#so i just deleted it. partially because again - this is fandom; it's not that serious; people can do what they want | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shamelesslymkp · 1 year

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I posted 4,848 times in 2022

1,253 posts created (26%)

3,595 posts reblogged (74%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@beatrice-otter

@lupinerage

@magnesiumflare

@ltleflrt

@tanoraqui

I tagged 1,551 of my posts in 2022

#i eat fic for breakfast - 774 posts

#fic recs - 774 posts

#schrödinger's content warnings - 774 posts

#via:pinboard - 773 posts

#queue me up scotty - 773 posts

#just talk to your therapist mkp - 69 posts

#nona the ninth spoilers - 49 posts

#fandom ate my soul (fanart edition) - 20 posts

#ho shit how do you talent - 20 posts

#current events - 14 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#i suppose it's nice that other people are feeling validated by this post but literally it is one of the most upsetting and infuriating takes

I sent 1 gift in 2022

My Top Posts in 2022:

wake up babe new pain scale just dropped

Discernible

Distracting

Distressing

Disabling

(Wish I Were) Dead

16 notes - Posted February 13, 2022

he is wearing BOOT SOLES as PAULDRONS, this KID

(@kedreeva, mkp's znation liveblog, take 2)

19 notes - Posted May 17, 2022

Was trawling back through my AO3 history and I started deleting deleted fics, which reduced the page count by like, 20 before I’d even gotten a 200 pages back from the oldest entries, so this is your reminder to check out and regularly use @nianeyna‘s ao3 downloader!!

(all gods bless you for sharing that, for serious, especially the pinboard functionality as apparently I AM a fandom dinosaur which is hilarious and somewhat inspirational at the same time)

(I am having some difficulties now finding and downloading the stuff I missed because it isn’t bookmarked on Pinboard from the AO3, only from LJ or whatever, which is why I started trawling my history in the first place and huh it looks like for the first few years I only left kudos when my head had been practically blown off, unlike my current categorizing system of ‘seen - tried, didn’t like’, ‘kudosed - read, liked’, ‘pinned to pinboard - read, liked enough to re-read’, ‘bookmarked on ao3 - read and holy shit i need a quick link to this fucker so i can read it again immediately on demand, and/or oh hey! series!’)

(I’m trying to make use of some other Python utilities I found for scraping my personal AO3 reading history but uh. I keep running into problems. u_u)

24 notes - Posted March 16, 2022

D&D as Disability Metaphor

N.B. Most of the ideas herein about spell slots/cantrips and mana/health points were sourced from various tumblr posts; please reblog with links if you have them! Also reblog with additional links to those tumblr posts about forks and knives!

In this metaphor, YOU are a D&D/RPG character!

Your CHARACTER BUILD reflects your strengths and weaknesses.

First: you have your basic STATS – INT, CON, WIS, DEX, STR, CHA – these are primarily determined by your baseline nature and your early nurture. (e.g., you may be born with a certain facility for learning, a natural sense of balance, perfect pitch, etc., or you may have spent much of your life playing sports and building strength and dexterity, or have been forced by circumstance to become Very Good at identifying people’s true motives and/or playing the part you need to play in any given situation, etc.)

Secondly: You have your basic ADVANTAGES and DISADVANTAGES. These are primarily determined by your baseline nature but can be affected by nurture and change over time just as you do!

For example, you may be vision impaired – any task requiring good vision will have you at a natural disadvantage that can be mitigated by the use of an accessory or tool. So long as you have your accommodation, your natural disadvantage is entirely or partially nullified – instead of a negative 3 to skill checks involving vision, you might have a modifier of only negative 1 or even zero!

Another example:

You might be autistic or have other sensory processing issues that mean certain textures are ILLEGAL – any time you’re required to interact with that texture, you have to roll a WIS save to see how it impacts you.

On a bad day (in the metaphor, you roll a 1), you might be completely incapacitated for a time. On a good day, you might be able to use a positive modifier from a learned skill like DISTRESS TOLERANCE or DISENAGE to overcome the badness and only be partially incapacitated, or maybe not even incapacitated at all, just inflicted with a DEBUFF of some kind for a period of time. (This gives you a negative modifier for future skill checks and saving throws until the debuff expires or you take a LONG REST.)

On any given day, your disability (physical, mental, developmental, etc.) may give you a GENERAL DEBUFF that affects your skill checks and saving throws.

For example, if you have bipolar disorder and are in a depressive episode, you might have a negative 1 modifier to any social interaction, even if ‘normally’ you have a plus 3.

Or you might have chronic migraines and be having a debilitating headache that actually precludes the use of some skills/spells/actions at all – you might be incapable of leaving a dark room or of using your computer/phone.

Thirdly: In general, you can think of your overall capability to COPE as mana points, stamina points, spell slots, or anything similar. SPELL SLOTS is the easiest metaphor, just because of how the magic system is structured.

You have a given number of SPELL SLOTS on any single day, although a DEBUFF might reduce your baseline of slots for the day or a BUFF might actually give you an extra one! These spell slots correspond to the energy needed to perform various activities/tasks. The more difficult the task, the higher level of spell slot is required. BUT! If you’ve already used your third level spell slot for the day and need to “cast” another third level spell (another difficult activity), you can sacrifice multiple lower level spell slots in order to do so, with the disadvantage of having fewer slots left until your next LONG REST.

Some activities don’t drain you at all and can be done at any time (in this metaphor, they can be considered CANTRIPS). Some might even return used spell slots! (Think of this as taking a SHORT REST.) CANTRIPS are typically less effort or are of such benefit that they cancel out the level of effort required. They vary wildly based on the individual. An example for one person might be listening to an audiobook or taking a hot shower, while a different person might consider both of those first level spells.

Finally: The final part of this metaphor switches genres a little bit, so bear with me. This doesn’t tend to happen in the most well-known tabletop RPGs, but you’ve probably seen it in other popular media. Sometimes, you’re completely out of spell slots / mana / stamina, but you’ve got something you absolutely HAVE to do – either because it’s a necessity for your survival, or because you simply care about the thing so much that you’re willing to borrow against your future self.

In this kind of situation, you can ‘borrow’ spell slots from your future self (meaning you use it now, and therefore don’t have it available to use the next day), or you might start using your own health points in place of the missing mana.

Think about in fantasy media, when the magic user runs out of magic in the FINAL BATTLE and starts sacrificing their own life force to continue powering the spell. In some circumstances, they might drain themselves so completely that they can never use magic again, or it takes them years to recover. Similarly, a person with CFS who pushes themselves too hard one day might end up bedbound for days, weeks, or even months following.

Another example:

Someone with a torn ACL who stresses it during the healing process might find that it never heals completely/properly, permanently affecting their athletic ability.

TL;DR – D&D is actually a great extended metaphor for both short-term and long-term disabilities and how they impact a person’s life!

But it does. Uh. Require some background in RPG terms and tropes in order to fully understand it. If the person you’re trying to explain the concepts to is completely unfamiliar with RPGs, you may be better off with sticking with something more basic like Spoon* Theory (or the Unified Cutlery** Theory).

Citations etc. under the cut.

*See Christine Miserandino's spoon article here: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/. Learn more @thespoontheory

**Unified Cutlery Theory, very overly simplified: Spoons = Energy, Forks = Things That Make Your Spoons Worth Less, Knives = Something You Need Help Addressing Or It’ll Make Things Worse

See @jenrosess' original post here: https://www.tumblr.com/jenroses/635100154258735104 and the update including knives here: https://www.tumblr.com/jenroses/635100154258735104/sheepscot-cipheramnesia-jenroses-have-i

(Apparently there are two competing Fork Theories? The one I'm used to is the one referenced above.)

***Mana and spell slots metaphors are really hard to source, y'all, so if you have links please add them in your reblogs!

71 notes - Posted December 5, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

testing something

525 notes - Posted October 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #oh my god i know why the number 1 post is number 1 but also i'm still dying #that's just #objectively possibly the most hilarious post for it to have been

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spoiledleaff · 1 year

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hey

you don't have to post this if you dont want to, please dont feel like you have to

i just wanted to apologize for that ask. i shouldve been a million times nicer and it was a dick move for me come for you like that

hello again :) please know that i’m responding to this because i want to, so you can erase that worry from your mind.

and, it’s okay. i mean! it isn’t! personally, i think how you worded that was perhaps a bit too… abrasive, and maybe a little bit rude, and i’m honestly terrible at standing up for myself but that doesn’t have much to do with this haha! but, i also understand where your concern may have been coming from. but, also, please know that i would never intentionally try to steal someone else’s idea. never. and if you ever have any other concerns about ideas that maybe sound just a tad too similar to someone else’s?? feel free to ask me!! i will do gladly give you links to my pinterest boards, lay out all my plans and ideas for future fics with different pairings and different ideas and concepts that will probably never be done, haha!!

but, you are also incredibly correct as well. i did a little bit of twitter digging ew, and it turns out that ricky did offhandedly mention the premise on twitter. so, that’s also my bad as well for not remembering :’D my brain must’ve stored this sweet little morsel of a prompt, and, well, you know what they say! if you wanna see something specific on ao3, might as well just write it yourself, haha! so, i don’t blame you or hate you or anything like that for your concern, if you’re worried :) and, honestly, if ricky himself or if someone had asked, ‘oh! were you by chance inspired by this from this person?’ i absolutely would’ve gone digging anyways and said, ‘oh my gosh, yes, actually! haha! go blame ricky for the atrocities i’m about to commit :D’ … if it helps? there were also quite a few thoughts about tattoo artist swiss and piercer rain, haha!! and not just the dynamic that apparently both ricky and myself are quite partial to.

my memory is terrible. and i know this sounds like an excuse for stealing credit, but i do genuinely mean it. on top of that, ricky and myself don’t interact very often, though i realize that also isn’t an excuse. well, maybe i’m patting myself on the back a bit too much for this, but i like to think i’m not an asshole? if you have a question, or maybe even an issue, please feel free to ask or dm me or whatever! :D i like to think i’m quite chill about these sorts of things actually :0

my goodness, i’m just in a rambling mood today, i’m sorry. my point is, i accept your apology!! :D but, i also apologize as well. i still feel a little… err, icky? about this topic? so i probably won’t follow through whatever silly little fic i was writing. i think i deleted it actually, but please don’t feel bad about that. i just panicked, haha. regardless, there’s no need to worry about it from my end :)

i like to think i’m a decent person, so if you ever have a question about something i’ve said or done, please feel free to ask! i didn’t think that i had seen ricky publish anything on ao3 relating to this? if i had though, or kept better attention to his blog because i guess they’ve been teasing it and i’m silly and don’t know what notification settings are— i most certainly would’ve given credit, and asked for permission, and probably asked again before publishing just to be sure!! haha! but, i will only accept your apology based on how you expressed your concern, and not for doing it in the first place. so, i hope you’re not doing that, haha! stealing credit for ideas is a serious thing no matter the fandom, and, truly, i’m glad that you expressed this concern to me.

but, uhm, yeah :) it’s okay. just… please be careful in the future. I obviously don’t know who you are, but you seem sweet and you seem genuine, and i wouldn’t want you getting hurt for the wrong reasons

have a good day, anon. ♡

#ooc leaf #I feel like I have so much more to say #but I also feel like I’m just repeating myself at this point #but I really can’t stress enough that stealing Ricky’s idea for this dynamic was never my intention #I’m sorry #truly

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frenchibi · 3 years

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I was tagged by @buckysbears to do this fanfic writer tag game - thank you so much, and sorry it took me so long :’D

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

This is a great question, and I honestly don’t know how to answer it xD I for sure have written the most for IwaOi from Haikyuu, but I have big soft spots for EdWin from FMA and Sophie and Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle!

How many works do you have on AO3?

95! Several of these are collections though, with every chapter being an unrelated short fic or drabble. I have deleted some original things and older fics that were no longer relevant to my interests and that barely got any hits (and I also had like. Idk, 20-ish fics on ff.net before I stopped using it haha)

What’s your total AO3 word count?

376k (damn??)!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

They’re all Haikyuu (big surprise lmao):

Fix Me - my longest HQ fic, and also one of my first!! It still makes me happy when people find it, even though I think I would probably write it differently if I were writing it today.

I know the sound of your heart – a spin the bottle/party fic with an inevitable collision – this one is a lot of fun, in my opinion!

here’s to taking what you came for – fake dating but not quite; this is one of my personal favorites so I’m really happy to see it up here!!

Burning heart - firefighter!Iwa AU! This one was fun to write and research, though in retrospect idk if I would write it the same way again, I feel I was quite flippant about some more serious topics? It’s not terrible, but it’s for sure not for everyone, I think. There is an actual house fire in this one.

Evidence - this baffles me tbh, it’s also one of my first ever Iwaoi fics (and probably why it’s all the way up here, it’s been around the longest) but it’s… in my opinion it’s not very well-written, it’s not even very long, it’s just a cute little concept that I wanted to get onto virtual paper and posted on a whim xD And then because people kept finding and liking it, I wrote two follow-up chapters hahah - but sometimes that’s how it goes, I guess!

Do you reply to comments, why or why not?

Yes, always! I love talking to people and making friends (and have made most of my fandom friends by connecting after commenting on their work and getting comments on mine)! Also it just gives me SO MUCH JOY to hear people’s thoughts. That’s the main draw for fanfic writing in general for me, connecting with people about characters we love!! Exchanging concepts, building AUs, just like… interacting in fandom spaces yknow???

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I’m pretty sure it’s The Last Unicorn, an Iwaoi fic which contains major character death – not something I usually ever write, I am more partial to hurt/comfort or fluff ^^ I guess I was feeling particularly edgy that day. I don’t recommend revisiting it tbh?

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Like… every other fic I’ve written hahaha (ok but for real)

Do you write crossovers?

Not currently or actively. I’ve had some ideas, but mostly they turn into “Franchise AU” things rather than actual crossovers (I’m honestly not really sure where the line of distinction is here anyway).

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Genuinely, no. I’ve received some comments that were… dissatisfied, but that was mostly on ff.net and they were usually outliers. Never any outright hate, at any rate.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I have written maybe… two (?) explicit fics that I’ve posted, but it’s not really what I gravitate towards. I’m not opposed to it, but usually I prefer to write fluff! And I’ve got a bunch of unposted drafts of things, who knows if I’ll ever finish them or post them if I do xD I don’t feel like that’s really entirely My Brand (not that I know what is sksksk).

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, one of my fics was translated into Russian! There are also podfics for a couple of my fics :D

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, many times! Most of those have not been finished though :’)

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Tbh the older the WIP, the less likely it is that I’ll return to it. Although I’ll never say never, sometimes all it takes for me to get excited about a fic again is for someone else to get excited and drag me along ^^ Generally though I would love to finish all my unfinished works. It bugs me that they’re unfinished xD

What are your writing strengths?

I think I’m quite good at writing dialogues and inner monologues. I like finding voices for characters, putting them in situations and seeing how they’ll react, that sort of stuff! I also am always excited to try new styles, patterns, narrative voices etc and I think that’s an asset :D

What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle a lot with creating characters these days (that are not taken from other works, i.e. writing things that are not fanfic) because I am so used to fanfic writing? I’ve truly built up a deficit and really want to work on improving there (so if anyone has suggestions, I’m all ears!!!)

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Another super good question tbh!!! Generally I think it’s cool as long as it’s done well? As a bilingual person, it’s kind of painful to see… bad bilingual rep? But I wouldn’t go around policing anyone on how they’ve written things, idk, I do like to give people the benefit of the doubt (and offer to help if it seems like they might like some tips). And as a translator I am also not against just… explaining what words mean in author’s notes or footnotes tbh! At the end of the day you want your reader to understand what you’re writing, right??

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Genuinely the first thing I ever wrote was technically “fan fiction” for a children’s book series, Mercer Mayer’s “Little Critter”, when I was 5 years old (I wrote a story for my younger siblings, so we wouldn’t “always have to read the same books over and over” xD My mom saved it, and I have it now – a true relic!! I even made art to go with it and it’s TERRIBLE and I love it!!!)

But the first piece of writing that I posted was…huh. I’m actually not sure – Bleach, maybe? It was on ff.net under a different name lmao

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

This changes all the time but currently these are my faves:

Fix my head, it’s pouring at the seams for Polygon’s Cyberpunk Red ttrpg – I have a LOT of feelings about these characters and also about the poly ship, and the fandom is so small but it truly was a labor of love and I am SO PROUD OF IT (so if you want to, please read it, you don’t really need to know much before you go into it)

cause every time I run, I run to you for Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (I just. love Ed and Winry so much. AAAA.)

You bring me home for Good Omens (it’s not my most popular fic, that’s a different one that got a load of notes here on tumblr of all places, but I still love it)

and these two Haikyuu/Iwaoi fics: can’t control the weather, which is an AU in which Oikawa has a daughter and she has magic and chaos ensues; and here’s to taking what you came for, see above, my subversion of the classic fake dating trope :D Both were such a BLAST to write!!!

((honorable mention to the Tiny!Oikawa fic in which Oikawa shrinks – I finished it relatively recently and am VERY happy with how it turned out, despite the significant time between chapters hahah))

These were super fun, but obviously no pressure: I tag @ricekrispyjoints, @antiiva, @imaginarydragonling, @astersandstuffs, and @rauchblauwrites!!

#French speaks #tagged #my writing #I feel like it's been so long since I've talked about writing on here!!!!#i am still around :d

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yumgrapejuice · 3 years

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ALRIGHT bitches it’s speculation time because my head is Buzzing with Thoughts

(long post incoming; all of this is /rp btw lol)

Okay so first I wanna establish what we know so far about Ender Ranboo (or, at least, what I remember lmao)

(I think it’s safe to assume when the voice talks about things that Ranboo does and doesn’t remember, he’s implying ERanboo is the one that does it. Not getting into the voice right now, but I’m gonna take whatever it has said as at least partial truth to what ERanboo has been doing.)

Ranboo isn’t conscious of ERanboo and only knows he exists because of the blackouts and because ERanboo leaves evidence of his existence

He’s most likely been helping out Dream at the very least from middle of December (Dream was aware of the butcher army that had been kept only between the cabinet members, so it’d make sense if ERanboo was the one that told him about it)

Dream had given him one of the discs, saying he trusts this state of Ranboo

He most likely gave Dream Ranboo’s memory book for some reason, which can mean multiple things, but I’m gonna assume here it could have been a sort of show of trust from his side too (which would mean there’s some sort of mutual trust between Dream and ERanboo)

ERanboo only writes in ender language, but, evident from what Sam said, can speak in English just fine (I don’t think it’s clear whether he can or cannot write in English as well)

He tends to roam around without interacting with anyone, not paying them any mind when they try to talk with him (based off of at least Fundy and Puffy’s attempt)

However, when he is interacting (based off of Sam and his chatting that one time with Phil, was it? Don’t recall exactly now), he acts just like Ranboo

Ranboo has woken up in places he didn’t remember falling asleep at, but never somewhere incriminating, which is either very lucky for ERanboo or it’s intentional

ERanboo is working on some sort of project and is cautious about not letting Ranboo find or figure out anything (hiding away the chest with the disc, disposing of the maps, hiding away his memory book, etc)

He’s visited the prison multiple times, the last time being between Bad’s and Ranboo’s attempted visit

He messed with the waivers, deleting everything and writing in ender

:) has an effect on him

Okay, so we have very little concrete information about ERanboo, but that’s not gonna stop me from trying to psychoanalyze him lmao. First things first, I think we can safely assume it is Ranboo, just a different state. When he does interact with others, he acts just like you’d expect Ranboo to act (biggest evidence being from the way Sam talked about him, never suspecting something to be off), and whlie you could argue he’s just pretending, I think it’s more likely he’s not, and I’ll tell you in a moment why.

What sets him apart from Ranboo the most is his odd behavior, as mentioned in the bullet point. ERanboo doesn’t act like a human, which is very interesting, because Ranboo isn’t human either, but he’s mostly fine! To me it’s almost as if ERanboo has no concept of social norms or doesn’t care for them. Again, I think the former is more likely. ERanboo is intelligent, there’s no question about it, but he barely does anything to not come off as suspicious. If he’s working with Dream, that should be a priority to him, right? But he messed with the prison waivers, effectively locking himself out the moment Sam found out about it, which would just be dumb if he’d done it intentionally! Maybe he wanted to keep Ranboo out of the prison and this was his way of doing it, but it seems a bit too convoluted to me. Based off of his behavior with other people, I think his understanding of norms and proper communication and behavior is simply different. So yeah, he acts way less human than Ranboo, but is still Ranboo, because it’d make no sense if he pretended to be Ranboo but then continued acting suspicious in all other areas.

The idea that ERanboo is a less human version of Ranboo gives ground for quite a bit of interesting speculation. I wanna talk about manipulation for a moment here. The fandom seems to have taken the term and just run with it lol. By definition, manipulation is skillful handling or something or someone, usually with the intention of acquiring something. Change variable A to get a desirable variable B. In essence, it’s not a bad or evil thing, it’s merely a tool that can be used for bad things. We engage in various forms of simple manipulation daily with no nefarious intentions! But generally, yes, it’s regarded as a bad thing because it’s mostly used for that, but those forms of manipulation are more intricate than the simple ones, such as gaslighting or emotional manipulation or the such. It goes from just trying to get your friend to let you copy their homework to convincing someone you’re the only one that cares. Something here is needed for manipulation to work; the victim needs to be susceptible enough.

If we took the clearest example from the dsmp, it’d be the whole Tommy thing during exile. The psychological manipulation Dream performed on Tommy was, speaking from an academic pov lol, very skillful. He hit Tommy where he knew it’d hurt, he was aware what Tommy valued and what he needed and how he thought, and used that against him for his own needs. Tommy, with how human he was, was the perfect victim (which sounds really really terrible and i am still not over that whole thing je sus chr ist). So, what I’m trying to get to here, can ERanboo... even be manipulated? At least, in the same sense or a similar way? Again, there are many types of manipulation, and just throwing the word around isn’t saying anything, but it just makes me think. How susceptible ERanboo actually is? He acts so unlike humans, at least from what we’ve seen so far, that imagining him being manipulated in the traditional sense feels a bit out of place (for me personally!!!). By no means am I saying I don’t believe that’s what’s going on, Dream can very well be manipulating ERanboo, but I also like to consider the alternatives, that, to me personally, seem more interesting :))

There are so many different ways we can speculate about Dream and ERanboo’s relationship, so I’m gonna give my own two cents lol. I’m gonna go off on the assumption that ERanboo’s isn’t being manipulated into helping Dream. Not only because I’m questioning whether he can even be manipulated, but also the nature of their relationship just seems... very personal? If it makes sense?

No one else is aware of it (Sam and I guess Sapnap now probably suspect something, though), and they’ve both been trying to keep it that way, even now when Dream’s locked up. If ERanboo was in any danger from Dream or was acting against his will, this could be the opportunity for him to get away, which he hasn’t been doing. That can be for multiple reasons, such as not realizing he’s being manipulated or being co-dependent or the such, but it can also very well be because he isn’t acting against his own will, and their relationship is based more on trust than deceit, for whatever reason. It’s really all about whether you’d like to think ERanboo is a puppet or if he has his free will and acts on his own accord, and I personally find the latter more fascinating:D

Now, I really wanna talk about the whole :) thing, because FUCK is it so interesting. Up until now, I thought it was some sort of symbolic thing, but apparently not, and that opens up SO MUCH. Okay, first thing we gotta establish—not all :) are equal.

Ranboo has had the smile in his memory book for a long while and has seen it multiple times without much of an effect (he does go quiet or more serious for a moment but that’s about it, at least lately). In the beginning, though, it had a much stronger effect, but less in regards to ERanboo and more about Ranboo’s own stability. It’d be great if we could separate which effects are intentional and which are just Ranboo freaking out lol. At the start, in regards to the smile in the book at least, I think it was more the latter. However, at one point he did say that looking at the smile is what causes the voice to appear, but lately it hasn’t been having any sort of effect. I have two guesses about it—either what impact it did have was caused by Ranboo’s instability, or the effect wore off over time. Issue with this is that we don’t know who exactly wrote the smile in the book. It could have been Dream, but it also could have been ERanboo for whatever reason. Because I don’t know, I’m not going to speculate about this particular smile any further. If it was written by Dream, intentions could also play a role here, but again, it’s pure guesswork.

What I am going to speculate is the other smiles, namely on the “thanks :)” note and Sapnap’s message. Both of these were definitely written by Dream, and I think both of these were intended for ERanboo, not Ranboo. On one of Ranboo’s latest stream’s, he started in his ender state, I think we can all agree on that. He went back to his house and found the thanks note, looked at it for a moment, and boom, Ranboo was back. Now, Sapnap said Dream had a message for him, sent him a smile, and boom, ERanboo time. So :) that is directly written by Dream must be some sort of trigger for their switch, but I think ERanboo is fully aware of it, and is, in fact, taking advantage of it. Ranboo never woke up in any suspicious place that put ERanboo’s plans in jeopardy, and has, actually, been waking up in his house lately! Surely, that’d make him less suspicious about what ERanboo is doing, right? ERanboo may not care much for how others perceived him, but I think he’s definitely taking a lot of precaution to keep Ranboo out of his business.

No idea how :) came to be, but I think it’s a relatively new thing. The first time we’ve seen it in Ranboo’s vicinity was during the failed festival with the whole memory book and traitor thing. That didn’t immediately cause a switch, which leads me to believe either Dream didn’t write it, it wasn’t perceived as an indication to switch by ERanboo, or it wasn’t yet a trigger. Whatever the reason, we’ve only seen the smile be utilized for switching only a couple of times, both of which were very recent, so we can’t really assume it’s an old thing. It could have been developed as a sort of measure for ERanboo and Dream to have more control over switching, which would make sense if ERanboo is working on some sort of big project.

TL;DR: ERanboo is very confusing and very interesting and this mf is not even trying to be human, what’s his and dream’s deal, who knows, not me, very excited to see what the hell is happening

It’s very difficult to speculate about this since we’ve had so little info, but yeah! That’s what I’ve got right now lol. One single stream can throw all of my speculations out the window, which I’m more than happy to see happen if we get more insight on what’s actually happening:D

i just think they’re rlly cool okay,,,,

(i’d also actually really like to hear what y’all think is going on, it’s so fun to speculate:>>)

#dsmp #ranboo #c!ranboo #c!dream #dream smp analysis #my analysis #I’d like to preface again that I wholeheartedly think any interpretation is completely valid #and if you disagree with everything I’m saying and are convinced Dream is totally manipulating ERanboo awesome!#that’s what’s so fun about having no real idea what’s going on:D #tw swearing #long post #lol sorry for the ramble i just had to #i've been sitting on my thoughts for so long

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atlantisresource · 4 years

Text

Atlantis Injuries List

Here is a repost of both the S1 and S2 lists. Tumblr removed the originals because “there might be adult content.” It’s a family show, quit deleting all the fandom resources!! Anyway, I apologize if anything got accidentally missed while putting this back together. Feel free to poke me.

LONG POST!!! (we’re looking at you, Jason, sheesh)

Injuries - Season One

Ariadne:

1x01: hit in the face

1x05: drugged unconscious

Medusa:

1x02: sliced hand (to save Hercules)

1x06: possibly enchanted by the song of the sirens when Hercules attempted to put her under a love spell (since it was actually a trap, we don't know that it worked - Medusa's feelings may have been her own - but Hercules is still an arsehole)

1x06: cursed by Circe (Hercules' fault)

1x09: cursed by opening Pandora's box (also Hercules' fault)

Pythagoras:

1x01: fell and hit his head

1x06: clawed on arm

1x09: fell from balcony, then knocked out (long enough for a fire to spread through the house, be put out, and then for Jason and Hercules to be declared dead and hauled away)

1x09: sliced hand (he needed blood to wake Jason and Hercules)

1x12: drugged unconscious

1x12: drugged to sleep (again)

Hercules:

1x02: hand bitten

1x06: shoulder injured while wrestling (it looks like there's a cut when Pythagoras is tending to him, but there's clearly no cut directly after the fight - Pythagoras is also doctoring the opposite shoulder)

1x06: turned into a pig by Circe

1x08: injured back due to being thrown against a rock wall

1x09: knocked unconscious

1x09: knocked unconscious again

1x09: drank poison that "will slow your heart until only the faintest traces of life remain“ in order to enter Hades (you threaten a man’s life to get information, he gives you a vial of poison while going “yes, here’s how you get to Hades” and refers to you and Jason as “the bodies” - and you actually drink it?! WTF is wrong with you?!)

1x09: whacked and tossed against a rock wall (but I don’t know if this counts, because he wasn’t physically there)

1x09: smoke inhalation

1x09: buried (I’m calling this an injury because who knows how long he was without oxygen)

1x12: drugged to sleep

Jason:

"stabbed through the arm there in the third week" - this is actually Jack’s scar, gotten during filming

1x01: woke up on the beach (meaning passed out while in the water)

1x01: shot with arrow (caused the scar on Jason’s upper, left arm in every episode)

1x02: struck on back of head/neck, momentarily dazed

1x03: voodoo-dolled by Pasiphae

1x06: magically burned by Circe

1x07: kneed in the stomach by Hercules (might have gotten the crotch a bit also)

1x07: tossed around by Hercules and Pythagoras to train him for the Pankration

1x07: kneed in stomach again and separated shoulder

1x07: separated shoulder fixed by Hercules

1x07: “feverish”

1x07: smacked around in the arena, injured shoulder was targeted

1x07: smacked around in the arena again - Heptarian went for his injured shoulder also and added yet another blow to the stomach, then went for the other shoulder and punched him in the face

1x08: punched in the face

1x09: drank poison that "will slow your heart until only the faintest traces of life remain“ in order to enter Hades (you threaten a man’s life to get information, he gives you a vial of poison while going “yes, here’s how you get to Hades” and refers to you and Hercules as “the bodies” - and you actually drink it?! WTF is wrong with you?!)

1x09: smoke inhalation

1x09: buried (I’m calling this an injury because who knows how long he was without oxygen)

1x10: axe, sword, or knife wound (knife assumed, although there was no blood on it, but Jason definitely stabbed somebody with it, so the lack of blood means nothing) - healed by Atalanta

1x11: cursed into being a Kynikoi (oh, who are we kidding, I’m just gonna say it: werewolf)

1x11: knocked out

1x11: bitten and tossed against a wall

1x11: drank silver to cure the curse

1x12: arrow again (the amount of blood on the arrow goes from rather serious to “OMG, how is he not dead?!” between shots)

1x12: grazed by spear (even though it looks like it misses him by a good couple inches - serious enough to require bandaging)

1x13: scratched arm (bonus points for continuity since this must be the wound from the previous episode, however I’m taking those points away again because this is clearly not the same mark)

1x13: knocked unconscious by blow to the head

Injuries - Season Two

Pythagoras:

Seems to have managed a full season streak (see post: somebody explain this). However, if we counted emotional pain, all the acting awards to Robert Emms, because damn.

Medusa:

2x09: cursed again

2x09: fuck it, I refuse - nothing else happened to Medusa; she went to live on a farm in the country with lots of space to run around and other Gorgons to play with

Medea:

2x04: fell down a cliff with a rock-slide (knocked out for a bit, but basically just walked it off)

2x06: knocked out, wrist cut

2x12: grabbed by throat, possibly choked a bit

Ariadne:

2x05: fell and got a cut on her arm

2x05: stabbed by Medea (we learn in 2x06 that the blade was enchanted)

2x06: knife wound from previous episode still bleeding

2x07: hand sliced

2x09: held prisoner by Pasiphae and tortured by Medea (using magic and a voodoo doll)

Hercules:

2x02: punched by Cyclops and smacks into stone wall

2x02: injured arm during the battle

2x06: clawed by a frickin' pterodactyl (after being bit by a mosquito)

2x08: hit in back of head by jug then sword hilt (unknown if he was knocked out by the second blow - the first was part of a staged fight, although unplanned)

2x09: drugged to sleep

2x10: punched by Jason

2x10: sliced with sword by Jason (wound was tended to by Pythagoras)

2x12: cut when Pasiphae’s men attacked the temple (this is the only time I’ve ever seen an “it’s nothing” that was never mentioned again - I thought “it’s nothing” in tv land was code for “I’m going to collapse in the next scene”)

Pasiphae:

2x04: shot with an arrow by Ariadne (being able to just yank those suckers out must run in the family)

2x06: strangled with a chain

2x12: poisoned with the nectar of the passion flower to neutralize her powers

2x12: sliced hand

2x12: knocked out from blow to the head - and stays out a long enough to carry her to the camp

2x12: forced to drink more poison

2x12: stabbed to death

2x12: dropped (this happened while she was dead, but a fall like that had to do some damage)

2x12: most likely got burned while being brought back to life (injured while being healed, what irony)

Jason:

2x01: seizure (from drinking the Oracle’s vision-inducing kool-aid)

2x01: yet another arrow (I hate to break it to you, Jason, but with the amount of blood on that arrow, you are dead)

2x02: "You fainted; the fall reopened your wound." (and he was out long enough for them to drag him from the river into the forest and make a fire)

2x03: sliced with spear

2x04: not certain if a sword got him or he was just smacked around with shields (but Ariadne felt the need to tend to his wound - and I might have to give huge continuity points to the writers here if this mystery injury is actually a shield hit to his spear wound from last episode)

2x04: fell down a cliff with a rock-slide (knocked out for a bit, but basically just walked it off)

2x05: broken leg (wait, you were unscathed in the epic cliff fall, but being knocked down broke your leg?!) - healed by Medea

2x06: knocked out

2x07: hand sliced (they say “blood sacrifice” and you’re all “okay sure” ... is there anything you don’t just go along with anymore, Jason?)

2x07: knocked out (by men sent by Pasiphae in an elaborate scheme to kidnap the Oracle, get Medusa to kill her, frame Jason, and cause Jason to be sentenced to death with the help of Melas who’s only a traitor because they’ve also kidnapped Cassandra -- good thing they decided to stick with that plan instead of just killing him while he was unconscious on the floor - seriously, do none of the bad guys ever hit people with the other end of their swords? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO USE THE POINTY END, GUYS!)

2x07: hit in the face

2x08: this is the only ep in season 2 that he makes it through uninjured - however, I thought it worthy of note that he’s imprisoned and sentenced to be slowly burned to death as a traitor, so it's not like his luck has changed

2x09: heart blackened by learning the truth about Pasiphae being his mother - I’m not sure how this works, but it does seem to have been mind-altering, so it goes on the list (although frankly I’m calling it good old regular trauma from slicing off the head of a dear friend... in order to kill his own mother - I mean damn, that would fuck anybody up)

2x10: stabbed with sword (magically healed, at least partially, by Medea)

2x11: wound from previous episode is still bleeding (so it wasn’t fully healed by Medea’s magic)

2x11: presumably beaten up by Pasiphae’s men when captured, has multiple cuts

2x11: sliced in the arena

2x11: sand tossed in his eyes in the arena

2x11: kicked around in the arena

(my personal opinion is this is self-harm with a bit of a death-wish after killing Medusa - it seems he let himself be captured and he doesn’t really fight back until it’s Diocles’ life at risk)

2x11: drank poison in order to appear dead (dammit, Jason, what is this, the forth time you’ve trustingly gulped down poison?)

2x11: shoved and smacks into a rock

2x12: whacked with a sword hilt (they never did learn to use the pointy end)

#BBC Atlantis #injuries #bbc jason #bbc pythagoras #bbc hercules #bbc ariadne #bbc medusa #bbc pasiphae #bbc medea

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starlightinhumanform · 4 years

Text

The Art of Love: Chapter 11

Fandom: She Ra (2018)

Ship: Glimadora

Summary: Glimmer and Bow have a chat. Glimmer’s secret crush might not being a secret anymore...

Warnings (for this chapter): Some mild angst, Mild language (please tell me if anything needs to be added)

Genre: High School AU, Angst with a Happy Ending, Rivals/Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Fluff

A/N: Just a side note that I consistently headcanon Bow as trans and even though that doesn’t play a role in this fic, it is mentioned. As always, thank you for all of your continued support and encouragement!! Love you all 🖤✨

Ao3 The Art of Love Masterpost Fic Masterpost Fic Request Info

By the time the day ended, Glimmer was ready to bury herself under five blankets and spend the next four hours watching YouTube. Of course she couldn’t do that. Because life just wasn’t that easy.

Her feet shuffled in a way that could only be described as noncommittal- weak and only partially agreeing to their actions. Her head felt like it was filled to the brim with cotton, stuffed into a too tight headband that squeezed across her temples and made what was left in her head pound. Saturated; that’s was she was. Used up like a sponge.

Such things being considered, Glimmer was in a surprisingly good mood. So she couldn’t help but smile when she heard feet pound up from behind her and stop suddenly beside her.

“Hey, Bow!”

Bow was stopped, bent over with his hands on his knee and gasping for breath. He raised a finger up, “Just... give me a... moment.”

Glimmer giggled, “You good?”

Bow swung upright, “I can’t breathe but I’m great. How are you? Hopelessly in love?”

“I can not handle your bullshit right now,” Glimmer began walking but couldn’t help but smile slightly, “Blocked. Cancelled. Deleted.”

“Why? Because I’m right?” Bow had caught up with her again, grinning.

“It’s a crush Bow, nothing more. It’s definitely not love.”

Bow nodded as they continued walking, “Uh-huh. Is that why you’re blushing so hard?”

“I’m blushing because you are bothering me,” Glimmer grumbled out her words, and turned her head to raise an eyebrow at him.

Bow raised an eyebrow back, “Wanna talk about it?”

Glimmer stopped walking and flopped backwards so she could lean dramatically against the hall’s cinderblock wall. She let her head roll backwards and stared up at the ceiling. The hall had cleared out, the distant sound of dance practice echoing between her and Bow. She still held a smile but it was quickly growing stale. It wasn’t that she was sad, or that she didn’t enjoy Bow’s company; there was just a lot to consider in that question.

Did she want to talk about it? Well, yes. There was so much she had to say and so much she wanted Bow to at least give his opinion or, at best, offer advice. But of all the things she wanted to say, there was so much she was scared to admit to. She doubted she would even mange to get half of it out. She would choke up and her words would lie, caught and festering somewhere in her throat. And there all those emotions would stay, blocked between her heart and her mouth. They would simmer there for a drawn out second before they boiled over and streamed down her cheeks. Bow would put his hands on her shoulders ask her what was wrong in his too-soft-for-his-own-good voice and Glimmer wouldn’t be able to tell him because the words burned as they bubbled and corroded her vocal chords.

But the feelings, they were hard to explain. She squinted up at the fluorescent panels which only marginally improved the lighting but greatly added to the prison-like atmosphere. The flickering bulbs were a thousand miles away as she tried to wrap her mind around the images flickering behind her eyes. Adora’s smile. The way her eyes shone when she sang. How her voice could wrap around Glimmer’s brain and find all the ways to make her glitch. How her body fit perfectly against Glimmer’s. The raw intensity with which Adora felt emotions and how she let them wash over whoever was nearby.

Bow’s feet made a scuffing sound as he shifted somewhat awkwardly across from Glimmer. The movement brought her back to the present and and made her wonder how long he had been standing there.

“I’m going to take that to mean that, yes, you do have something to say?” He prompted.

Glimmer let her head swing forward and blew a sigh through her nose.

It’s like molten gold filling my chest. And it’s bright and it’s burning and god yes it hurts but it’s beautiful too. It’s smooth and it runs down my throat, stealing my voice. It coats my eyes and tints the world around me but that’s ok because it turns everything beautiful. And at the same time, it’s far too much and it scares me and it hurts because all that shining gold is more than I could ever deserve or ever handle.

She couldn’t explain that. She would sound crazy. Bow probably wouldn’t see it as crazy, but he would take it too far. Glimmer was already freaking out about it, she couldn’t stand Bow freaking out on top of that.

“Glimmer?” Bow reached out, placing the expected gentle hand on her shoulder, “Is everything ok? Are you ok?”

Glimmer gave a breathy laugh. She hadn’t even realized how blurry her eyes had become, “Yeah. Sorry.”

His eyebrows were wrinkled in concern and Glimmer could tell he was worried that he had somehow caused her distress, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

She took a deep breath and made up her mind, “I have a lot to tell you actually. So let’s go to some place more comfortable than the middle of the hallway.”

Bow smiled, “Library?”

“Library.”

Bow and Glimmer had a well-established tradition of spending the time after school together, sharing stories and ranting about life in the library under the pretense that they were study partners. Everyone knew they weren’t actually doing work but left them alone because they stayed to their back-corner sofa and only rarely did the conversations dissolve into yelling.

They walked comfortably next to each other, unbothered when their shoulders bumped and chatting about the ridiculous amount of homework they would undoubtedly procrastinate doing that night.

People often mistook them as a couple; something which both Bow and Glimmer would laugh at. They had the running joke that if neither of them had found someone by the time they were 35, they would just marry each other. They were close as friends could be. He was the first one she had come out as bi to and she has the first he had come as trans to. Glimmer generally didn’t mind people thinking she was dating Bow, but sometimes she worried it would discourage other people from having interest in her. Then she would brush it off as ridiculous because she was pretty sure there was plenty of other things to discourage them.

They reached the library within a few minutes, both flopping dramatically onto their usual couch. They were in an emptier section of the library, most people at tables or occupied in the computer lab.

Glimmer swung her legs over the arm of the couch and leaned into Bow’s side. She let a defeated puff stream out of her mouth, once again unsure of what she could possible say.

Bow let them sit in silence for a few moments before prompting her again, “So... what was it that you wanted to tell me?”

She groaned, “Adora. Pretty. Girls. Yes. Crush.”

Bow laughed and patted her shoulder, “That all?”

Glimmer brought her hands up to hide her face in and shook her head, “Bow, I don’t even know where to start.”

She could feel him shrug against the weight of her body, “How about you just start from last night. I’m pretty sure you liked her before, if I’m being perfectly honest, but it sounds like it only got serious last night?”

The last sentence was stated as a question instead of a statement and Glimmer knew Bow was trying to bait her into giving more information. She gave in, returning the shrug, “Yeah I guess. I have no idea how long I’ve liked her but I think it’s been almost the whole year.”

“Why do you think it took you so long to realize?”

Glimmer had to take a deep breath for that one, “Because I hated her. Because I was jealous of her. And because I was scared of liking her.”

“Ok,” Glimmer could hear the hesitation in his voice, “And why was that?”

“I just- you know how- I couldn’t,” she paused before trying again, “There were- are- a lot of reasons. I just feel like I shouldn’t. I still think liking girls is something bad or at least dangerous.”

Bow started to say something but Glimmer continued before he could get a word in, “So there was that guilt and I guess disgust. It’s that internalized homophobia bullshit. I think that’s what they call it? Anyways, I know Adora won’t go for me and I’ll just get hurt and I know I’m stupid for getting so infatuated.”

This time Bow was able to interrupt, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that if I were you.”

Glimmer snorted, “Oh, and why is that? Has she privately confessed her love for me to you?”

“Well no-“

“Look, Bow, she’s popular and she’s beautiful and she could probably get any girl she wanted. She’s definitely not going to settle for me.”

“Hey hey first of all,” he elbowed her in the back, “nobody has to ‘settle’ for you. We’ve talked about this. What have I told you?”

Glimmer rolled her eyes, “I’m not going to say it.”

He elbowed her again, “Say it, coward.”

She blew a raspberry before droning out the ridiculous mantra Bow had told her in a monotone voice, “I am gorgeous and perfect in every way. I am a queen; y’all are peasants and do not deserve to witness my glory.”

Bow nodded, “You may continue.”

“You’re so stupid. Anyways, with your permission to continue, even if Adora does have the slightest interest in me- which she doesn’t and will continue not to- Cat would get jealous. I’m pretty sure she already is with this stupid project. She won’t let Adora anywhere near me as soon as the project finishes.”

“How do you know that? Adora’s her own person. She can hang out with you if she wants to- no matter what Cat thinks. And by the way, I think she will want to hang out with you.”

Glimmer felt her throat going tight, “She told me she wanted to be friends but I don’t think she meant it.”

“Glimmer, that’s great!! What makes you think she wouldn’t mean it?”

“I don’t know,” Glimmer hesitated once more, “She was acting really weird last night.”

Bow rolled his hand in a Go on motion.

Glimmer’s stomach clenched as her mind flashed back to the night before. She sat up, hunching over her knees as she were worried the sensation would show through. It all seemed very far away, surely longer than the 24 hours reality told her it was. It all seemed very fake. Adora couldn’t possibly have looked at her with that much affection in her eyes. She couldn’t have asked her to dance and laughed so loud Glimmer was sure someone would hear. She certainly didn’t stand a breath away from Glimmer and give her a smirk that made her insides freeze. It was simply impossible.

“Glimmer?” Bow leaned sideways to bump his shoulder into hers, “What do you mean weird?”

“Just very affectionate I guess,” She looked up at Bow, knowing what was coming and not sure if she would be able to answer.

“How is that a bad thing?” There it was.

“Because,” Glimmer seemed to choke for a moment and she could swear it was because her heart was in her throat, “I know that it probably wasn’t real; it was probably just Adora being tired and getting clingy or something. And because I know it won’t ever happen again. And knowing that hurts.”

Bow reached and took one of her hands in his. They were warmer and sturdier than hers- small and trembling. It was such a normal, familiar action but all she could think about was Adora’s hands in hers’ as they sat side by side and she attempted to teach her how to use chopsticks. It had to be some surreal dream. That would be easier. That would make sense. She felt vulnerable and exposed. No doubt the entire library was acting as witness to her breakdown. She hunkered into herself further, almost entirely folded in half now. She just wanted it all to pause. Things would be so much easier if they marched in one at a time. Instead life liked to throw a thousand problems at her at once. And sometimes those problems looked like soccer players who smiled a little too brightly because they were trying to hide just how much more like the ocean they were than the sun. Adora wasn’t stupid; she was deep and dark and sometimes the shades twisted from blues to jagged purples which undoubtably scraped against her sides. Glimmer wanted to learn every shade of that girl- yes the happy yellows but also the stormy grays. She wanted to dull the shards that hurt Adora and do her best heal the wounds she couldn’t prevent. But she would never get the chance. It was all fantasy. The melancholy was corrosive.

Bow squeezed her hand in his grip, cueing her to look up. When he spoke it was with a slow, steady voice. Glimmer knew that voice; that was the voice he used when Glimmer was about to shatter into a million pieces.

She breathed in deeply through her nose and tried to concentrate on his words, “I know this may seem very unrealistic to you but I really don’t think Adora’s affection was fake or just some side effect. I don’t think you just give up on it happening again.”

Glimmer’s face collapsed into a combination of disdain, incredulity, and despair, “If I keep holding onto hope, I’m going to keep getting hurt every time I’m inevitably disappointed.”

“How do you know you’re going to get disappointed though?!” Bow waved his arms out in a way that would have been comical if Glimmer wasn’t on the verge of tears. He was starting to get exasperated, his voice rising dangerously shrill and loud.

Glimmer hissed out a shush and clapped his arms back down to his body.

She rolled her eyes, “Look, I’ll live in your make-believe world for a second, ok? Let’s say that Adora does like me- platonically, romantically, whatever it doesn’t matter. Even if she does, Cat is not going to stand being around me. She hates me. So Adora will have to choose between me and Cat. That will have two possible results: Most likely, she will choose her best friend and leave me behind. That result can be summed up as: Ouch. Either that or she’ll choose me. From then on, Cat will hate me more than she already does- and I do not want to find out what that would mean- and Adora will always resent me because I’m the reason she and her best friend fell apart.“

Bow nodded sagely for a moment, “You’ve really thought this through.”

She could tell he wasn’t as concerned with her hypothetical situations as she was. This time it was her voice that reached a dangerously high volume, “Yes of course I’ve thought this through! Have you met me?! I think everything through!”

“Ok true, but I still don’t think-“

“Actually I’m not finished yet! Because even if by some miracle, Cat and I are able to ‘coexist,’ then I’m always going to be an accessory to Cat and Adora’s relationship. I will always be an add-on; something that is merely tolerated. And I will not be able to stand that. I would rather never talk to Adora again than have to deal with that.”

“Glimmer I get it and you’re making some good points, it’s just,” he paused, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes, piecing together his words, “of all those situations you’ve thought up, you’ve never once considered the possibility that things will turn out ok.”

Glimmer leaned sideways into Bow, just trying to affirm that she had heard him. She hated making Bow this exasperated. She knew he was just trying to help her. Hell, maybe he was even right. Still, Glimmer was thinking realistically. She was thinking cautiously. She was... she has no idea what she was doing.

“You know, Glimmer,” Bow returned the lean in her direction, “sometimes the world doesn’t suck.”

She rolled her eyes, “Mm, really? And you’d be what? An expert of the world’s constant condition?”

Bow sat up straight and puffed out his chest, “Yes in fact.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Glimmer’s voice still wavered as she spoke, but she could feel a grin start to grow across her lips.

“And you know what? I might be ridiculous, but I like to think that I’ll be right one of these times.”

Glimmer loved Bow’s optimism but it often came across to her as purely naive. She wished he could be right about this, if only to give him the satisfaction. But it was unrealistic and the sooner she accepted that fact, the easier it would be to take reality’s crushing blow. And the sooner Bow stopped encouraging her wishful thinking, the easier it would be to accept.

But he was giving her a grin that held nothing but purity and confidence, and she couldn’t break that. She tried to return the smile, “Sure. We’ll see.”

His smile grew until he was beaming, “Yep! We will!”

Satisfied that he had beaten Glimmer into optimistic submission, Bow slapped the sofa seat next to him, “Come on, I gotta go.”

They moved towards the exit together, chatting casually as they weaved through tables of clustered students. The library was filled with the quiet bubbling of 50 voices, each trying not to make noise but none the less adding to the atmosphere of sound. It was relaxing to some extent and apparently Bow found it safe enough to continue their conversation.

“So... what would you do if Adora liked you back? I mean, like, would you go on dates or-”

Glimmer nearly tackled him to the ground but instead froze, hissing, “Shut up! Elizabeth is right there! She hangs out with Adora sometimes! What if she heard you yelling?!”

Bow’s eyes lit up at the mention of Elizabeth, “Really? Where is she?”

“Don’t look so happy about it; she right at the table behind you!”

Bow spun around and waved, “Hey Elizabeth!”

The girl jolted up from where she had been hunched over the table, “Oh, hey Bow!”

Teachers often got Glimmer and Elizabeth mixed up; Glimmer never understood why. She wore huge, round glasses and had a fascination with math that Glimmer could never possibly possess. It was true that they both had dyed hair, but her’s was far darker and nearly hit the floor. (How Elizabeth didn’t trip over it every time she stood up was a mystery Glimmer would never solve).

It wasn’t that Glimmer minded Elizabeth but-

“This is not the time!” Glimmer grabbed Bow’s hand and began dragging him towards the doors.

Before they could actually get out outside, Elizabeth popped up in front of them, grinning broadly and practically shouting when she spoke, “What were you saying about Adora?”

Elizabeth had a habit of appearing randomly in your face, without any warning and giving Glimmer a heart attack every time. That being said, Glimmer was having a heart attack. Even if Elizabeth hadn’t startled her by materializing out of the blue and effectively blocking her escape route, yelling about Adora in the middle of the library definitely would’ve been enough to push Glimmer off the edge.

Glimmer’s eyes widened and it felt like the wind had been punched out of her- a solid blow straight to core. She struggled to find anything to say, simply trying to remember how to breathe. Finally she shook her head and grabbed Bow and Elizabeth’s hand, “Out. Both of you.”

“Oh, wait- wow. Your hands are really strong.”

Glimmer ignored Elizabeth’s chatter as she barreled outside. When they turned the corner Glimmer let go of their hands and turned so she could glare at both of them. They stood with their backs to the building wall, shoulder to shoulder like a police line up.

The campus continued to move around them as they stood in awkward silence. Glimmer paced back and forth, wringing her hands. She had made an impulsive decision when she grabbed Elizabeth and now she had to deal with the consequences. Bow stood with his arms crossed, staring at random things and avoiding where Glimmer was treading miles through the sidewalk. Elizabeth on the other hand seemed to be entirely unbothered, humming to herself and fidgeting with something she had pulled out of her pocket.

Glimmer shook her head; she was being stupid, “Look, Elizabeth, I’m sorry I dragged you out here. I was really overreacting and I’m sorry you had to be a part of that. Just please don’t mention anything about Adora to anyone.”

“Hmm what?” Elizabeth jerked her head up, “Oh! Adora. Yeah, her, I think she’s cool. I think we might be friends. Not sure. That would be nice though.”

Elizabeth spoke in short, choppy sentences that bounced from one topic to another and made Glimmer’s head hurt. She pinched the bridge of her nose, “Yes, we’re talking about Adora. Just please forget I said anything about her.”

“So let me get this straight. You’re talking about Adora, you told me you were talking about Adora,” Elizabeth was moving her hands in front of her face like she was playing an invisible game of connect the dots, “But you don’t want me to know you were talking about Adora?”

Bow squinted, “Yeah that sounds about right.”

“Just, whatever you heard, don’t tell anyone any of it. Please?”

Elizabeth darted forward towards Glimmer, staring hard into her face. She continued to scrutinize Glimmer as she began to speak, “You have a crush in her don’t you?”

Glimmer’s hand itched to clamp itself over Elizabeth’s mouth. She let her own lips fall open, once again struggling desperately to find words to fill the space with. She attempted to regain some veneer of composure, standing up straighter and turning her chin slightly in the air, “I will neither confirm or deny anything concerning that matter.”

“So... is that a yes?”

“No! Its nothing!” Glimmer growled.

“You’re not acting like it’s nothing,” Bow spoke with a smug grin and subtly raised eyebrows.

Glimmer glared at Bow for a second before breaking off the staring contest by rubbing the palms of her hands upwards across her face and settling across her eyes. This situation had been out of her control since Weaver had assigned her to be partners with Adora. Maybe it had been out of her hands since Adora scampered into her seat in the first day of school, laughing loudly at something Cat had said. Now nothing was in her hands except her own tired fears.

“Hey,” Elizabeth’s voice broke through the darkness Glimmer was hiding behind, “I’ve gotta go so I’m just gonna... um, yeah, bye!”

Glimmer looked up to see Elizabeth jogging back to the library. The girl paused for a moment to wave before disappearing inside. Glimmer sighed and collapsed into a lump on the concrete. She looked up at Bow, “She’s going to say something isn’t she?”

Bow scratched the back of his head. It was possible he was trying to think, but it was more likely he was just buying time; Glimmer knew he didn’t want to say exactly what she knew he was going to say. He deflated and sat down next to Glimmer, “I don’t think she’d do it on purpose. She might just... forget not to.”

Glimmer flopped backwards. The clouds were drifting across the sky slowly; beautiful, serine motions that ran in paradox to her racing mind; so many thoughts and they all blurred together into one word. Shit.

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blancheludis · 5 years

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@whumptober2019 Day 1: Shaking Hands

Fandom: MCU, Avengers Characters: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, Morgan Stark, Avengers, Scott Lang, Rhodey, Peter Parker Tags: Kidnapping, post-Endgame, Tony Lives, Team as Family, Iron Family Words: 5.219

Summary: When Morgan gets kidnapped, the Avengers assemble again. Nobody hurts their family and gets away with it.

---

It takes them half an hour to realize that Morgan is missing. By that time, she has already vanished without a trace. The first contact with the kidnappers happens four hours after that. At that point, Tony is willing to burn down the universe he saved to get his daughter back.

He is bowed over a screen, searching for where exactly the tracker in Morgan’s bracelet cut off while FRIDAY is hacking into New York’s surveillance system when the call comes in. It is a blocked number, and FRIDAY gets ready to trace the caller before Tony can order her to.

He takes a deep breath, trying to remember what he knows about diplomatic approaches to situations like this, of stalling, of needling for information. His mind is filled with only one thing, though, and that is panic with the first tendrils of all too familiar loss growing in him.

Tony picks up but does not find the strength to say anything. Whatever this is, it will make what has happened real.

“Stark,” a distorted voice calls out in a horribly cheerful tone, not dissuaded in the slightest by Tony’s silence. “We’ve got something of yours.”

Immediate fury pushes all thoughts of diplomacy from Tony’s mind. “If you have hurt my daughter I will –” he growls, picturing the most gruesome ways to dispatch the kidnappers, one worse than the other, but does not get farther than that.

“Not yet,” the man says. That is a definite threat that has Tony’s hackles rising.

He looks at the screen in front of him and sees that FRIDAY has not yet had any success with tracing the call. Tony cannot watch her efforts, so he gets up and starts pacing. Moving is supposed to help with emotions, but it does not help him to calm down.

“Let me talk to her,” Tony asks and even manages to sound demanding more than pleading. Hearing Morgan’s voice might be what he needs for his panic to settle down long enough to be more useful in this search for her. She is also smart enough that she might pepper in a clue about where she is. If she knows. If she is not too terrified.

The kidnapper laughs shortly as if Tony’s demand was a joke. “But we haven’t yet talked about what we’re getting out of this.”

Tony’s steps falter as he fights the urge to smash something, to aim a repulsor at the phone despite the other man being somewhere safe from it.

“You’re not –” Tony starts but is cut off again.

“Do we have to make her scream to get you to listen?” the man asks in an almost reasonable tone.

It has Tony seeing red. He imagines some brute of a man putting his hands on his little girl. He imagines Morgan with bruises, bleeding. He imagines her scared and lonely and wondering whether anyone is coming for her.

Tony remembers all of that. The first time he was kidnapped, he was about five years old too. Back then, he did not yet know that Howard would not pay any ransom. He was terrified and hurt and waiting for a rescue that never came.

To think that he could not save his daughter from this fate makes all of those old feelings pop up again. Only it is much worse now because Morgan is the most precious person in his life. He thought themselves secure, having given Morgan a tracker and an emergency button disguised as a charm on her bracelet. She has a driver and a bodyguard. She does not go anywhere alone. Yet, the way home from Cassie Lang’s house was apparently enough for someone to dispose of her bodyguard and take her away.

Tony grits his teeth to keep from yelling, and asks, “What do you want?”

“How kind of you to ask,” the kidnapper says, humming in approval. Then he grows utterly serious, no trace of humour in his voice anymore. “We want your time-travelling tech. All of it. Tomorrow.”

After reversing the Snap, they have destroyed all of that, knowing it was too dangerous to keep it, even disassembled. It is too easy to doom the entire universe – several of them, in fact – by meddling with the time-space continuum.

“It’s gone,” Tony says, even though he knows that will not help. What is reason to a man who holds children hostage? “We deleted all the specs too.”

That last thing is a partial lie. Between Tony and FRIDAY, they could surely build it again. They managed it once, retracing their steps will make it easy. But only if it was for a good cause. Equipping some blundering group of villains with the means to change the very fabric of the universe is in no way a viable idea. On the other hand, Tony has realized the very moment they found Morgan missing, that the entire universe pales against his daughter’s well-being.

“Then you’ll have to rebuild it,” the man says, his distorted voice wry. “I’m sure we can help your memory.”

A shout lies on Tony’s tongue that he only barely swallows. If he finds out they have done any harm to Morgan – any more than taking her from him – he does not know what he will do, does not know whether there will be any reason left in him.

“It’s not –”

“Do you really want to argue with us?” the man cuts him off, the first signs of anger in his voice. “You should better get to work.”

It is not that easy. Tony knows they are not interested in technical details, in the impossibility of building the time machine in one afternoon. They would have to talk Hank Pym in surrendering some of his precious particles too, and while Tony and Hank are somewhat getting along these days, Hank is not going to endanger the world just to save one person. One child. Morgan.

Swallowing down all of these protests, Tony says, “I need to talk to my daughter.” His voice breaks halfway through, but he does not care for dignity. They know exactly that they have found the ultimate leverage against Tony.

“You’re in no position to make demands,” the kidnapper dismisses easily, back to sounding amused.

“And I’m not going to give you the means to destroy the world as we know it without proof that you have my daughter,” Tony snaps back, unable to contain his temper anymore. “I want to see her.”

There is a pause on the other end that has Tony afraid the other man hung up. He glances at the screen, withering inside when he sees that FRIDAY is still not any closer to tracing the call. Whoever these people are, they are good.

“If you ask her anything incriminating, we’ll shoot her in the knee,” the man finally says. All of Tony’s relief immediately vanishes again at the threat. “I imagine that’s not good for a growing body.”

Tony has barely time to breathe through his fear and anger when his phone asks him to accept the video call. A fine tremble takes over his entire body, making it impossible to keep standing or even hold the phone still enough to press accept.

He slides down to the floor in a graceless heap, leaning against the nearest wall, and pulls his legs close to his chest so that he can brace the phone against his knees. Then, hands shaking, he accepts the video call.

At first, he does not see anything. It is dark on the other side, but the swirling black makes it look like someone is moving the phone, walking perhaps. They could be covering the camera to not give him any clue about their base. Tony just wants them to get to his daughter.

He regrets that thought only a moment later when light floods the screen and there she is, sitting in what looks to be a small cell, her hands are bound and one side of her is face red. So the bastards did touch her. She looks frightened but determined when the kidnapper comes closer to her. Through the despair filling Tony, he feels a stab of pride at Morgan’s courage.

The man steps close enough to thrust the phone in Morgan’s face, holding it much steadier than Tony manages to hold his own. This close, he sees the tear-tracks on her cheeks and wishes once more he could put his repulsors into action.

“Dad?” Morgan asks, sounding much younger than she is. Tony hopes that seeing him does not rob her of her strength. She will have to believe for a little longer that her parents can save her.

“Morgan, honey,” Tony says, softening his voice as much as he can. “Are you all right?”

That is a stupid question but all thoughts of perhaps exchanging some information right under the kidnapper’s nose evaporate at looking at her. He just needs to know she will hold up.

“I’m scared, Dad,” Morgan replies, appearing shrunken in on herself.

“I know, honey,” Tony says and takes care to breathe, to keep his face clear of the terror he feels. “But we’re getting you out of there. I need you to be brave for a little while longer.”

Morgan’s eyes widen. She has clearly hoped for an immediate solution to her problem. It breaks Tony’s heart.

“I’m –”

The feed cuts off and Tony’s ear is filled with the kidnapper’s voice again as he clicks his tongue.

“Now, now. You’re not doing any rescuing, Mr. Stark,” he chides, unperturbed by the sight of a crying child. “I’m sure you know that we won’t allow you to find her alive if you try.”

New terror fills Tony at the nonchalance of that threat. Losing Morgan would – losing her is not an option. Tony has atoned for his sins. Perhaps he will never be done with it, but Morgan should not have to pay for everything he has done wrong.

“If you hurt her,” Tony says, sounding much calmer than he feels, “I’m going to tear you apart limb by limb.”

In response, the kidnapper laughs, and even that sound is a threat. “Do you really want to make your situation worse? Or hers?” he asks almost eagerly. “Tomorrow, Stark. We’ll be in touch, so you better have the machine ready.”

A click signals the end of the call, but Tony remains where he is, curled up and desperate, pressing the phone against his ear as if he could hear Morgan again if only he waits long enough. His breath comes in desperate bouts, barely enough to get enough oxygen into his system, making him feel like he is burning up inside.

The soft sound of steps brings him out of his stupor enough that he puts down the phone. His hands are shaking so badly that he cannot keep hold of it, causing it to clatter down to the ground next to him. He stares at it, unable to make sense of it, and only looks up when Pepper puts her hands over his.

She is pale and terrified, her eyes wide, her lips bloodless. She looks one wrong word away from breaking apart and Tony cannot allow that to happen. Pepper is always strong, always able to keep her composure. If she cracks, how could he ever hope to not lose it too?

“What do they want?” she asks in a voice that is not hers, too brittle, too terrified.

Tony stares, wising he could have better news for her. “The time machine.”

It sounds even more impossible when he says it out loud. Even if they managed to replicate it, how could they hand it over to people who apparently do not have a single moral bone in their body? How can they trade their daughter against, possibly, the entire universe?

“What are we going to do?” Pepper asks, holding the same questions he has.

The answer, of course, is easy, even if achieving it will not. “Teach them a lesson that nobody touches what is mine.” Tony aims for firmness but it ends up flat. He still means every word.

Squeezing his hand, Pepper says, “We need to keep her safe.”

Tony nods despite the bitterness spreading through him. “Look what a good job we’ve done of that up until now.”

Pepper flinches as if struck, but her determination never wavers. “We’re not alone.”

---

“Well, it’s easy,” Scott Lang says, and Tony is ready to tear into him, just for making light of the situation.

Looking at him, Scott does not appear like he takes anything lightly here, though. Morgan got taken on the way home from a playdate with Cassie at his place. Playdate being a misleading name for the two girls, despite the age difference, locking themselves into Cassie’s room and building robots out of old toasters.

If anything, the guilt clinging to each of Scott’s movements is almost as monumental as the one Tony feels himself. During the bitter first seconds of letting Scott into their home, Tony was ready to put all the blame on him for not taking better care of their daughter. Pepper had taken his hand again, though, and calmed him down enough to strategize with a nearly cool head.

They have made the call and everyone answered. The Avengers, old and new, friends, family. Their living room is filled with heroes, and yet Tony does not feel any less close to a breakdown.

Scott stands before them and says, “We’ll build them a machine –”

“We’re not going to give them the means to time travel,” Steve cuts him off, his tone a tad too harsh.

All of them look exhausted, on edge. Perhaps Steve regrets having to be the voice of reason. Like everyone else, he has arrived in combat gear, taking Tony’s call like the emergency it is.

“Even if we could build it until tomorrow,” Bruce adds, clearly trying to balance the absolute refusal in Steve’s tone with a reasonable argument why they cannot give in to the kidnappers’ demand.

“A machine,” Scott repeats, slightly impatient, “not the machine. We just have to make it look impressive.”

Tony’s patience, which has already hung on a very thin thread, snaps. “You think they’re not going to hurt my daughter if they find out it’s a fake?” he asks and could be sounding dangerous if there was not a noticeable tremble to his voice.

Sympathy flashes over Scott’s face that Tony does not want to see. Cassie has never been kidnapped or hurt by a stranger. He might think he knows what Tony feels, but he has no idea.

“I was coming to that,” Scott says shortly. “They won’t have the time, because they’ll take us right to their place.”

Tony does not want to listen to fantasies that will only steal more of the precious time they have left. “They –”

“Let me finish,” Scott cuts him off, and he sounds determined enough that Tony lets him. He wants to find a solution, desperately so. “We’ll take Pym Particles. We’ll shrink and hide inside the machine.”

A short silence falls as everybody is staring at Scott and the way his slightly manic movements still as he waits for their judgement.

“Like the Trojan Horse,” Steve muses. To everyone’s surprise, he seems to consider this, his brain already whirring to make up strategies.

“Exactly,” Scott exclaims, looking relieved. “We can go in unnoticed and take them unaware. Some of us can scout the place while the rest takes care of the bad guys.”

“I –” Tony wants to protest. There is so much that could go wrong with that plan. He just cannot risk his daughter’s life. He does not have a better idea, though. None that will allow him to come close enough to the kidnappers without giving them plenty of time to go through with their threats.

“Let’s get to work,” Pepper says, standing tall, even though Tony can easily see the cracks in her composure.

Nobody wastes any time in getting up, splitting into groups easily enough, waiting for orders. In a way, it is eerily similar to the last time they got together to save the world, only now it is Tony’s world that is in danger.

Scott announces himself in charge of the design. Nobody has ever seen the real thing, apart from the people in this room, but they need to make it appropriately flashy and leave enough room for them to travel unnoticed.

Natasha, Bruce and Steve go out to get supplies with strict instructions to stick to their shopping list. They do not have enough time for secondary supply runs.

Tony and Clint make room for the project down in the basement, and when Wanda follows after them to help out, Tony does not say anything. The two of them will likely never be friends, but they are not adversaries either. And when Tony made the call, she came without hesitation.

Hope is tasked with getting them enough Pym Particles, before helping Bucky and Rhodey to coordinate making them suits.

Dr Strange turns up in his usual dramatic way when they are all gathered back, bringing Peter with him despite Tony deliberately not calling him to not endanger both of his children at the same time.

“We’ve got this,” Peter tells him, not wasting any time on questions. Tony has to admit that getting a hug from Peter helps him calm down more than listening to Scott’s planning.

Pepper organizes dinner for all of them and makes up a schedule for them to sleep so that everybody is getting some rest even while the work on the machine is never interrupted. It takes them most of the night to get it done and then half the morning to put the finishing touches on it. If the kidnappers want a demonstration or give it more than a cursory look before taking it to their base, it has to look suitably impressing.

Around noon, the kidnappers call again to dictate their terms. Tony has to leave the room where all of his friends are watching him with tight faces and encouraging nods because all of that just seems to push him closer to his breaking point.

They have an hour to meet the kidnappers in a place too crowded for either side to do something stupid. Tony is supposed to come alone. Morgan will not be there in case the machine does not work. If there is any sign of tampering or someone following them, Morgan will die.

“Don’t try to fool us and you’ll get your daughter back, Stark,” the man says, sounding downright condescending.

That is almost enough for Tony to call the entire plan off. It puts Morgan in too much danger. They still do not have anything better, however.

He stays outside on their porch, looking at the lake that sits too still for the storm inside him. Pepper comes up at his side, not saying anything at first, just leaning into him.

They were supposed to have peace. After Thanos, after restoring the universe, they were supposed to be left alone, to concentrate on their family. Morgan was supposed to be safe.

“I can’t come with you,” Tony says, almost choking on the words. It is hard not to see that as a personal failure.

“Because they expect you to be handing the machine over,” Pepper replies, sounding too calm. “They’ll monitor you.”

Tony turns to her, wishing she could make sense of that entire situation for him. “I cannot stay back,” he says, stumbling over the words. “I can’t –”

“We can trust our friends,” she says with enough determination that he knows she needs to convince herself of it too. “They will take those bastards down.”

“You’re not going either?” Tony asks, wondering whether Pepper’s legs feel as weak as his.

She reaches out to cup the side of his face in her hand. It feels like that is the only thing still keeping him upright.

“We’re both going,” Pepper says firmly. “As soon as they’ve cleared out with the machine and stopped looking over their shoulder. First, we’re going to be just scared parents.”

Tony’s lips shape into something bitter, as far from amused as possible. “That part won’t be hard to play at all.” Even now, with a plan and the combined might of all the available heroes they know at hand, it is hard to breathe.

“It’ll look strange if I’m not there too,” Pepper argues as if Tony had said anything against her coming along.

If he could, he would leave her safely at home, of course, so he does not have to worry about his entire family. He would not propose that, though, not while knowing exactly how she feels, terrified but determined to bring Morgan back home.

“It could be a trap,” Tony cautions nonetheless, just to put it out there as if it needs mentioning.

“I’m going to stay in the car,” Pepper says. “And we’ll have the suits.”

Tony has not been in the Iron Man suit since he died in it. In the beginning, he thought it would be hard to give up that part of his life, but then the very thought of the suit closing in around him put him off. He has something so much better worth living for now.

“What if –” Tony tries to say, still brimming with worry.

“Don’t,” Pepper cuts him off gently and he gladly lets her. “The plan will work and we’ll get our daughter back.”

---

They have gone slightly overboard with the machine, making it flashy enough to look close to the real thing to fool anyone even on the second look. There are several hidden compartments for the shrunken Avengers, just to make sure they will not be trapped all in one place if something goes wrong. Nothing will go wrong, of course. Tony cannot afford to think it will.

He even made replicas of their wristbands. If any of the kidnappers are stupid enough to try them on, they will get a nasty shock. Quite literally too. It might just be that last thing they ever do. Tony, of course, hopes they will not have the time to do so. This should ideally be over before they have even unpacked the whole machine.

The men meeting them in the parking lot are fully masked and armed. Six against Pepper and Tony. With how much fury is brimming inside Tony, he knows he could have taken them down before they would have had the chance to pull their own triggers.

He does not move, however, when most of the men busy themselves with loading the machine into their own transporter. The leader remains where he is too.

“What about my daughter?” Tony asks, desperate to resolve this.

The man reaches for his pocket and Tony thinks they might have miscalculated. He is fully prepared to fight, but the only thing that comes into sight is a phone. Without taking his eyes off Tony, the man taps on the screen for a few moments, then turns it around for Tony to see.

It is a picture of Morgan. As far as Tony can tell, she is still in the same room, still bound, still terrified. Her lip is split, which has new fury coursing through him. There is a timestamp that tells him the picture was taken an hour ago. It could be a fake, and a lot could have happened in that hour, but Tony is still glad for that sign of life.

“You’ll get her back once we’ve established that the machine works,” the man says once he has lowered the phone. He uses something to distort his voice. They are careful, professionals.

“What are you planning to do?” Tony asks, despite knowing he is not going to get an answer.

“That is hardly your concern,” the man scoffs. “Although we could make sure that the world knows you gave us the means to change it.”

Quite frankly, Tony does not care to be announced as a villain as long as he can get his family back together.

“You will drive back home,” the man continues, his tone growing sharper. Then he throws the phone at Tony, who catches it out of pure instinct. “When you’re there, you will call us with that so we can be sure you didn’t follow us. You won’t search for us, you won’t send anyone after us. We’ll call when we’re ready to let the girl go.”

It will take them at least an hour to get back to the lake house, enough for the kidnappers to vanish. Tony could have FRIDAY try to send a fake signal, but they will know if Tony and Pepper call too soon.

Gritting his teeth, Tony nods and hopes more than ever that Scott’s plan will succeed.

“We’ve got everything,” one of the other men announces as he steps up to the leader, his weapon pointed at Tony.

“Let’s hope you didn’t try to fool us,” the leader directs at Tony.

Then he turns around as if he does not fear to get shot in the back, secure in his knowledge of having Tony Stark entirely in his hands. It grates at Tony that he lets him go.

He remains outside while the kidnappers get into their car, and watches them drive away. Even then, he takes a long minute just to breathe before he joins Pepper in their own car.

“Did you hear?” Tony asks.

“Show me the picture,” Pepper says instead of answering.

He watches her face go tight and the same rage burning inside him fills her eyes.

“Let’s go home,” Pepper exclaims quietly, forming the words carefully enough that Tony knows she, too, suspects the kidnappers have bugged the phone. No talking about the plan, then. No trying to give each other hope.

“It will be all right,” Tony says nonetheless, even while he feels miserable.

On their way back to the lake, Tony taps a specific code against the screen of his own phone to alert FRIDAY that they are unable to talk freely. The rest of the Avengers should only contact them once the trap is already sprung, but he needs to make sure that they will not clue the kidnappers in before that.

After that, they can only wait.

---

When the call comes, Steve has barely time to finish his sentence before both Pepper and Tony are already suited up and ready to leave.

The kidnappers’ base is not even far from here, and it takes them barely over a quarter-hour to get there. Each minute tears at Tony, enough so that he does not even feel anything at being in the suit again.

By the time Tony and Pepper arrive, most of the men are already down. It appears to be a warehouse complex with an extensive maze of underground halls. Tony zeroes in on where he sees Steve rushing through a hall.

“Down the hall,” Steve calls, not wasting time on long explanations. “Rhodey’s with her.”

Then he rushes off again, ready to take care of the rest of the kidnappers.

Tony hurries down the hall, firing at whatever enemy is stupid enough to get in his way as if he never stopped being Iron Man. At his side, Pepper is just as single-minded. There is no room for anything else in their minds but their daughter.

The room they burst into is vaguely familiar from the short video call and the picture, but Tony does not concentrate on that. Huddled up in a corner with War Machine shielding her from anyone trying to get in here, is Morgan.

If not for the suit keeping him upright, Tony might have crumbled, his legs going weak at the sight. She looks so much smaller than he remembers, and what has been merely a red cheek the day before is now a vibrant bruise spanning the left side of her face.

“Mum, Dad,” Morgan calls, voice breaking into a sob.

That is enough to make Tony move again. The suit retreats, leaving him entirely human and vulnerable, but he wants to touch his daughter skin on skin to make sure that she is real. Rhodey will protect them.

“Honey,” Tony calls when he reaches her, pulling her into his arms. “We’re here. We’re here.”

Tony holds her as close as he can, making only room for Pepper. For a small eternity, it is only the three of them existing in the world, the only thing that matters is their intermingling heartbeats and his daughter’s breath on his cheek.

She is sobbing, and Tony hopes the Avengers will leave him some of the men to deal with or otherwise break a few bones while disposing of them. Although his rage pales against the relief of having his daughter back.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, but cannot quite bring himself to let go of her to check.

Pepper disentangles herself from them but backs up only so much that she can look Morgan over.

“I’m fine,” Morgan says quietly and neither of them believes her. But she is here, with them, and they will make sure that something like this never happens again.

“Let’s go home,” Tony says when he feels like he can talk again without sounding like he is falling apart.

He picks Morgan up, aching when she buries herself against him as much as she can, appearing afraid to let go. Pepper steps back into her suit before falling into step beside him, repulsor whirring and ready to blast anyone daring to stop them to pieces.

Rhodey stalks ahead, giving them room but offering more protection.

They run into Steve on their way out, and he greets them with unending relief on his face, looking like he too is tempted to reach out and check whether his unofficial niece is all right.

“What are we going to do with the kidnappers?” he asks, sounding furious.

Tony has some ideas about that. His bloodlust is not yet satisfied, but he will not let go of his daughter long enough to do something about that.

“Take them away,” he manages to say. “Hand them over to the police. If I see them again, I will not be responsible for what happens.”

And Steve, upright, good-guy Steve, nods grimly, almost like he himself does not trust himself with putting them away unharmed.

“We’ll find out what they were going to do,” he promises.

Tony glances at him and shrugs. He supposes that is a concern, and once all of this is over, he might be interested in that too. For now, he could not care less about reasons.

As they walk on, he mutters to Morgan, “What do you think about building you a suit, Morgoona?”

The way Pepper glances at him, they will have a discussion about this. Perhaps they should start with self-defence. Barnes still does not have a job, Tony muses, and he owes Tony a favour or two.

For now, though, they just need to go home. The Avengers will deal with the rest of this mess, and they can concentrate on keeping their daughter safe. Nothing else matters for now.

#whumptober2019 #day 1 #avengers #iron dad #kidnapping #morgan stark #team as family #tony lives #post-endgame #protective avengers #avengers assemble #fanfiction #whump #shaking hands #ao3 #my writing #iron family

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haru-desune · 6 years

Note

Can i plz has a Hayaryuu sick fic. Hayato taking care of a sick Ryuuichi~ (established relationship or not it's your choice)

So I am a sucker for sick fic. I hope this meets yourexpectations! Also found on AO3 and FF.net

When Ryuuichi woke up that morning, there was an itch in histhroat that no amount of coughing could subside. After his 5thattempt at clearing his throat at the breakfast table, Saikawa had offered hima hot ginger and honey tea and advised him to stay home from school that day.Ryu took the tea, but politely declined the offer to stay in bed. A sore throatwasn’t too serious, really. That was his first mistake.

The walk to school seemed longer than usual, due partiallyto the biting autumn wind that blew strongly against them. Ryuuichi picked upKotaro and held him tightly against his chest, half afraid that the little boywould get blown away by the wind. He felt his brother shiver a little againsthim, despite the extra jacket the two of them wore. Without stopping to think,Ryu used his free hand to unwind the scarf from his neck and wrap it aroundKotaro, who sighed in contentment and snuggled closer. They continued theirwalk, and Ryuuichi ignored the chill on his neck and the heaviness in his legs.That was mistake number two.

The real nail in the coffin, however, was gym first hour,before the sun had been out long enough to really warm up the ground. Ryuuichiand his classmates stood huddled together, shivering in shorts and thint-shirts, waiting for their warmups to start. Even Kamitani looked mildlyuncomfortable. The boys chatted aimlessly in an effort to distract themselvesfrom the bone-deep chill. Ryu found himself zoning in and out of the conversationaround him, his ears filled with a strange sort of buzzing noise.

“Man, its cold! I wish the day care kids were out on a walkagain today! Think you can do anything about that Kashima?” Usokawa asked witha grin, playfully elbowing him in the ribs hard enough to make him stumble.

Normally, Ryuuichi would just laugh in response. Todayhowever his vision swam, the world tilted on its axis, and the last thing hesaw was Kamitani’s panicked expression before everything went black.

When Ryuuichi woke up he was lying down in the nurse’soffice, and Kamitani was sitting on the counter across from him, reading hismagazine. Ryu blinked the sleep from his eyes and tried to sit up. He let out asoft groan, and Kamitani and the nurse were by his side in a second.

“How are you feeling Kashima-kun?” asked the nurse as sheheld a glass of water to his lips, Kamitani hovering behind her. He seemed asemotionless as ever, but his furrowed brow gave away his worry.

“Heavy. And warm all over.” said Ryu, gratefully acceptingthe drink.

“Well that is to be expected. You seem to have caught a variantof the flu.”

Ryu nodded, before catching Kamitani’s eye.

“Thanks for staying with me Kamitani, sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Don’t worry about it. I got to skip class for this.” He replied,before heading back to his spot on the counter and Ryuuichi felt a strange stabof disappointment at the casual statement. The nurse seemed to notice.

“Kamitani-kun is a good friend, huh? We couldn’t make himleave your side until your temperature went down.” she said with a smile andwink as she tucked the blanket around his chin.

He shot a glance towards the counter where Kamitani wasseemingly absorbed in his magazine. But upon closer inspection, Ryu could seethe other boy sneaking glances towards him out of the corner of his eye. Feelingsuddenly at ease, he closed his eyes and settled into another deep sleep.

Ryu woke up to soft sunlight playing across face and acomfortable weight against his waist. He stretched backwards languidly, thenfroze as he collided with something solid and warm. There was a soft groan andhe manoeuvred himself into a better position for observation, letting out ahigh pitched squeak when he identified the obstacle. There, just inches fromhis own face was Kamitani, sleeping peacefully with his arm around Ryu’s waist.Shirtless. As Kamitani’s eyes fluttered open, he shoved himself backwards,spluttering.

“K-kamitani, I’m sorry, I-I didn’t mean-”

Instead of looking flustered, Kamitani smiled sleepily andpulled him closer.

“Shhh Ryu, go back to sleep. It’s too early to be awake.”

“Huh?”“Taka and Kotaro are sleeping over with the twins, and we rarely get to sleepin.”

“HUH!?”

The sleepy haze cleared from Kamitani’s eyes, and he lookedat Ryu in confusion. He propped himself up on his elbow and reached out withhis free hand to cup Ryu’s face.

“My love, are you feeling okay?”

Ryu rocketed backwards until he slammed into the wall, hisface turning a deep scarlet. Kamitani’s confused expression turned into one ofworry.

“Ryu?” he asked quietly.

Ryu’s heart was thumping so loudly he almost missed him.

“Ryu?” asked Kamitani “Ryu wake up.”

Wait. That was an odd thing to say.

“You need to wake up, Kashima”

Suddenly the world snapped into focus, and Ryu found himselflooking at a puzzled, fully clothed, Kamitani. Oh. So it was a dream. Why hewas having absurdly domestic dreams about Kamitani was something he wasn’tquite ready to think about.

“Kashima, are you okay? You were making some strange noises.”

“Hurk.”

Kamitani looked even more concerned. Ryu swallowed, tryinghard to forget the phantom sensation of those long fingers so gentle againsthis cheek. He was failing.

“Kashima you’re turning red. Is the fever coming back? ShouldI call the nurse?”

“N-no, I’m okay.”

“Oh. By the way are you hungry? That weird butler of yoursdropped off some porridge if you want.”

“He’s a secretary… I think.”

“Of course.” Kamitani quirked an eyebrow, even as his mouth quirkedinto a smile.

Even the half smile was too much for Ryu’s already flusteredmind, and he quickly looked away.

“I- I think I’ll sleep instead.”

“Okay. Move over.”

“What?”

“Move over, we can both fit.”

Was he having another dream? He stared at Kamitani inconfusion.

“You’re supposed to keep warm when you’re sick, right? It’llhelp if I sleep with you.”

Ryuuichi was sure his eyes were bugging out of his head, andKamitani flushed, realizing what he’d said.

“Not sleep with you! I mean sleep next to you! In the samebed!”

Ryu decided not to point out that that was hardly better. Heshould have refused, at least on the grounds that Kamitani would definitelycatch whatever Ryu had if he stayed so close, but a large part of him, the partthat came up with fluffy domestic dreams, prompted him to quietly move over.Kamitani folded himself into the offered space, and Ryu turned towards the wallto give him more room. He felt a pair of strong arms wrap around him and he wassure he stopped breathing for a moment.

“Is this okay?” asked Kamitani a low voice in his ear, andif Ryu shivered it was definitely because his fever was coming back, andnothing else.

He let his eyes close as he relaxed against Kamitani’schest. He was warm. It was nice.

“Just keep your shirt on this time.” He mumbled sleepily.

He was pretty sure he heard a strangled noise as he driftedoff to sleep.

Ryuuichi woke up to the sound of a camera shutter. His eyessnapped open, and he could tell that Kamitani was still asleep next to him bythe arm draped around his middle and the soft snores by his ear. The cameraclicked again, and Ryu shot into a sitting position, accidentally elbowingKamitani’s face in the process. As he muttered a quick apology to the otherboy, he finally located the source of the noise. Usaida was leaning against thedoor, camera in hand, and grinning like the Cheshire cat.

“Delete that or I’ll send you flying.” said Kamitani evenly,rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“You don’t scare me.” Usaida replied, sticking out histongue. “Anyway, I just came by to dropoff this card the kids made,” He said, holding up a glittery construction papermonstrosity that Ryu was going to keep pinned to his wall forever “but I guessyou’re well on your way to getting better already. Sorry to interrupt!” Heexclaimed in a sing-song voice, practically skipping out the door in in glee.

Ryu groaned. That man was worse than the kids sometimes. Hefell backwards against the pillow with a half-hearted chuckle.

“Sorry about that, I’ll get him to delete the pictureslater.” He said turning his head towards Kamitani. His friend looked at himfondly.

“Kashima, go back to sleep.” Kamitani’s eyes were alreadyclosing. Ryu lay down, melting into his arms, and let sleep overtake him with asmall smile playing on his lips.

Ryurecovered soon after, but Kamitani was sick for a week.

Ahhhhh I meant to havethis written yesterday, but life got in the way, sorry! Anyway since I've madea small promise to myself to write more this year, and also to maybe expandthis little corner of fandom as much as I can, I am open to taking prompts. I won't write anything that's ships an adultwith a minor (I don't care what the age of consent is in Japan) or a similarage gap (i.e. teen with child), and I'm very uncomfortable writing smut, butanything else is good to go.

#Gakuen Babysitters #Hayaryuu #Kamitani Hayato #Kashima Ryuu #fan fic #my fic #Anonymous

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historioddity · 6 years

Link

Fandoms:

幽☆遊☆白書 | YuYu Hakusho: Ghost Files

Rated: T; no archive warnings apply

Characters: Hiei, Yukina, Kurama, Kazuma Kuwabara, Yusuke Urameshi

Notable Tags: Modern, no demons AU, inspired by Facebook, possibly reads like crack, Yukina is a good sister, Hiei and Yukina have an actual sibling relationship, I apparently can’t write something where someone doesn’t swear

Summary: “My brother does not know I’m doing this and would walk right of here and not talk to me for a year if he did.”

Questionable decisions aside, Yukina really only wants to help her brother (and to stop the endless moaning of the last two months). She's a good sister, she swears. She's just not sure if she's out to get her brother a date, chew Kurama out, or embarrass Hiei to death.

I was fixing up some tags and apparently I never posted this here? Its nearly a year old now, but I’ll be damned if its not here.

Can be read here or on Ao3!

She hesitates over the post button on her phone, but eventually hits it anyways. She stares as Facebook uploads the pictures of the two piece swim suit and her own sell ad, waffling between leaving it up or deleting it as soon as the post was live. Though Botan had suggested it, Yukina wasn’t so sure of the idea. The teal haired young woman flops down on her couch with a swirl of her blue stripped skirt.

The two piece swimsuit was certainly a color she likes (a few varying shades of blue she thought had a fantastic ocean look to it), but she had never meant to buy it. It was smaller than she was comfortable with, but she hadn’t been able to get it back on the rack after determining that.

(The truth of the matter was she, Keiko, and Botan didn’t know what exact set of whirlwind events had caused them all to walk out with items they hadn’t intended to buy – what they did know was they’d left to police coming in and the store had been on the news that night for both fire damage and busted windows. They hadn’t been back.)

But facts are that she has the swimsuit, she’d paid for it, and the receipt had been long gone by the time Yukina had worked up the nerve to return the item. And Shizuru had already helped her track down a more appealing swimsuit just a couple days later in time for the beach trip, so it wasn’t as if going back to the shop for store credit or exchange had been appealing either.

So here she is, attempting to sell the small two piece blue swimsuit on a Facebook buying and selling page – the one she thought Botan had suggested but now she isn’t quite so sure.

“I should have just donated it…..” she mumbles into a throw pillow after stuffing her phone between the cushions, unable to look at it any longer. It wasn’t as if the suit had ever been worn, somewhere would have taken it, right? Her phone buzzes once but she ignores it. It buzzes a second time, but she misses it entirely as her front door is slammed open.

If she was a betting woman, she would have place her money on their father being where her brother had gotten this particular set of melodramatics from.

Yukina can hear him muttering and cursing as he fights to kick off his shoes in her entry way. She gets no greeting as he shuffles across her apartment to flop half over the back of her couch with a groan and a whine. Despite her suggestions, she can see Hiei had opted to roll up his shirt sleeves but at least he had attempted to do so nicely. She digs her phone back up from the couch cushions and snaps a picture of the spectacular pout on his face. The shutter noise her phone insists on making is enough to force him out of his self-imposed pity party to stick his tongue out at her. Hiei hauls himself off the back of the couch with another groan and he begins to shuffle back towards her bedroom.

“Oh I’m sure Kazuma couldn’t have been that bad!” Yukina calls behind him, busy moving the photo around in her phone files to group it with all the rest of her brother’s pictures that the world is certainly not ready to see. The world would not survive knowing how much of a dork he could be when left with the right people (which is basically just her – being a twin has perks. She can see right through his facades so Hiei doesn’t really try with her).

When she doesn’t get a retort about her boyfriend, she knows it was something else. She ignores the two notifications for her Facebook post in favor of checking on her twin.

“Oh no…” She’s so glad that a blanket burrito in the corner of the bed had become the new hiding place. (Once upon a time it had been a weird fort of a blanket and four pillows under a bed where she was only other one who could squeeze in there to reach him – they had both grown out of that embarrassingly late.)

“Are you telling me he managed to ignore you again?” Yukina would have been embarrassed to admit it came out as a shriek if wasn’t for the whine that left the blankets taking up the corner of her bed. Her brother is miserable.

“But how?” The teal haired woman moves to her closet even as she asks the question. “And get out of that blanket – those are the only nice clothes you have!” She begins to look around for something of Hiei’s that had been left behind on a previous night of frustration and planning. She has found a shirt by the time Hiei had gotten his head out of the blanket burrito she was sure he had almost literally rolled himself into. She tosses the dark shirt on to his newly uncovered head and digs around for literally anything else that can fit him.

“I don’t know!” Hiei is making an embarrassing habit of whining his way through these almost daily conversations. Turning back with a pair of sweatpants she is almost certain are Hiei’s (she doesn’t own much grey), Yukina catches sight of his miserable expression. Hiei had disentangled enough from the blankets to remove the t-shirt she had thrown him but is idly fidgeting with the buttons on his dress shirt with a mournful expression rather than saving the only button down he owns from wrinkly extinction.

“I was serious, change clothes before we have to replace half of the only suit you own.” Yukina is kind enough to actually hand him the sweatpants this time. But looking at his face causes her to pause. She can count the number of times Hiei has cried on one hand, but the frustration has clearly moved to a whole new level because, try as he might, he has to actually bite his lip and keep his glossy eyes impossibly wide to keep it all contained.

Yukina sits on her bed with a sigh. She has a few choice words for the object of her brother’s affections if he’s this close to frustration tears.

“I have never seen you this infatuated with someone,” she says instead. Hiei snorts, but its watery. He finally moves to actually take off his blue button down and pull the burgundy t-shirt over his head.

“Me neither,” he mutters in annoyance when his head pops back out. Yukina’s phone buzzes again in her hands. She busies herself with it to let her brother change. Among the replies is an interested woman who wants to know the size of the suit – Yukina double checks and sure enough she did leave the information in the ad. She gives a reply anyways. Hiei has wriggled from his blanket prison, changed to the sweatpants, and carefully laid out his dress pants in the time it takes for her to answer. Yukina watches him for a moment.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to ask him on a date instead of attempting to seduce him – or whatever you seem to be aiming for?” she gives her brother a pointed look, “He sees you half naked three times a week already.” Hiei’s face goes vaguely scarlet and in one fluid movement he moves the blanket back over himself.

“I’m not seducing him,” she can hear him mumble.

“Not successfully.” He lifts the blanket enough to sort of pout-glare at her. Yukina can’t help giggling. She snaps another photo. It’s a blurred mess of the blanket coming back up to hide Hiei from any more of her incriminating shots.

“But seriously, Hiei,” she starts, deleting her unsuccessful picture, “just ask Kurama out on a date. Kazuma couldn’t speak more highly of him; he’s not going to react badly. It has to be more productive than trying every outfit combination you have in your closet.”

(Literally every combination – his most flattering shirts, his tightest pants; from the colors that bring out his eyes to Yukina’s best attempts to bring out a groomed and sophisticated look on a man that some days looked like he never brushed his hair. Anything to convey to Kurama that, while short, Hiei was strong, capable, and hopelessly wanting. It would have been embarrassing if she hadn’t put him through the same ordeal the day before her first date with Kazuma. They had always played petty revenge tit for tat after all.)

Hiei mumbles something under the blanket. She gives him a moment before prodding.

“Loud enough for people to hear?” She grimaces, realizing she sounds like their mother. Her brother seems to chuckle for a moment. She clears her throat.

“Please?” She expects exaggerated melodramatics – partially because her brother has chosen that route for dealing with the extended frustration but also because she just mom’d him by accident. Instead, he speaks just loudly enough for her to hear him.

“I did…” She pulls the blanket back enough to see his face – cherry red from embarrassment but still absolutely miserable. There are so many things she wants to say, to ask, but Yukina bites her tongue instead and waits for him. Lifelong history says it’s the better choice for dealing with her brother anyways.

Finally he rubs at his face with a sigh.

“A couple months ago I tried to ask him to that botanical garden because I know he loves plants and there was no way he’d already be going with Yusuke or Kuwabara. Maybe someone else, but the season was just starting, Yukina, so I didn’t think it would be a big chance.” Yukina nods along encouragingly. Gardening is not her brother’s first choice of outdoor activity, he’d clearly thought more about Kurama in the location choice than himself.

“I knew exactly what was going to be in bloom, what other plants would be there – they were going to have an exhibit of tropical plants in the special greenhouse even – I checked for restaurants nearby so maybe we could get food if he was actually willing to spend more time with me after I floundered the whole god damn morning away in a botanical garden of all places and –,” Hiei lets go a great big sigh. “And I went to meet up with him and Yusuke and Kuwabara were there and we’d apparently ‘changed our minds’ and were going to the amusement park a train ride away.” He lifts his hands from his face.

“I don’t know what the hell I did, Yukina,” the confusion is evident on his face. “I asked him on a date. Somehow it became a group outing and nobody else thought it was weird….” He looks at her and it’s a face she’s seen so many times in their childhood – absolute confusion. Her phone buzzes annoyingly in her hands and without hesitation she stuffs it under one of her pillows and motions for her brother to move over. It’s only after they are securely hidden under her fuzzy blanket that she says anything.

“You are just so unlucky with people…. How does that even happen?” Well, she knows one way it happens, but it’s not one she would have expected out of Kazuma’s friends. Her brother groans and stuffs his face into her shoulder. It’s a common occurrence for her brother to have a social miscommunication with another person but this probably took the cake in the weird department. (And normally it was because he was something of a sarcastic asshole.)

“Well, I know you’re perfectly capable of asking people do things with you without inviting other people into it, so even if you didn’t call it a date there’s still no reason for it to have become that.” She begins to card her fingers through his dark hair. She hums.

“I could have a word with Kazuma….” Hiei groans into her shoulder again. “I know that’s not the answer you want, but he’d probably set up a fix-it date if I asked….” She feels her twin shake his head.

“I don’t want a ‘fix-it’ date – especially one set up by Kuwabara,” Hiei speaks without lifting his head. Then he sighs heavily. “I don’t know what I want. All I’ve figured out is Kurama is fucking blind and Yusuke can’t run out of jokes.”

(This part she knows, because Kazuma tells her the better ones – half the time she can’t tell if Yusuke is trying to flatter or embarrass Hiei. She even bets that one of the many buzzes from her phone since her brother arrived is whatever decent “joke” Yusuke made that day about the dress clothes.)

Yukina continues to play with the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s clear that Hiei had decided against asking for a second (replacement?) date until he could gauge interest but the plan has led to nothing but moping. Her twin is, normally, perfectly capable of fixing things himself (for better or worse, though often it seems to be worse) so she decides against offering more suggestions until this moping spell is over. Probably whenever he gets hungry or her own stomach rumbles loud enough for him to notice. Additionally, it’s stuffy under the blanket but she doubts he, the walking space heater he is, will notice before his stomach kicks in instead. In a way, she’s perfectly content to sit there with him – stuffy as it is – especially now that she feels caught up on entire story.

However, it’s the resulting silence that lets her know that her phone is still happily pulling in notifications, causing it to vibrate under the pillows. She ignores it and settles down to her brother’s pillow as long as he decides he wants one. It’s nice – they don’t get to do this much anymore. A buzz here or there should be easy enough to ignore, Yukina decides.

She dozes off at some point, waking only when there is a sudden loss of heat. Bleary red eyes finally focus on her brother who is pulling her phone from under her pillows. Hiei lays back down and pulls the blanket back around them, looking no more awake than Yukina feels. Finally, he hands her the phone.

“It won’t stop buzzing,” he complains before curling back up at her side. Yukina pops up her screen and enters her passcode. She’s promptly greeted by a dozen Facebook notifications, two texts from Kazuma over LINE (one she notes is a sticker and she wonders what funny cat she’ll be greeted with today) and oddly enough several Facebook messages from a new contact. It’s clearly the messages that had woken her brother as their time stamps are the newest.

Their content however causes her to make a high, squeaky noise in the back of her throat and her twin is immediately awake and grabbing for her phone. Hiei makes a noise of disgust as he reads down the line.

“Ew, creepy fuck,” Hiei pulls a face. Without asking, he immediately blocks the sender.

“Hey!” she grouses at him more to reestablish that it’s her phone and account than over any actual objection over blocking the man.

“Oh come on,” Hiei sneers at the screen, still going through the messages. “First off, who’s bright idea was it to have you list that swimsuit on Facebook? Second, who the hell asks for pictures, especially like that? Asking for a model doesn’t exactly hide any intent, idiot.” Hiei scoffs the last bit under his breath.

(Yukina decides against answering the first question for Botan’s safety.)

“You already answered the second question,” she reminds him. “I thought I had the settings so I couldn’t get random messages….” Hiei is already looking through her privacy settings for just that. She snatches her phone back before he can go into any kind of overprotective mode. The teal haired woman gives Hiei a hard look she hopes will keep him from her phone in the future, makes mental note to change up her passcode, and sets about answering the other Facebook notifications – which thankfully do not include anyone else being creepy. Hiei sticks his tongue out at her and goes to dig his own phone out of his dress pants.

She’s in the middle of answering Kazuma’s messages, giggling over the dark cat rocking out on a guitar her boyfriend had found to express his excitement over a new Megallica CD, when her twin speaks up again.

“You know,” he drawls without looking up from his phone, “We could fuck with him.” Yukina eyes her brother warily. Hiei puts his phone down and rests his head in his hands with a grin that never leads to anything good. “He said he wanted a model, he didn’t say it had to be you.”

(Someday Yukina will learn to turn down her brother’s suggestions – today is not that day.)

Yukina had sent her brother home before the trains stopped operating – Hiei had gotten into a far better mood after their warning prank to her creepy message guy. A decent dinner had put him in even better spirits and she had even weedled a promise to reassess the Kurama situation with a clearer head the next day. She had been sure it was bright, promising chance to end all his moping.

Yusuke had apparently destroyed it with a single group LINE message for coffee and some extra workouts. Kazuma had promptly invited her along to the café to give them a chance to see each other before he was off for another day of training for whatever martial arts tournament Yusuke had dragged the four of them into this time. Hiei didn’t even send her a flurry of messages for advice so she arrived to the coffee shop feeling optimistic.

In retrospect, no messages from her brother should have been a warning.

“Did you even look in a mirror before you left?” Yukina asks as she digs out a hairbrush from her purse. She hopes her tone conveys the worry she has over him instead of sounding like she cares more about his appearance in public. Most of his wardrobe can mix and match and she always has a ready hair brush to wrangle her own hair back into its ponytail, so there’s little that can truly go wrong. But today he looks like he rolled out of bed, fell into his closet, and walked out the door. Hiei takes the brush from her and pulls it through his hair without an argument.

“What happened?” Yukina touches his elbow, worrying about his sudden disheartened look. Hiei hands her his phone along with the hair brush. He unlocks the pattern for her and she’s greeted to a LINE message screen – one between her brother and Kurama. The last two messages are from the red head. One is a happy fox sticker. The other reads “You’re a good friend Hiei.”

(Both she realizes are from late last night – before Yusuke had sent the morning message calling the group together for coffee, for extra training. Before the rest day had been cancelled forcing him into awkward close quarters with Kurama.)

“Got my answer, that’s all,” her twin finally says. Yukina lets him take his phone back. Hiei shrugs and gestures to the coffee shop, where the others are waiting.

“I’m fine, we should go in.”

She watches as her brother plasters his usual façade into place and then holds the door open for her. She squeezes his hand before she enters.

“Yukina!” Kazuma greets her with his usual enthusiasm and bright smile. Yusuke’s on the phone in line and he gives her a quick wave as she and her brother move towards them.

“Oh be quiet, you’re damn loud,” Hiei grouses with half his usual venom at her boyfriend. It throws both men in line off for a moment, but then Kazuma answers with his usual retort and before they even manage to stand beside their friends, Hiei’s attitude is back on point much to the disappointment of the baristas (who, Yukina is positive, are rather tired of dealing with her brother and boyfriend). Yukina spots Kurama at a booth, already sitting with his own drink. The red head shakes his head at the scene and then gives her a smile and wave in greeting.

She doesn’t realize she’s staring until Hiei jostles her to answer Kazuma. Her twin eyes her with concern so she gives him a small smile before focusing on her taller boyfriend.

“You okay?” Kazuma asks her. All three of them are watching her and she’s sure Kurama is too.

“I’m fine! I was trying to remember if I got all my papers sorted the other day at work and didn’t realize I was staring off.” It’s a simple lie and it rolls of her tongue easily. Working at a bird sanctuary, where no one in the group but her brother had a full idea of what she does, comes in handy at times. (Even handier is that her brother would not call her on her lie – certainly not today.)

“I’m sure you did!” Kazuma says with confidence and it makes Yukina smile. He knows she can worry about work a little too much sometimes and his reassurances are often quite welcome – today they are especially welcome if they bolster her fib. “What would you like today? I can buy!”

She’s momentarily startled, because as much as Kazuma would love to pay for everything on their outings and meet ups, normally they split the bills – especially something as simple as coffee. Yukina wonders if she looks as off as her brother for some reason. She sees Kurama move out of the corner of her eye and makes a split second decision.

“That would be great Kazuma, thank you!” Hiei gives her another look, but gets taken away by Yusuke to move up in line. She can hear the taller man working conspiratorially with Hiei to find out Kurama’s mystery drink order even as she gives her own to Kazuma.

(He looks so happy to buy her coffee she almost wonders if she should let him do it more often. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to get dragged into Yusuke’s never ending quest to figure out Kurama’s order again.)

She lets Kazuma move up the line to order and pulls out her phone. As she walks to sit with Kurama at the booth, she unhesitatingly sends three of the photos from the prank the night before. She watches Kurama check his buzzing phone and nearly spit out his drink as she sits down.

(After last night, she now knows her brother could probably pull off a speedo if he wanted to. It’s more than she ever wanted to know, but it’s true. Apparently Kurama is more appreciative than she is of this information. Or so she wants to believe with the red that’s come to his face.)

Kurama coughs a little before he manages to say anything to her. Yukina fixes the wrinkles in her long, dark skirt and simply fixes Kurama with a far too innocent look, phone back in her hand.

“Yu-yukina what-?” She quickly supplements the pictures of her brother in the skimpy two piece suit with one of him making faces at her through a window. Then another of one of the many outfits she had helped him pick out. One of him in the full suit before they both remembered that as much as Kurama clearly enjoyed dressing nicely (at least, sometimes, his jacket is bright orange today), he would stand out way too much. Another of her brother doing the splits, a random ability of his she’s envied since childhood and she knows he doesn’t show off. Yukina tops it off with a short video clip of her brother dancing to the radio in her apartment – one she swore to him she deleted. She celebrates a victory that Kurama has his phone set to stay lit far longer than any of the rest.

Kurama’s face has gotten redder and redder with every picture and he grips his drink cup tightly at the still for the video – her brother half way through some kind of dance move in his boxers and a too big t-shirt he’d never leave the house in.

“Yukina,” he says in a strangled, embarrassed tone.

“My brother does not know I’m doing this and would walk right of here and not talk to me for a year if he did.”

“Then why are you…?” Yukina almost regrets her rash decision with how confused Kurama looks. Yukina looks at her phone and sends the picture of her brother’s pouting face from the night before. She stares the red head down as his phone buzzes and simply waits. If there’s a weak point to Kurama, it’s that his curiosity is often too strong – he doesn’t manage to leave the text alone. He looks at the picture and then back at her, still trying to catch up.

“Him, last night, after he spent a whole bunch of time with me picking an outfit and got to listen to Yusuke crack jokes instead of getting any kind of compliment from you.” She starts to send more pictures of more outfits – outfits she knows Kurama will recognize if he eyes work at all.

“The same thing that’s been happening for, like, two months now.” She sends him pictures of almost every outfit they ever considered – some are even from Hiei himself, taken in a mirror to get her opinion. She doesn’t look at Kurama until his phone stops vibrating in his hands.

When Yukina looks back up, it’s to Kurama’s still confused face. She starts to get angry at that when it hits her. She is angry on her brother’s behalf, of this she is certain. But she has no idea what she’s trying to accomplish by doing this. In fact, the only thing she knows she has accomplished is sending personal photos of her brother to a man who’s only interested in a friendship and possibly shaking the trust between two people about to partake in some kind of crazy fighting tournament together. Not talking to her for a year? Yukina will be lucky if her brother doesn’t die of embarrassment. She flushes and tries to find something to say. (And they say her brother is the one who rushes through things…)

She looks down at her phone. There’s a preview for a picture of her brother, double peace signs and his tongue stuck out in the doorway of his apartment – probably the day he’d moved in and moved from her previous phone. She sends it and Kurama checks it despite himself.

“I know he can be a good friend, Kurama. But couldn’t you have said that when he asked you out?” It’s all she can think to say. It’s probably all she actually wants to know. Just so she can pick her brother back up and dust him off – be whatever support he’ll accept.

Understanding blooms across Kurama’s face.

“The garden, I-”

“Yes the garden, the date you said yes to!”

“No, Yukina, you don’t understand, we-” Yukina cuts him off again.

“Of course I don’t understand!” She sets her phone down roughly and it makes a louder noise than expected. She pushes on anyways, feeling her anger flare on Hiei’s behalf again. “I don’t know why you couldn’t have just turned him down, or tried to change it then if you didn’t want to go on date with him. Why would you change it without telling him? Why would you do that?”

“Yukina, it’s not like that!”

“What else can it be?!” She throws her hands in the air, swept up in her own confusion and the miserable look on her brother’s face from the night before.

“A lot else!” Kurama says indignantly.

“Oh yea, then prove it to me!” Her challenge is louder than she meant it to be but she doesn’t back down from the look she’s pinned Kurama with.

“I-”

“Oh come on!” Yusuke groans loudly from the registers, failing again to drag Kurama’s usual order from the barista. The sudden interruption causes both of them to jump and pause their arguing. The couple of occupied tables nearby are not so discretely looking at them, eavesdropping. But to their luck, Hiei and Kazuma look to be too wrapped up in Yusuke’s pleading to notice the heated conversation.

Kurama’s face goes red again and he sinks down a little in the booth. Yukina is sorely tempted to follow him.

(People are sorely wrong to think she doesn’t have a temper to rival her brother’s – but her fuse is much longer in the end. A healthy dose of embarrassment also drives her off far easier than Hiei. She hadn’t meant to get so loud!)

The red head across the table groans and rubs at his face. Yukina watches him stare at his phone for a moment and then swiftly unlock it, open his conversation with Hiei on LINE, and push the phone for her to look at. She doesn’t want to. She is still angry with him and the entire situation – even if she’s now acutely aware of their onlookers – what good will it do to see the conversation from his side?

Kurama bites his lip.

“Please?”

It’s only knowing she can’t get any answers from just looking at him angrily that gets her to pick up Kurama’s phone. She runs down the conversation without really reading it – a few stickers, Hiei answering some question the red head had sent him, the message that had put such a damper on her brother’s hopes. There’s nothing after that message, no text that didn’t send that would have made a better ending for Hiei. Yukina almost passes it back to Kurama to demand an actual explanation, when she realizes that something is sitting in the message box, waiting to be sent.

‘Hey, so, would you like to get dinner with me sometime?’ The text ends with one of LINE’s many emojis for the word ‘date’ – Yukina knows most of them from Kazuma’s texts. There’s no ambiguity in the little image. She looks back up to Kurama who is idly playing with his drink cup waiting for her response.

He catches her eye and flushes heavily. Sinking into his seat again he begins to mumble to her.

“I have been trying to ask him that since the amusement park date went so badly. I swear I type it at the end of every conversation but then I can never hit send. I never even shut my phone down last night – it’s been sitting there, mocking me since midnight”

“Then…why…?” Yukina passes the phone back to him. Kurama shrugs, refusing to meet her eyes.

“…I got home after Hiei asked me to garden and realized it was where I was taking my mother for her birthday literally the day before the date. I’d been so surprised I had completely forgotten about it. I couldn’t cancel on my mother, we’d been talking about it for months and flowers are a passion I got from her. But I didn’t want to call your brother up and look like I’d just been unable to turn him down in person.”

Yukina checks on the rest of the group at the counter before she responds.

“Then how did you end up at an amusement park.” If it’s possible, Yukina is almost positive Kurama looks even more embarrassed.

“I may have asked Yusuke for help.”

(It takes a lot of willpower for Yukina not to smack her face into the table.)

“Why in the world-”

“I had four places,” Kurama cuts her off in a rush, “and Kuwabara was at classes so I called Yusuke and between the two of us I got down to the amusement park. It would be open, the timing was good, it wasn’t too far away…. I should have called him then, I know I should have.” Finally the red head makes eye contact with her. He grimaces before he admits, “I chickened out, ok?”

“Why did Yusuke and Kazuma come?”

“That….was not actually planned.” If it’s possible, the red head looks even more embarrassed. “Kuwabara came in when Yusuke was trying to get me to call Hiei and somehow we got the grand idea to pretend Yusuke had won tickets and was using them as a group surprise. We knew Hiei hadn’t mentioned the date to anyone so we were just going to use that to lure him there and then Yusuke and Kuwabara were to get accidentally ‘separated’ from us and….. Look, it was a terrible plan, I was too nervous and completely misjudged it,” he haphazardly tries to defend the final thought process.

“Can any of you handle social situations?” she blurts out. Kurama chuckles uncomfortably.

“I’m almost positive it’s why the four of us work so well together. We run on the same wavelength.”

“But you’re usually so good at this…”

“Too much practice and a level head. Neither of which I had that day, believe me.” Kurama sips his drink awkwardly. Yukina looks him up and down.

“So, you do want to go on a date with Hiei, right?” Kurama swallows roughly.

“Yes, but I keep putting my foot in my mouth.” The red head looks over to Hiei, waiting for his drink to be called. Yusuke is going down the list of drinks to him, though for what reason they can’t tell. Hiei doesn’t look to be quite as into it as when Yukina had left him with the other two to order. Finally, Kurama turns back to her.

“You think there’s any chance after what I did last night?”

(Yukina wants to scream yes, to tell Kurama just how badly her brother had been pining. She wants to point out that they’re both morons who can’t properly talk to each other but she’s almost positive it’s just that both of them are overthinking everything. She wants to march her brother over there right that moment and personally secure the date herself. They’re perfect for each other, Yukina just knows it.)

Before she can say anything, the barista rattle off the names of their companions and Kazuma bounces over with her latte and his coffee. Yusuke and Hiei are not far behind. Reluctantly, they let the conversation go as everyone maneuvers into the booth.

Yukina stands and insists on Kazuma sitting all the way in and Hiei forces Yusuke to sit by Kurama by dawdling on his way over. He grabs a chair from an empty table and sits at the end of the table. They aren’t busy enough for it to be a bother, yet Yukina notices that all three of their companions give him an odd look for it anyways. Kurama slumps a little after its clear this will be the arrangement and begins to fiddle with his drink cup again. Hiei is staring at his own drink and notices nothing. Yusuke tries to move things forward by loudly, almost too loudly, trying to pry Kurama’s drink order out of him. Kazuma groans, trying to figure out why he’s so obsessed. The atmosphere at their table is awkward, but they press on.

(It occurs to her that Yusuke, and perhaps Kazuma as well, has been attempting to play wingman since they had caused the first date to go belly up. They don’t seem to know what they are doing.)

Fifteen minutes later, when Yusuke and Kazuma have started a heated argument over training and what qualifies as too much and her brother has gone back to the counter to get something to eat (he skipped breakfast, which Yukina has to admit is probably the most usual part of the entire morning), the teal haired woman takes a chance. With half the table distracted, her brother waiting at the counter, and Kurama silently watching on, she knows she probably won’t get another chance before they leave to head to the local gym.

She texts Kurama under the table.

‘I have a date plan, do you want it?’ Yukina watches Kurama grab his vibrating phone and check it lazily – there hasn’t been much enthusiasm from that corner of the table since the rest had sat down. He blinks at the message and then slowly lowers the phone so the other two can’t look over and read his screen.

Kurama’s reply is probably the most enthusiastic yes fox sticker LINE has. Green eyes flicker to hers and she smiles before looking back down to her phone.

‘Take him to the aquarium.’ Kurama only sends a question mark back.

‘Take him to the aquarium, he’ll love it because we haven’t gone in forever. YOU HAVE TO TELL HIM IT’S A DATE. Don’t you dare not tell him it’s a date, Kurama, I will know. It’ll make him nervous but you two can’t afford anymore miscommunication. Now this isn’t going to be the nervous you know, trust me. Be polite when he spouts forty minutes of stingray facts because he thinks the date is bombing. Take him to lunch/dinner because you know he’ll skip breakfast at the very least. He likes you, so please, don’t chicken out this time.’ She sends and then pauses.

‘Also I’m serious; I really hope you don’t hate stingrays.’ She knows she should leave it at that, but can’t help adding on again.

‘Be glad they don’t have the space for manta rays.’ Yukina flashes him a quick smile. Kurama mouths a thank you just as Hiei comes back from the counter with a breakfast sandwich.

Her apartment door swings open unexpectedly just as she finalizes the sale of the swimsuit. Yukina listens to her brother once again haphazardly kick off his shoes in her entry way before he shuffles further into her apartment.

“The suit sold,” she announces to him once the message is marked as sent and read. However, she doesn’t get an answer and Hiei doesn’t come to the couch. She can hear him bouncing on his heels in his socks from the doorway. She’s already begun composing the scolding of Kurama’s life in her head before she turns around.

Instead she gives her brother a long once over, raises her phone, and snaps a picture.

(She assumes by the sheer size of the stuffed stingray in her brother’s arms that the date went very, very well.)

#yyh #KuraHi #Hiei #Kurama #Yukina #Kazuma Kuwabara #Yuusuke Urameshi #kuwakina #because they are dating and it is mentioned #au - no demons #Oddity Fanfiction

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sanaseva-archive · 7 years

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okay, hi. it’s me—the annoyance in this fandom. and i’d like to talk about something, so bear with me.

there’s a problem in this fandom that doesn’t need to be discussed. why not? it’s not up for discussion, basically. it’s up to you all to sit back and learn that this shit you all are pulling needs to be stopped. period.

i’m breaking it up to a couple of core parts so you all know what i’m talking about.

first of all, let’s talk about the islamophobia and racism in this fandom.

here’s the deal: shut up and listen. is that too hard? then just shut up and close your browser. delete your blog. take a walk. go on with your shitty life.

i don’t know why this needs to be explained—seriously. i don’t understand it. it’s not physics or the study of runes. it’s the basic thing called logic thinking and common decency at the least.

you’re all doing something incredibly harmful and it’s not okay. when you started calling a brown character a rat i—i thought it was a joke. and when it was pointed out it’s racist, by people of colour in this fandom, you kept doing it. why? do you take enjoyment in calling brown people rats? do you think you can get away with it? guess you can, but you can stop doing it to people of colour. it’s disgusting.

next. the idea of this season is: please don’t let me be misunderstood. the reverse of this? please don’t let me be understood. just so we’re clear. there’s no reverse. the song was in reverse, the message was clear. so you can shut up about that.

so when the fight broke up, and sana was hiding in the bathroom stall, what did we hear? the two white random, irrelevant white girls talking about how they thought (assumed, didn’t know but talked anyway) it was about homosexuality, and how muslims are homophobic. was it there for the lols? no. it was there for us. to know. that it wasn’t about that.

my point: shut the fuck up about it. it’s tiresome, getting old, it’s toxic. if you keep talking about this, you’re spreading harmful messages to others. what messages? that muslims are homophobic. which they can be, i’m not saying some aren’t. i’m saying that that’s not the point of this season and that non-muslims are equally likely to be homophobic. don’t believe me? wow, i guess it’s something that has been fed to you by media representation and… dare i say it? people talking shit of shit they don’t know on social platforms. precisely what you’re doing right now.

second thing we need to talk about: the series. yes! let’s talk about what content we have right now and why us people of colour and why muslims are upset, shall we? (note: we have all the right to be upset.)

let’s first get this out of the way: we know it’s written this way to prove some point later on in the season. probably something along the lines of muslim and brown boys not all being homophobic and shit. you know. that thing you keep shutting your eyes from. we understand that, we know that.

we’re just. not. happy. about how it’s written. it’s kind of doing a lot of damage right now. look at some of the messages some people (people of colour, muslims, muslim people of colour) receive. and what we should be getting is much more healthy scenes between muslims, muslims and people of non-faith, people of colour and white people, to weigh up to the damage its doing. we don’t get that much of that. and it’s frustrating, because we understand why (sana’s lonely) but there are so many ways to portray loneliness than completely erase healthy interactions between people on the fucking screen.

don’t bring up the hei briskeby videos, because they don’t count. i’m talking about the real episodes here. the real clips. the clips that the casual viewer will watch.

so yes. the series itself is… partially at fault here. the writing, i would say. especially filming only the people of colour in a fight and—wow. that chokehold they had on the only black guy? yikes.

what’s worse is that they surely know—or at least have a slight idea—of what outbreak their clips will give. and they keep doing it. keep feeding this shit to us, and leave us to either deal with it, or completely shut down our inboxes. which results into people thinking we’re selfish, because we don’t answer their wish to learn more about culture and islam and the experiences people of colour have.

third thing we need to talk about: vilde and noora. yup. i’m putting them on the agenda.

i, as a lesbian of colour, wholeheartedly believe that vilde’s character is poorly written this season. she’s obviously not too different from earlier seasons, but she’s definitely had more emphasis on her ignorance, and how that ignorance is dealt with is—less acceptable. i do believe, on top of that, that she will be “redeemed” (i’m just not sure i’ll buy into it) and that she will learn, apologise and maybe grow the last episode or something, since we won’t be getting any more.

but what bugs me the most about the way they’re writing her this season is that, she’s coded as possibly lesbian (or bi, if you prefer, but i’m gonna talk about her being lesbian, and you can make your own post about her being bisexual). and she’s literally the only character fully coded this way. if you’re interested in why, just… google it. believe it or not, we aren’t google. but the key point is that she is doing a lot of what us lesbians perceive as compulsory heterosexuality. and they completely villainised a potential lesbian this season which is just falling into the same shit people have done over and over again. lesbians are bad, lesbians are racist, lesbians are this and fucking that and that pisses me off. if, by the off chance, she eventually is canonically declared as lesbian, i’m not sure i will rejoice or throw my phone through my computer screen. they ruined her character to me, they ruined a (coded) lesbian to me, a lesbian, simply because they wanted to put her to be the ignorant girl who keeps shitting all over sana.

and noora. man. i’m not too mad about noora as a character herself. she’s flawed, she has her good moments and shit. but she takes up so much of her own storyline from sana’s. it’s a mess. she’s talking about herself, her problems with dickhelm, and sure, that’s what friends do—talk about what bothers you. but we’re so frustrated that she’s once again on the screen, talking about the same old thing, and rip the minutes that could’ve been spent on sana from our hands.

don’t get me wrong. we all know that sana is a listener. but there’s a line. and they jump over it, time and time again.

and then there’s the misogyny in this fandom that needs to be addressed. and this is a harder one, because it’s hard to spot.

during the course of season three—up to this day, i see this shit—people keep shitting on sonja and emma for no other reason than them being girls who got hurt in the process. sonja? remember her? she got cheated on. and while even kept saying he felt controlled by her you somehow got the idea that she’s toxic. she isn’t. a toxic relationship would not end with isak thanking sonja for the help she’s given. she knows even and—well, at the most, she might have been a bit controlling because she doesn’t understand that even is his own person with or without his bipolar disorder.

and emma? she outed isak, which is fucked up and there’s no excuse. but stop thinking she’s the absolute villain to isak’s life because she’s a girl, who got hurt, in the process. accept that, move on, because isak sure did.

you thought i’d end there? really? nope. ain’t gonna happen. i’m gonna bring up vilde specifically again.

you think she’s just a dumb ignorant islamophobe? partially true. she’s islamophobic and is not a good friend to sana. she’s ignorant, yes. but you’re reducing her character to something she isn’t. you’re reducing her to the blonde dumb girl, which is just as shitty as people defending her islamophobic behaviour. her islamophobia does not correlate to her dealing with whatever she’s dealing with (compulsory heterosexuality, if you will), but if you reduce her to a two-dimensional character it’s quite misogynistic itself. if you’re woman and doing that—check yourself in the mirror.

same goes for noora, basically, but i don’t think anyone is genuinely despising her for anything else than the shitty line here and there and the serious screentime she’s clocking.

we also had a run in with the lovely subjects of biphobia and ableism too. you all can’t stop anywhere, can you?

since we aren’t discussing, let me just point out these things:

bisexuality does not equate to cheater. a cheater can be of any sexuality. the stereotype is that bisexual people are cheaters is harmful and it ends here. whether a bisexual person/character has cheated can be discussed without bringing in their bisexuality to the conversation.

and mental illness… it seems it’s harder for you to grasp this part. so let me put it this way: think of the most embarrassing shit you’ve done. called your teacher mum and everyone laughed? peed yourself in public? pretended to talk on the phone and your phone ended up ringing? whatever. the most embarrassing shit you’ve done. think of that. feel what you felt at that point. oh my god, what did people think of you?

do you want your crush or your partner of a few months know… that? say it involved a second person. say you… shat yourself on your best friend’s expensive, newly bought couch, felt so embarrassed you left the house and deleted all your social media and never answered their calls.

say your partner brings them up.

would you… tell them that?

i don’t mean to trivialise mental illness here (i’m struggling with my own). it’s much more complex (guilt, self-blaming, embarrassment, sadness) than what i’m saying here. i’m just breaking it down to a point where hopefully even the most abled person can understand.

you’re expecting someone who deals with this every day to just tell their partner. it’s not that easy. it’s a lot of compartmentalising that needs to be done, so you can tell that story without breaking down completely. what happened to even broke him enough to switch to a new school. that’s not something you just tell someone, regardless if you’re together with them, without having thought it through for weeks—even months—and analysed each possible turnout and reaction. that’s not something you tell someone unless you really, really, really need to.

that’s not to say that it’s… bad. that even and sana weren’t honest with isak from the start. but it’s what it is. even isn’t perfect. sana isn’t perfect. isak isn’t perfect. none of these characters are completely perfect. why not? because they’re supposed to be realistic, human and resound to us. we’re supposed to be able to relate to them, in a way.

lastly, but most importantly: stop thinking you’re so bloody entitled to send shitty asks to people, especially the muslims, people of colour and disabled people of this fandom.

now that i’ve said my piece, kindly don’t find your way into my inbox and think it’s time to discuss. as i said, it’s not up for discussion.

don’t understand what i’m talking about? congratulations, you just won the prize: read this post again until you get it.

peace the fuck out.

#howling #long post #. because read more break would give the people the option not to read this.

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