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an-aura-about-you · 3 years

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so here’s a fun story: I had been getting some texts from an unknown number on and off since last November. All of them have been pretty generic, usually emoji clusters or impersonal seasonal greetings. Harmless enough stuff that I had guessed was from a wrong number or a shy acquaintance.

Until today.

See, I had asked about this number when the texts started, checking with my sibling if they knew what number it was. They said it looked like the number of one of our mother’s friends at her Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I was like, “Well that’s a bit weird but ultimately harmless.” And there was also the possibility that the texts were meant for a man named Gary since he somehow has the same number? I don’t know what the deal is with that, maybe his number is one off of mine or something, but I’ve received calls and texts meant for him before and apparently he’s also received calls meant for me. In hindsight, I really should have blocked the number back then, but I try not to do that unless they give me a reason. And boy howdy did they ever today.

The text I got today was definitely about me. Whoever was texting knew I recently had a birthday, though I initially guessed they didn’t know the exact date since that was almost three weeks ago, and how old I was. And in all this time they never introduced themselves and I never responded.

I got pretty scared at this point, thinking over how open I am with my info but still wondering who had my phone number and would text me like that. I may be an open book, but I’m not handing my phone number out like candy. But thankfully, before I started to freak out too bad, I decided to text Dad about the number. It’s not the first time a family member like an aunt or an uncle has texted me out of the blue, though it’s the first time they’ve done so without introducing themselves.

And Dad said the number was my mother’s.

For those who are new around here, I chose to estrange myself from my mother due to a childhood and young adulthood full of emotional abuse resulting in a toxic relationship. I haven’t spoken to her or willingly been in her presence in well over a decade by this point. And while my life is no longer dominated by the fear she instilled in me or the anger at how she mistreated me, I don’t plan on trying to have a relationship with her now or anytime in the near future.

It’s just... how is this a logical move? Who would see an anonymous text that unambiguously tells them the sender has information on them and think, “Yes, this is a person I definitely want to talk to; we shall surely be the best of friends!”???? I was legit considering calling some kind of authorities about this depending on Dad’s answer.

Skipping past the bad idea of my mother sending me texts in the first place, why on earth would she send me a text about my birthday three weeks after the fact? I mean, she was there when it happened. She SHOULD know when it is. And even if she could somehow forget that, my birthday is still super easy for my family to remember because it’s the day before Dad’s birthday. Was it to throw off my suspicion? Because I will admit that worked for a moment, but it just made the whole thing creepier! This is like when this guy at work I had never spoken to outside of occasionally saying, “Hello,” on the elevator got my name off my badge and started trying to flirt with me on Skype! (fyi he’s probably the reason our work badges don’t have names on them anymore and thank goodness for that. fuck that asshole!)

I don’t know if this is worth mentioning, but another thing that threw suspicion off my mother is me thinking she didn’t text or at least didn’t like to text. I guess she must have figured it out at some point and thought I’d be more amiable to that. And I guess she was technically right, but mainly because I was working under the notion I was receiving well-meaning texts from a wrong number who would be told by the correct recipient that they hadn’t got the message. And like I said, her texts were mostly emoji clusters and impersonal seasonal greetings. To paraphrase our good friend Strong Bad, it feels like she’s finally hit the Information Superhighway like a flaming sack of crap.

It all just boggles the mind, and if I didn’t write it down I’m sure I would just stew on it. Hell, since I’m still in the process of writing, it’s hard to tell if I might just stew on it anyway or not since I’m still thinking on it. But the number is blocked, I’m pretty good emotionally speaking, and my brain is just about exhausted on trying to wrap itself around the why of the matter.

#parental abuse mention #this is like a level of brain hurty normally reserved for a particularly bad math error at work

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quinnhayden · 3 years

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so i know it's a What If/au thought right now (as far as you've let us know 👀) but while rereading kintsukuroi, i just keep thinking of sam joining the trio and the Potential Content,, , specifically just like sam, bucky, and quinn ganging up on steve with sweet words to see how flustered they can get him. or sam lowkey but actually highkey seriously flirting with them both just to get a rise out of bucky, only to flip the flirting onto him if he gets a reaction. i just really love sam wilson 🥺💙

FIRST OF ALL WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO LEAVE THIS SOFT SAM CONTENT IN MY INBOX AND THEN JUST LEAVE?!!!??

Secondly....,,,,...have some soft Sam and Quinn content from an abandoned AU of the trio adding Sam to the mix in Wakanda 🥺🥰

———————

As much as she needs it to, Quinn could run clear across Wakanda and it still wouldn’t help. It’s still there, under her skin. Buzzes and thrums and eats her up inside and she doesn’t know that she’ll ever escape this. Sometimes, she wonders about the real reason Steve took a swan dive in the ice. It tempts her, when she’s in the lake, to sink under the water and never come back up, suffocate what’s inside her. Naïve, she tried to brand it Fenrir, pretend it was this separate, rabid beast. She tried to quench the thirst with blood, but it still wants. It needs to move, it needs the violence, and it chafes at what she has here. It’ll never stop because it isn’t Fenrir. It’s Quinn.

This all makes her so ashamed. Too ashamed to be around her soulmates. It doesn’t matter that they’re both asleep. Well, she itches to move, but when she realized why she needed to move then that’s when the shame started up. So, she leaves their little plot and walks on the lake’s shoreline. Like this’ll help ease her mind. Whatever. Better to walk around than roll over, wake Steve up, and have him stare at her like she’s about to shatter.

Fish brush too close to the surface of the water and ripples disturb the moon’s reflection in the water. Fuck, she’s exhausted. Tired down to her bones. There is peace here. First time in decades, she can rest, so why doesn’t she want that? Why do her knuckles ache to be split back open, ache to clench, ache to be drenched in blood? The more she’s without the actual violence, the more it raises hell inside her. It claws at her throat, pokes and prods in her brain, and makes her feel too much like a feral animal.

Quinn comes to a stop. There’s someone else at the shoreline. Well, at a tree that’s close to the lake. She hesitates when he doesn’t call out to her or even nod toward her. He has a reason to be up at this hour and she thinks it’s not a nice one, so she decides to approach him.

“Sam?”

No response. Sam keeps quiet, like he doesn’t even know she’s there. Sure, she has enhanced senses, but the moon is round and full. He should be able to see her, enhanced or not. She walks in his direct line of vision, knows he can see her, but he still doesn’t move. Damn, he must be zoned out bad. It must’ve been a real bad dream. She crouches down and debates on whether she should do this or not, but…touch helps her a lot when she’s stuck in her own head. What’s the worst that could happen? He couldn’t hurt her all that bad if he happened to lash out on accident.

“Sam?” Quinn repeats quietly and reaches out to touch his bare shoulder. His skin is still slick with sweat. Thankfully, he only blinks and his attention snaps over to her. He tenses up underneath her hand, so she slowly pulls back. Puts a little distance between them. “Howdy,” she drawls with a little smile. Until he sends her away, she’ll sit with him and plops down there in front of him. “You here with me?”

“What—” is he confused about where he is? Does he not know what happened? He sucks in a shaky breath, rubs both his hands across his face, and then shakes his head. Tries to shake it off. She can taste his hesitation in the air, like he thinks about if he wants to lie to her. He breathes out slowly, his body relaxes, and he answers with a low, “Yeah, I’m back.” Then, he wipes away the sweat from his forehead, pulls his arm away, and scrunches his nose at it.

Quinn’s been around Sam when he had a bad dream, once or twice. All she ever did was help lull him back to sleep and when they woke up, he never talked about it. She thinks she should’ve made him. “You look like a man that could use a drink,” she decides on. She needs to make him talk to her but not pull his teeth out about it.

“You look like a woman that could use some sleep. A shower, too. Why the hell are you out this late?”

“Sam, at this hour, I think it’s considered early. Not late.” The news makes him moan in exasperation and she smiles wryly. “I was too wired to sleep. Didn’t want to lay around in bed, so I went on a run. Still ain’t sure why y’all hoot and holler so much about me bein’ alone. The worst I have to worry about here are panther attacks and I could handle that. Y’know, I’d like to see who’d win that, actually—me or the panther.”

Sam leans back on the tree and slumps while he chuckles. “They’ll probably throw you out of the country because you punched a national icon.”

“Good point. I’ll outrun it then. Steve doesn’t need two soulmates who caused an international disaster.” Classic diversion tactic, Wilson, to make this about her. Quinn’s not about to take the bait. She’s too much of an expert when it comes to this particular method. “So, you want to tell me where you went? Or are we not supposed to talk about it?”

“All the times you woke me up in the hotel room with your screams and wouldn’t talk to me about it, I think I’m allowed one,” he shoots back and it’s sharp, a little mean. He winces when he realizes it came out nastier than he meant. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it sound like that.”

“Don’t tell me sorry. I know you didn’t mean it.” She’ll never take it personally. Hell, Sam is allowed this. He’s allowed a lot. He’s dealt with her shit—and Steve’s, too, since they spent so much time on the road with each other. “And I won’t make you talk about it, but you wouldn’t let me be alone when I wanted that. So, I won’t let you be alone, either.”

“You didn’t have a choice. We were trapped. There was literally no place you could’ve went.”

“Oh, trust me, I could’ve went anywhere else. I could’ve went on a run, went to swim at a pool, went to some bar or diner to eat…like I said, anywhere.” She waves around them more to motion that that’s what she’s up to now. She hopes he can’t see how nervous or uncomfortable it makes her to admit this.

Look, in order for Sam to be emotionally vulnerable with her, she has to show him that she can do it, too. He doesn’t have to deal with whatever this alone. Because…because…well, she didn’t comprehend this until now, but he is. Alone. Wanda…she won’t admit it, but she always books it to spend time with Vision more often than not. Natasha tends to spend her downtime with Clint because it’s not hard on her to become someone else. Quinn, Steve, and Bucky…as in a weird spot as they are, they all still have each other. Where’s that all leave Sam?

Jesus Christ, she and her soulmates are literally the most oblivious people on the planet.

While Quinn has a quick mental breakdown over how stupid she’s been, Sam apparently has his own epiphany. “All those runs in D.C or when we were stuck at a hotel—” he knocks his head back on the tree. Surely to God he doesn’t blame himself that he didn’t see this sooner. Honest, Quinn’s not really embarrassed that much by this. A run or a swim is a lot healthier way to cope than some of the dumb stunts she’s pulled in the past. “Man, I told myself you just really liked to run.”

“No one likes to run, Sam, especially at the ass-crack of dawn. Except maybe Steve…and even then, I still ain’t sure. I never really ask him why he does it. Bucky’s told me that, before the war, Steve never used to wake up that early. Steve says the army switched him around.” She picks at the grass between them. “Don’t take it so hard. It’s…half and half with me. Sometimes, I really am too wired to sleep. I think that’s the ADHD, I don’t know.” He raises a brow. Oh. Did she not tell him about that? Well, now he knows. “Other times, I need an out.”

“Now?”

She squirms uncomfortably, but she needs to be open. Show him that this is a two-way street—that she can trust him and he can trust her. “A little bit of both? I—” she needs to not be emotionally repressed. Just because she was born in the twenties doesn’t mean she has to act like it. “Don’t tell Steve and Bucky, okay?” He nods wordlessly and that helps her move on. “This is all I ever wanted, did you know that? When we were those three dumb kids back in a war, I wanted to have a place where we could settle down and love in peace. We have that now. For the first time in…in seventy years, we have peace. So, why do I have this itch under my skin that I can’t scratch? Why the fuck is all I think about when the next mission is? Why can’t I—why don’t I want the peace?”

“Honest opinion?”

“God, yes, Sam. You know I always want you to be honest with me.”

Sam pauses, thinks about how to explain it. “SHIELD learned you had a super soldier serum, knew that they wouldn’t ever have Steve back, and they made you Captain America.” She balks at that because…no. No. Other than the fact that she could never be Captain America, what she did on Hydra’s dime was not what heroes like Steve do. “Okay, not Captain America to you, but definitely Captain America to everyone else. Point is that you spent seventy years as a soldier. Maybe you took some time off here and there, but compared to Steve and Barnes, you never had a break in the ice. That messes a person up.” His voice lowers and he’s sad. It makes her hurt to hear him hurt and…that’s all for her. Why’s it for her? “They made you into a weapon as much as they made your boys one. I’m not sure you’ve known it any other way than this, Quinn.”

That…that really is a…a fair point. She never stopped to think about it like that. Still, “I’m—no, I don’t know how true that is. I…can someone be born with violence in their blood? Because my knuckles have been bloody since the day…some asshole pulled on my ponytail and called my pa names.” She runs a shaky hand through her hair. “At least it ain’t all me. I think Steve has this problem, too. Swear to God, I don’t know how you and Bucky deal with us.”

“Guess me and Barnes have a type—dumb blondes with hearts of gold and a chip on their shoulder. You’re both real pretty. That helps, too.”

Quinn’s really happy it’s dark out. Sam won’t be able to see how red her cheeks are. “Shut up.” The mood sobers when she remembers that this wasn’t supposed to be about her and he spun it around so that’s all it became. “Aw, Jesus, Sam, this wasn’t supposed to be about me. Stop takin’ care of everyone else, asshole. Tell me what’s on your mind for once.”

“I can’t lie and say I don’t remember what the dream was about, can I?”

“It don’t help that you admitted you want to lie to me. You couldn’t pull one over on me that easy, no how. Someone doesn’t check out the way you did over a dream they don’t remember.” She pauses and her heart breaks a little bit more. Everyone has bad dreams, she reasoned when Sam would wake her up with his, so she never pushed. He’s been such a rock that she never stopped to think how much he’s eroded under the pressure. “It…it ain’t always been like this, has it? Sam, how much has this happened to you?”

“It isn’t like I can call up my therapist and talk to him,” he shoots back. It’s hard not to react to that because she’s the reason he can’t do that. This isn’t about her and she turns her head to the side so he can’t see her expression. “No. Don’t do what Steve does, damn it. Don’t put this on you. I could’ve went with the Accords on my own, but I didn’t. This was all my own choice,” he makes sure to remind her. It doesn’t help, but she reels her emotions back in and looks back over at him. “It hasn’t been. This bad in a while, okay? Honestly. It hasn’t been like this since—” Riley, he doesn’t say, but he doesn’t need to. Oh. Oh. It all makes so much sense now. Yeah, she…she thinks she understands now. Sam was there, up close and personal, reached out to try and catch Rhodey, and watched him drop the same way he saw Riley drop.

There are times that words won’t help. Words can sound like pity and in situations like these, it’ll only feel like salt rubbed on an open wound. This is done. For now. He’s open and exposed and she won’t risk it to have him close back up. “C’mon, we both need to sleep a little.” She clambers to stand and reaches a hand out toward him. He cocks his head to the side. “What? I said I wouldn’t let you be alone and you’re tired, I can tell.”

“Yeah, you’re tired, too. You also have two soulmates to run back to.” He dismisses her with a wave. “Shoo. I can handle it on my own.”

He absolutely can and will not handle it on his own. Not anymore. Not while Quinn lives and breathes. “I do. You don’t. Since when has that mattered? This ain’t no different than all those motel rooms.” He doesn’t move and she puts her hands on her hips. “I can and will carry your ass.”

It almost seems like Sam is about to throw a hissy fit about this. He throws his arms up in the air, but he’s not exactly the scariest person out there. “You won’t take no for an answer, will you?” Now he understands. He’s always been quick to the uptake. She beams at him in triumph. “Fine. Whatever. Shit, you’re merciless.” Then, he takes her hand that’s still stretched out to him, and she helps him up to his feet. “Steve and Barnes won’t be worried?”

“Probably will be, but they won’t push about it. We’ve let each other have our space here lately. I’ve lived with Steve, but never with Bucky. Steve’s lived with Bucky and me, but never at the same time. Bucky’s only lived with Steve and he sometimes can’t even remember those days,” she explains as he leads her inside his hut. “I don’t think it’s been this awkward between us since—hell, since the day they told me they were my soulmates.”

Inside the hut, Sam motions toward the mat, the wordless ladies first. She smiles crookedly at him before she drops down on it and stretches out with a pleased moan. It becomes pretty obvious how much she’s worn herself out since she came back from the mission. Endless runs and swims with very little sleep. Oh, this isn’t her bed. How rude. She shimmies over until she’s made a spot next to her for Sam.

Compared to Quinn, who went and made herself at home, Sam is a lot tenser when he settles down on the mat. He’s situated on his back and stares up at the roof of the hut. At first, she thinks he’s so hesitant because he’s scared to have a bad dream, but this isn’t that. This…the air around them is awkward, not upset. She doesn’t know why the hell he’s so bent out of shape about this. It can’t be because of the whole soulmate deal. Steve and Quinn were married when the three of them went on that manhunt for two whole years, for fuck’s sake.

Determined to make him comfortable, she rolls over on her side and stares him down. Hopefully, she can scare him into comfort since he wants to be all stubborn about it. This shouldn’t be so weird, especially when he’s silently hurt and never told another soul about it. Hell, she wants to wrap an arm around his waist, press close and hold him, but she can’t push. Besides, she never deliberately did that before. Not like it’d really matter because they always ended up as spoons when they woke up in hotel rooms which is what’ll happen here. And, sure, physical contact tends to help her—and Steve and Bucky—out, but it may not help everyone else.

Then, thank the Lord, Sam drops whatever he has held on to. The tension bleeds from his body and he rolls over to face her, too. A little bitchily, he asks, “You always have your way in the end, don’t you?” She cracks up and it’s an infectious sound because he starts to laugh with her. “God, I hate you. You tried to spin me that shit about how it’s all Steve with the apple pie charm.” His voice pitches up with an overdramatic drawl as he says, “Oh, Sam, Steve’s the one with the face no one can resist. Not me, no, sir. Not me at all.” The tone drops back down to normal. “Bullshit, Quinn. Bull-fucking-shit.”

“Yeah, I know. I know, Sam. Got me. I’m a dirty rotten liar and I always get what I want.”

———————

Both Sam and Quinn wake up, near exact the same time, and she can’t tell that it’s not her and her alone that’s shocked. Because they slept. The sun’s position up in the skies means it must be near noon, so…they slept hours. She don’t sleep like the dead, not how she used to, so she would’ve known if he’d woken up at some point to roll over or had another bad dream or whatever. He didn’t. She knows she didn’t, either. They slept completely undisturbed. That…hasn’t happened to her in…a while. With his arm wrapped around her waist, his whole body curved around hers, she probably would’ve drifted back off if she wasn’t so blown away by the fact that she slept so much. Holy shit. It probably won’t ever happen a second time, but fuck. It’s nice to wake up and be so rested.

Sam seems more than happy to sleep some more since he pulls her closer. His breath is hot on the back of her neck and he buries his nose in her hair, breathes deep. She’s a furnace, she knows. Everyone that sleeps in the same bed as her loves that. “Better let Steve and Buck know I wasn’t murdered by a panther,” she explains and he snorts in response. “Don’t be a stranger, Sam. We’re not that far away.” As she leans to sit up, she squeezes his shoulder one last time. Sam seems more than happy to roll over onto his other side and sleep some more. She smiles fondly at him one last time before she stands up and heads out. ———————

No surprise, both Steve and Bucky are up, awake, and…somewhat active. Bucky’s active, anyway. Quinn never would’ve expected that Buck would take to the farm life as well as he has. It makes a little sense, now that she thinks about it. This is productive and this work won’t bloody up his hands. Good comes from this. Sometimes, if he’s a little too wild in the eyes and there’s no work to be done on their land, he’ll head over to help the locals out in any way they need. She’s happy that he has a purpose here. It’s nice to see his eyes crinkle, nice to see his smile, nice to see him bask in the warmth and safety this place provides them…

Lord, how did she make it as many years as she did without him and Steve? No idea. Wait. No, she does know. Family. She had family to help take care of her when her boys couldn’t. Sam should have the exact same because he doesn’t have an option to see his family. She stops, so wrapped up in her head, but then stops and stares at the second hut that she and Steve have started to sleep in.

Huh. Now, there’s an idea.

Just maybe…oh, but she’d need to talk to Steve and Bucky before she thinks about this any more than she already has. Okay, she would probably only need to talk to Bucky because Steve would, without a doubt, be absolutely on board with this. She doesn’t think that Bucky would deny her what she wants if she bats her lashes at him, but then comes the issue of where they would sleep. Damn it, no, she’s ahead of herself. Talk first, plan later. Because she loves and respects her soulmate, she will not follow her usual mantra of: it’s better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.

As Quinn slowly approaches Bucky, she notices that Steve is down by the lake, slumped under their own tree, and he’s asleep. “I think there must be part-cat somewhere in him because all he’s done since we’ve been here is soak up the sun and sleep.”

“Go easy on him. I made him do your work.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be,” he interrupts softly. His attention keeps on the work at hand, but he casually asks, “So, where were you? You’re back earlier than this, even when you run.”

“I did run, but I stopped to visit Sam. We talked and I crashed there a little bit. Even had a nice nap,” she explains.

“You slept all that time?” She nods wordlessly and he turns back to his work. “Wilson, huh?”

#Bucky and Steve just coming up with dumb ideas on how to seduce Sam #and Quinn is here like “how the FUCK did you two manage to seduce me?’’#I FUCKING LOVE SAM WILSON #I WILL SCREAM IT TO THE HEAVENS #AND THE TRIO LOVE HIM TOO #GIVE ME MORE SAM CONTENT #my fic #sam x trio

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veliseraptor · 4 years

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Who is your favourite character in The Untamed and why? Oh, and what is your take on Lan Wangji's character?

God anon, the thing here is that my answer is basically “I love everyone in this bar!”*

*other than, like, three people

There’s just so many characters I have such good feelings about. I tried to top five it but I kept ending up with six or seven instead and then remembering more characters that I love. I just have a whole lot of feelings. I mean, the thing about me is that my true love when it comes to characters is “emotionally dysfunctional people with terrible lives” and that’s basically what we’ve got going on here.

But I guess if I’m picking a few:

1. Wei Wuxian. I mean, I walked into this show because of him and I walked out of this show with a new adoptee (this one). There’s so many buttons getting hit here, and it’s not just “evil flute music sexy” or “narrative kink for stories about the way that the stories people tell about people shape a person” but it is also both those things.

Like, if ever someone gave me an introduction designed to make me go ‘oh, this one’s mine now’ it’s...well, both number one and two on this list.

It’s just...watching that opening scene, and then two episodes later getting slingshot back into the past with someone who seems completely different, and watching those cracks grow and form with each hit he takes...is really good for my narrative kinks.

But also...he’s such a determined-to-be-good boy, he’s such a conciliator in all of these ways that make me feel things, I’m always a sucker for someone who is self-destructive while not always realizing that they’re being self-destructive, who has this particular type of selflessness that becomes self-immolation and also leads to a whole bunch of collateral damage. I have a thing for people who are desperately hiding their dysfunction because they don’t want anyone to know that they’ve got any.

Like. He’s such a mess. He’s got a big heart and a lot of love to give and he’s an enormous fucking mess. And like. The family issues? The self worth issues? Just a whole bunch of things designed to hit me right where I live.

And evil flute music sexy.

2. Xue Yang. I know myself well enough that sometimes I can look at a character and within thirty seconds of their introduction go ‘oh I’m going to like this one’ and 90% of the time I am right and that is what happened with my new favorite gremlin. Yes he is terrible, I love him and I want him to have nice things.

This was true before we got to the Yi City arc and I was like. oh thanks for hitting me in my dysfunctional fucked up ship feelings, show, I needed another one of these! Which, I mean, I did need one, because I always do, but hoo boy.

I just...love a deeply feral and absolutely ruthless murder bastard. The sheer level of “fuck it” energy coming off him all the time. The absolute commitment to the psychological destruction of his nemesis slash boyfriend. The psychological fuckery of spending many, many years trying to resurrect the nemesis slash boyfriend you drove to suicide. The weird murder friendship with Jin Guangyao. (Friends help you be complicit in the murder of two of five sect leaders!)

I love it. And him. That Good Shit.

3. Lan Wangji. Possibly this is like. Transitive property of character love because I love Wei Wuxian so much and obviously Wei Wuxian is fucking head over face in love with Lan Wangji, so - but also I just think he’s a very good boy?? He’s a disaster gay primarily passing as a functional gay by virtue of not talking enough for people to notice how much of a disaster he is. He’s spending a good half the show having a whole-ass moral existential crisis, which while I don’t find it relatable I do find deeply endearing.

And just. I’m always going to be a sucker for ‘character who has a whole lot of emotions but doesn’t want anyone to know’ and that’s very Lan Wangji. He’s just! Very good. I am thinking about the scene with him drunk later in the show and that especially just makes me want to grab him and hug him only he wouldn’t like it.

I don’t know, he just gives me a lot of very squishy feelings where I want to tell him that he’s good and it’s not his fault that his boyfriend went over the literal edge.

4. Jin Guangyao. It’s funny because on my first watch I didn’t notice him all that much for a while (I was busy! having Wangxian and sibling feelings mainly, especially the latter tbh, and some bonus ‘adopting a new horrible gremlin’ feelings), and then we hit the Nie Mingjue flashback episode and I was like. oh shit I love you. you’re coming home with me now.

I mean, that’s not totally unexpected, I am weak to characters who are a) schemers b) have a lot of shit going on with identity and perception and c) do a lot of really certifiably horrible shit, and I just. pocket sized murder kitten and he belongs to me, I will continue to call him Jiggy forever but that is only because he is yet another of my terrible sons

5. Lan Xichen. Another character I was like - warm and positive toward through my first rewatch and then at the end when he was completely shattering was like “oh hey I love him now.” And then also seeing people in fandom talk shit about him and going “oh hey I love him more now.”

And then on my rewatch just like. Loving him even more because...yeah he makes some poor choices sure but he’s also just full of such...warmth and generosity? Like, this is a guy who, in a world where everyone is leaping to conclusions all the time, is like ‘maybe let’s not leap to conclusions and give people the benefit of the doubt sometimes, you guys.’ And I like that in a man. It seems like he’s almost compensating for everyone else by going maybe a little bit overboard.

But when did “characters making good choices” be something that qualifies anyone for a favorite of mine? The answer is never.

Also I deeply appreciate his commitment to Lan Wangji and by extension his position as the Founder of the Wangxian Fan Club (co-founder with Jiang Yanli, I’d say, but I think he did get there first). And his consistent expression of exhaustion through the whole thing. Characters who need and deserve a nap: Xichen, and not just the depression one he’s taking post-canon.

6. Jiang Cheng. Didn’t see that one coming but in retrospect probably should have! I’m always going to have emotions about emotionally dysfunctional people with inferiority complexes who have a whole lot of feelings but only really know how to express one of them. Also just like. The entirety of the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng was designed to hit me right in the place where I live and boy howdy did it succeed in leaving me hurting a lot for them both.

And just. This boy is such a disaster! He’s miserable! Everything in his life kinda sucks and he’s not helping himself and definitely not dealing with any of his issues at all! I feel like he needs a nap and a five year hug in the worst way.

But also like. All my love for Wen Qing and Wen Ning both? I’m acquiring more Jiang Yanli feelings on the regular? The entire Yi City Disaster Crew is gold and their dynamics are *chef fingers* amazing? I love all of the juniors but maybe especially Jin Ling so much???

(I do not have as many Nie brother feelings, but I feel like I could get talked into them with very little effort on anyone’s part, especially with Nie Huaisang. I already have feelings about the NHS/JGY relationship, so.)

like this is very much one of those pieces of media where I’m like ‘yes maybe I have latched onto these two characters most but G O D I love them all so much, taking them all home with me for therapy and hot chocolate.”

#anonymous #conversating #the sad queer cultivators show #hey anon sorry for the feelings vomit

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piplupod · 3 years

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just a small grumble but boy howdy i am tired of feeling like this dbdhfjdl it feels like im dragging around a ball&chain emotionally and mentally all fuckin day and it's EXHAUSTING!! like i rly genuinely feel like to think One Clear Thought i am hauling it to the surface, out of the fog, with my full mental capacity!!!

#>:(#annoyed w self!!! everything is very exhausting n words take so much energy #thats why i am enjoying embroidery bc u dont have to think abt it while doing it and u just do the thing #thread in and out and in and out

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fairycosmos · 4 years

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Chloe!!!!! I finally cut off my extremely emotionally abusive ex lover turned attempted friend!!! The whole convo she was trying to turn it back on me and guilt trip me into apologizing for being upset at her actions! But I DIDNT! Boy howdy!!!! It was exhausting and draining but I stood up for myself!!!! I did it!!!!!

hgjfdsweirr9eirfeo34irfn BITCH!!! i am…..from the very core of my being……..so fucking proud of you 🥺🥺🥺 like that must have been so hard especially if you’ve been manipulated by her for a while, especially if you once cared for her. and yet you still managed to stand your ground and to demand the love/treatment you deserve. that’s such a valuable skill to develop and encourage within yourself bro. like you’re honestly going to feel the benefit of this choice for years to come. sometimes we just have to say enough is enough and really mean it i suppose!! it’s very telling that she was just trying to guilt trip you the whole time, that’s so childish and annoying, and i’m so sorry you’ve been through some bullshit because :( i know it can do a real number on the way you perceive everything. but the healing has already begun. you deserve better and now you can finally start truly accepting that. ladies……..we Won

#what a weight off ur shoulders what a stain off the carpet we love healthy decisions i feel like a bird soaring thru the mountains #anon

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not-poignant · 6 years

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The last scene of that TGA chapter was simultaneously heartwarming and sad cause of how close they’re becoming as a couple but the reality of their situation sinking in, god I loved every second of it I almost feel like Pitch secretly loves it when Jack expresses emotion/distress over things, because Pitch seems to have deliberately cut himself off from feeling a lot of emotion. It’s like he finds some sense of catharsis through Jack’s emotional rollercoasters? Did I just make any sense?

You made a TON of sense, and you’re also spot on, so let me use this ask to talk about it because it’s one of the things I enjoy about Pitch and Jack’s dynamic in The Golden Age so much and I’m sure you didn’t mean to enable me in this manner BUT HERE WE ARE and I am thus enabled, so:

Anton’s made a joke about Pitch being ‘emotionally constipated’ pretty recently, and Pitch himself has shown like an immense capacity to not generally feel intense emotion a lot of the time. Or, if he does, to hide that. For like hundreds of thousands of words his expressions are often ‘unreadable’ or he seems mildly annoyed or frustrated, or exceptionally in control, or mildly pleased, or smirking.

That makes him a hot Dom under certain circumstances, but it also makes him superbly dysfunctional - which we see when he refuses Jack aftercare in part to distance himself from Jack, and when he refuses to communicate clearly to Jack at the expense of both of their safety (there is more than one occasion where Pitch’s inability to communicate well and his unwillingness to place any faith in Jack ends up with Jack squarely back under the attention of the Tsar and wanting to yield to him instead, because at least the Tsar says he cares).

It’s like that ‘joke’ that the Tsar makes - Pitch is sheltering Jack under his wing, but that wing is broken.

The only times we ever really see any heights of emotion from him is when he’s starting to open up to Jack more, fairly clumsily, when Jack’s life is directly threatened (Bunnymund) - and boy howdy did that shock Pitch as much as it did anyone else, and when he’s around Seraphina. And even then, a lot of the time it’s still pretty muted for him. He’s probably been at his most raw when he’s threatened Bunnymund with murder for nearly killing Jack, and when he sees Seraphina again after their absence after escaping the Palace.

He’s not incapable of feeling raw emotion, but he has a massive buffer between himself and it, and he can’t often feel it for himself. So he has the next best thing, which is feeling it through others. It’s not a coincidence, for example, that one of the members of his chosen family is Anton, who feels things brightly, and expresses himself with intensity. Pitch is drawn to it. (See also: Fyodor).

Jack, by comparison to Pitch, feels everything with too much intensity. For him, the word is too much, too bright, and while we’ve seen him retreat into complete apathy when he hits major exhaustive burnout, it never lasts long. He’s always thrust back into an intensity of feeling that you know, frankly, is pretty hard for him. He manages it well, but he feels more hope than Bunnymund, he feels about as much wonder as North does, he is like...about feeling.

He’s additionally not very good at hiding his emotions. Which for Pitch, sort of makes Jack a pleasure to be around. It’s not something that Pitch is going to reveal in a hurry, because he’s pretty sure Jack would be mortified by it, but Pitch really gets a lot out of seeing all those microexpressions flit across Jack’s face. Even as he often seeks to quench that intensity of emotion because he knows it’s just going to get Jack hurt.

That dynamic, especially from about chapter 10-30, often ended up with scenes where Pitch would first stir Jack’s emotions, and then tell him to calm down lol, or imply that Jack should cut it out, grow up, or basically not feel things as strongly. Thanks Pitch. Remember when I said the way he did things was dysfunctional?

Part of it is that Pitch is a hedonistic sadist and at any rate, he would crave Jack’s fear and his pleasure and his pain and his lust and his hope anyway. It’s multiplied by the fact that Jack feeling his pain so strongly gives Pitch a sort of...excuse to feel his own pain. ‘I have to show empathy to Jack therefore I have to understand where he’s coming from oh I guess this situation is pretty painful actually.’ It’s also why you get delayed instances of empathy from him - he cautions and reprimands Jack in the meeting, but apologises for it later and shows genuine empathy. But privately. And not around others.

SO, what you end up with, is a situation where Jack’s emotions are - as Pitch gets healthier in his self-expression around Jack - not only valid, but welcome. I think Pitch would genuinely fear for Jack, if he started to show the same hardened attitudes and apathy as Pitch has. Pitch recognises all the red flags, because he’s gone through them himself.

And he knows Jack has to go through some of it. The end of this chapter for Pitch is additionally painful because he recognises so much of himself in...how checked out Jack is. I think it’s also why- *thinks* Another Dom might leave Jack to float in the aftermath and continue not to think, but Pitch actually took the step of bringing Jack back to reality and checking in with him to see if there was an emotional need or reaction that needed to come out re: the events since arriving at the Resistance.

Incidentally, Eva and Anton have wanted this for Pitch for a really long time. They thought Fyodor would be that for him. Anton knows that Pitch sort of holds himself back from connecting to Anton in that way. And that, like, until Jack, Pitch couldn’t let himself cathart through others even though he kind of craved it. And actually, he tried to avoid it with Jack too. He may have actually succeeded at that until Anton marched over to him and said ‘what the hell are you doing to that poor boy you asshole.’

Jack just felt things too brightly, and got in under that hardened buffer, and it turns out it’s impossible to get him back out again because lord knows Pitch has tried (and mostly, happily and worriedly, given up now - though he is almost certain that if anything happens to Jack (or Seraphina), it will absolutely shatter any of his remaining humanity, so he’s also terrified pretty much a lot of the time when he’s feeling anything other than nothing at all).

Pitch is complicated basically and I love him.

#asks and answers #TGATNW #The Golden Age that Never Was #////#/////#Jack Frost #Pitch Black #Kozmotis Pitchiner #yeah look i have a lot of feelings about Pitch #and i really wish i had the time to like #write Pitch Perspectives for TGA #because i am like...#i very much want to show how it is for Pitch #who is just like...#his depression is so much a part of him now #and his despair #that in some ways it's literally a part of his integral character #hope scares the FUCK out of him #and there's Jack like #'we're gonna save the world and i have faith in you'#and my god for Pitch I think it's simultaneously like one of the best and brightest feelings #(loving Jack)#and also one of the most painful things ever #and he's kind of addicted to it #every tiny shred of raw emotion and Pitch starts to live again #administrator Gwyn wants this in the queue #and is glad he's not in this story #Anonymous

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