little girl, a patient: can I have a lollipop
doctor merlin in the 21st century: can you have— I have created butterflies from nothing and horses from smoke. I have seen empires rise, fall, crumble, and start from nothing but a fish in a poor man’s hand. I’ve fought witches and failed them too. I’ve laid waste to armies and blessed nations of people with health that will never make up for it. I have pantsed Kings and kissed Queens. I have stood upon the precipice of this world and called forth the ocean only for time to swallow me whole and spit me back out. And I would do it all again if I could grant you, dear Matilda, a lollipop.
little girl: strawberry?
merlin: say no more, Tilda, this should clear up the taste of that cold medicine right away
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I often think about post-canon Marik and how he will ultimately need to reconcile with what's left of YM and find a way forward that doesn't give short shrift to either of them and that this process will Not be helped by the fact that Ishizu Ishtar hates Yami Marik's guts like fire she wants that fucker dead in the ground so bad all "that parasite is NOT my brother he's a MONSTER he RUINED OUR LIFE." 'cuz ultimately that is your brother just as much as the other one and you will need to accept that. Looking forward to their blowout fight about this in ~6 years.
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thinking about a no upside down au steddie fic where steve and eddie run into each other years after moving away from hawkins, and eddie remembers steve and his fall from grace as king, and is kind of intrigued to see what kind of person he is now
and steve doesn’t remember him at all at first, because, look, eddie changed his hair again, and steve’s had a few head injuries (no upside down but i imagine he still went thru some shit with the party and with robin), and he didn’t really think about eddie in high school anyway, and he’s trying to forget about hawkins as much as possible (besides the kiddos, but they’re all moved out for college now, anyway) (obviously he lives with robin)
but steve is different now, happier, more open, flirts with guys, flirts with EDDIE, and eddie….. well, he wants to know more! and he tells steve he knows him from hawkins, and steve’s sunny little smile flickers a little, but he just apologizes for not remembering him and mentions he has some memory problems
and they get to know each other, and eventually as eddie tells him more (and maybe with the help of some yearbooks) steve remembers eddie. and. well. they like getting to know each other. and they like each other. and then they get together
eventually they’ve been together for a while, and eddie thinks he wants to maybe introduce steve to wayne, and he mentions he’s going to go back to hawkins for a long weekend (as he’s done a couple times) and this time he’d like steve to join him
and again steve’s sunny smile flickers a bit, but he says he’d love to meet eddie’s uncle, and… they go to hawkins. and it goes well— meeting wayne, at least, but steve seems a little on edge the whole time they’re there, tense when they drive in, fidgety when they go to the grocery store, et cetera. eddie thinks maybe steve is nervous about staying with the man who raised eddie, which is ridiculous, because wayne LOVES steve.
it’s not til they leave the town altogether that steve relaxes, and eddie realizes it wasn’t “meeting the parents” but rather going back to hawkins. and speaking of meeting the parents, steve didn’t ever bring his own up, even though eddie knew they still lived in hawkins. and the way steve glanced around whenever they went in public, like he was scared of getting recognized
and he asks about it, and steve doesn’t really want to talk about it, but he gives eddie snippets of it. people he wanted to leave behind in hawkins, memories that resurfaced, things he wants to forget
eddie goes back to see wayne sometimes, and the first time he doesn’t know whether to ask steve to come, so he just mentions he’s thinking about going to hawkins for some weekend and steve immediately starts making plans with him as if the invite is implicit. they go back to hawkins several more times, steve still tense and pent up the whole time they’re there
over time steve reveals more and more to eddie. everything that made hawkins hell for him, from the things he himself did in high school to the things people did to him. stuff tommy and carol and billy said to him. some of it is just typical high school bullshit (and oh, the nancy thing.) some of it is the tragedies steve went through, the horrors he had to protect his kids from. the injuries he sustained. more generally the homophobia that permeated the whole town, keeping steve from being himself. the lack of support in the indiana public school system for a high school senior who’s had two concussions and gone through incredible trauma.
his parents. the reason why steve’s mail is addressed to ‘steve buckley’ now, not ‘steve harrington’.
(that doesn’t come out until much, much later, and eddie is kicking himself for ever suggesting steve come back to hawkins.)
eddie, who hardly had an easy time of it in hawkins, is absolutely blown away by what steve had gone through in the same town, right under his nose. the entire persona that steve was trying to leave behind — the cool as a cucumber, unaffected, douchey mask he wore to hide all that he had endured. the head injuries. the emotional tragedies he had gone through. the way he had to be the rock for the kids even as he went through the same things as them.
he tries to tell steve they never have to go back to hawkins again, and steve is having none of it. he tells steve wayne can come visit them in their new city, and steve thinks that’s completely unfair to the man who had raised eddie, seriously, you’re going to make him come all the way up here?
and well i don’t know exactly what the ending is but steve is so stubborn about trying to love hawkins because it was eddie’s home and he wants to be able to go see wayne because wayne deserves to see his kid and eddie deserves to see his uncle and steve doesn’t want to be the problem :(
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Pride's a strange time for me. For years it was a quiet, sad, hopeful little silent celebration for me -- for as long as it took to get my family all the way out of the cult where we trained, and worked, and worshiped, and lived.
Whenever we run into people from the cult who've made it out -- really out, not just left but stopped believing in the demons that haunt forbidden things waiting to latch onto us, and the immediate perfection of the soul, and our responsibility to personally bring about the imminent end of the world -- when we find them it's like finding family. They know what it was like.
So we sat around the table, the other night, talking about how the church attached to it closed down, and how much worse we felt for a while after we left, and how much better we feel now. And then one of them said that the cult might be about to close too. They're running out of money. They have been for a long time, but they've got no land and no companies left to sell.
So I went into Pride with a strange feeling of collapse -- restraint gone with the walls of the place that used to stand between me and the rest of you.
My sister just left a few months ago. My mom a few months before that. Neither of them has really processed how it was, though they've started to understand a bit. When I try to talk to them about it, they shut down. The boundaries of the things they're not allowed to think still hold. They might always. Hell is a deep fear.
It's strange that the one thing I'm thankful I took from the cult was my partner. I'm so glad I've got him -- me, a dyke, not that I knew that when I got married; my first kiss was my wedding day and we hadn't done more than hold hands. He was the first one to ask if I wanted to leave. He wanted me to be okay more than he wanted me to stay. He's been the first one to gladly hear all the things I was doubting and all the forbidden things I'd learned. He's made space for me and kept liking me while I've learned how to be angry and sad and assertive and tired. He's figured out how to be my partner now that I can't be his wife any more.
For a while we had plans to separate as soon as I finished college. My cult's college degree is unaccredited and I have no work experience outside them and the church. I don't even know how to write a resume. We've had to postpone that indefinitely. Kiddo has multiple disabilities, and one of us needs to stay with her, and my partner has work experience, so he's bringing in the income. We're in a holding pattern. And yet.
Our house does not belong to them. None of our income comes through them. They don't have access to records of our spiritual care or our mental health. I have an ex-fundie lesbian therapist, and meds, and friends. I've got a queer book club. I can go to Pride with my family, look across the street at my friend from the cult praying and protesting the event, and know that if she sees me, it doesn't matter any more. I own my soul.
Year by year the boundaries of me get clearer. I don't feel like a ghost now, and I'm figuring out how to be a person.
I've been here on tumblr for twelve years, over the whole course of this slow escape, from the year I married my husband until now. A lot of what I saw here helped me imagine a happy future for us, and learn about queer history, and give a sense of family and a place in the world. I know some of you are coming from similar pain, and I hope you know I'm with you. And I don't talk about my life on here that often, but it's good that I can. The only people left living with me love all of me. Happy Pride, y'all.
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I make tea for R every day, fairly regularly. It takes two minutes to steep to get the right color when I add the milk. Usually its not a problem for me to stay present through the two minutes
But lately I’ve suddenly lost time between starting and ending, and I’m stood confused to when it was I started the tea. Like clockwork, its just two minutes. But I can’t help but wonder if its making tea that triggers a switch or if I’m switching on some lower capacity every two minutes or so..
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