressing up as French maids, gazing on in cow-eyed adoration as their Kens mansplain stuff to them.

Barbie does, in fact, have a problematic history with the patriarchy. And it does not look like that.

VIII

@brazenautomaton:

Barbie isn’t someone who had to fight through the patriarchy to be seen as good enough to be an astronaut even though she’s a woman. Barbie’s a fucking astronaut because she’s fucking Barbie of course she’s good enough to be an astronaut.

That is...one aspect of the deep Barbie lore. It is the Barbie-nature that Mattel was trying to push, as far back as my own childhood; it's certainly the Barbie-nature that Mattel is trying to push in this movie. But there is another side to Barbie, even older and even more fundamental than Senator Astronaut Veterinarian Barbie, and you can't make a postmodern movie-about-Barbie without addressing it.

This is Barbie the fashion doll. The Barbie who is an icon of ultra-consumerist teenage girlhood, whose life is defined by her fancy clothes and her fancy car. The Barbie whose most salient traits are her hourglass figure and her long blonde hair and her feet that are always posed to fit into high heels. The Barbie of "math class is tough!" The Barbie who is kinda vapid and shallow and, yes, boy-crazy.

How can you tell a story about Barbie wrestling with the culture of patriarchy, and not talk about that? How can you depict Barbie falling victim to the patriarchy and have it look nothing like that?

...the movie does bring up the specter of Vapid Consumerist Barbie, briefly. When Margot Robbie's Barbie first comes to the real world and meets with the sullen teenage daughter character, she has a litany of That Thing thrown in her face, and it makes her sad. But nothing is ever done with it, and it goes nowhere.

IX

And it could all have fit together so well. That's the hell of it.

You can imagine the version of the story in which Ken conquers Barbieland with patriarchy, because the Barbies are actually vulnerable to patriarchal narratives, because Vapid Consumerist Barbie is the chthonic serpent that gnaws at the foundations of Senator Astronaut Veterinarian Barbie civilization. He successfully makes them all forget that they're senators and astronauts and veterinarians, and turns them into airheaded teenage fashionistas who think that math class is tough.

And this avails him, and the other Kens, nothing. Even within the "patriarchal" version of Barbieland, Ken is still an afterthought and an appendage. He still gets treated like dogshit, just in a different idiom.

Because the thing that has always been true of Barbie, though every age and every phase of her mythos, is: she is the main character of her own story.

This is what the movie was telling us all the way back in the horrific 2001-pastiche prologue, right? Even when Barbie was just a swimsuit model, the point was that she let girls tell stories about themselves (or idealized/aspirational versions of themselves), not about boys or babies. That is a truer, and more powerful, feminist message about the meaning of Barbie than any message the movie actually bothers conveying.

The gag scene practically writes itself: the brainwashed Barbies are sitting around in a giggly slumber-party huddle talking about how dreamy Ken is, and actual Ken cannot get a word in edgewise, he can't even get them to notice he's there, because even Vapid Consumerist Barbie is fundamentally centered in her own life. Her narrative is not about a boy, it's about the experience of being a girl (mostly engaging with other girls) who likes thinking and talking about boys. Which is very much beside the point, if you started out with the complaint that your girlfriend never paid any attention to you.

Patriarchy hurts men too, indeed.

X

The movie ends, as I've intimated, in a disappointing squidge of thematic confusion. Barbie announces that she never really loved Ken, and leaves him, because...well, because these days the smart-set target audience is allergic to romantic narratives that Produce the Couple, as far as I can tell. Then she goes to the real world and becomes a real girl, a move that means nothing and is nonsensical even by the standards of the Barbie metaphysics, because the storytellers don't know how to end her arc and Becoming a Real Girl is the sort of thing that feels like a meaningful conclusion.

The Kens...sigh...the Kens ask for equal rights in Barbieland, more or less, and get told, "nah, but we'll throw you some bones." And they're happy with this, more or less, because they're dumb and don't really care. The narrator says, approximately, "maybe someday they'll make as much progress as women have in the real world." Haw haw.

It's probably too much to hope for a movie like this to be willing to say something substantive about responsibility and kindness in relationships. It's almost certainly too much to hope for a movie like this to be willing to say something about the nature of love symbols and love narratives. But all the pieces really were there, laid out very conspicuously. The movie could have wrapped up with: Ken doesn't need to be more important than Barbie, he doesn't even need to be as important as Barbie, he just needs to be treated with human decency. And if little girls are going to play with Barbies, and fantasize about having cute guys hanging all over them -- maybe they should have functional models of romance and human connection in which to root their fantasies, and not terrible ones.

[kk095]

Life and Death in the ER: Dr Lindsay

*Good evening everyone, I hope all is well. I greatly appreciate all the positive feedback on my last story Alexa's Arrhythmia! I'd like to try something a little different with the story you're about to read. Although it may not be everyone's cup of tea, I think it's a great opportunity for you guys to get to know some of our go-to characters a little better. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy it!*

Aside from medicine, Dr Lindsay’s passion in life is running. The cute, sporty tomboy doctor we all know and love was a college track star at the D1 college she attended once upon a time ago. Believe it or not, Lindsay had legitimate Olympic aspirations, and at one point in time, she was set to qualify for the United States women’s track team. But fate had other plans, which came in the form of a sudden, severe ACL and LCL tear in her left knee. Reconstructive surgery was performed and she of course recovered, but Lindsay definitely lost her X factor. Even though Lindsay could still run circles around 99% of humanity as a 33 year old with a bum knee, she lost that slight edge all those years ago, which is all it took for her Olympic hopes and dreams to go up in smoke. Sometimes Lindsay thought “what if?” in regards to her potential professional sports career, but at the same time, being an ER physician fulfilled her in a different way.

Lindsay truly embraced her role as a doctor and caretaker in the emergency department, always going the extra mile for her patients and thinking outside the box to try to save them. Time after time, Dr Lindsay found herself in the midst of life and death struggles in the trauma bay, always seeming to have her hands inside the chest of a beautiful woman. But right now, somewhere in an alternate reality, the role was reversed, with Lindsay being the beauty fighting for her life in the all too familiar emergency department.

The room Lindsay found herself in was quite a scene. A cacophony of sound hit anyone the instant they set foot in the room. Alarms and monitors were going off. Orders were being barked. Footsteps pitter-pattered around the room. The high pitched, electrical whirring of defibrillators charging echoed around the room from yet another unsuccessful shock. The tension was palpable.

All across the floor of the room, various items were strewn about. Wrappers from bits of medical equipment were tossed to the ground. Empty, used up blood transfusion and IV bags found themselves discarded. Lindsay’s bloody, tattered clothes also wound up on the light colored tile after a brief encounter with a set of shears. Small droplets of blood made a trail leading from the room’s entrance, all the way over to where the trauma room table was.

On the table, underneath the harsh, bright, fluorescent overhead light was the center of attention for the room’s occupants. Dr Sarah, Nurse Nancy, and Nurse Heather worked as a trio, each lady knowing their role inside out, backwards and forwards, from A to Z. Everyone knew their jobs at an expert level, but it was easier said than done for the emergency department’s triumvirate to maintain composure and impartiality, considering a friend and colleague was the poor soul requiring their lifesaving services this time.

Nurse Nancy, the 20+ year veteran of the ER who’s been there, done that, and seen it all stood at the head of the bed ambu bagging, sending much needed air into Dr Lindsay’s lungs. The stress, chaos, gore, and shock that came with being an ER nurse never fazed Nancy, especially after being exposed to such things for over two decades. But in this scenario, Nancy struggled. This wasn’t a stranger on the table tonight. Nurse Nancy couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of the ER’s go-to, unanimously loved leader being the one on the table this time. Heck, Nancy couldn’t even bring herself to look down at the table, not wanting to see her friend’s face, or the overall shape she was in. There was a knot in Nancy’s stomach, and her heart was racing. She hoped and prayed Dr Lindsay would pull through, but as each minute ticked by, each one faster than the last, Nancy’s hope was soon replaced by dread.

Heather, our emergency team’s dependable, hardworking nurse who regularly showed her moxie, stood off to the side of the table, tasked with keeping an eye on the heart monitors in order to note any changes, as well as pushing meds and setting up any equipment Dr Sarah may need. Heather’s eyes were trained on the heart monitors, which displayed a squiggly, sinuous, unorganized line. That squiggly line Heather watched signified something called ventricular fibrillation- a situation where a patient’s heart is twitching instead of actually beating, typically requiring a defibrillator shock in order to restore normal cardiac activity. Ventricular fibrillation, commonly known as v-fib amongst healthcare professionals, was something Heather has seen more times than she could count during her handful of years as a nurse. However, Heather found herself stunned when eyeing the heart monitor, coming to the stark realization that a familiar face was the one being resuscitated this time.

Dr Sarah, the cute, petite, nerdy redheaded doctor who, for all intents and purposes, was Dr Lindsay’s right hand man and most important ally in the battlegrounds of the trauma bay, stood right up against the table, doing anything and everything to bring her fellow ER doc back. Sarah had her gloved hands inside Lindsay’s chest, which was splayed open earlier in the struggle via a clamshell thoracotomy. The redheaded doctor’s hands were firmly wrapped around Dr Lindsay’s boggy, fibrillating heart, vigorously massaging away. A wet, rhythmic squishing sound was produced from Sarah’s internal compressions. “come on Linds… come on….” Sarah uttered under her breath, trying to fight the overwhelming emotions that attempted to consume her. “You were just talking to us Linds… Come on…” continued Sarah, trying to will Lindsay back amongst the living.

Sarah composed herself for a moment. “Let’s shock her again. Recharge the paddles to 30, Heather.” Ordered Sarah, stepping up to the plate. Heather did what she had to do. She set the crash cart to 30 joules and hit the charge button. The high pitched, electrical whining of the internal paddles charging filled the room as Heather handed Sarah the large, spoon shaped devices. Sarah pulled her hands out of Lindsay’s chest cavity and grabbed ahold of the internal paddles. Dr Sarah lowered the internal paddles into the gaping chasm of an incision site, around Lindsay’s erratically fluttering heart.

While her friends worked urgently to save her, Lindsay laid on the table, stripped completely nude, her toned, athletic body on full display in a room full of familiar faces, the violating nature of that fact going to the wayside due to the dire essence of the situation. Lindsay’s sandy, light brown hair was tied back in a messy bun or ponytail of sorts, being held in place with a black headband. The doctor’s icy, sky blue eyes remained open, her pupils the size of dimes, staring up above with a full blown death stare etched onto her face. She was intubated, with the ET tube being secured by a blue tube holder around the area of her mouth and lips. IV lines stuck out of both her arms. Her torso was littered with EKG electrodes and wires. A chest tube stuck out the left side of Lindsay’s ribs, redirecting blood and trapped air outwards. The rest of her upper torso, and belly to a lesser degree, were soaked with a combination of both blood and betadine. However, Lindsay’s chest was the main sight of shock and awe. Her chest had a large, crude, gash just below the nipple line, extending the entirety of her chest horizontally. Not only was there a massive gash, her sternum was sawed in half, and her chest was splayed open via a clamshell thoracotomy. A metal rib retractor sat dead center in her chest, keeping everything open. A large, metal vascular clamp stuck up and out of the incision site. Sarah could also be seen holding the internal defibrillator paddles in place in anticipation of a shock.

“Paddles charged. Everyone… CLEAR!” Dr Sarah called out, everyone else stepping back from the table. THWACK. The shock was delivered. “mmmph…” Lindsay moaned softly, her torso twitching sharply in response to Sarah’s shock. The trio paused after the shock. The monitors beeped fast and loud, everyone’s eyes looking over to see if there was a change. “Come on… she’s still in v-fib. I’m going again at 30. Everyone…. CLEAR!” shouted Dr Sarah, immediately shocking Lindsay again. Lindsay’s shoulders shrugged forward and her arms shivered, a wet thump being heard. Like before, Dr Lindsay’s heartbeat was unable to be restored. Sarah decided to up the ante, shocking her friend and coworker at 40 joules during the next go around. “MMMM!” Lindsay moaned louder, as if she could feel the stronger intensity of the shock. Again, v-fib persisted. “I’m going again at 40! Everyone…CLEAR!” Barked Sarah, determined to keep going. The next shock caused Lindsay’s toes to scrunch up hard at the far end of the table, showing off the bright white nail polish on her toes, along with the wavy, thin, but prominent wrinkles that permeated the soles of the big, size 11 feet she was always so self conscious of.

Sarah wasn’t giving up, and neither was v-fib, so the fight was on. “Going again at 40! Everyone… CLEAR!!!” Sarah passionately yelled out, shocking Lindsay once more. Lindsay’s torso shot up and plopped back down hard all within the span of a second. The monitors kept alarming, but by that point, the trio tuned out the noise of the monitors, considering they were well aware there was a major problem. In the seconds after that shock, Lindsay’s heart fluttered and danced weakly for a moment, before coming to a sudden, complete stop. The heart monitors flatlined, and Lindsay’s heart sat completely motionless inside her cracked open chest. Lindsay’s beautiful blue eyes stayed wide open, staring up above, almost as if she was watching her friends determine their next move.

The flatline on the monitors was an absolute gut punch for everyone. Sarah stood there holding the internal paddles, deep in rumination about her next move. At the head of the bed, Nurse Nancy shined a pen light into Lindsay’s eyes. Lindsay’s pupils were the size of dimes, completely blown, not reacting to the pen light in the slightest. “oh… poor baby…” Nancy uttered, placing the pen light back in her breast pocket. “Pupils fixed and dilated.” Nancy continued, informing everyone, shaking her head. Heather looked over at the heart monitor. “Asystole on the monitors, down 37 minutes.” Added Heather. There was a collective pause after Heather’s words. Nancy didn’t say anything, but she went ahead and detached the ambu bag from the ET tube, a small amount of air quietly hissing out. The two nurses looked over at Sarah, knowing they’ve done all they could for their friend, but needed Sarah to make the final call.

Dr Sarah stood there shell shocked. Sure, Sarah has lost patients before- any ER doctor has. But this was different. This was a coworker. A colleague. A leader. Someone she looked up to. But most importantly, this was a friend. Sarah felt morally and emotionally obligated to continue resuscitation efforts. How could she just give up on Lindsay? At the same time, Dr Sarah viewed the situation clinically and logically. She knew that all possible options were exhausted. An asystolic patient with a downtime of 37 minutes and blown pupils was too far gone for additional interventions. With all this in mind, Sarah snapped back to reality, eyeing each member of the trauma team. Dr Sarah didn’t say a word to any of them. Finally, her eyes looked over at the clock that sat on the back left wall of the room. Sarah gently placed the internal paddles back down on the crash cart, then peeled her blood soaked, latex gloves off, her heart racing, eventually making the dreaded announcement. “Time of death, 8:08pm…” Sarah’s voice wobbling, on the verge of tears.

Nobody said a word, but everyone knew exactly what to do next. Nurse Nancy switched off the flatlined monitors, silencing the once noisy, hectic room. Heather disconnected the EKG electrodes and removed the IVs from each of Dr Lindsay’s arms. A blue surgical drape was hastily tossed on top of the open thoracotomy site, obscuring Lindsay’s inert, motionless heart from view. A toe tag was then filled out and placed on the big toe of Lindsay’s left foot. The tag dangled against the fine, thin, but prominent wrinkles that permeated the soles of Lindsay’s feet. Lastly, a cover was placed over Lindsay, concealing the hauntingly beautiful gaze forever etched onto her face. Unfortunately for Lindsay, a cruel twist of fate- and perhaps irony resulted in her dying in the very place she spent so much of her time. In this alternate reality, Dr Lindsay was now the hottie who laid toe tagged and under a sheet in the emergency department.

[acourtofwhatthefuck]

Ive seen alot of posts recently about rhys cassian and azriel being into bigger women or plus size women and ngl I just don’t get it or see it. Those men train like hell all about fitness and discipline, have 8packs and killer muscles and the woman they are paired with are just as fit and train just as much and it mentions multiple of times in the books they find their bodies attractive. So I just personally don’t see that they would have any interest in a bigger girl who isn’t into those things, can’t see them finding that attractive

I…sorry, but I can’t even begin to express the amount of ignorant and wrong things about this. It seems like this is coming from a place of prejudice more than a genuine opinion. I could pick this apart and give you a comprehensive list of why this isn’t a great take, but I don’t have the time right now, so just a few points:

1. Plus size does not automatically mean “lazy and unfit”. Who’s to say that if they had a plus size mate, they wouldn’t enjoy joining them for training just as much?

2. The characters they’re mated to are all of a similar body type simply because there’s a severe lack of body diversity in the ACOTAR books. This is annoying and, in my opinion, wrong, but we at least have the freedom as a fandom to create fics where that is not the case.

3. Everyone has different types and things that appeal to them. Your body being a certain way doesn’t mean you desire an identical body type in your partner. Not to mention that looks are only at the surface level of a person and nowhere near as important when it comes to the heart, but to suggest that someone wouldn’t find a plus-size person attractive because they themselves train rigorously and maintain their body in a way that’s necessary for the work they do is just…not it. We’re talking about males that have lived for centuries — do we really expect them to have only been interested in a certain body type that entire time?

I normally wouldn’t get so defensive over a fictional scenario, but this is actually quite a harmful take, whether you mean for it to be or not. It’s also important to note that all bodies are different and there are a whole litany of reasons as to why somebody might be bigger. It doesn’t automatically mean they lead an unhealthy lifestyle. I used to be a lot smaller before I had the medical condition I do, and that paired with the medication I have no choice but to take, I gained some weight. I happen to really like how my body is now, but some people might not feel the same about theirs and read an opinion like this and come away feeling less worthy. It’s just worth broadening your understanding.

Anyway all in all, I think the bat boys would fucking looove a plus-size girlie and worship every inch of her glorious body. Happy Sunday! 💕

[fanfictionalhooligan]

Oneshot: Dying in Husband!Haganezuka's arms〚WARNING: Severe angst and dark themes〛

This came from the following anonymous heacanon request:

"How would Hotaru react if his wife died in his arms? Or died in general? I love angst I devour angst."

For the art response, I will be repurposing drawings that ironically work well for this scenario under the right circumstances:

❖ - ❖ - Oneshot: Dying in Haganezuka's Arms - ❖ - ❖

“Out of my way –“

“Haganezuka-san, she’s in critical condition –“

“GET OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY! I’ll kill you!”

His voice was shrill and transforming into something unnatural at the words ‘critical condition’ and his eyes were wide with horror.

“Please, Haganezuka-san, it might be best for you not to be here right –“

“I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU – get out, NOW!”   

The Kakushi trying to block him from entering the room suddenly cried out in pain and recoiled, then stared down at the deep slash in his own arm in horrified disbelief. Haganezuka had struck a blow with his knife this time. No one had seen him actually do it before, despite so many instances of chasing Demon Slayers.  

The blade was dripping with blood as Haganezuka clenched the handle and marched forward; fear gripped the Kakushis around him like ice and they scurried away from him.

There she was.

His love. His Spring. The blossom that had emerged beneath the snow after a long, lonely winter. There she was - his wife, covered almost head to toe in blood-soaked bandages and IV lines hanging off of her like chains, laying silently and limply upon a cold hospital bed. Her gaze was dull and unfocused and anyone could tell that she was slipping away.

Haganezuka’s blood froze as he paced towards her, as if time had slowed for him to live every agonizing second of this hell. His arms dangled limply at his sides; the knife clattered against the floor, splattering the blood from the Kakushi’s arm as well.

The sound stirred her awake as if she could recognize it in her sleep. She must have known that her husband was nearby if there were knives around. Her eyes opened, focusing just enough to take in the familiar sight of his face. She smiled softly. “Hotaru…”

Her voice was hardly audible, so small and feeble. Haganezuka desperately rushed forward and threw his arms around her, lifting her entire upper body from the bed. “Y-you’re alive…” he whispered, unable to accept that it could change any moment. “The battle’s over. The demons are gone. We can finally live in happiness – hey, are you listening?” His voice shook as her eyes fluttered shut for a moment. His gaze travelled down to her abdomen and the pool of blood that had soaked through it.

There was a stained, crimson-red pole in the corner of the room that had been removed; his face grew pale when it registered that she’d been impaled with it. A pole – a fucking stop sign pole. Of all the things –

“Hotaru,” she murmured, as if sensing that he was about to murder everyone in the room for letting this happen. “It was Muzan. He was…” her voice was faint and almost didn’t finish the sentence. “He…tried to run…we stopped him…buildings and streets were destroyed…”

Haganezuka’s entire body was trembling uncontrollably. She was far too calm. “I – I get it,” he replied. “You don’t have to explain…just…”

She gazed softly at him with a smile. There was something about that tender, glistening gaze that welled up his eyes with tears, and they began streaming down his face and dripping down quietly into her hair. “H-hey…” he began. “Don’t go. Don’t go, you hear me?”

His throat grew tight when she simply kept smiling at him.

“Come on – don’t go, my love. Please,” he begged her. “The battle’s over! The worst is over –“

“Hotaru…” she whispered, making him go completely still as he held her in his arms. “I…I was waiting for you. I wanted to see your face…”

One last time. That was what she meant.

She’d only been holding on long enough to be able to see his face for one last time.   

“I’m here,” he whispered feebly, pressing his forehead against hers. “I’m here and I’ll stay by your side, okay? J-just stay with me, too, okay? Please!”

The Kakushis behind him somberly bowed their heads and quietly left the room.

Her eyes were glistening with tears, too. “Hotaru…I love you. I always will. Whether in this lifetime or the next. The sun will rise for us…”

The seconds were slipping away. “But you’re my sun, don’t you know that? If you d-don’t rise again, I can’t…”  Haganezuka’s voice finally broke into a sob when she closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest, so content to be in his arms with that beautiful, oh, so beautiful, fading smile of hers.

“I love you,” he whispered, holding her tight and his sobs making it almost impossible to speak. “Can you hear me, my love? I love you so much, and I wanted to show you that every day for the rest of our lives. I am the happiest man in the world when you’re there with me, and just… please…please stay.” He wanted her to hear every word, to keep listening, anything at all for just another moment with her.

Her eyes fluttered open just a crack, just barely enough for him to see the green of Spring before it faded back into the winter snow. “Hotaru…the rest of my life has already been the happiest because of you.” Haganezuka’s lower lip trembled as her voice grew quieter and quieter. “You’re here now…and I’m happy.” A single tear slipped out of her eye before it shut for the last time. “I only wish I had more time with you…and…”

She never finished the sentence.

Haganezuka went completely, utterly still. “Misaki?”

Silence. Only silence.

Dark, cold, hollow silence.

Her head rested limply against his chest. While her own had stopped rising and falling.

Haganezuka’s eyes widened and time froze, and the world around them felt like thousands of kilometers away. He slowly looked down and saw that the smile had never left her face – just because she was in his arms for her final sleep. It was at that moment, right then and there, that Haganezuka cried out and wrapped his arms tightly around her, burying his face into her hair, gripping her so tightly that the IV poles fell over as the lines were yanked.  The sobs wrenched through his body, choking uncontrollably and whispering her name now and then even though the sound of it from his own voice only made the tears multiply. Her body was shaking along with his as he cried.

She was gone.

And, after that, swords would be gone.

There were no demons left and they would likely be discarded like useless artifacts of the past.

Those two things, his beloved Spring blossom and his swords - all that had ever made any sense in his life - were taken from him. Just like that.

Haganezuka rested his chin against the top of her head, cradling her and rocking slowly back and forth as if she were simply sleeping and must not be disturbed. Somewhere inbetween his sobs, the glimmer of the knife on the ground next to him caught his eye. He grew still in the cold silence, his gaze suddenly fixated on the bloodstained blade and unable to look away.

Maybe…maybe she wasn’t that far away.

He slowly became possessed by the silence as he simply continued to sit there for hours, cradling his wife’s delicate body in his arms to make sure she could continue to sleep peacefully where she’d been happiest. He was allowed to mourn alone and undisturbed. No one noticed how far down the pit of silence that his demented eyes were staring.

Haganezuka reached towards the knife.

- End

❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖ - ❖

Are you okay? Because:

THIS IS NOT CANON EVEN FOR AN AU. NOPE. NOPE NOPE, NOT IN THIS HOOLIGAN’S WORLD. This is a “what if”and I cannot with this ending ever make it official. Consider it an AU of an AU for masochistic angst lovers xD

***To address the suicide implication: I was conflicted on whether it’s OOC for Haganezuka, with Demon Slayer being a lot about moving forward even when you lose everything. So in this case, I wanted to portray it more like he was at his darkest lowest point and having a moment of madness that someone else would need to pull him out of if they’re in time. It would be possible for the ending to be a “HEY STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING” from Kanamori who storms into the room, knowing how impulsive Hotaru is and just having found out that his wife had died.

On another note, I had never intended to do another fic for Demon Slayer, but somehow nostalgia just took over me because I was actually well-known for writing horrific death scenes over at Fandom back in the day xD But damn this was painful.   

Anyway, if your heart is rekt, go read the true happy ending of this story here, come now. Don't worry, it's real.

I hope I did your headcanon justice, anon!

[destielfanfic]

from the inbox, #13

Here’s another ask from our inbox that gets a special treatment. You can find previous From The Inbox posts here. 

Hi! Im looking for a very specific type of fic and would greatly appreciate your help to see if there are any out like this. Its Cas approaching dean with his feelings but dean gently rejects him (could be post canon) and then dean getting insanely jealous when cas interacts with an prospective individual (or when cas starts dating?) Thank you so much!! Ive literally been through so many tags but the situation is so specific it doesnt come up. The only fics that fit this is one fic by sobsicles and in the shadow of your wings.

As I was going through our #supernatural tag to look for fics with this very specific scenario in mind, I came across our previous from the inbox #7 post. Several fics on this post are really close to your requirements but it's not easy to see that. Here they are with some extra comments.

Return to Sender Address Unknown by gedry - one of the oldest fics with fallen Cas, posted during season 5; this is a perfect fit - Cas confesses his feelings and Dean gently lets him down; then life happens.

This Story Was Brought To You By Our Sponsors by scaramouche  - alternate season 5 ending. Dean didn't think that that THING between them was serious, and now Cas is gone and Dean has regrets

My heart is beating from me by Enochian Things  - season 9, fallen Cas has moved out of the bunker and is getting married. Dean is invited.

Things that Leave Marks by thestoryinsideme - season 9, fallen Cas has learned to live independently, now Dean has to catch up.

In Your Sweet Little Bungalow by annodominique - after Sam dies, fallen Cas is building his life independently, then Dean comes for a visit.

Fics mentioned in the ask:

In the Shadow of your Wings by Enochian Things (Salr323) [M, 57,300 word count]

Dean drains his bottle of beer, sets it on the table and gets up, heading for the kitchen. Maybe to fetch another, maybe to leave. But Castiel doesn’t want him to go, doesn’t want to leave this conversation unfinished; he remembers his regret of just a few hours ago, that Dean had never known how he loved him. “Wait,” he says and gets to his feet as Dean passes by. They’re standing close – close enough that Castiel can feel the heat of Dean’s body, the vibrancy of his soul brushing against his grace. “Dean, I have to tell you something...” Set after the S11 finale.

things happen (they do, they do, and they do) by sobsicles [NC-17, 28,000 word count]

So, the first thing that happens is Castiel comes back. "Right," Dean says eventually, gruffly. He looks down at his shoes. "I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life, man. It's—you know, yours. Do your thing, love who you love, whatever. I can't really stop you from loving me, if that's what you've decided to do, but I don't—I can't—" "I know," Castiel murmurs, still just smiling a little, not looking heartbroken at all. "Don't worry about it, Dean, that's all I ask." "So we're—" Dean risks a glance up, swallowing thickly. "We're good?" Castiel hums. "We're good."

If our followers know a fic that fits this ask, let us know!

Here's some suggestions by @rayraywillis!

An Old Feeling by Orphan_account [T, 1,800 word count]

Castiel thinks Dean will never love him back so he decides to try and move on. Cue jealous!Dean and confessions galore.

Idiot by WanderUntilLost [T. 3,700 word count]

Set after 15.03. Cas left, deciding it was time to move on for him. Dean spirals in the aftermath.

Move On by Halevetica [NR, 9,300 word count]

Dean and Sam haven't seen Cas in weeks. Not since the angel declared it was time for him to move on. However, the brother's run into Cas on a hunt, but he's not alone. Dean struggles to find the words that will undo the damage he's done. He just hopes it's not too late.

[morrysonando]

(undertale yellow spoilers kinda but not really)  The squeakquel! More low effort doodles in the name of ghist and shiggles! The first doodle is essentially a "what if the ketsukanes celebrated Halloween and what they would dress up as if they did". Chujin is dressed as Ben 10 because this "chujin is obsessed with Ben 10"  headcannon has taken a severe toll on my sanity. Kanako is dressed up as Wubzzy because for whatever reason I headcannon that she loves the shit out of wowowubzzy and forces Chujin and Ceroba to watch it with her in the mornings, don't ask me why, idk either lol!...and ceroba is dressed as reimu from touhou because obvious reference is obvious:) next doodle after is my take on a joke a lot of people have been making cuz I like JJk and UTY so why not lol>:D. The axis drawing is based on this image ive seen going around and I just had to draw it when I saw it. The one after is based on those hilarious bald edits that people started with flowey and I'm now bringing along bald chujin cuz I like chujin and drawing the martlet was fun. the next drawing is too small for me to see so I have no idea what I drew;). and the last one is just a little scenario I came up with of the funky bots trying to play MKDD with guardener cuz why not lol.

play undertale yellow or YOULL be the next one going bald- https://gamejolt.com/games/UndertaleYellow/136925

[silversatin2105]

Inspired by the response from Grand line dreams Angst ask about severely injured reader

Writer’s comments:

This is a response to the ask answered by the user known as @grandlinedreams, this is my take on a best case scenario, thank you so much for your permission to post

TW: Angst, mentions of medial stuff, potential character death, if I’ve missed anything please let me know and I’ll add them to the list

It had been two weeks and three days since (Y/N) had been severely injured, you had survived the reaper’s scythe that night, its amazing how you did, you were decimated, deep lacerations on your arms and chest, before Law even got to you half a pint of your blood had already been spilled, without hesitation that day Law had carried your dying form to the Polar Tang and emergency surgery had to be performed.

Blood had to be warmed and prepped, bandages had to be removed and the wounds under sutured after Law checked for signs of internal bleeding and any shrapnel that entered the wounds had to be removed and then fish skin was placed upon the wounds before being re-dressed, when the blood was ready it was allowed to flow into your veins as the other arm took in IV fluids, no need for a sedative you were already out of it.

The first night was always the fist challenge you would face, At this moment deaths embrace felt comforting, the natural next step but what about him?

Law had always feared that your devil may care attitude would lead to calamity and so right he was, you fucked up and now the Captain of the Polar Tang had to deal with the very real threat of loosing you, On one rare conversation he would tell you of the brave man whom gave him a second shot at life, to tell you the truth that’s the first time he opened up to you, hearing his story you vowed to do anything for him, become anything for him and right now there was a very real chance that would be a corpse.

No were the thoughts in your mind as you channeled all your energy, all your might, everything into breathing, you were not going to add to the myriad of mental scars to him, NO MORE SUFFERING, breathing in and out you fought, the heart beating in your chest like terrible thunder as in the reality that your coma had sealed you from, you lay heaving concerning law.

“Damn have you developed an infection?” Law asked wiping your brow with a clean cloth, the male grimaced lip bitten as he checked your wounds, a few were red and hot to the touch so he applied IV antibiotics to your course of treatment, the second hurdle in your journey to spit death in the face and draw another waking breath, raw emotion galvanizing your resolve, fight on, live on.

After a few days the antibiotics took effect, the second hurdle back to the land of the living almost cleared, Law was still taking his meals by your bedside, still cautious- On alert, and He left the running of the ship mostly to Beppo after forming a plan of attack for the next moves to make, like before he spoke to you, Asked what was going thought your mind?, No doubt he’s seen some wild occurrences, since his alliances with straw hat, but in truth, seeing you that day on the battlefield, he never dared to hope that you’d draw another waking breath. 

Heck he was so worried that he had taken to shifted bathroom breaks with other members of the crew watching you and this was the norm for two weeks and four days, He must have had too much coffee that morning as he couldn’t wait for cover, he made his apologies to your sleeping form and bolted for the bathroom, as he walked back to the med bay he sighed- I better get another cup of coffee later for tonight..im so fucking tired …when’s the last time I slept, were his thoughts as he walked into the room where you were being kept, his tired and drained eyes gaze out to a surprise.

It was you, sitting up in bed your (insert color) eyes looking at him with a sort of tired look, you had seen better days then again so had he, he looked disheveled, sleep deprived and honestly so fucking done, in that moment no words were spoken, just a quietness as your eyes locked, ten minutes had passed and then it happened, you began to speak.

“I’m so sorry captain, I messed up… their Haki was too strong, I promise it won’t happen again” you told him an apology, one of the things you fought through death for, Law was stunned, the first thing from you after three weeks was an apology.

“Is that it… after three weeks the first words out of your mouth is an apology, We’ve all been worried sick, you damned idiot !” Law went on to say in a harsh tone, cold words masking the internalized concern he daren’t let himself feel, the emotions he stonewalled from his own heart, Law in this moment was as before romantically hidden behind a sheet of Plexiglas.

You looked up at him with shock in your eyes, you expected this but you didn’t expect it to hurt so much, tears welling in your eyes you slid back onto to the bed clutching the blanket to your chest, Law grumbled and sighed laying his hat on the bedside table resting his head by your side, a hand timidly reaching out to yours, within a moment, you felt the roughness of his fingertips upon your hand, the hand of your captain, you froze in response, you go to turn to look at him.

“D-don’t look at me right now. Please…” Law orders as you oblige him to take in the warmth of your hand, the pulse on your wrist, a pulse that those three weeks ago could have been taken from him, could he finally bring himself to hope now that you were once more amongst the living, fifteen minutes past as he assessed you, got his heart ready and then he began to speak.

“Listen up, I am going to say something, take it as you will…the truth is (Y/N) I feel deep kinship for you, since you joined the crew you’ve shown unwavering loyalty, courage in the face of adversity. What I mean to say is…I love you”

Law speaks to you, the world in that moment shattering, your eyes widen as he presses his head close to you back, and you blush as Law finally falls asleep after three weeks of hell.

You go to move and as you do, you feel an arm move carefully around you, light snoozing sounds from the captain of the heart pirates can be heard, and so in that moment you smile lightly and fall asleep again.

“It’s easy to promise someone that you’d die for them but even more difficult to promise that you'd live for someone"

END SCENE