#things my friends said

[twentyfunnybunnies]

✨KOTLC as things my friends said✨

Marella: Y'all struggle.

Fitz, about Biana: She has little hands!! She can't write that fast!!

Sophie, sounding genuinely surprised: Wow, I'm very grinch-y today.

Dex: You have to think manually. Wait, manually? I mean mentally. But I'm just gonna say manually from now on.

Keefe: If we won, HA! Theirs must've been POOP.

Ro: Hey, Chatty Cathies! That’s everyone’s new name. Put it on a jacket.

Biana, forcing everyone to get makeovers: Are you getting claustrophobic??? Do you want me to hair spray you from WAY over here???? Do you want me to glue your eyelashes to your eyeballs?????????

#kotlc #sophie foster #keefe sencen #fitz vacker #biana vacker #kotlc ro #dex dizznee #marella redek #things my friends said #quotes by my friends

[aboutnavi]

AFTG Characters as Things My Friends Have Said™

Matt: (walking on a drive thru) I want them to prove I'm not a car.

Neil: She is jealous of me because I'm a natural red-head.

Allison: I don't wanna go to college tomorrow, I have to paint my nails.

Nicky: (crying after being rejected by their crush) It's not because I'm fat, It's not because I'm ugly. It must be because I'm tall.

Allison (outraged): I'm a lady!!! I don't dress in unisex clothes.

Kevin: Hm, I don't know, are you jealous of my stick?

Aaron: (in the vet building, judgy watching the students) I dont get it. I see all of these vet students and I think... all of them like animals???

Kevin (talking about the fact he doesn't have a middle name): A name and a last name. It's all they ask for, It's all I have.

Andrew (discussing NFT's): We need more men who make clay sculptures like God intended. See, God made the man from dust not from cryptocurrency.

Renee (still talking about NFT's and cryptocurrency): Well, none of these words are in the bible.

Aaron (answering Renee): Well, neither is homosexuality and look where we are (looking around, being surrounded by gays).

#aftg #things my friends said #incorrect aftg #nora sakavic #neil josten #all for the game #andrew minyard #renee walker #dan wilds #kevin day #nicky hemmick

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

#yeehaw #1k #5k #10k #posts that got cursed. blasted. im making these tag updates after... 19 hours? #also i have been told it should say speech loss bc nonverbal specifically refers to the permanent state. did not know that! #unfortunately i fear it is so far past containment that even if i edited it now it would do very little. but noted for future reference #edit 2: nvm enough ppl have come to rb it from me directly that i changed the wording a bit. hopefully this makes sense #also. in case anyone is curious. though i doubt anyone who is commenting these things will check the original tags #1) my friend did not do this on purpose in any way. it was not intended to distract me or to hit on me. im a lesbian hes a gay man. cmon now #he felt very bad about it afterwards. i thought it was hilarious but it was very embarrassed and apologetic #2) “why didn't he use 🫵🏼?” didn't exist yet. “why didn't he use 🆗?” dunno! we'd been using a lot of hand emojis. 👌🏼 is an ok sign #like it makes sense. it was just a silly mixup. also No i did not invent 👉🏼👌🏼 as a gesture meaning sex. do you live under a rock #3) nonspeaking episodes are a recurring thing in my life and have been since i was born. this is not a quirky one-time thing #it is a pervasive issue that is very frustrating to both myself and the people i am trying to communicate with. in which trying to speak is #extremely distressing and causes very genuine anguish. this post is not me making light of it it's just a funny thing that happened once #it's no different than if i post about a funny thing that happened in conjunction w a physical disability. it's just me talking abt my life #i don't mind character tags tho. those can be entertaining. i don't know what any of you are talking about #Except the ppl who have said this is pego/ryu or wang/xian. those people i understand and respect #if you use it as a writing prompt that's fine but send it to me. i want to see it #aaaand i think that's it. everyday im tempted to turn off rbs on it. it hasn't even been a week

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

#dungeon meshi spoilers #mithrun #dungeon meshi #this has been rotating for a while but i wanted to check my evidence before getting into it thanks user angelspenance for posting that meme #half of this is just the text and the other half i'm sure has been said before but it's making my brain [radio static] so here this is #someone did for sure mention this but i do find it very cute that in his fucked up conjured world meant to portray his ideal reality #his teammates came to visit him. like part of the fantasy was then explicitly that they cared about him and were his friends. even though #he says he tried to see the worst in them. #hm it does feel important to note that i do also believe 100% in mithrun suicidality--his desire to be eaten does seem to focus a lot on #wanting it to be Over. wanting not to be left incomplete and empty anymore. #but that loops back around a bit to the hole in your heart that appears when you feel unloved. it's many things and the same thing at once #snakes #long post #severe problems #meshy

[rusomnia]

Jason, pointing at Tim: that child is morally grey at best

#incorrect quotes #jason todd #tim drake #batboys #dcu #the batboys as things my friends have said #admittedly this one is something I've said #about my brother #batfam

[kindnessoverperfection]

Please, if you can, take a moment to read and share this because I feel like I'm screaming underwater.

NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) stigma is rampant right now, and seems to be getting progressively worse. Everyone is using it as a buzzword in the worst ways possible, spreading misinformation and hatred against a real disorder.

I could go on a long time about how this happened, why it's factually incorrect (and what the disorder actually IS), why it's harmful, and the changes I'd like to see. But to keep this concise, I'll simply link to a few posts under the cut for further reading.

The point of this post is a plea. Please help stop the spread of stigma. Even in mental health communities, even around others with personality disorders, in neurodivergent "safe" spaces, other communities I thought people would be supportive in (e.g. trans support groups, progressive spaces in general), it keeps coming up. So I'm willing to bet that a lot of people on this site need to see this.

Because it's so hard to exist in this world.

My disorder already makes me feel as if I'm worthless and unlovable, like there's something inherently wrong and damaged about me. And it's so much harder to fight that and heal when my daily life consists of:

Laughing and spending time with my friends, doing my utmost best to connect and stay present and focused on them, trying to let my guards down and be real and believe I'm lovable- when suddenly they throw out the word "narcissist" to describe horrible people or someone they hate, or the conversation turns to how evil "people with narcissistic personality disorder" are. (Seriously, you don't know which of your friends might have NPD and feels like shit when you say those things & now knows that you'd hate them if you knew.)

Trying to look up "mental health positivity for people with npd", "mental health positivity cluster bs", only to find a) none of that, and b) more of the same old vile shit that makes me feel terrible about myself.

Having a hard time (which is constant at this point) and trying to look up resources for myself, only to again, find the same stigma. And no resources.

Not having any clue how to help myself, because even the mental health field is spitting so much vitriol at people with DISORDERS (who they're supposed to be helping!) that there's no solid research or therapy programs for people like me.

Losing close friends when they find out, despite us having had a good relationship before, and them KNOWING me and knowing that I'm not like the trending image of pwNPD. Because now they only see me through the lens of stigma and misinformation.

Hearing the same stigma come up literally wherever I go. Clubs. Meetings. Any online space. At the bus stop. At the mall. At a restaurant. At work. Buzzword of the year that everyone loooves loudly throwing around with their friends or over the phone. Feels awesome for me, makes my day so much better/s

I could go on for a long time, but I'm scared no one will read/rb this if it gets too much longer.

So please. Stop using the word "narcissist" as a synonym for "abusive".

Stop bringing up people you hate who you believe to have NPD because of a stigmatizing article full of misinformation whenever someone with actual NPD opens their mouth. (Imagine if people did that with any other disorder! "Hey, I'm autistic." "Oh... my old roommate screamed at me whenever I made noise around him, and didn't understand my needs, which seems like sensory overload and difficulty with social cues. He was definitely autistic. But as long as you're self-aware and always restraining your innate desire to be an abusive asshole, you're okay I guess, maybe." ...See how offensive and ignorant that is?)

Stop preventing healthcare for people with a disorder just because it's trendy to use us as a scapegoat.

If you got this far, thank you for reading, and please share this if you can. Further reading is under the cut.

NPD Criteria, re-written by someone who actually has NPD

Stigma in the DSM

Common perception of the DSM criteria vs how someone may actually experience them (Keep in mind that this is the way I personally experience these symptoms, and that presentation can vary a lot between individuals)

"Idk, the stigma is right though, because I've known a lot of people with NPD who are jerks, so I'm going to continue to support the blockage of treatment for this condition."

(All of these were written by me, because I didn't want to link to other folks' posts without permission, but if you want to add your own links in reblogs or replies please feel free <3)

#actuallynpd #signal boost #actuallyautistic #mental health awareness #narcissistic personality disorder #people also need to realize that mental health professionals aren't immune from bias #(it really shouldn't come as a shock that the mental health field has a longstanding pattern of misunderstanding and mistreating ppl who ar #mentally ill or otherwise ND) #the first therapist i brought up NPD to like. literally pulled out the DSM bc she could barely remember the criteria. then said that there' #no way I have it because I have low self-esteem lmaoooooo #anyway throwback to being at work and chatting with a co-worker. and the conversation turning to mental health. and him saying that #he tries to stay informed and be aware and supportive of mental health conditions & that he doesn't want to be ignorant or spread harmful #misinformation. and then i mentioned that i do a lot of research into mental health stuff and i listed a bunch of things. which included #several personality disorders. one of which was NPD. #and after listening to my whole ass list he zeroed in on the NPD and immediately started talking about how narcissists are abusive and #he knew someone who had NPD and how the person who had it had an addiction and died from the addiction in a horrible way and he #was glad he did #fun times #or when i decided to be vulnerable and talk abt my self-criticism/self-hatred bc i knew my friends also struggled w that and i wanted to #support them by sharing my own coping methods. and they both(separately!) started picking and prodding at my npd through the lens of stigma #bc i'd recently opened up to them abt having it. they recognized self-hatred as a symptom and still jumped on me for it. despite me #trying to share hurt vulnerable parts of myself to help them and connect with them. #again..... fun times

[critterbitter]

Blitzle let that inner zebra slip for a second. The children are terrified. Litwick’s impressed. Truly the start to a terrible friendship.

Masterpost

(Bonus doodle under cut!)

haha thinking about ingo and litwick again…

#for those curious: elesa just said the exact same thing ingo said: ie: THESE R MY ONLT FRIENDS DO NOT SCARE THEM AWAY. #oh and: sugar??? sugar instead of the candle???? #anyways ✨ mayhem ✨ #submas #pokemon #sketchbook #art #myart #fanart #pokemon ingo #subway boss ingo #submas comic #sorry emmet u r not here but ur here in my heart #ingo #elesa #blitzle #tynamo

[urfriendlywriter]

things me and my bestfriends have said to each other that would make a list of heartbreaking prompts:

(found family trope but irl haha, feel free to use <3 tag me when yall writee, 1,9,11,13,24 has a spcl place in my heart)

"i don't feel seen at times." "it's not true. i see you, [name], i always have."

"thank you for listening to me, thank you for being here for me."

"i love the family we've found for ourselves :( "

"i want to hug you.."

"you, you can always come to me when you're happy and when you're sad."

"you make me become the best of me." <333

"i can never forget when you did ___, God i almost fell in love with you then."

"no, i don't want to rant-" "no, no, hey, it's okay. rant. I'm here to listen."

"whenever i ask you, you say I'm ok, but whenever you ask me i bare my heart open to you. i just want you to tell me if you're having a hard time so i can lend you a shoulder in silence!"

"just--just come with me, please ! I'll take care of you, please leave that hell hole you call home !"

"it hurts, [name]." in a weak murmur and they just rest their face on your shoulder, leaning on one another as they whisper, "it's okay to hurt. cry if u have to."

"should we just run away from home and live together?"

"you are a good person, [nickname]." ✯

"rant, love, go ahead."

"i was very proud of you. i still am."

"you're the positive blueprint/sunshine to my fucked up life, [name]" (ok but they said this to me while we were both in our LOWEST)

"we were enemies before weren't we?" "yeah, haha, if you were a boy we'd have become lovers!!"

^ "[nickname], are you GAY?? YOU ARE GAY- OMG" "stop it lmao" (all in texts lol)

"i wonder what good i did to deserve you " </3

"how lovely of you :)" "ilysm" "shut up, dude, you're so adorable."

"you are devastatingly beautiful, [name]."

"i can never forget what you looked like at your happiest... you glowed. " :((

"hugs, please :/"

"I'd love to nom nom you TT" (we were acting cute and actually melting)

"we'll become the parents we never had."

"we are walking through this life together, aren't we? let's do so till we are together in the paradise, too."

"you mean a lot to me."

"together, in this world and in the here-after too."

#these things are said by my friends to me or vice versa. and this is MY FOUND family guys. these people are my life and my will for survival #writer prompts #otp prompts #dialogue prompts #romance writing #imagine your otp #writeblr #urfriendlywriter #writing prompts #writing inspiration #angsty dialouge prompts #angsty romance prompts #angsty prompts #angst starter #angst prompts #how to write angst #showing love #soft prompts for lovers #soft dialogue prompts #soft prompts #soft gestures #gestures that gets me flushed #gestures that says i love you #romantic dialouge prompts #romantic tropes #imagine your characters #imagine your ocs #otp writing #otp meme #writing inspo

[squarecloud73]

*I worship you Tumblr don’t remove it

Chilchuck!!!

#he didn’t eat the orange though #said vitamins are for the kids #ungrateful old man #btw the icecrame looking thing is halo halo #and the dessert is called saffron pancake #requested from my Filipino friend and Swedish friends #also how tfis Laios so big #like drawing his hand with Chilchuck twisted my sense of space lol #dungeon meshi #chilchuck #chilchuk tims #foodporn #SquareCloud

[formulaonedirection]

A man made to be bullied by little creatures

Lando & Uno Norris play at Christmas via Olivernorris1 | Lando barking at Uno via Olivernorris1 | Lando stumbles upon a cat at golf via Max's twitch | Lando and Cookie the hideous dog via Luisa | Lando feuds with a puppy in Porto via @chillipoodle | Lando gets a boop from Zara via Max's twitch | Lando drunkenly befriends @roger.m.c.fisher in Brazil

#lando norris #it's 4/4 so we have to lando post and someone in my tags said we need an animal roundup post so #here is my contribution on landoday #i think it's VERY cute how he has absolutely no fear for animals like he's being attacked by so many of them...... #but he just wants to be friends.... #it's the horse boy in him #parking under: #critical lando theory #nadia's things

[overtake]

DTS 6x9

#i said i was only gifing one thing but i had to do this too #blake my love <3 #daniel and his 8 million wags <3 #daniel ricciardo #blake friend #f1 #op #and now for the millions of dts tags sorry #dts #dts spoilers #dts s6 #dts6 #drive to survive #drive to survive spoilers

[andsewingishalfthebattle]

Novice sewing pattern: Cut out shapes. Line up the little triangles on the edges. Stitch edges together. We've also included step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrations.

Novice knitting pattern: yOU MUSt uNDerstANd thE SECret cOdE CO67 (73, 87, 93) BO44 (63, 76, 90) 28 (32, 34) slip first pw repeat 7x K to end *kl (pl) 42 * until 13" (13, 13, 15) join new at 30 pl for 17 rows ssk 27 k2tog mattress lengthwise BO and sacrifice a goat to the knitting gods. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT "INSTRUCTIONS," I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU

#knitting #no it's not a real pattern but I can't write one that makes sense because I have no freaking clue what any of that means #How do you make things that aren't basic rectangles #Why has every knitter I've asked for help just said 'patterns are easy; you just have to know how to read them' & then refused to teach me #Where do I even find a goat to sacrifice #How do I join the pattern cult #I am so confused #I've been knitting for almost a decade but I can only make scarves and potholders #I learned one (1) stitch by watching a YouTube video and none of my friends or family knit so I have no IRL resources #And nobody I meet seems to want to take the time to explain the rest to me #I taught myself to sew through trial and error but that doesn't really work with knitting because error is pretty much just... Unraveling? #Anyway sorry for the tag rant I'm just frustrated that I see pretty things I want to make but the instructions are in an alien language #And the gap between 'absolute novice' and 'intermediate' seems to be about 20 years of experience and formal instruction

[fluffyfangirl]

*comes running like a mad woman, drops this and leaves*

#Will Byers #Robin Buckley #Stranger Things #Byler #Rovicky #Stranger Things Fanart #T H E M ON A SET #Also FINALLY WILL #and he is wearing GREEN #FluffyFangirlArt #My friend asked me if we wanted to play minecraft today and I said yes #IMMEDIATELY remembering that I wanted to sketch something bc BTS photos dropped and we finally got WILL #smh i managed this just right before leaving for playing minecraft #you are an important person if I leave my hyperfixation sketches to game with you #<3 #(I will stop now or else I will continue to scream about them)

[blue-mood-blue]

I’ve grown to appreciate the aus where Shen Yuan enters the story as “Shen Yuan” - same name, probably similar face, generally able to interact with PIDW as himself and change the story through his added presence. I like the sense of “if only you’d been here, things might have been better the first time around” of it all.

And I was thinking, it’s a funny coincidence in that scenario that someone named Shen Yuan gets put into… another Shen Yuan. What are the chances? What a weird twist of fate that Airplane would pick out the name that his most dedicated critic could slip into seamlessly.

What about a version where it’s not coincidence at all?

Airplane goes to school with a kid named Shen Yuan. He’s prickly and hard to approach and a little intense, but Airplane is persistent. In fairness, Airplane is relentless - and maybe it’s a good thing that they end up being friends, because they’re a little too much for anyone else to handle. They balance each other out. They’re the “weird kids” in class and they’re okay with that, because even when they don’t have any words for it, they know they’re not like their classmates, not really. That’s okay; they don’t want to be.

Recesses and breaks are consumed with the elaborate stories that Airplane wants to tell, and all the holes Shen Yuan pokes into them. It’s not mean-spirited, though, even though Shen Yuan isn’t the kind to temper his words. It’s passionate. He cares about those stories the way Airplane cares about them, and it can’t be mistaken for anything else when they lean together conspiratorially across the lunchroom table. They’ve both got notebooks filled with details and characters and monsters. Shen Yuan’s practically got a whole bestiary sketched out in wobbly childhood attempts at art, entries fervently scrawled beside them. Airplane prattles out plots nonstop, always with the promise of shining eyes and being asked “what happens next?”

They come up with a whole world together. Airplane’s going to write about it someday. Shen Yuan is going to read every word.

Shen Yuan misses school. Shen Yuan starts missing school a lot.

Airplane goes to the hospital room instead. He doesn’t think to worry, because Shen Yuan is okay - that’s what he says. He looks okay, and he’s a kid, and it doesn’t feel real that anything bad should happen to a kid. He doesn’t think to worry. He doesn’t think to say goodbye.

It’s one of the older Shen brothers who catches him on the way up to the room one day, in the hallway just outside - snaps at him to go the fuck home, and when Airplane hesitates, pushes him into the elevator and tells him not to come back. “Tells” is a generous way to describe the way the words come out - a growl, a hiss, the sound an animal would make when a hand got too close to a wound.

(It’s not fair to name a villain after him, even if the name never really comes up in the story. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He’d lost a brother minutes before, and he was getting his brother’s friend out of the way so he didn’t have to… see. It isn’t fair, but then, none of it is fair.)

Death feels very real after that.

The notebooks get shoved into a closet, and it’s not until Airplane’s moving out and one falls on him from a high shelf that he thinks about it again. He’s written things, lots of things, but nothing as ambitious as this - nothing as important. It could be good, he considers. He’d promised. Shen Yuan wanted to read it.

The problem was that no one else does, not for a long time, not until Airplane has whittled himself and his art into a corner and into such an unfamiliar shape that he has to wonder how it’s still his own face he sees in the mirror. He has to eat. He has to pay rent. Shen Yuan would yell at him, but Shen Yuan isn’t there to yell at him, and who cares. Who cares if it could have been better? The people who actually are here love it, and it’s paying his bills, and sometimes stories don’t go the way they’re supposed to and the world is fucking unfair. It doesn’t matter.

(It does. But he shoves that thought away along with styrofoam cups and soda bottles to the bottom of a garbage bag.)

Authors are not gods and their power is limited, but Airplane exercises just a sliver of what he’s been granted and gifts an inconsequential sort of immortality. He thinks about making him a rogue cultivator, maybe the kind that goes around documenting beasts and compiling his findings. He thinks about making him someone too powerful for death to touch, or too important to threaten, but when Airplane looks at the world he crafted and everything that’s become of it, it feels like the kindest thing he can do for Shen Yuan is a childhood where he’s loved, and a death that’s peaceful. What does it say about that world, that he’d kill off his best friend too early again instead of making him live there?

(The best writing he ever does is the only, shining moment of humanity that his scum villain ever displays: a lament about death that comes too early, about a brother gone too soon. The commenters praise him. The commenters flatter over how real the emotions feel. The commenters don’t get any response from Airplane on that chapter.)

Death is incredibly real when it comes for him too early, too, still hovering over his keyboard with the story technically finished and incredibly incomplete. Airplane could tell himself that’s because the written version can never be the version in the writer’s head, always shifting and with every possibility still on the table, but he knows better than that. The System knows better than that, with its condescending message about “improving” his writing and “closing plot holes” and “achieving his original vision”...

…and he’s a child again. He’s a child in his own story, he’s Shang Qinghua now without the benefit yet of a peak or cultivation or anything, and maybe he’s a little bitter, and a little scared, and…

And Shen Yuan - with longer hair, with robes, with a couple of older kids watching him from across the street, but undeniably the prickly little boy who used to sit down imperiously across from him and tell him everything that was wrong with the chuck of writing that had been handed to him last period, but with that smile that said he was only invested because he knew it could be better and they were going to make it better - marches up to him with a fire in his eyes and a frown that warns of a coming tirade.

“You told it wrong,” is the first thing he says.

Shang Qinghua wants to ask how him how he’s here, how this is possible, or maybe laugh because, yeah - yeah, Shen Yuan has no goddamn idea how wrong he got absolutely everything.

(Shang Qinghua wants to say “I missed you” and “why did you leave so soon” but he’s here now. He’s right here.)

“I know,” he says instead. “I’m sorry. It all kind of… spiraled out of control.”

Shen Yuan frowns, but then it dissipates the way it always does, and his eyes shine with ideas the way they always used to. “That’s okay,” he relents, grabbing for his hand. “We’ll fix it. We’ll make it what it was supposed to be.”

#scum villain self saving system #svsss #shang qinghua #shen yuan #airplane shooting towards the sky #this got more into the feelings than i thought it would #surprising no one #anyway just! childhood friends au! as a reason for a shen yuan insert! #obviously he is not going to die as a child in this version #shang qinghua would not have that nope not again #also pls consider poor shen jiu who looks at this child that shen yuan has picked out for a best friend like '...really? that one??' #(it's up to you if he's shen yuan's actual brother from his first life) #(put there's a part of me that likes the idea that shen jiu also gets a second chance to spend more time with his brother) #a second chance for them to grow up together! #THAT SAID #RIP TO SHANG QINGHUA #WHEN SHEN YUAN IS OLD ENOUGH TO LEARN ABOUT ALL THE PAPAPA #the LOOKS shang qinghua is going to get #anyway here have a thing because I CANNOT add another au to my drafts thank you and goodbyyyyye

[rusomnia]

jason: everytime you smile i get nervous

tim: good.

#batboys #incorrect quotes #tim drake #dcu #jason todd #the batboys as things my friends have said #this one was my friend about me #i take that reputation in stride #back on my morally grey tim bullshit #red robin #red hood #batfamily #batfam

[catdoingblep]

Nina, realizing that Jesper is in love with Wylan: oh, thank Saints, I am really happy that you are recovering from your disease

Jesper, terrified: disease? What disease?

Nina: yes, a common bisexual disease widely known as "terrible taste in men" I thought it reached a terminal stage when I learned that you had a crush on Kaz

Jesper: I really don't think it is a real disease...

Nina: I will tell Matthias that his prayers are finally working! He was praying for your health every day!

#is Nina citing an actual thing my friend said to me here? totally #jesper don't worry we all was there... #shadow and bone #six of crows #grishaverse #jesper fahey #nina zenik #soc #wesper #kaz brekker #incorrect six of crows #six of crows incorrect quotes #matthias helvar