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#when I get close to people especially

plainthroat · 1 year

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I finally wrapped my head around my ex’s problem with me and i have to understand that even though I try to be kind I’m pretty callous a lot of the time and I’m still capable of hurting people. And I think I genuinely hurt them. It’s not something I tried to do but I did, and their behavior makes a lot more sense knowing that.

#pt.pst #they’re not looking good either :/ like very ill and strung out #and people tend to look less attractive the more I dislike them #but some photos of us popped up and they looked happy and healthy #god I think I genuinely have a problem #when I get close to people especially

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thisismisogynoir · 1 month

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I love it when women hate men. I love it when women are allowed to vent to each other about how horrible and creepy men are. I love it when women form friendships with and prioritize each other over relationships with men(whether they're attracted to them or not). I love it when women put men dni in their bios and on their nude photos and on posts on their blogs. I love it when women refuse to mollycoddle and accommodate entitled male feelings with "but this doesn't mean I hate all men, I know a few men who are great, I love my father/sons/brothers/uncles/male cousins/guy friends" I love it when women complain about men WITHOUT "not all men" being a disclaimer. I love it when women avoid socializing with/refuse to be around/befriend/get close to men because they know men can't be trusted. I love it when women make "kill all men" jokes. I love it when women offer absolutely no concern or care for men's feelings and if their misandry offends men whatsoever because why should we, men are the oppressor class who have raped and killed and abused us and kept us as subjugated as second-class citizens for millennia, they regularly mistreat us and the women in their own marginalized communities still every single day and make this world so much harder and more awful for us to be in, and if we choose to hate them and not spare them any sympathy then so be it, and I don't just mean "men as a class" either, you can be a woman who doesn't want to have anything to do with any man on an individual basis and completely cuts off men from her personal life too and ykw I will love and fucking support you in that because men deserve absolutely NOTHING from us. If they're so tough and strong then they can handle it just like they can handle being lonely. If you are a woman who hates men, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A LESBIAN AND/OR A TRANS WOMAN, then just know that I love you. I love you, I support you, and you are safe here.

#was going to make a post about how much i hate that women aren't allowed to hate their oppressors but i decided to spin it into something #positive instead #this is supposed to be the feminist site that makes reddit mgtow piss their baby diapers so let's go back to despising men and not coddling #their feelings and let's dye our hair blue while we're at it #i am so tired of this new wave of guilt-tripping and gaslighting women who hate men and don't trust or want to be around them #i hate how we're made into villainesses or the problematic ones for not valuing them in our lives or for wanting to guard ourselves or be #safe from our oppressors #and i'm tired of people who don't know the first thing about feminism being like 'BUT THAT'S TERF RHETORIC WHAT ABOUT X MINORITY MEN'#guess what women can also be x minority that you're trying to protect the men of and we get to hate men too #trans women are included when i say women btw and trans men are included when i say men #if anyone has the right to hate men more than anybody else it's trans women esp trans lesbians because they put up with so much shit #from men that even cis women do not and they especially know how vile men are behind closed doors #so #terfs fuck off #radfems fuck off #and if anybody tries to make this post more appeasing to men or 'not all men's this post you are getting blocked and hit with a hammer #feminism #misogyny #sexism #patriarchy #tw men #tw rape #tw abuse #misandry #terfs dni #radfems dni #feminists need to go back to being scary and unpalatable for men none of this 'but some of them are good!' bullshit #men are entitled to nothing from us #and if you try to prove me wrong then you are just proving my point if you have nothing good to say then simply keep scrolling #ok? ok.

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hellenhighwater · 1 year

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I'm on a work trip--it's a class of people in my field picked from all over the country, so I don't know anyone else here--and the info packet I got basically said "people have told us they wish they'd been given a chance to meet everyone else before the class starts, so if you want to do that, show up to the hotel bar at this time and look for people who look like lawyers."

and I know. that I should go do this, because networking good. but also. this is weirdly stressful. how do I make sure that a group of random lawyers knows I am also a lawyer while still being casual and chill but not dressed formally at all

am i going to have to take off my combat boots for this

#and put on regular heeled boots instead which is fiiiiine but ugh #i have zero anxiety on a normal basis so when i do have some level of anxiety i am tormented by it #and also ive been flying about all day and im kinda tired #but networking damnit #I am almost always wearing a tiny scales of justice #which were handed down from my mother #so that's probably a good indicator but you have to get pretty close. the urge to just pin my Bar card to my shirt....#like. this is fine. but meeting new people always takes Effort #especially with lawyers who tend to be a bit more conventional and also frequently older than me

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cerise-on-top · 29 days

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Hii you know how you wrote about reader getting hurt because of their job please could you write that with graves or nikolai x

Hey! Sure I can!

Graves’ and Nikolai’s S/O Gets Hurt Because of Their job

Graves: On the outside he may seem calm and collected, but on the inside he’d be seething with rage. However, he won’t show you how angry he actually is, keeping it all to himself instead. He needs to be the big, strong man in your relationship, so he needs to keep his cool in front of you, no matter what. I don’t think he’d be too surprised you’d have gotten hurt, though. While he may have hoped it would never happen, that was just wishful thinking. You’ll either be on Shadow Company’s medbay or in the best hospital he can find nearby. Either way, you’ll be well taken care of. If you’re at Shadow Company, then he’ll station some of his most competent and trusted people to take care of you for the time being. You will be protected by them, and you will get whatever it is you may need from them as well. Or anything you may want, really. No cost is too high for Graves while you’re in recovery. While he may try to make time for you as well, he really does, he will also have someone track down whoever hurt you. This person will then be abducted to Shadow Company for a rough time. Graves himself would take care of them, and he can be pretty effective when he wants to be. However, if you’ve recovered by then, and are among the more vengeful people, then you’re more than welcome to do as you please with the bastard yourself, Graves has no qualms about that. In fact, he’d welcome you doing what you need to do. An eye for an eye. I think he’d become a bit more protective of you afterwards. If you’re okay with it, then he’ll leave you in the hands of some of his Shadows since he can’t always be there for you. If it was up to him, he’d combine you with his work and have you just live on base with him so he could always keep an eye on you, but you likely wouldn’t agree to that. It may seem a bit overbearing, but he will reach out to you more often and does expect you to respond within a few hours, or else he’ll get worried and send someone to check up on you, even if you’re alright.

Nikolai: While Graves may be furious, Nikolai is entirely calm about all of this. Yes, you got hurt, but seeing him panic would likely only worsen the state you’re in. He is well aware of the fact that you will pull through, he made sure of that himself. However, he won’t do anything drastic until you’ve recovered completely. That way your perpetrator has enough time to kill themself before he has to take action. Naturally, you mean the world to him, so any violence against you will not be excused. Nikolai runs a PMC, so he knows what he’s doing, he knows how to deal with violence. Violence for violence is the rule of the beasts and Nikolai’s cruelty is akin to that of a starved animal. However, that can wait until you’re alright again. He’ll visit you every day, even stay at the hospital, and bring you gifts, tell you stories and keep you company otherwise. But he won’t mention the plans he has for the sorry fuck who hurt you, those are for him to know and for you to never find out. Once you’re home again, going about your day, he will seek out the bastard himself and drag him to some place in Siberia. As mentioned before, Nikolai can be cruel when he wants to be, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he let that person run aimlessly around Siberia for a few days, hunted down by him and his people, only to capture and torture them later. Death is a kind of mercy that is not for them, though, so he’ll keep them alive for the time being. They almost took you from him, there’s nothing they could ever do to make up for that. They’ll be a new chewing toy for Chimera until they die for one reason or another. Nikolai won’t get too overprotective, but he will be keeping a closer eye on you. He won’t station one of his people in front of your home when he’s away, but he will try to make more time for you. Calls become more frequent and he will try to find some excuses to spend more time with you, even if it’s just by video chatting with you when you have the time. He won’t freak out, but he won’t forget about that incident either.

#cod #cod x reader #phillip graves #phillip graves x reader #cod nikolai #cod nikolai x reader #I was thinking about wanting a request for Graves again not too long ago so this came at an ideal time #they're both very powerful people who are also war criminals and not afraid of breaking every law in existence #so yeah they'll have their fun with whoever hurt you #thinking about an angry Nikolai scares me so bad actually. he'd be so calm and quiet and that's just the most terrifying thing to me #if you're in an especially bad condition then I think Graves would become more strict with his Shadows #he knows he shouldn't be like that at work but he can't help it since he's just that worried about you #he's usually a fun and caring boss but he'd become very different when you get hurt #of course he'll go back to normal once everything is alright again but you being hurt would hit the Shadows pretty hard as well #I like to think he does talk about you to his Shadows so they definitely know who you are #and just by hearing about you most of them would like you as well. especially because Graves loves you this much and they like him a lot #so I think a lot of Shadows would also grow protective over you and I think that's so very sweet #I always liked to think that the people at Shadow Company were very close with each other #especially because Graves is a good boss and makes sure the work climate there is ideal. despite the war crimes #Graves is actually a pretty fly guy in my eyes. he's just cocky but he does worry a lot about his Shadows and you deep down #he loves his Shadows and he loves you too

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queenlucythevaliant · 3 months

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Tell Your Dad You Love Him

A retelling of "Meat Loves Salt"/"Cap O'Rushes" for the @inklings-challenge Four Loves event

An old king had three daughters. When his health began to fail, he summoned them, and they came.

Gordonia and Rowan were already waiting in the hallway when Coriander arrived. They were leaned up against the wall opposite the king’s office with an air of affected casualness. “I wonder what the old war horse wants today?” Rowan was saying. “More about next year’s political appointments, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“The older he gets, the more he micromanages,” Gordonia groused fondly. “A thousand dollars says this meeting could’ve been an email.”

They filed in single-file like they’d so often done as children: Gordonia first, then Rowan, and Coriander last of all. The king had placed three chairs in front of his desk all in a row. His daughters murmured their greetings, and one by one they sat down.

“I have divided everything I have in three,” the king said. “I am old now, and it’s time. Today, I will pass my kingdom on to you, my daughters.”

A short gasp came from Gordonia. None of them could have imagined that their father would give up running his kingdom while he still lived.

The king went on. “I know you will deal wisely with that which I leave in your care. But before we begin, I have one request.”

“Yes father?” said Rowan.

“Tell me how much you love me.”

An awkward silence fell. Although there was no shortage of love between the king and his daughters, theirs was not a family which spoke of such things. They were rich and blue-blooded: a soldier and the daughters of a soldier, a king and his three court-reared princesses. The royal family had always shown their affection through double meanings and hot cups of coffee.

Gordonia recovered herself first. She leaned forward over the desk and clasped her father’s hands in her own. “Father,” she said, “I love you more than I can say.” A pause. “I don’t think there’s ever been a family so happy in love as we have been. You’re a good dad.”

The old king smiled and patted her hand. “Thank you, Gordonia. We have been very happy, haven’t we? Here is your inheritance. Cherish it, as I cherish you.”

Rowan spoke next; the words came tumbling out. “Father! There’s not a thing in my life which you didn’t give me, and all the joy in the world beside. Come now, Gordonia, there’s no need to understate the matter. I love you more than—why, more than life itself!”

The king laughed, and rose to embrace his second daughter. “How you delight me, Rowan. All of this will be yours.”

Only Coriander remained. As her sisters had spoken, she’d wrung her hands in her lap, unsure of what to say. Did her father really mean for flattery to be the price of her inheritance? That just wasn’t like him. For all that he was a politician, he’d been a soldier first. He liked it when people told the truth.

When the king’s eyes came to rest on her, Coriander raised her own to meet them. “Do you really want to hear what you already know?”

“I do.”

She searched for a metaphor that could carry the weight of her love without unnecessary adornment. At last she found one, and nodded, satisfied. “Dad, you’re like—like salt in my food.”

“Like salt?”

“Well—yes.”

The king’s broad shoulders seemed to droop. For a moment, Coriander almost took back her words. Her father was the strongest man in the world, even now, at eighty. She’d watched him argue with foreign rulers and wage wars all her life. Nothing could hurt him. Could he really be upset?

But no. Coriander held her father’s gaze. She had spoken true. What harm could be in that?

“I don’t know why you’re even here, Cor,” her father said.

Now, Coriander shifted slightly in her seat, unnerved. “What? Father—”

“It would be best if—you should go,” said the old king.

“Father, you can’t really mean–”

“Leave us, Coriander.”

So she left the king’s court that very hour.

It had been a long time since she’d gone anywhere without a chauffeur to drive her, but Coriander’s thoughts were flying apart too fast for her to be afraid. She didn’t know where she would go, but she would make do, and maybe someday her father would puzzle out her metaphor and call her home to him. Coriander had to hope for that, at least. The loss of her inheritance didn’t feel real yet, but her father—how could he not know that she loved him? She’d said it every day.

She’d played in the hall outside that same office as a child. She’d told him her secrets and her fears and sent him pictures on random Tuesdays when they were in different cities just because. She had watched him triumph in conference rooms and on the battlefield and she’d wanted so badly to be like him.

If her father doubted her love, then maybe he’d never noticed any of it. Maybe the love had been an unnoticed phantasm, a shadow, a song sung to a deaf man. Maybe all that love had been nothing at all.

A storm was on the horizon, and it reached her just as she made it onto the highway. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. Rain poured down and flooded the road. Before long, Coriander was hydroplaning. Frantically, she tried to remember what you were supposed to do when that happened. Pump the brakes? She tried. No use. Wasn’t there something different you did if the car had antilock brakes? Or was that for snow? What else, what else–

With a sickening crunch, her car hit the guardrail. No matter. Coriander’s thoughts were all frenzied and distant. She climbed out of the car and just started walking.

Coriander wandered beneath an angry sky on the great white plains of her father’s kingdom. The rain beat down hard, and within seconds she was soaked to the skin. The storm buffeted her long hair around her head. It tangled together into long, matted cords that hung limp down her back. Mud soiled her fine dress and splattered onto her face and hands. There was water in her lungs and it hurt to breathe. Oh, let me die here, Coriander thought. There’s nothing left for me, nothing at all. She kept walking.

When she opened her eyes, Coriander found herself in a dank gray loft. She was lying on a strange feather mattress.

She remained there a while, looking up at the rafters and wondering where she could be. She thought and felt, as it seemed, through a heavy and impenetrable mist; she was aware only of hunger and weakness and a dreadful chill (though she was all wrapped in blankets). She knew that a long time must have passed since she was fully aware, though she had a confused memory of wandering beside the highway in a thunderstorm, slowly going mad because—because— oh, there’d been something terrible in her dreams. Her father, shoulders drooping at his desk, and her sisters happily come into their inheritance, and she cast into exile—

She shuddered and sat up dizzily. “Oh, mercy,” she murmured. She hadn’t been dreaming.

She stumbled out of the loft down a narrow flight of stairs and came into a strange little room with a single window and a few shabby chairs. Still clinging to the rail, she heard a ruckus from nearby and then footsteps. A plump woman came running to her from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and softly clucking at the state of her guest’s matted, tangled hair.

“Dear, dear,” said the woman. “Here’s my hand, if you’re still unsteady. That’s good, good. Don’t be afraid, child. I’m Katherine, and my husband is Folke. He found you collapsed by the goose-pond night before last. I’m she who dressed you—your fine gown was ruined, I’m afraid. Would you like some breakfast? There’s coffee on the counter, and we’ll have porridge in a minute if you’re patient.”

“Thank you,” Coriander rasped.

“Will you tell me your name, my dear?”

“I have no name. There’s nothing to tell.”

Katherine clicked her tongue. “That’s alright, no need to worry. Folke and I’ve been calling you Rush on account of your poor hair. I don’t know if you’ve seen yourself, but it looks a lot like river rushes. No, don’t get up. Here’s your breakfast, dear.”

There was indeed porridge, as Katherine had promised, served with cream and berries from the garden. Coriander ate hungrily and tasted very little. Then, when she was finished, the goodwife ushered her over to a sofa by the window and put a pillow beneath her head. Coriander thanked her, and promptly fell asleep.

She woke again around noon, with the pounding in her head much subsided. She woke feeling herself again, to visions of her father inches away and the sound of his voice cracking across her name.

Katherine was outside in the garden; Coriander could see her through the clouded window above her. She rose and, upon finding herself still in a borrowed nightgown, wrapped herself in a blanket to venture outside.

“Feeling better?” Katherine was kneeling in a patch of lavender, but she half rose when she heard the cottage door open.

“Much. Thank you, ma’am.

“No thanks necessary. Folke and I are ministers, of a kind. We keep this cottage for lost and wandering souls. You’re free to remain here with us for as long as you need.”

“Oh,” was all Coriander could think to say.

“You’ve been through a tempest, haven’t you? Are you well enough to tell me where you came from?”

Coriander shifted uncomfortably. “I’m from nowhere,” she said. “I have nothing.”

“You don’t owe me your story, child. I should like to hear it, but it will keep till you’re ready. Now, why don’t you put on some proper clothes and come help me with this weeding.”

Coriander remained at the cottage with Katherine and her husband Folke for a week, then a fortnight. She slept in the loft and rose with the sun to help Folke herd the geese to the pond. After, Coriander would return and see what needed doing around the cottage. She liked helping Katherine in the garden.

The grass turned gold and the geese’s thick winter down began to come in. Coriander’s river-rush hair proved itself unsalvageable. She spent hours trying to untangle it, first with a hairbrush, then with a fine-tooth comb and a bottle of conditioner, and eventually even with honey and olive oil (a home remedy that Folke said his mother used to use). So, at last, Coriander surrendered to the inevitable and gave Katherine permission to cut it off. One night, by the yellow light of the bare bulb that hung over the kitchen table, Katherine draped a towel over Coriander’s shoulders and tufts of gold went falling to the floor all round her.

“I’m here because I failed at love,” she managed to tell the couple at last, when her sorrows began to feel more distant. “I loved my father, and he knew it not.”

Folke and Katherine still called her Rush. She didn’t correct them. Coriander was the name her parents gave her. It was the name her father had called her when she was six and racing down the stairs to meet him when he came home from Europe, and at ten when she showed him the new song she’d learned to play on the harp. She’d been Cor when she brought her first boyfriend home and Cori the first time she shadowed him at court. Coriander, Coriander, when she came home from college the first time and he’d hugged her with bruising strength. Her strong, powerful father.

As she seasoned a pot of soup for supper, she wondered if he understood yet what she’d meant when she called him salt in her food.

Coriander had been living with Katherine and Folke for two years, and it was a morning just like any other. She was in the kitchen brewing a pot of coffee when Folke tossed the newspaper on the table and started rummaging in the fridge for his orange juice. “Looks like the old king’s sick again,” he commented casually. Coriander froze.

She raced to the table and seized hold of the paper. There, above the fold, big black letters said, KING ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL FOR EMERGENCY TREATMENT. There was a picture of her father, looking older than she’d ever seen him. Her knees went wobbly and then suddenly the room was sideways.

Strong arms caught her and hauled her upright. “What’s wrong, Rush?”

“What if he dies,” she choked out. “What if he dies and I never got to tell him?”

She looked up into Folke’s puzzled face, and then the whole sorry story came tumbling out.

When she was through, Katherine (who had come downstairs sometime between salt and the storm) took hold of her hand and kissed it. “Bless you, dear,” she said. “I never would have guessed. Maybe it’s best that you’ve both had some time to think things over.”

Katherine shook her head. “But don’t you think…?”

“Yes?”

“Well, don’t you think he should have known that I loved him? I shouldn’t have needed to say it. He’s my father. He’s the king.”

Katherine replied briskly, as though the answer should have been obvious. “He’s only human, child, for all that he might wear a crown; he’s not omniscient. Why didn’t you tell your father what he wanted to hear?”

“I didn’t want to flatter him,” said Coriander. “That was all. I wanted to be right in what I said.”

The goodwife clucked softly. “Oh dear. Don’t you know that sometimes, it’s more important to be kind than to be right?”

In her leave-taking, Coriander tried to tell Katherine and Folke how grateful she was to them, but they wouldn’t let her. They bought her a bus ticket and sent her on her way towards King’s City with plenty of provisions. Two days later, Coriander stood on the back steps of one of the palace outbuildings with her little carpetbag clutched in her hands.

Stuffing down the fear of being recognized, Coriander squared her shoulders and hoped they looked as strong as her father’s. She rapped on the door, and presently a maid came and opened it. The maid glanced Coriander up and down, but after a moment it was clear that her disguise held. With all her long hair shorn off, she must have looked like any other girl come in off the street.

“I’m here about a job,” said Coriander. “My name’s Rush.”

The king's chambers were half-lit when Coriander brought him his supper, dressed in her servants’ apparel. He grunted when she knocked and gestured with a cane towards his bedside table. His hair was snow-white and he was sitting in bed with his work spread across a lap-desk. His motions were very slow.

Coriander wanted to cry, seeing her father like that. Yet somehow, she managed to school her face. Like he would, she kept telling herself. Stoically, she put down the supper tray, then stepped back out into the hallway.

It was several minutes more before the king was ready to eat. Coriander heard papers being shuffled, probably filed in those same manilla folders her father had always used. In the hall, Coriander felt the seconds lengthen. She steeled herself for the moment she knew was coming, when the king would call out in irritation, “Girl! What's the matter with my food? Why hasn’t it got any taste?”

When that moment came, all would be made right. Coriander would go into the room and taste his food. “Why,” she would say, with a look of complete innocence, “It seems the kitchen forgot to salt it!” She imagined how her father’s face would change when he finally understood. My daughter always loved me, he would say.

Soon, soon. It would happen soon. Any second now.

The moment never came. Instead, the floor creaked, followed by the rough sound of a cane striking the floor. The door opened, and then the king was there, his mighty shoulders shaking. “Coriander,” he whispered.

“Dad. You know me?”

“Of course.”

“Then you understand now?”

The king’s wrinkled brow knit. “Understand about the salt? Of course, I do. It wasn't such a clever riddle. There was surely no need to ruin my supper with a demonstration.”

Coriander gaped at him. She'd expected questions, explanations, maybe apologies for sending her away. She'd never imagined this.

She wanted very badly to seize her father and demand answers, but then she looked, really looked, at the way he was leaning on his cane. The king was barely upright; his white head was bent low. Her questions would hold until she'd helped her father back into his room.

“If you knew what I meant–by saying you were like salt in my food– then why did you tell me to go?” she asked once they were situated back in the royal quarters.

Idly, the king picked at his unseasoned food. “I shouldn’t have done that. Forgive me, Coriander. My anger and hurt got the better of me, and it has brought me much grief. I never expected you to stay away for so long.”

Coriander nodded slowly. Her father's words had always carried such fierce authority. She'd never thought to question if he really meant what he’d said to her.

“As for the salt,” continued the king, "Is it so wrong that an old man should want to hear his daughters say ‘I love you' before he dies?”

Coriander rolled the words around in her head, trying to make sense of them. Then, with a sudden mewling sound from her throat, she managed to say, “That's really all you wanted?”

“That's all. I am old, Cor, and we've spoken too little of love in our house.” He took another bite of his unsalted supper. His hand shook. “That was my failing, I suppose. Perhaps if I’d said it, you girls would have thought to say it back.”

“But father!” gasped Coriander, “That’s not right. We've always known we loved one another! We've shown it a thousand ways. Why, I've spent the last year cataloging them in my head, and I've still not even scratched the surface!”

The king sighed. “Perhaps you will understand when your time comes. I knew, and yet I didn't. What can you really call a thing you’ve never named? How do you know it exists? Perhaps all the love I thought I knew was only a figment.”

“But that’s what I’ve been afraid of all this time,” Coriander bit back. “How could you doubt? If it was real at all– how could you doubt?”

The king’s weathered face grew still. His eyes fell shut and he squeezed them. “Death is close to me, child. A small measure of reassurance is not so very much to ask.”

Coriander slept in her old rooms that night. None of it had changed. When she woke the next morning, for a moment she remembered nothing of the last two years.

She breakfasted in the garden with her father, who came down the steps in a chair-lift. “Coriander,” he murmured. “I half-thought I dreamed you last night.”

“I’m here, Dad,” she replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Slowly, the king reached out with one withered hand and caressed Coriander's cheek. Then, his fingers drifted up to what remained of her hair. He ruffled it, then gently tugged on a tuft the way he'd used to playfully tug her long braid when she was a girl.

“I love you,” he said.

“That was always an I love you, wasn’t it?” replied Coriander. “My hair.”

The king nodded. “Yes, I think it was.”

So Coriander reached out and gently tugged the white hairs of his beard. “You too,” she whispered.

“Why salt?” The king was sitting by the fire in his rooms wrapped in two blankets. Coriander was with him, enduring the sweltering heat of the room without complaint.

She frowned. “You like honesty. We have that in common. I was trying to be honest–accurate–to avoid false flattery.”

The king tugged at the outer blanket, saying nothing. His lips thinned and his eyes dropped to his lap. Coriander wished they wouldn’t. She wished they would hold to hers, steely and ready for combat as they always used to be.

“Would it really have been false?” the king said at last. “Was there no other honest way to say it? Only salt?”

Coriander wanted to deny it, to give speech to the depth and breadth of her love, but once again words failed her. “It was my fault,” she said. “I didn’t know how to heave my heart into my throat.” She still didn’t, for all she wanted to.

When the doctor left, the king was almost too tired to talk. His words came slowly, slurred at the edges and disconnected, like drops of water from a leaky faucet.

Still, Coriander could tell that he had something to say. She waited patiently as his lips and tongue struggled to form the words. “Love you… so… much… You… and… your sisters… Don’t… worry… if you… can’t…say…how…much. I… know.”

It was all effort. The king sat back when he was finished. Something was still spasming in his throat, and Coriander wanted to cry.

“I’m glad you know,” she said. “I’m glad. But I still want to tell you.”

Love was effort. If her father wanted words, she would give him words. True words. Kind words. She would try…

“I love you like salt in my food. You're desperately important to me, and you've always been there, and I don't know what I'll do without you. I don’t want to lose you. And I love you like the soil in a garden. Like rain in the spring. Like a hero. You have the strongest shoulders of anyone I know, and all I ever wanted was to be like you…”

A warm smile spread across the old king’s face. His eyes drifted shut.

#inklingschallenge #theme: storge #story: complete #inklings challenge #leah stories #OKAY. SO #i spend so much time thinking about king lear. i think i've said before that it's my favorite shakespeare play. it is not close #and one of the hills i will die on is that cordelia was not in the right when she refused to flatter her dad #like. obviously he's definitely not in the right either. the love test was a screwed up way to make sure his kids loved him #he shouldn't have tied their inheritances into it. he DEFINITELY shouldn't have kicked cordelia out when she refused to play #but like. Cordelia. there is no good reason not to tell your elderly dad how much you love him #and okay obviously lear is my starting point but the same applies to the meat loves salt princess #your dad wants you to tell him you love him. there is no good reason to turn it into a riddle. you had other options #and honestly it kinda bothers me when people read cordelia/the princess as though she's perfectly virtuous #she's very human and definitely beats out the cruel sisters but she's definitely not aspirational. she's not to be emulated #at the end of the day both the fairytale and the play are about failures in storge #at happens when it's there and you can't tell. when it's not and you think it is. when you think you know someone's heart and you just don'#hey! that's a thing that happens all the time between parents and children. especially loving past each other and speaking different langua #so the challenge i set myself with this story was: can i retell the fairytale in such a way that the princess is unambiguously in the wrong #and in service of that the king has to get softened so his errors don't overshadow hers #anyway. thank you for coming to my TED talk #i've been thinking about this story since the challenge was announced but i wrote the whole thing last night after the super bowl #got it in under the wire! yay!#also! the whole 'modern setting that conflicts with the fairytale language' is supposed to be in the style of modern shakespeare adaptation #no idea if it worked but i had a lot of fun with it #pontifications and creations

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shirefantasies · 25 days

Text

Hello everyone, unpopular announcement coming...

Hi. I am OVERWHELMED with matchup requests. I have had them closed FOR A LONG TIME and people STILL send them in. Not to be rude, but I have said numerous times that I'm not taking more, but I've been such a pushover my whole life I haven't deleted them either (still considering it). One of them even said 'oh hi whenever you open them again I'm in line' as if that's how being closed works. I feel like a content machine more than a person receiving consideration when I get requests ignoring my attempts at minimizing stress. Bottom line is, I feel a little bit sick even saying this because I fear I'm going to lose my audience, but I don't enjoy doing matchups half as much as the original imagines, headcanons, and one-shots I set out to do and I feel a lot of pressure to complete matchups, get them out fast enough, etc. I am losing my enjoyment of writing on this account and cannot focus on the works I am really excited about because it feels like a task now and I don't want that. My fire is going out and I have been considering inactivity because of it all. This blog was a passion project to put out the content I wanted to see and share thoughts and it has lost all passion.

Matchups are closed indefinitely and any received after this post will be deleted unless you are a friend/mutual. All other types of requests are back open, though it may be a little while for me to complete them just because of the large buffer. But I want to enjoy myself here again and do what I love lest I do go inactive, which I have been considering. Thank you for understanding and I'm sorry if this is a mean post, a rude post, you no longer want to interact with this account, etc. My therapist has encouraged standing up for myself and my own mental health and I have been trying to practice that more.

TLDR MATCHUP REQUESTS ARE CLOSED INDEFINITELY. ALL OTHER REQUEST TYPES ARE BACK OPEN AGAIN. I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR HEADCANON, IMAGINE, SCENARIO REQUESTS AND I REALLY HOPE YOU ALL UNDERSTAND WHERE I'M COMING FROM 🫶🏻

#lord of the rings #lotr #lotr imagines #lotr x reader #lotr matchups #blog updates #I'm sorry you guys but you cannot IMAGINE how many of these I get ESPECIALLY AFTER CLOSING THEM SO LONG AGO #I promise I am NOT trying to be rude though I seem so #I just feel STILL sending in requests when they have been closed for weeks is very disrespectful & people don't care about writers only #getting content #and I don't want to lose enjoyment of my blog over content demand

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altschmerzes · 7 months

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If Roy and Ted start sharing a bed when Roy stays over, is there an instance where Jamie ends up in the middle after like a bad dream or something? Or maybe that’s weird for like a 16 year old… idk now I’m just thinking out loud

first off i dont think that’s weird at all! we never really grow out of needing to be supported and comforted by the people who are important to us, and i know people who’ve done this sort of thing seeking comfort from their parents during times of extreme stress and trauma into their twenties. it’s one of the things that’s been interesting about writing this fic and characterizing jamie particularly once he’s gotten close to this new support system in his life - how to balance that he’s 15, 16, 17 years old and seeks independence and self sufficiency and also has a lot of reasons to be ashamed of a desire to seek comfort or a rejection of anything he sees as making him weak or childish and at the same time he’s a kid who’s been chronically starved of care and affection and that’s. a vital need for kids, even teenagers. sometimes especially teenagers. (i may or may not have spent quite a bit of time online reading psych and sociology and like. Parenting And Family Resources to get a handle on some stuff and verify if my hunches are accurate or not XD)

which is to say yes absolutely that’s on the horizon. not often, but sometimes, when things are bad and his need to be a kid taken care of and protected by his parents overrides his fear of being seen as a baby or bothering them. he remembers one of his friends getting broken up with via text while he was over for a sleepover and going and watching them leave the kidgang to go to their parents room bc they’re upset and want their parents. and if that’s okay, maybe this is okay for him to do too.

(ted and roy thoroughly encourage it any time jamie will admit to needing or wanting something. moments where he comes to them when he’s scared or upset, voluntarily seems out comfort are absolutely everything to both of them, especially given how hard it is for him to do)

#gav gab #gav answers #writing liveblog #fic: wriggle up on dry land #this is my agenda at all times when writing h/c tbh is like #there IS a justification and a completely reasonable way for characters to like #seek comfort and closeness #admit to things or ask for things or use fond nicknames #it can be hard to find the balance and make it work #but you CAN make it work and tbh sometimes like #a lack of intensity or sincerity or emotional rawness in something can feel more out of character than an admission of love #or a teenager being cuddled between his parents after being violently traumatized #or an i love you etc #ANYWAYS. MY AGENDA: BEHOLD IT #anon you’ve hit on something I have many thoughts about #especially re: the way people will treat it as weird or ooc automatically when things like this happen #(not you to be clear you’re fine. fandom as a whole gets weird abt this especially in gen fic)#He Would Say That And Here’s Why #This Is A Situation Of Emotional Emergency And People In Acute Distress Act Accordingly #etc #also smth smth parallel of this scene with the scene in ch 7 with ted michelle and henry

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