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bugtransport · 1 year

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Kamen Rider X Finished February 14th, 2023

Here's your warning now: this one also got away from me. I BROKE 4k...

Kamen Rider X is… a show!

Look. I don’t know how to start this. I don’t know how many of you have seen this show. I don’t know how many of you saw me lose my fucking mind when I watched the first two episodes of this one. I had to kick myself out of the house and go get a breath of fresh air and went to H Mart and bought a shitton of side dishes. Just to cope, you know? Sometimes you need some fish cakes, for the soul. I ate great that whole week but that’s besides the point. X does have what I myself would describe as “a beginning” so let’s just recap that first, I guess, because it sure kicks the show off.

Pictured: welcome to Wet Boy Wonderland.

PART ONE: SETUP!

Before we begin fully: I think I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there are… a couple issues with and themes in this show that I appreciated having a heads up on before I got to them. I think that what I might have to say might come off as far too complimentary without this disclaimer and to spoil my final conclusion, my actual feelings are a little mixed. We’ll be touching on this later with how it ties into what my thesis ends up being, but there’s a switch in the theme of the monsters part way through the show from Greek Mythology to Various Bad Guys In History and the thing about various bad guys in history and also shows that are made in, let I remind you, the 70s, is that sometimes things can be… well, I’ll be blunt. There’s a pretty racist caricature in there and some of the picks can be a little off color and also there’s Starfish Hitler which does feature swastikas and was a decision that the boys and I dubbed “sure a choice.” I mean yeah, he gets killed like all the other bad guys do, but still. Do you know the experience of watching Aristocats for the first time as an adult and being like “Hmm, I really do not remember this weird racist scene in the middle of this film, what the fuck? I mean I guess it was a different time, but still…” That’s kind of what this feels like in spots. Jin Keisuke also has maybe the world’s worst dad. This is a guy who seems to have decided that a “signs of parental abuse” checklist is a game of bingo and that somehow it can be won. This is most apparent during the first couple episodes for reasons you’ll see in like, a minute or so if you read at the same speed I do or faster, but it flavors the entire show in a way I’ll hopefully convince you of by the end. Trust me on this one. Those are the two big disclaimers I have out of the way; if either of those are non-negotiable issues for you, I recommend not finishing this and watching something that isn’t Kamen Rider X. For the rest of you? Buckle up.

Here’s (roughly) what happens in the first two episodes of X. Jin Keisuke comes back home for a visit. He gets jumped by some goons at the boat docks who want to kidnap him because of his dad and gets shot at and falls into the water. He gets out of the water and reconnects with his… fiancee? I think? Keisuke goes to visit his father at his lab in a seaside cave, says that again, dad, he has no interest in going into science, and gets promptly judo thrown in response. His dad then tells him to put on a vest, which he does. Keisuke and his fiancee (?) go out to eat dinner and she tries to guilt him into sticking around because his dad is lonely. Keisuke gets a message saying that GOD is coming to fuck his shit up. Oh, right, GOD is the name of the bad guy organization in this one. Just roll with it... Neptune and the goons (great band name, the more that I think about it) overthrow a ship. Keisuke’s fiancee comes to visit them at the cave-lab; Keisuke’s dad shoots his son. This is okay because it turns out that the vest was bulletproof. Everyone laughs at this. Keisuke presumably goes to sleep at some point after this but gets woken up in the middle of the night and attacked by some goons and oh look, one of them happens to be his fiancee! What a surprise! Keisuke rushes to his dad’s side to find the guy bleeding out on the rocks in front of his cave-lab. Goons pop up and shoot him too, killing him. Keisuke’s dad has enough fight left in him to drag his son into his cave-lab and borg him and somehow get him onto a boat, where Keisuke wakes up after an indeterminate amount of time, surprised to be alive. Keisuke’s dad left a message for him telling that he built a supercomputer that is also an island (the Jin Station) to house his consciousness on a computer now that he’s dead. He gives Keisuke a bike and a quick rundown on how to become the X Rider and then asks Keisuke to explode his corpse for him. He does this. There’s a flashback of Keisuke as a kid running to his dad and his dad grabbing him and just fucking slamming the kid down. Keisuke goes off and defeats Neptune and the goons and gets helped by a woman who looks exactly like his fiancee but isn’t actually her, who gives no explanation as to why this is the case.

…So that’s episode one.

Pictured: father-son bonding at its finest!

I’ll make episode two shorter: Keisuke has another run in with his fiancee and her doppelganger which doesn’t explain anything either. Our monster of the week plotline is about a kid whose dad was just killed in a car accident a couple weeks ago and who apparently fought with his dad a lot and doesn’t know how to deal with the guilt that comes from that. Keisuke tries to protect this kid from misinformed townspeople who think that he’s hypnotizing people and the fact that he’s a borg starts to sink in. Keisuke goes back to the Jin Station to experience his first bout of borg angst with some support from his computer-father, whose response to his son wanting comfort is to call him a weak bitch and tell him that he can’t rely on anyone, he has to fight alone, and insist that Keisuke blow up the Jin Station, killing him again. This happens. Keisuke manages to convince the public that the boy was being slandered by GOD and that he wasn’t actually hypnotizing people. He then beats up the guy actually responsible. Keisuke comforts the kid by straightening out his flute, which got bent in the fight, and contemplates that maybe there are some good things about being a borg after all.

Pictured: I might have understated exactly how the stages of grief impacted him on this one here.

If you think I'm exaggerating anything here you're more than welcome to fact check me. These first two episodes are available for free on the Toei Youtube channel, go ham! Good luck.

In any case, you might be seeing a theme emerging here. Don’t worry, we’ll get to that in just a minute. There’s a little bit of contrasting that I want to do first with the previous riders. Jin Keisuke is pretty different than the guys that we’ve had before and is especially jarring coming off of a dude like Kazami Shiro. Keisuke’s wet. He doesn’t have a support network like even Hongo did with at least knowing Tachibana from the start. Hell, it’s debatable that the guy even knows Kamen Riders are like, a thing, and not just some random shit his dad made up. He certainly doesn’t know them personally like Hongo was able to make sure both Hayato and Kazami did from the start. There’s a vague kind of uncertainty undercutting everything that Jin Keisuke does as a borg because he wasn’t borged in the same way that the other previous riders were. It was by someone who he ostensibly should be able to trust (unlike Hongo and Hayato) and for a fight that wasn’t at all his (unlike Kazami) and in a way that, because of these facts, comes off as more malicious and personal than Shocker’s sterile, random cruelty and while yes, his dad was technically saving his life, it doesn’t really seem to come from a place of kindness. It really comes off like his dad wanted to have just another way to control him after he was gone and when he realized that his son was still something that he viewed as “weak,” died to save himself the embarrassment. He explicitly requested that Keisuke not lean on anyone and instead take on the fight himself, despite doing exactly the opposite of that in giving the fight over to his son in the first place. What a hypocritical ass.

It’s not just that – there’s the way that he fights with a weapon, kind of like Riderman, but essentially fences, which is so unlike any of the boys previously. He just kind of coincidentally falls into fighting GODborgs for the first part of the show with no real rhyme or reason, not with any plan, not necessarily being targeted by them even, really not seeming like he has any stake in the fight at all. He kind of doesn’t. Everyone else had some kind of personal vendetta and sure, GOD killed his dad the first time around, but Keisuke also got asked by his computer-dad to kill him, and he did. So. I mean, he could have just kept his dad alive that way. This is explicitly not his fight. He just kind of ended up here. Once the show gets going and Jin Keisuke gets into the swing of things and we start getting back into something that feels… a bit more like the previous Rider seasons, there’s still this odd disbelief in his abilities that all the characters, including Tachibana and the rest of his allies, approach Keisuke with. With Kazami, he’d do completely off the wall shit and everyone would be like “haha, that’s our guy!” Keisuke will play dead to try and throw someone off his tracks and go a little overboard with the fake blood or something and it’ll work, but in the same breath Tachibana will just look at him all confused and question why on earth he decided to go that way in the first place. I feel like I’m going full Pepe Syliva; is this not meant to mirror his father’s disbelief in his son’s abilities/path in life and the subsequent control that he tried to push onto him? In fact, there’s really only one character who I can think of who doesn’t underestimate him near constantly: Apollo Geist, baby.

Pictured: the creature in question

PART TWO: Fuck it, call me a Jin Keisuke apollogeist

Sorry, I had to fit that joke in here somewhere. I’ve been trying for weeks to make it work. Apollo Geist is the leader of GOD’s secret police, a position that is basically analogous to any of the other commanders that we’ve seen before. Weekly monster gets sent out, he’s the one above them in the ranks so he oversees their progress, critiques them, ends up 1v1ing the rider at some point, gets their shit kicked in. We’ve seen this before, we’ve loved this before, it works so well and I think it’s definitely something that the beginning episodes were lacking. We have to get some structure in these evil organizations in order to be able to even start to think about tearing them down. Though – because of the aforementioned constant and relentless underestimating of Jin Keisuke, when Apollo Geist appears and becomes obsessed with taking him down and claims that he’s the only one who can actually defeat the rider and stands on cliffsides watching him fight it really comes off as way more personal than anyone else we’ve had before. He can transform, not really into a monster, but into something way closer to X or any of the riders than we’ve had with anyone else previously. Apollo Geist feels like he’s set up to be Jin Keisuke’s equal, and it’s mad yaoi.

Oh yeah, and totally forgot about this until I was looking back through my caps to write this, but Keisuke’s fiancee? Yeah, she was trying to do like whole double agent thing with her twin (who was the other one who looked like her) and it didn’t work out and she exploded mere minutes before Apollo Geist was introduced for the first time. She never really gets mentioned again. But that does leave the spot for a romantic interest open…

Pictured: special friends...

So. What the hell else am I supposed to think. Like, sorry, the man butts into pretty much every fight because he doesn’t trust his lackeys with this man. He wants to take X down in a way that’s satisfying to him. He checks in with Tachibana when Jin Keisuke fakes his death without telling him that he’s with GOD, leading Tachibana to think he must be one of Keisuke’s friends. He does the same thing when visiting the coffee shop later. He’s fucking obsessed with this guy. The two of them bike joust. Apollo Geist will jump onto his bike from 20 floors up, tenderizing his nuts into oblivion when he hits the saddle, just to show off. He’s obsessive and wild and wears a suit that’s all one color and man, I cannot imagine who else this might be reminding me of right now, but my word… and, both times he dies, he does so trying to take X down with him.

“Both times he dies?” Both times he dies. The man fails to hold down X the first time around when he tried to explode him with his arm bomb and following that gets rebuilt and upgraded in the process. Long story short, after donning his little cowboy fit and realizing that he has shit aim suddenly during his daily shooting practice to kill Jin Keisuke, he learns that he only has a day or two left to live and that the literal only way to reverse this is to take a piece of the X suit and have it attached to his heart.

Pictured: heterosexual behavior

Yes, you heard me correctly there: the only way for Apollo Geist to live here is for him to quite literally accept Jin Keisuke into his heart. Fucking incredible, isn’t it? He doesn’t do this, obviously, because he did die a second time, but look. The metaphor. It’s right there!! Maybe if Apollo Geist and Jin Keisuke had met under different circumstances, or maybe if they had a common enemy, or maybe if Apollo Geist wanted to admit his newfound weakness to Jin Keisuke or accept Jin Keisuke’s weaknesses as well (like the part where Keisuke didn’t want to transform because he was hurt, right, and Apollo Geist wanted to force him into changing so they could fight) and get into something that isn’t just this back and forth will they won’t they tension, the “what if we were two boys?” complex, the fucking starcrossed lovers of it all.

Pictured: he likes to be tall

Sorry, wait a fucking second, wasn’t there someone else who died a horrible explosive death because they didn’t want to accept Keisuke into his heart? Who also saw Jin Keisuke as someone who should be able to put up a good, satisfying fight, regardless of what his wishes might be? Does Apollo Geist… also tie back to the whole dad thing?

PART 3: The whole dad thing.

Pictured: not a compliment

So. The whole dad thing. There are so, so many examples I could pull from, but lemme just run through what I specifically took notes on while watching the show as being repeated quite a distracting amount:

Human experimentation. My fucking god, X has a lot of it randomly peppered in throughout the show. Not even really things that GOD is doing – the one that comes to mind is in one episode when the GODborg was influencing a bunch of kids to commit suicide and the tie between all of them was that they were all taking an experimental drug because they’re all honors students or something and they wanted to boost their brains even further. Honestly sounds like some shit that would happen in the suburb I used to live in, which is why I remember this one so well. The person who developed this thing gets nervous because like, I believe that the last kid alive on this drug is their kid. Jin Keisuke does save them, but you know who fucking else experimented on their kid? Jin Keisuke’s dad.

Vampires. What the fuck, this show has I think at least 5 separate instances of vampires in it. In a 35 episode show. There are so many vampires. You know, the monster that’s notorious for infecting other people and sucking their life from them and changing them irreversibly in the process, making them stronger physically but also condemning them to living a hellish life. Wow, you know what that sounds like to me? Kind of like turning your son into a cyborg to save him and forcing him into a fight with a bunch of guys that were trying to kill you.

The switch in monster themes in the middle of the show. There’s a point post Apollo Geist where the monsters swap over from being themed after figures in Greek mythology to historical figures. Yes, like I stated in the warning at the beginning of this post. Almost as if Jin Keisuke spent the time up to Apollo Geist fighting the mythos of his father, his ideals and the impact that left on him, and then when Apollo Geist died because he refused to let Keisuke into his heart, swapped over to fighting the actual sins of his father’s past. As if Apollo Geist dying for a similar reason that his father did when he asked Keisuke to blow him up so that he could “build character” or whatever, make Keisuke then realize that his father’s beliefs were… kinda fucked. That maybe the way he treated him wasn’t right. That maybe after that realization, he can move on slightly and begin the actual work of taking GOD down.

[[Important to note but not a section in the dad saga – after Apollo Geist and the monster switch happens, the new guy leading the GODborgs is one big robolad named King Dark. Yeah, this thing has already gone on for too long and I didn’t want to recap even more of the show so I’m just giving you the context. Couldn’t figure out how else to do it and make it coherent and again, don’t know how many of you have actually watched this show. Okay back to the essay:]]

Kazami Shiro shows up and upgrades Jin Keisuke towards the end. After this point, Keisuke gets a perm (irrelevant) and his fighting style completely changes (very relevant) to be much more traditional Rider. The Ridol stick that his father gave him that he used to fight all the time with? Not used anymore. He has a new henshin pose and a new finisher. It’s just like, oh, I don’t know, being able to meet people he relates to and find a new family with the other riders is maybe helping him find his identity separate from his dad? While he is still obviously impacted by the trauma his father imposed upon him (in being a rider in the first place) he’s taking it and changing it into something his own? Quite literally, textually, physically changed by the people he’s met? Who would have thought!

The GOD leader? The one who we’ve been working towards fighting all this time? The person controlling King Dark? Yeah. That’s Keisuke’s dad’s friend, who was the one behind getting him dragged into GOD business, which of course is then in turn the reason that Keisuke got dragged into this mess in the first place. Remember above when I mentioned how the monsterswap lead to Keisuke fighting the actual sins of his father and his past actions? Yeah. That’s the final boss. Just to cement and drive home really how much of this could have been avoided. How much the entire thing was his dad’s fault. Keisuke gets stabbed all the way through his chest while in King Dark but still manages to come out on top. Yeah, it hurt him, but the man was finally cut off.

The ending scene of the show, where Keisuke rides off into the distance and Tachibana reads the note that he left for him explaining his plans going forward, is so much different than the end of V3. V3 ends with Kazami Shiro experiencing loss once more and going to go off to deal with that. X, on the other hand, ends on one of the most hopeful notes I’ve seen yet. Keisuke seems… really happy. He’s excited to head out on his own, like the other riders before him. He’s excited to experience what they’ve experienced. He’s finally shed the weight of his father and his expectations for him and he can figure out what being a Kamen Rider means to him, specifically. It’s really, really sweet. It’s the ending I want in a story about parental abuse. It didn’t make me cry, because I was too happy for him, but it really stuck with me something vicious.

Do I sound like I’m going off the rails? I feel like I am!

The thing is… most if not all of these things can totally be explained away in ways that don’t have a damn thing to do with Jin Keisuke’s dad. The change of the monster themes from mythology to reality? I know that one’s because the person who handled the monster designs for the first part of the show left and they had to bring someone new in. The vampires? I’m convinced they got a great deal on the fangs and just wanted to use them where they could. The human experimentation themes? Sure, that’s always been a theme in Rider, not really to this degree of lethality, but maybe they’re just trying to bring in a somewhat older audience or something. V3 upgrading him? Kazami Shiro fucking rules, of course they’d want to bring him back into the show, and why not have him give Keisuke something cool so they’d have an excuse to do just that. The contrast between the endings of V3 and X are super apparent to me because I’m watching them as an adult less than a month apart, but so many other characters also ride off into the sunset, it could just as easily mean nothing.

I don’t care, I guess; I can’t see it any other way. It’s about defeating his dad and learning to deal with the trauma that your shit parents gave you. It’s Saturn Devouring His Son. Jin Keisuke is battling GOD but really, he’s just fighting all the demons that his father passed down to him. He’s fighting his ideals and his past and his old friend. He was fighting his father’s fight, and he’s done now. He’s found people that are like him, who have similar ideals and can support him in a way that his father couldn’t, and so when he rides off into the sunset at the end of the show, it’s maybe the lightest that I think the show has ever felt. He’ll have to deal with the consequences of his father’s actions for the rest of his life, there’s no question about that, but at least now he’s shed most of the baggage he was saddled with and is all the stronger for it. And I really, really don’t think that their intentions going into the show matter, because I think being able to read it that way can be enough for me. It feels like the story itself wanted to be told. It might have been messy, but hell, what weird relationships with your parents aren’t, right?

Pictured: sure that was probably just a throwaway line but damn, I get why you would associate those things...

TL;DR:

Kamen Rider X is a show where I think that the curtains were blue because that’s what was on sale at the store; maybe yellow curtains were more in season so they got a good deal on the blue ones, and that’s why they used them. Still, whether or not they meant anything by them or not and again, let’s be real, I don’t really think that they did, sometimes they can blow in the breeze and catch the wind just right and ripple like the surface of the ocean, and maybe if you squint your eyes and think about it in just the right way, you can see the debris from the Jin Station floating by.

Would I recommend Kamen Rider X?

FUCKING UHHHHHHHHHHH look okay. Yes if you’re nuts like me and think that this sounds like at least an interesting ride to watch. I can’t say that it really ever got boring and the fact that it’s only 35 episodes? It goes by fast. I was entertained throughout… that entertainment however did range a little bit from feeling like I was watching a fun little toku show to sometimes maybe watching a car wreck. I might have been rubbernecking down the freeway. I wouldn’t recommend that you start with X. Please, for the love of god, start with something that isn’t X. Heed the warning I wrote at the start. Maybe skip this one if you aren’t interested in thinking about some dude’s dad issues for a few weeks! But… it’s still compelling. I still keep thinking about it. It did a lot accidentally and I like it for that. Jin Keisuke, I wish you all the best!

ONE MORE THING! I COULDN’T FIND A PLACE TO MENTION THIS BECAUSE THIS IS LIKE THE ONLY THING THAT DOESN’T TIE INTO KEISUKE’S DAD ISSUES BUT ALSO I STILL WANTED TO MENTION IT: THERE ARE LESBIANS!

LET’S GOOOOO CHIKO AND MAKO YEAAAAAHHH!!!

One last Apollo Geist for the road:

#official bugtransport 2023 media recap #again excuse any typos or whatever i can't be assed to read this over #please don't reply directly to this post i will not be reading it #I HIT IMAGE LIMIT ON HERE EVERYONE PLEASE CLAP #rider roundup #kamen rider x

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chastiefoul · 8 months

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valentines gone wrong ft. childe, scara, and neuvilette

a/n: yes. you read that right valentines work on september!! this is just something random i wanna write one day when i'm lying down and ofc i can't wait until february next year (also how is it alr almost 2 months since i posted something???) tags: just fluff, light-read, and everything in-between, modern au (?) just don't think too much abt it hehe - summary: it's valentines and of course you have plans to give sweets to your lover. however because one thing and another, you had to entrust it to someone else in hope it will be handed safely to them. what happened when it didn't?

childe

you went home excited, anticipating his reaction to your handmade sweets, however what greets you at the door was a sulky childe, who avoided eye contact as if his life depended on it as he limits himself to a a sentence everytime you ask him something.

“something happened today, babe?” you asked him worriedly, the chocolate was the back of your mind seeing the state of your boyfriend in. “oh something definitely should have happened,” he quipped, his lower mouth sticking out slightly. “that sounds like a dig at me, did i forgot something?” you asked as you follow his gaze to what he thought must be the most interesting flower vase ever. he shrugged, refusing to give you more.

frustrated by his rejection to tell you what’s wrong, you held his face with both of your palm, turning his face to yours. although the move met no resistance, childe still refused to look at you in the eyes and only now his childish grumbles turned into such a sad expression.

“baby? please tell me what i did,” you were gentle with it, rubbing your thumb below his eyes. “...late.”

“what?”

“chocolate. where’s mine? i saw you gave your friends one so i don’t think im crazy to expect one too, especially as your boyfriend.” he pouted and you swore it looked so adorable and so out-of-character of him that you wanted to kiss him—wait.

“huh? but i did give you one!” you claimed, confusion rose inside you. “huh? but i didn’t get it...” childe’s face matched your expression. “well technically i gave it to scara to give it to you.. did he not... give it to you?”

“i wouldn’t be this insufferable if i got one, you know that, but no he didn’t say anything—and also really babe? scara? the guy who hates and made fun of me every chance he got?” he crossed his arm, raising an eyebrow, as he questioned your questionable decision-making. “hey give me a break, i was in a rush there thinking i couldn’t give you the chocolate in time. and he made me say please three times before he said he would consider doing it-oh i see how i was wrong there.” your line of ramble humbled you, the silence was loud.

“maybe he just put it in your bag or something?” you offered. “you really think he’s someone who’d do that?” he asked. “in desperate times i’d give even scara the benefit of the doubt,” you stated, opening childe’s bag. and there it was, put nicely at the very top, your chocolate for your lover.

you smiled, for all the shit-talk scara gave everyone on a daily basis you knew you could count on him. “see? i knew he’s actually a big softie for stuff like this.”

childe practically runs to your side. “my chocolate? aw babe so you really didn’t forget me!” he peppered kisses all over your face, then clasping the sweet to his chest like it’s a new-born baby. “of course i’d never. but maybe next year i’ll just give it directly to you.”

“yeah? please do, today’s event just wasn’t great for my heart.”

neuvilette

“welcome home, dear.” you greeted him cheerily as he just arrived home. it was quite late, and you had entrust the chocolate you were supposed to give to him at a reasonable hour so he could enjoy it instead of giving it to him at home.

he kissed your temple in return, a smile you’re still head over heels for on his lips. but it doesnt quite reach his eyes.

“what’s wrong?” you asked carefully. “nothing is wrong,” he replied, somehow looking nervous. “yet it’s strange for you to be looking so fidgety. tell me?”

“well,” he paused a little, stroking your hair as he pondered the best way to approach the sentence he’s about to say. “i saw you today giving chocolates to navia and wriothesley.. i couldn’t talk to you because i was in a rush to deal with an urgent case,” he said, not looking at you on the eyes. “oh, did that bother you? it’s just they’re such good friends of mine and it’s only friendship cookies-“

“no, dear of course not. i know you’re a loving person who always appreciate those around you, it’s just..”

“just?”

neuvilette looked like he didn’t hear the rest of the words after that you did make some for the white-haired male. a smile bloomed on his face as he shook his head. “no problem i will ask them about it tomorrow. i’m just delighted you kept me in your thoughts.” a gentle expression was loyal on his features. “well of course neuvillete, you hardly ever leave my thoughts, don’t you know?” he chuckled. “i’m familiar with that you see, considering you never leave mine as well.”

the next sentence was almost audible as he spoke. “do i not get one..?” he asked ever so softly sounding a little sad, his calloused hand ran across your arm, tracing along your vein as it touched your fingers and you're sure there's something wrong in your head because all you could think about that second was how adorable the usual charismatic man was being. yet you held your smile.

“of course you do! did it not reach you? i asked the guard in front of your door because i afraid i’d bother you at work hours. sorry neuvilette, i promised i made some for you, and i was so proud of it too...”

scara

“no i’m not.” he said, with the worst frown you’ve seen on him for a while and that’s saying a lot.

“you’re definitely sulking,” you said. “shut up,” he grumbled. “hey i was supposed to be one who’s doing the sulking. we’re nearing the end of the day and you haven’t even mentioned about the chocolate i gave you today!” you retorted out of frustration but most of all confusion because you had no idea what made your lover fall into such a bad mood.

“what.”

“what?”

“say that again,” scara said, “that i gave you chocolate?” you asked. “no you didn’t, you liar!” he complained, his frown deepened if that’s even possible. “wait what? i swear i asked childe to give it to you earlier today! i was ambushed by customers today at the shop so i was scared i couldn’t give it to you on time so i asked him. did it not get to you?” you explained.

“i came home empty-handed didn’t i? also really, that dense fool?” his displeasure was obvious upon the new information you couldn’t help but chuckle slightly. “don’t look so disgusted, he’s not that bad.”

“sure, although you know what’s bad? that i don’t have my chocolates right now.” he crossed his arm, fuming almost looking like a child who got their toys taken. “alright enough of your pouting. we’ll interogate him later. for now, i seem to have leftover ingredients, i’ll make you a new one.” you approached him, combing through the back of his hair as you planted a gentle kiss on his cheek. he replied by pulling you closer as he nuzzled into your neck. “it better be good,” he mumbled.

at the end you didn’t even make it to 5 minutes before scara followed you to the kitchen, insisting that he made it together too because he was ‘watching over you so you don’t mess up’ but personally i think he just felt bad because you need to make a new one and wanted to help you any way he can. that’s something he’d never admit even if there’s a gun pointing at his head, though.

#genshin x reader #genshin scenarios #genshin impact x you #genshin impact x reader #genshin fanfic #genshin x you #genshin fluff #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #tartaglia x y/n #tartaglia x you #neuvilette x reader #scara x reader #scaramouche x reader #wanderer x reader #wanderer fluff

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i-drop-level-one-loot · 9 months

Note

hi i love your work a lot i've been reading it a lot during this difficult blood moon time. i have a request if you don't mind tackling it!! this is gonna be very specific, but yandere! stalker x reader, BUT the yandere is not stalking reader -- the yandere is stalking a popular girl the reader knows in passing, and reader figures "well, i could use some extra cash", so reader approaches stalker and offers to sell phone numbers of popular girl, hangs out with stalker, and unintentionally ends up becoming the new target of stalker. surprised pikachu face on reader's end that her plan has backfired. bonus points if popular girl that same morning is like "i think stalker guy has finally stopped following me" before the reveal. thank you for reading :)

Based on your post, Imma assume she/her pronouns for our darling (you know what, I relate, gimme the money lmaoooo)

(Reader) slammed her hand down onto the cafe's table, startling the nervous looking man hiding behind his long, shaggy hair. He had been so focused on staring at Jenny (❤️), the angel of campus, and his unrequited love (of three months). Axle fumbled with his camera, nearly dropping it on the floor as he scurried to hide it in his lap.

"Um.. hi?" His exhausted eyes darted around the coffee shop, too nervous to look directly at the woman standing above him. "May I help you?"

"So you're Jenny's stalker." (Reader) smiled coyly, pulling a chair closer towards Axle so she could sit uncomfortably close to him.

His pasty skin flushed deep maroon, sweating under the harsh accusation . "No, you're wrong, I-I'm not-"

The poor hooded man was cut off by (Reader) grabbing his camera, too horrified by the situation to make a scene in the packed area. (Reader) flipped through the pictures, her smile fading as her eyebrows knit into a disappointed scowl.

"Damn, these pictures... suuuuck."

Axle was shocked, not expecting that response. "What?" His face went slack like a fish, unable to compute the young woman's critique.

"They're all... blurry. And, off center? Out of focus..." She handed back his camera, now with a look of mild pity. "Dude.."

With shaky hands, Axle yanked the camera back, not knowing if he should still be scared that he was caught, or offended.

"When Jenny was talking about how nervous she felt, having a stalker, I thought.. I thought you would be different." (Reader) cupped her chin in her hands, leaning in further, forcing Axle to lean awkwardly to the side, away from the strange woman. She seemed to be debating something, carefully contemplating her next steps. "Are you going to kill her?"

Axle gasped, mortified. "No! No, I would never!" He denied, a little louder than he had meant to. Axle sat stiff, fiddling with his camera. "I just.. really like her." A cute little blush dusted his cheeks, making (Reader) pray she wasn't being a fool.

She slipped a hand into her jacket pocket, and pulled out a picture of Jenny, one not from her social media. Axle grabbed it, admiring how the sunlight looked like a halo illuminating Jenny's hair. "Where did you get this?" Axle asked, full of awe as he stroked the image.

"I took it." (Reader) replied smugly. "Do you want it?"

Axle nodded, unable to pry his eyes away from the image. (Reader) pulled the picture back out of his hands, watching him whimper with a cold, unamused expression on her face.

"Twenty bucks."

"Huh?"

"Twenty bucks, and this is yours." (Reader) sat back in her seat like a mob boss, legs spread wide and head cocked to the side.

Axle yanked his wallet out, and fished out a twenty, absolutely giddy over receiving such a wonderful picture of his beloved.

"Pleasure making business." (Reader) smiled, pleased with how easy it was to trap Axle in her web. "Of course, with how awful you are at stalking, will you be okay with just that little picture?"

The young man froze. Of course, she was right. He was clumsy and skittish, often getting noticed while following Jenny, getting chased by campus police. Even the pictures he took of her were rubbish. "What do you mean?" Axle asked only to be sure he wasn't misunderstanding the situation.

"I'll help you out. I'll continue taking pictures for you, get you private information on Jenny, whatever you want. And you pay me."

He smiled oddly. "Pay? What you're doing is a crime, and you're fine with that?"

(Reader) grinned back childishly. "As long as you pay me."

Despite how uncomfortable Axle was with the strange young woman who hadn't even introduced herself, he couldn't pass up this opportunity.

~ 1 week later ~

Axle waited behind a dumpster, not quite sure how X had gotten his phone number. He still hadn't learned the mystery woman's name, only that she was eccentric, and possibly watched too many crime thrillers. (Reader) had told him to call her X, thinking it best that he didn't know her true identity.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when (Reader) popped up behind him. "You got the cash?" Axle squeaked, grabbing his heart.

"You scared me!" Axle stuttered out, looking better than he had the first time they met. His hair was no longer greasy, and the bags under his eyes had lightened up.

'Looks like he's had more time to take care of himself, now that I'm doing the dirty work for him.' (Reader) thought, staring daggers at Axle. He became flustered under her gaze, shifting anxiously.

"What are you looking at?"

"Just wondering why you're stalking Jenny in the first place." Axle pouted, thinking that maybe this was just a set up to bully him. "You're actually pretty handsome when you've showered."

"Huh?"

"Like, conventionally speaking, by societal standards, you are attractive. Maybe stop slouching and find a better jacket? But yeah, pretty sure if you took care of yourself and just approached Jenny like a normal human being she would have liked you."

His ears became warm at (Reader's) words, trying not to smile at the image of Jenny calling him handsome.

"But, better for me that you're a weirdo." (Reader) smiled playfully, holding out a manila envelope full of pictures she had printed out. "Money!" She said it like a question, empty hand opened expectantly.

Axle grumbled, plopping a wad of cash into her hand as he grabbed the envelope, heart palpitating as he saw more exquisite pictures of Jenny. Each one was amazing, with a sense of professionalism in their quality.

"These are incredible."

"Yeah, yeah. She's, like, super hot, I know." (Reader) absentmindedly responded while counting her earnings.

"I meant the pictures, dick."

(Reader) then did something unexpectedly, she stopped counting, and it looked like a little blush bloomed ever so faintly, genuinely surprised by the compliment. "Oh. Uh, thanks."

Axle noticed the way her back went rigid and the way she averted her eyes. It was.. kinda cute. His brain short circuited. Did I just think she's cute?

~ 2 weeks later ~

Axle's door knocked insistently, rousing him from his slumber. No one ever visited his apartment, not even his parents, so Axle was suspicious of who it could be. "I'm coming!"

He unlocked the door to find X, standing their with a shit eating grin on her face. "I never want to hear you say that again."

(Reader) brushed past the blushing mess, barging into his dark and creepy apartment. "How - why - how??" Axle was almost on the verge of tears, zipping around his apartment faster than the Flash to try and clean up, scooping up arms full of dirty underpants and pizza boxes, and just throwing them into a closet.

"Because I'm actually good at my job, that's how." She smiled triumphantly, flopping onto his bed while taking off her bag. "You know, it was really easy making friends with Jenny. She's so sweet.. it makes me feel a little guilty." (Reader) faked a sniffle, pretending to be torn up. "Maybe we should end this.."

"What? No!" Axle panicked, immediately regretting acting like a fool, as "X" removed her hands from her face, revealing dry eyes and a sarcastic smirk.

"Maybe I'll stay.. if you give me a raise."

Axle looked shocked, like he had actually believed (Reader). It was cute. "Fine.. whatever." He groaned, still standing with his arms cross.

"Aren't you going to sit down? I've got some things to show ya." (Reader) patted the bed.

"No!" Axle replied way too quickly, embarrassed about sitting with a girl in his bed. "I mean.. I'm fine standing." He rubbed his neck, avoiding eye contact as usual.

"You know, I know I'm not Jenny levels of hot, but it hurts that you never even look at me." (Reader) deadpanned, pulling out a pad of paper from her backpack, along with another envelope of pictures. "In this little notebook I have Jenny's phone number, her mom's phone number, her dad's phone number, I have her dorm address, I have her family's home address, I have the contact info for her past three exes, and I also wrote down some stuff I learned from talking to her, like the kind of guy she likes, her favorite food, her allergies, a bunch of stuff."

Axle was shocked, and kind of startled, by how thorough (Reader) was. He enjoyed following Jenny between classes, making sure she got where she needed to go, and yeah he liked climbing up the side of the dormitory to try and watch her sleeping, but this was beyond anything he ever could have hoped for.

"Wow. Maybe you do deserve that raise." He opened the envelope, ignoring (Reader) as she bragged about how she got all that information, overwhelmed yet again by (Reader's) photography skills. "Have you ever thought about becoming a photographer?"

(Reader) paused her rambling, nervously shifting her gaze away. Axle was beginning to suspect that she didn't receive compliments all that often, which was a shame, because she certainly was talented. Axle felt his heart thump heavily again.

"I, uh, never thought about it.." (Reader) lied. "Why, you think I should?"

Why did she look so cute right now, nervously asking a creep who was paying her to stalk someone if he approved of her talents?

As he was about to answer, he found a selfie of Jenny and (Reader) together. "What's this?"

"Oh, sorry that wasn't supposed to be in there. Jenny saw my camera and asked if we could take a pic together." (Reader) made a move to grab it, but Axle held it up out of her reach. Strangely, he realized that he had never seen the two side by side, and for some reason in the picture of the two of them together Ms. X was way cuter.

"I'll keep this one too."

"Huh? Why?"

"I like it."

~ 1 month later ~

Axle stared into the bright blue light of his laptop, looking at (Reader's) face. It was difficult to find her, as she didn't have much of a social media presence, and Axle didn't know her name, but he finally found her. He kept telling himself that he was just curious in what kind of lunatic agreed to work as a professional stalker, and why the hell was she so good at it? But as he lost track of time staring at the terrible family photos her mother posted online, he started to question why he never seemed to notice her before.

It felt even worse, since she noticed him.

The pictures she took were all neatly packed in a drawer except for the selfie she took with Jenny. Axle kept arguing with himself, insisting that that was simply the best picture of Jenny by far. But he knew deep down it wasn't the truth.

He had started to lose sleep again, trying to dig up information on his partner on crime. Partners in crime. Axle smacked himself in the head, pulling his hoodie down over his mop of hair. Unfortunately, he was a college student, and had classes to attend.

Out in the corridor, he heard the most wonderful sound in the world. (Reader's) maniacal laughter. Even when out with normal people, (Reader) didn't mask who she was. She was walking with a group of popular students, all cracking up over something one of them had said, and Axle was jealous.

(Reader) looked so natural with that crowd, hanging out like she wasn't a loser like him, glowing so brightly that Axle didn't see Jenny right away. He knew (Reader) said that she had "infiltrated their ranks" in order to learn more about Jenny for him, but it was still incredible to see. Axle wondered if he would look just as natural by their side, after all, (Reader) had said that Axle was "handsome". He suddenly became self conscious, regretting not showering before he left his apartment. When was the last time he washed this coat? Why hadn't he bought a new one when (Reader) suggested it?

It was almost like he had to remind himself to look at Jenny. She didn't look as angelic as he remembered.

~ 2 months later ~

"What made you like Jenny?" (Reader) asked, scrolling on her phone while lounging on Axle's bed. Axle was watching (Reader) while pretending to look at the pictures she had taken. She was so exposed, lying there as though this was just a friend's place, not a man's bed. Axle tried not to feel excitement seeing (Reader) so comfortable in his presence.

"I'm, um, not sure." And that was the truth. Why did he like Jenny? The way she smiled? Was it simply how beautiful she was?

The more he grew to know (Reader) as a person, the more beautiful he found her to be. Jenny paled in comparison to (Reader).

It was too embarrassing to tell (Reader) the truth, that the woman he loved so much that he couldn't stop thinking about her 24/7, now simply didn't interest him. Not like (Reader) did. If I take a picture of her, would she hate me?

"You should take more selfies." Axle stated, out of the blue.

"Why?" (Reader) snorted.

"Because you're pretty.." He blushed softly, smiling at the picture of (Reader) he kept on his desk.

~ 4 months later ~

(Reader) smiled wide eyed, almost unable to contain her surprise. "What?"

"Yeah, he's just, disappeared." Jenny took a sip from her coffee, confused but not complaining. "I haven't noticed that creepy fuck following me around, like, at all lately."

Many thoughts passed through (Reader's) mind like rapid fire. Was everything okay with Axle? Did he lose interest in his beloved? And if he did, was she no longer going to get paid?!

(Reader) ran to Axle's apartment as soon as the coast was clear. Partially worried for his well being, mostly worried for her pay check.

She didn't bother knocking, instead throwing open the door like she owned the place. Axle stood in the middle of his room, confused, and pink in the face. He had a fresh hair cut, showing off his dark eyes, and he had a new outfit on, one that fit him better than his oversized stained hoodie. "(Reader)? What are you doing here?"

"I was just-" she stuttered, blushing violently. He was incredibly attractive, towering over her now that he was standing with better posture. "Wait, how did you know my name?!"

An ominous feeling crept over her, as she thought about how many times she laid in his bed, not knowing that he was falling out of love with his target. He smiled sweetly at (Reader), behind him was a new camera he had bought for her, as a gift. Axle had meant to propose a new deal with (Reader), requesting pictures of her instead, but she had caught him dressing up in the clothes he bought to impress her. He pulled her into his room.

(Reader) only noticed the pictures of her scattered across the floor as Axle locked the door.

#yandere #yandere stalker #yandere stalker x reader #fem reader #college aged reader #tw stalking #thanks for the ask!#writing requests #i hope you like it #not proofread #bad writing

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doumadono · 9 months

Note

Hello Dear Author,

I would like to state that I am a new follower and I already love your style and representation of the characters.

I don't know if your requests are open, but If it's not please feel free to not reply!

Can you do a Scenario or headconans for this.... whatever you prefer.

With Izuku or Bakugo or Shoto , whichever you prefer also.

With a reader who sometimes gets suddenly dizzy in summer because of the heat. Like sometimes her heart beat is fast and other times it quite low and she's unable to stand or talk because of dizziness, specially when they're outside, and how will they deal with her.

It's summer and the weather is too hot, and as a person who feels hot even during winter and the coldest weather, I can't with heat and I feel dizzy most of the time or when I stand up, The only thing that can save me is the AC🥹😭

Sorry for the long text.

Thank you in advance dear Author ❤️

Have a good day/night🩷

A/N: I've chosen to fulfill this request because I love boys, and the topic seemed interesting but in the future, kindly check my pinned post before dropping a request. Please note that I'm currently only accepting emergency requests. Any requests not labeled as emergencies are being immediately erased

MASTERLIST

Bakugo

Initially annoyed and frustrated by your dizzy spells in the heat.

Finds it hard to express his concern directly due to his temperamental nature.

Reluctantly keeps an eye on you during hot days, secretly worried.

Would never admit it, but he starts carrying a small water bottle for you.

If he notices you feeling dizzy, he might roll his eyes but will still help you find shade.

"Tch, can't even handle the damn weather... Here, drink this and sit down."

Shows tough love, but his concern becomes evident through his actions.

Keeps a close watch on you during outdoor activities, ready to intervene.

Might grumble, "Quit being such a hassle. Chill for a bit."

Surprisingly good at fanning you with a piece of paper or his own hand.

Secretly plans outdoor activities during cooler parts of the day to avoid your dizzy spells.

"I ain't gonna babysit you, but I'm not letting you pass out either."

Shoto

Observant and empathetic, notices your condition quickly.

Gently offers his arm for you to lean on when you're feeling dizzy.

Suggests finding a shaded area and doesn't mind if you want to rest for a while.

Always carries a small handheld fan or a damp cloth in his bag for your comfort.

"Don't worry, take your time. I'm here with you."

Keeps track of weather forecasts and suggests indoor activities on extremely hot days.

Will use his ice Quirk to create a comfortable temperature around you if necessary.

Takes note of patterns in your dizziness to anticipate and manage it better.

Offers his own water bottle without even having to be asked.

Asks gentle questions to understand how you're feeling during dizzy spells.

Suggests activities like strolling through air-conditioned museums on hot days.

His calming presence helps ease your dizziness when it occurs.

"Don't worry, I've got you. Let's find somewhere comfortable to sit."

Izuku

Immediately worried and wants to find a solution to help you manage the symptoms.

Researches the possible causes of your dizzy spells and preventive measures.

Encourages you to stay hydrated and offers water bottles regularly.

Carries a mini first aid kit with pain relievers and electrolyte packets.

Suggests taking breaks in air-conditioned areas to cool down.

"I read that staying hydrated and keeping a wet cloth on your forehead can help."

Will always have a backup plan in case you start feeling dizzy unexpectedly.

Shows deep concern, researching medical articles and talking to professionals.

Suggests keeping a diary of your symptoms to identify triggers more accurately.

Carries a small notebook with tips to manage your condition, just in case.

Offers to hold your hand during dizzy spells, to help steady you.

Comes up with innovative ideas like a handheld portable fan with a mister.

"I've been reading about different ways to manage this, let's try a few together."

Enthusiastically tries out relaxation techniques to help you stay calm during spells.

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devilmen-collector · 4 months

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WHB Theory: Vessels of God's Sinful Emotions

A theory I have after reading Chapter 5 and discussing with @sparkbeast20

This post ofc will contain spoilers up to Chapter 5 and religious theme

(God, please forgive me for writing this because I have to use Your name for PB's fictional version of You)

God possesses sinful emotions

Firstly, in Story 5-64, we have Bimet says God was greedy and jealous, meaning he had Greed and Envy, to which Glasyalabolas replies by saying God possessed other deadly sins as well, namely rage/Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, arrogance/Pride. He fails to mention Lust but we still don't know whether it has a deeper meaning or it's just Glasya is making examples and Lust just happens to not be in the examples listed.

Theory

I. God doesn't want these sinful emotions

My theory, God doesn't want the sinful emotions in him. There may be several reasons, maybe because he doesn't want sins, we all know too well why the Seven Deadly Sins are preached against and virtues are praised in real life, the consequences of the Deadly Sins are evil things such as murder, rape, oppression, corruption and many other evil actions. So God decided to keep the virtues within himself while removing the sins. But since those deadly sins are attributes of God, he couldn't just remove them and throw them away carelessly, he needed something to store them.

II. The 7 Kings were created directly by God, not through a pair of parents

We do know that devils don't give birth, but having their children made according to their likeness by Lilith. Even so, the devil child is considered children of the parents who requested Lilith to make a child. Some of the nobles have been proven to be born in this way (Andrealphus, Amon, Buer). Exception is the Unholyc, born through the union of Asmodeus and a human female, their case is procreation just like human.

However, my theory that I have been telling my friends since months before the game's release and the kings are created directly by God.

In Story 5-86, we have an NPC angel telling us about the rumors that subject no. 87 (Leviathan) was created carefully by God. My point here is why is this angel saying God "created it carefully", aren't all created by God? Why making the difference? So there are at least 2 different ways in which one is created by God. The superior one is that one's body and soul are both crafted by God directly. The inferior one is that one's body is created by God but indirectly through procreation of the parents (as in the case of human) or Lilith (as in the case of normal and noble devils), God only infuses the soul the moment life begins.

In Story 5-96, Valefor says that it's difficult to create a body equals or surpasses one that God created for Mammon. (My opinion: it's impossible lol). So Mammon's no different from Levi that he had his body created by God directly.

If it has been the case with two of the seven kings, I think it's safe to assume it applies to other kings too. Lucifer's a little different because he was an angel but since he was God's favorite Seraph, I think he falls into the same category of having the privilege of having God created his body directly.

Another proof is that you have never heard the kings mentioning a parent. For some of the nobles, their parents were mentioned (Buer, Amon, Andre, etc.) But for the kings, just no mention of parents at all (excluding Levi because he was kidnapped as a child), even though devils are immortal (they only die if they are wounded in a battle or a serious accident).

III. God created the 7 Kings for a very special purpose

The next question is why did God have to create them directly, different from all the others? It's understandable if they were the first generation demons whom God needed to create directly then let them make/give birth to the next generation, who would make/give birth the generation after that and so on. However, the kings are not first generation demons, there are demons who are older than them (Gusion is one example). So there must be a special reason why the kings got such a special treament.

Returning to what I was saying at the start, God wanted to remove the sins and he needed something to store the sins. And God, being the omnipotent Creator, he could create the solution himself by making 7 vessels to store the sins. And since demons/devils were made with evil attributes, the vessels were created living devils. And because they are devils keeping God's Deadly Sins inside, they are stronger than any other devils, and God made them kings. Remember the kings and the nobles keep saying they were chosen by God to be kings and nobles but they don't know why. I think the kings are appointed kings to hide the facts they are vessels storing God's Deadly Sins, this only God knows (perhaps Solomon too since God favors our peepaw).

In Lucifer's case, he was created an angel, yes, but remember, God can foresee the future. To explain it in religious term, God can see all the possibilities but he knows which possibility will become the future with 100% precision. God saw Lucifer falling and included him in the grand plan so he only needed to create 6 vessels more beside Lucifer (remember God had Sloth so it makes quick work for him).

IV. The kings are the original and only deadly sins

So that lets to another point of mine, which is the current 7 Deadly Sins are the original and only Seven Deadly Sins and kings of Hell. There is no king before them.

V. Sinful Divine Power

In Story 4-87, after hearing MC could die by Levi's hands, Satan gives in to his rage too much that it affects the surrounding environment, even nearly killing other devils, the only devil who isn't affected is Mammon, another king and Satan's equal.

Since the Deadly Sins came from God, if the kings don't or can't put their sins in check, they could bring disaster, even upon devils who they are supposed to protect.

VI. With Divine Power comes Divine Knowledge

Leraye tell us in the chatroom that only the 7 Deadly Sins know why God disappeared. It could be understood that God told the Sins why he had to go or they saw what happened to him. But I believe in another possibility. God disappeared mysteriously, no one knows where he has gone or why he disappeared, but since the 7 kings have with themselves the sinful attributes of God, they get a glimpse of divine knowledge on why God disappeared.

In the event "Where is Beelzebub?", Beelzebub says while Bael is sleeping about "things that are going to happen soon", which could be understood to be about MC/us. So how could he know that? I used to think Lucifer told him, of which I got the impression after knowing he owes Lucifer something. But could it be that he knows about MC from the Divine Knowledge in which he gets to participate. (Tbh, now I think about it, if Lucifer told him, then where did Lucifer get the info from, God doesn't seem like the kind to tell him, given how he let him fall, so Lucifer must have known it from the Divine Knowledge of his Pride too).

In conclusion, the 7 Deadly Sins are living vessels of God's sinful emotions. And thanks to that, they get access to powerful divine abilities.

That's all I'm able to put down from my brain for now. Please let me know what you guys think <3

#what in hell is bad #whb #whb theory #whb satan #whb mammon #whb beelzebub #whb leviathan #whb lucifer #whb theories

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mcflymemes · 7 months

Text

what does "reblog from source" mean? when people ask you to "reblog from source," they are asking you to reblog the post in question from 1) the original creator of the post or 2) the closest blog you can get to the source of the post. they are saying "please don't reblog the post from me. please find another blog in the reblog chain to reblog it from." they don't want to be your hub for all your content. they don't want to be used like a resource blog.

why can't i reblog the post directly from them? why do i have to go through all these loopholes to reblog a post? roleplay blogs in particular rely heavily on notifications / the activity page to keep track of replies and responses to their threads. if you reblog a ton of content from their blog, you crowd their notifications and make it hard to keep track of replies. it's polite to find a non-rp blog and reblog it from them, rather than crowd a roleplayer's activity page with your notifications.

sometimes there might be exceptions. sometimes you can't find a source. sometimes the original poster deleted. sometimes you're passing around an important psa and it's quicker to reblog directly from someone than go find the source. sometimes people don't mind if you reblog a ton from them. sometimes you make a mistake. it's okay. at the end of the day, just be courteous and civil. understand that for some people in the rpc, it's inconsiderate to flood their notifications with reblogs. you might get blocked. please read rules, respect boundaries, and if you can, find another source to reblog the post from. it's just polite.

#rp psa #roleplay psa #roleplay help #rpc psa #rpc advice #rp advice #roleplay tips #rpc tips #rp help #rpc help #mcflymemes

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borderlinereminders · 2 years

Note

you push so much about self soothing instead of getting reassurance from people. are you saying that it's not ok to get reassurance from others? because that sounds pretty toxic

Hi anon,

I'm really sorry to give off that impression. That's not at all what I meant to convey. What I'm trying to suggest is that before asking for reassurance, we first try and self-soothe.

The truth is that for a lot of people, giving reassurance constantly is exhausting. It can lead to issues in a relationship over time, and negative feelings on both ends because they may end up avoiding the other person. This is especially true if someone doesn't ask for reassurance directly but hints at it with things like "No one cares about me."

My advice is if you are finding yourself struggling, to first try and self soothe either with skills or things that have helped in the past. Some examples.

Keep screenshots, letters, cards etc that affirm you are cared about by your loved ones. You can even ask someone to give you a recording of them saying it that you can listen to. Bonus: Keep these things in a self-care box that you can use in times of crisis and pull out that has other things in like affirmation cards, favourite treats, self care items, etc.

Examine the evidence. By this I mean try and keep a list of things they've done to show they care about you. For example, I have a list of things my partner has done for me besides saying "I love you" of both big things and little things that I can read when my brain decides to be rude to me and make me doubt he cares.

If the other person has done something specifically to make you feel they don't care, it's important to step back and look at the situation and check the facts. There's a difference between someone lying to you or doing something intentional and someone not replying to you because they got busy.

ACCEPTS is a really good skill for distractions! Here's a post on it.

TIPP is a good skill if you are needing to calm down in immediate crisis. Here's a post on it.

If you're having urges to accuse your loved one of not caring, consider Urge Surfing (here's a post on it) and then using a skill or plan that helps you.

If you aren't able to self-soothe that's so valid! It really is. I recommend trying it because sometimes you will be able to. But then sometimes you won't be able to and that's okay. In this case, if you need to get it from someone, ask directly for it instead of doing it in a guilting/passive aggressive/hinting way. You might say "Hey. I know you care about me, but my brain is being rude. Can you please give me some reassurance?" instead of "Sorry I'm such a bad friend/person/burden/etc".

It might also be worth having a conversation when calm with the other person to establish some boundaries and ideas for communication.

For example, if your friend regularly feels drained by you asking for reassurance, they could set boundaries on how often they're okay for you to ask for it.

You both might decide that they will try and message you randomly to offer reassurance because it can mean a lot when that happens.

This might be where they send you messages/recordings/etc that you can read in times of need.

If the friend is doing something specifically, even unintentionally, that makes you question things then it's really valid to have a discussion about it! I recommend using some I-Statements or other communicative skills to talk about it. Even if they aren't doing something wrong, it's still valid to talk about your feelings and see if you can come up with a solution. For example, maybe it's really hard on you that they disappear randomly for a couple days when their energy levels plummet. And this causes you to spiral and think they're ghosting you or etc. In this situation, maybe you and your friend come up with a solution where you establish a single emoji (specific for this purpose) that the friend can send with low energy that says "Hey. It's not you but I'm feeling drained and need to not reply for a bit."

TLDR: I don't think it's never okay to ask for reassurance, I just think it's important to self-soothe and not bombard people for reassurance because that can put strain on your relationships in the long-term.

#april answers #faq

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notfreetoday · 8 months

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MPW Ep 4 Subtitle Correction

Masterlist: EP 1 || EP 2 || EP 3

We have another change in director this episode, to Yasumura Emi, though the script is still being written by Funabiki Shinju (the director for Ep 3). This week's twitter space didn't have much info, so I won't be including it.

M: いや～瀬ケ崎さん強かったわ～ M: あの物腰で*マウンティングされて M: いっそ快感を覚えてしまった M: No but, Segasaki-san('s presence) was really strong M: The way he *asserted (his relationship with Yoh) like that M: (rather than being upset), I felt even more delighted! *This is a (rather unfortunate) loan word from English - "mount" or "mounting" 😅, in this case, pretty much means to "one-up" someone else, or to brag about something to another. If you do not wish to have a weird mental image in your head, please skip the next paragraph. This word appears to have morphed from the observation that monkeys, when trying to move up a rank in the chain of command, tend to jump on the back of another to assert their dominance (not scientist just translator also low-quality source don't keel me plz). - In other words, if I watch the Jp RAW MPW a full 8 hours before everyone else and spazz about it knowing full well no one else understands what was said then I'd totally be moun--- AHEM (sorry 😂)

What I mean to say is, in this episode, Segasaki all but screams "MINE" in the most thinly veiled, polite manner possible, so let's see how he does that. If you read nothing at all, the last scene with them cuddling has an important correction you should skip to. Same translation disclaimer applies, Ep 4, let's go~!

(I see a lot of people saying some of their thoughts/suspicions were confirmed in the tags of the previous posts, so feel free to chip in with what you think! MPW deserves more discussion!)

Sorry I am incapable of summarizing, the post is crazy long and I've hit the 30 image max. As such, not every scene will be screen capped and I won't be transcribing the original subs anymore...

Y: あ、いや、友達の漫画を手伝いに行ってきます (-masu form) Y: Ah, no. I am going to help a friend with their manga.

Yoh shifts up a speech level here, (he started the episode out speaking casually) using the -masu form to make an announcement -he's trying to emphasize his determination to go because he’s nervous about saying it.

S: はあ？どういうつもりで S: Huh? For what intention?

The "haa?" here has a more "excuse me?" feel, and the next line is interrogative - so all in all it has the same energy as: "Excuse me? What is going through your head?"

S: つぅか友達って誰だよ Y: よく通話してる…あの S: やっぱりあの女か S: Actually, when you say "friend", who do you mean? Y: The one who… I speak to a lot on the phone… S: So, it’s that woman after all huh?

S: だめ Y: え？なんで？(plain form) S: 俺が家にいんだから家にいろ (word contraction)* Y: でも約束したし (plain form) S: あの女には行けなくなったって言え* S: No. Y: Huh? Why? S: I'm staying at home so you stay at home* Y: But, I already made a promise S: Tell that woman that you can’t go any more** *This line, together with the starred line below, is extremely direct, (said in the same style as his not-proposal actually) and is clearly an order. **This line is literally "to that woman, say 'I am no longer able to make it'" (Though the speaker may not actually mean to use those exact words)

Segasaki has dropped a speech level here not so much by using "rude" forms but by being extremely blunt and direct. What he's saying implies he's being possessive of Yoh, but the way he says it also stresses his power in their relationship. But again, note that Yoh's replies are all in plain form - he hasn't shifted up a level in response, as he usually does when addressed so directly. In fact, the way he words his protest carries some indignation - using "し(shi)" at the end like this indicates that this "promise" is but one of the reasons he has for going - which is why Segasaki cuts him off. Yoh might sulk and pout about being ordered, he's still comfortably seated in his usual informal speech level, which means at this point he's still feeling secure about where he stands and definitely isn't intimidated.

S: お前さ*、何で自分がこの家にいるかわかってんの？ S: You*… do you even know why you’re in this house? *Here Segasaki uses the sentence-end particle "さ(sa)" after the word "you", which in this case has the same feel as "now look here". He also ends off his question with "の(no)", which can have many meanings, but here functions again as an assertive particle, implying that this is a rhetorical question, because he thinks Yoh should know the answer. Unfortunately, Yoh has the wrong answer 😅 (which Segasaki will realize and attempt to address in Ep 5)

Y: この人のやばさ*を一瞬でも忘れていた俺がバカだった Y: I was an idiot - to forget, even for a second, how insane* this person is *やばさ (yabasa) - this word comes from "yabai" and is a slang word that has evolved much like the words "crazy/insane" and "shit" have evolved in English - it can be used both positively and negatively to describe someone who's extreme, for eg "that guy is yabai (so cool!!)" vs "that guy is yabai (stay away)". Here, Yoh's referring to Segasaki as yabai for even thinking up this so called "slave contract" - which is what he assumes Segasaki is referring to.

Y: ごめん、いろいろあって Y: あ、いや、まあ、なんていうか、家にいろって言われ Y: あ、いや、なんでもない。とにかく本当にごめん Y: 今度なんかでお返しするから Y: Sorry, a lot happened Y: Ah, no, well, how do I say this... I was told "stay at home" Y: Ah, no, it's nothing. Anyway, I'm really sorry Y: I'll make it up to you next time, okay?

S: よくできました S: Well done. This is the same phrase we talked about in Ep 3, the stamp of approval. Again, Segasaki is emphasizing his role in relation to Yoh here.

Y: あの満足そうな後ろ姿 Y: 本当腹立つわ Y: That silhouette of his, so full of satisfaction as he leaves, Y: Really makes me irritated!* *Yoh ends off with the particle "わ (wa)", which mostly just emphasizes his emotion, but is a softer assertive particle than the ones Segasaki uses.

S: 夕飯、作ってくれてもいいんだぞ Y: はい Y: 俺はいつでも稼働する家事ロボットじゃねぇんだよ S: Dinner - it's fine for you to make it for me, you know Y: Yes Y: I'm not some housework robot that you can just activate at any time you know! The original subs made it sound like Segasaki was asking Yoh if he could make dinner, but that's not the case - he's literally telling Yoh to make it, and on top of that, he says it like he's doing Yoh a favour (by allowing him to make dinner) 🤣🤣 This time though, whether it's just cause Yoh's been caught by surprise or not, he answers properly with "Yes (Hai)".

Y: いっそロボットになってこの感情を無にしたい Y: (If it was going to be like this), I rather just become a robot, and turn these feelings into nothingness.

The focus of this line is mostly on Yoh preferring to become a robot in order to mute his feelings, but the sentence structure suggests that there is something to be inferred preceding this sentence, hence the bracketed bit. (It becomes clearer later on, especially in light of his monologue)

"Dayo-chan" is a pretty familiar nickname, something you'd expect a child to be called rather than an adult, unless it is a nickname between childhood friends. It implies a closeness/intimacy between the speaker/listener, hence the the look of horror on Yoh’s face (because he knows that is going to kick Segasaki into high gear) and the surprised disbelief (that someone would dare make a grab for Yoh) on Segasaki’s face. Kills me everytime 🤣

S: もしかして例の女か S: 家まで押し掛けるとはいい度胸してんな S: Don't tell me it's that woman from earlier? S: She's got some nerve, turning up at the house like this

Y: それはだめ　それだけは絶対だめ Y: No, not that, anything but that!

S: うれしいな　葉がいつもあなたの話をするので S: 一度お会いしてみたいと思っていたんです S: はじめまして、瀬ケ崎瑞貴といいます S: 葉がいつも　お世話になってます S: What a delight, Yoh speaks of you often so S: I've always thought it would be nice to be able to meet you. S: I'm Segasaki Mizuki, pleased to make your acquaintance. S: Thank you for always taking care of Yoh.

This is like, textbook formalities🤣 Practically every statement is a "standard" greeting and is very polite (hence the weirdly stiff english translation) except Segasaki says it in a way that makes it clear he speaks for Yoh, that Yoh is part of his in-group. (Legit, might as well plant a flag in the soil that says "Yoh is mine".) He sounds exactly like how parents sound when they meet their child's teachers, or how a spouse/older family member might sound when meeting their loved ones' co-workers. This is how it comes across: What a delight, Yoh speaks of you often so I've always thought it would be nice to be able to meet you - Sounds distinctly familial. Implies Segasaki is close enough to Yoh that Yoh shares his thoughts with him often. Also shows that Yoh tells Segasaki about Man-san, rather than the other way round. I'm Segasaki Mizuki, pleased to make your acquaintance. - standard, formal greeting Thank you for always taking care of Yoh. - standard greeting, literally "Yoh is always in your care" - You usually say this (for yourself) when you thank your teacher/senior/boss/important client. So, when you say this for someone else, you are claiming this person as your family, or someone in your in-group (a close friend, or at work, a junior).

S: すみません　今朝　葉が体調をくずしてしまって S: 家でゆっくり休んだ方がいいんじゃないかって S: 僕が言い聞かせたん*です S: ご迷惑をおかけしてしまってしまってすみませんでした S: I apologize, this morning, Yoh wasn't feeling well so S: I convinced* him (not to go) saying, S: "wouldn't it be better to stay at home and rest properly?" S: I sincerely apologize for the trouble this has caused you. * 言い聞かせる (translated as convinced here) this word is usually used when someone of higher standing tells/explains something to a person of a lower standing, and carries the nuance that they've managed to get the latter to accept/agree with what they say. It can also be translated as "told/persuaded/instructed/warned/admonished", and used in sentences like "I warned the kids not to run" or "The teacher told the students lying was wrong" - so that might give you a better idea of what Segasaki is implying here. I've used "convinced" here rather than "instruct" because Segasaki is, in general, speaking very tactfully to Man-san - but his meaning is still clear to anyone paying attention - Segasaki has a big enough role in Yoh's life that he not only can apologize on behalf of Yoh for not being able to fulfill the promise to Man-san, he also has a big enough say that Yoh will listen to his decisions.

M: いや、あんたがダヨの体調不良を詫びるんか M: むっちゃ身内面*するやん M: Wait, you are apologizing for Yoh being unwell (and unable to come help)? M: Isn't that a super intimate* (gesture)? *身内面する is literally "to show one's inner-circle face/side", ie the side of you that you show to your inner-circle/in-group ie your family. Hence this line reads more like "Wait, you're apologizing for Yoh?? Who are you, his family??"

Because of the emphasis on group identity in Japan, it's very common to apologize/take responsibility for the actions of another group-member, even if you had nothing to do with it. So here, Man-san has picked up on what Segasaki has been implying since the beginning - that Yoh is part of his in-group, and a very close one at that.

S: お茶目な方なんですね S: You've got such a sweet and funny personality, don't you? The word Segasaki uses here describes a person who tends to be naturally sweet and lovable, maybe a little silly but without any ulterior motive. It's a compliment in most situations - which is why Man-san gets all embarrassed - but can sometimes come across as slightly patronizing, like how calling someone "naive" can. Note that Segasaki is still being very polite here and effectively holding Man-san at arm's length, despite the seemingly friendly/open dialogue.

S: だから　そう言っていただけると　うれしいです S: So, to hear such nice words from you, makes me really glad.

S: ところで　可奈美さんはどこで　葉と　お知り合いに？ S: By the way, how did Kanami-san come to be friends with Yoh?

The whole dialogue where Segasaki responds to Man-san's fangirling basically sounds like how an idol would speak to their fans - it's very polite and uses deferential/humble verb forms to further indicate gratitude for the support, because Segasaki is answering Man-san in the context of his work. When he asks about Yoh, he switches back down to a normal speech level, but also uses her first name - Kanami-san, which whilst very charming, is totally NOT normal (with the sparkle effect and the wine, I can't help but get host club vibes from this lmao) because you only do that with people you are close to. Man-san is obviously flustered by this, and Yoh is understandably unhappy about the sudden familiarity Segasaki displays with Man-san (I personally think he's still trying to be disarmingly charming whilst he evaluates just how big a threat Man-san is🤣🤣)

S: ずいぶん飲んでると思ったら S: I thought he'd been drinking quite a bit

Again, this implies that Segasaki knows Yoh well enough to know his alcohol tolerance.

S: 寝るなら部屋いきな* S: If you're going to sleep, then go to the room alright? *いきな (ikina) - the "na" here is different from the sentence-final particle "na" we saw in Ep 3. This is short for "nasai", as in, "ikinasai", which is a polite but sharp way to say "please go (somewhere)". This sort of wording is most commonly used by parents towards young children when giving instructions like "please sit properly" or "please eat your food quietly". It's used between teachers/students, seniors/juniors etc, and sometimes amongst friends too. You absolutely should not use it with someone above you in the social hierarchy. The short version used here though, softens the tone a lot, and adds a very tender, homely feel to the sentence. Segasaki is literally coaxing Yoh to bed as a parent would a very young, sleepy but reluctant child.

M: 本当に恋人なんだなって感じです M: ようやく現実味が M: "(You two) are really a couple!" - that's the kind of feeling I get M: It's like it finally feels real

The way Segasaki literally puffs up with pride and hugs Yoh closer... (ಥ◡ಥ)

M: ダヨちゃんって彼氏の前だと　こんな甘えた*になるんですね M: なんかちょっと意外かも S: いやお酒様様ですね S: ふだんはそっけないですよ M: So Dayo-chan actually becomes so cute and affectionate* in front of his boyfriend M: I kind of didn't expect that, I think S: No, it's really all thanks to the sake S: Normally he's pretty indifferent *甘えた (amaeta) is the kansai dialect version of 甘える (amaeru), referring to the concept of amae.

Amae is a rather complex thing to explain in English and really deserves its own post. For simplicity's sake, what Man-san means here is that she's surprised that Yoh is actually able to express his desire to be treated affectionately and indulged in - something that requires a lot of trust in Segasaki and a willingness to be vulnerable in front of him.

M: おぉ、確かに。ダヨちゃん素直*じゃないからな M: あまのじゃく**っていうか　まあそういうとこあると　困っちゃいますよね M: Ohh, that's true. Cause Dayo-chan isn't able to be honest* with his feelings M: "Contrary"** is not really (the word to use) but... he does have a bit of that in him so.... (dealing with that) can be a bit of a handful don't you think? The way Man-san phrases her last line implies that she also has to deal with this side of Yoh, and by ending off with the particle "~ne", she is seeking Segasaki's agreement that they are both sort of in the same boat when it comes to that (she doesn't do this consciously though, which is why she freaks and apologizes later) *素直 (sunao - translated as honest here) is another term you'll often see when talking about feelings/relationships, and is also somewhat of a complex topic with many different possible translations, depending on context. It is closely related to amae, because in order to express your desire to be indulged or to receive affection, you first need to be able to admit to yourself that you want that.

**あまのじゃく (amanojaku - translated as contrary here) - this is a small demon from Japanese folklore, who was of an extremely contrary nature and would often mimic both humans and gods. It had the ability to see into one's heart and would then do the exact opposite of what one desired. Thus, this term is now used to describe people who intentionally go against the wishes of others, who are stubborn/unable to admit when they are wrong, or who twist themselves into a pickle/cannot be truthful about how they feel. It's not used in a complimentary way, which is why Man-san says Yoh's not quite like that, but there are some parts of him that do sort of fit the description.

S: やだな*　葉の素直になれないその不器用さが　余計にかわいいんじゃないですか S: ね？ S: That's not nice*... Yoh's inability to be truthful about his feelings - it's precisely that awkwardness that makes him even more adorable, isn't it? S: Wouldn't you say so? *Segasaki's first line "やだな (yada na - literally "this is unpleasant/I don't like that")" is not directed at Man-san, it's a form of soliloquy (which is common in Japanese), aka he's talking to himself here. We know this because it's informal and ends with the emphatic particle "~na". He then switches back to polite speech for the rest of his sentence, which is directed at Man-san. So, "that's not nice" is actually him remarking on the unpleasantness he feels after hearing Man-san describe Yoh as contrary, just as you might walk past a pile of rubbish on the street and remark, "well that's unsightly". Of course, the fact that he's actually saying this at a volume that Man-san can definitely hear and the way he sort of drawls it out, makes it clear that he definitely meant for her to know his disapproval behind the politeness of his following sentence (See what I mean by "thinly veiled politeness"?). On top of this, ending it off with a "ne?" (the same ending particle she used to seek his agreement) as he looks up right at her makes it clear - this whole sentence is a (mild) rebuke.

M: 分かったような口を利いてすんませんっした S: どうされました？ M: では私そろそろおいとまします M: I'm incredibly sorry! I spoke as if I knew everything (when in fact I knew nothing) S: What's the matter? M: Then, it is about time for me to take my leave. In response, Man-san ratches up the formal speech in both these sentences, though (as befitting her character) she pronounces it in a rather comical way (she sounds and acts like a samurai would in the movies 🤣). Also, don't mistake Segasaki's "what's the matter" as true confusion - his indirect rebuke was met with a direct (albeit over the top) apology - so here he is helping Man-san to save face, or recover the face she lost (by sounding presumptuous and by apologizing), by not calling attention to the actual apology. It is enough that she has recognized his superiority over her when it comes to understanding Yoh. This is also why later, when Man-san voluntarily offers up the information that she has a husband (and thus is not a threat to Segasaki's claim over Yoh), that Segasaki gives sort of an embarrassed but happy smile as he says "I'm sorry". That's not just "I'm sorry I can't send you to the station" (which is basic manners) but also has a little "I'm sorry for the unnecessary posturing over Yoh".

S: なんださっきから　やだ　ばっか言って S: お前はイヤイヤ期*か S: What's gotten into you? All you've been saying since just now is "no" S: Are you in your "no phase"*? *イヤイヤ期 - yes, the term he uses here specifically refers to the "no phase" of toddlers in their terrible twos. This isn't condescending though - Yoh's repeated "やだ (yada - "no" or "I don't want it")" is distinctly childlike, but this behaviour is precisely a form of amae that we talked about earlier. Yoh is asking to be indulged here, and Segasaki is responding both in word and in physical comfort.

Y: もうやだ S: だから何が Y: 俺　万さんのことすきなのに S: は？てめぇ* Y: あんたなんか嫌いだ Y: へらへらしてんじゃねぇよ Y: 何　ちゃっかり横に座ってんだよ Y: 名前で呼ぶ必要はねぇだろう Y: ふざけんな Y: 俺のこと好きなくせに Y: I don't want (this) anymore! S: So again I ask, (don't want) what? Y: I... even whilst... liking Man-san S: Ha? You little...* Y: I hate the likes of you Y: Don't freaking sit there laughing so carelessly Y: What were you doing taking the chance to sit next to her like that Y: There was no damn need to call her by her first name, right? Y: The hell are you doing! Y: When the person you like is me. When You talks about liking Man-san, he ends off with "なのに (nanoni)" which is used to show contrast the preceeding/following topic and to express frustration - except he hasn't mentioned the preceeding topic, so it isn't immediately clear what he means until he starts complaining about Segasaki's behaviour. That's why Segasaki is caught by surprise and follows up with an angry "haa?" and an emphatic *てめぇ(temee) - A very very rude way to say "you" which he first used in Ep 2 when Yoh said he was going to leave. It's not until later in Yoh's monologue, that we learn that he's upset that he feels jealousy/bad feelings towards Man-san because he's supposed to like Man-san (as a friend).

S: お前　お前それやだったんか S: お前の方が*　そう思ってたんかよ S: あ　もう最っ高 S: You... so that was what you didn't want? S: So, (all this time) it was actually you instead, who's been thinking like that? S: Oh, this is the. best.

S: よしよし S: 取られちゃって　やだったな S: There, there S: You didn't want me to be stolen away, did you?

Monologue time: Y: こんなふうに感じること自体が嫌だったんだ万さん相手に　友達なのに女々しすぎるって幼稚だろう　ダメだろうって　分かってるのに気付いたら頭ん中　ぐちゃぐちゃでどうしようもなくなってたあんたのせいだこんなふうに囁いたり微笑んだり優しく触れたりするからいつもあんな偉そうにああだ　こうだ命令してくるくせに突然まるで恋人*みたいに勘違いするだろこんなのもしかして好きってこんなみっともない気持ちのことなのか Y: The fact that I was feeling this way was specifically what I didn't like. (Feeling this way) towards Man-san, even though she's my friend... It was too petty (of me). Even though I knew, that it was childish, that I shouldn't (feel that way), Before I knew it, everything in my head was all messed up. And then I couldn't do anything about it. It's all your fault, Because you do things like this, Whispering softly to me, Smiling at me, And touching me so gently. Always so arrogantly ordering me around, Saying do this do that, and yet, You suddenly (start treating me) like a lover* Of course, I'd get the wrong idea with all of that! Could it be that, "Liking someone", Really is a feeling as unseemly and disgraceful as this? *恋人 (koibito - lover) - Lover in English can sometimes imply a more sexual than romantic relationship, but in Japanese "koibito" usually refers to "boyfriend/girlfriend" and may not imply a sexual component at all.

S: お前から抱きつくとかできんだな S: ずっと酔ってりゃいいのに S: So you actually can initiate hugs and stuff huh? S: If only you could stay drunk forever...

And we're done!! Ep 4 marks the turning point where Yoh begins the journey towards accepting and acknowledging his feelings - the concept of "sunao". It also clearly shows the preferred way these two reinforce their relationship - through "amae". Remember how in Ep 3, Yoh talked about how he felt that an "unspoken understanding" of each other's feelings was important in a relationship? Well, this is it - Yoh saying "no" and "don't want", or leaving the room to be by himself - these are all examples of amae. He doesn't want to ask for affection directly, because he can't. So he does it through amae instead, and as we can see, Segasaki really enjoys indulging in Yoh's unspoken requests for affection and gains fulfillment from that.

#my personal weatherman #taikan yohou #体感予報 #MPW subtitle corrections #mytranslations #segasaki x yoh #amae is a very important aspect of building connection in japanese relationships #as is the concept of sunao #these aren't concepts with easy direct translations to english #but they feature very heavily in this relationship #if you felt a little weirded out because their relationship sometimes can feel somewhat parental in nature #it's because the interdependence that results from amae is fundamentally different from the independence that is prized in the west

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fuckyeahasexual · 9 months

Note

Hi, about the post on Project 2025 - with all due respect, please consider deleting the reblog or add further information. This post contains misinformation and it's dangerous. It's making already vulnerable people panic.

It is NOT a Republican Party manifesto. It's an extreme right-wing group called the Heritage Project's. They're asking conservatives to take it on board. Which sucks but they've always been out there.

If you read articles about it, (pbs) (guardian) you'll find professional journalist specifically say that it's the Heritage Project, it's the Republican Party manifesto.

It's disgusting, and I actually don't think anyone should be encouraged to read hatespeech about themselves when it's from a radical think tank, and not their government.

I'm saying this with love and respect to you because I do think you mean good with all of your heart but first off the American government is not to be trusted. But since you also were unclear what some reblog got wrong I can't really agree or disagree with you so here's just more info in general about Project 2025

youtube

And if you don't want a random leftist youtuber here is MSNBC

youtube

So respectfully again, because I don't believe we are on the same page. The Heritage Project plus dozens of right wing orgs are organized and moneyed part of the Republican Party. Fascism is here. It's absolutely not just the some extreme right-wing fringe group.. If you spotted something that was untrue to some other post, please reply to the post in question. Or at least let me know what post because you ask is in conflict with itself.

I also don't think anyone should have to read hatespeech about themselves period. Full stop. But the idea that it is a radical think tank, and not their government is wrong. The Heritage Foundation has been directly influencing the government since 1973. I'm not going to debate this either, so the only comment I have left to say is in this video:

youtube

#non ace #us politics

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summermimosas · 3 months

Text

Itoshi Brothers: U20 Edition

Part 1 to this is here! I explain my basic idealogy for Rin here, so it might be better if you that one first.

The basic tldr is: Rin doesn't see himself as an individual at all, and he doesn't seem to realise it. It's why Sae is pissed and as rude as he is, and it's why Rin feels like he's restricted.

He can be as annoyed about the "Itoshi Sae's little brother" label as he wants, but he hasn't realised he fosters it unconsciously.

Once again, this part is very very nicely covered in @/riririnnnn's post. Please go read their theories linked in Part 1 too!! And the source of this creative bug was @/boinin's work for Rin's Aura-also linked in Part 1.

This is when the realisation finally happens. He realises that he's being shadowed by Isagi constantly, watched, judged, all on the basis of what people expect of him. Of what he's imposed on himself.

And then there's this infamous panel.

No, he's not alone. And it's entirely the reason he feels as restricted as he is. Not because he's not alone- but because the second he feels like he isn't, he starts adapting those labels into himself. He needs to be Itoshi Rin if he wants to develop an ego of his own.

Everyone clap really loudly, okay- really really loudly. This man spends his entire life studying and emulating Sae and it takes him an entire year to realise that he's been doing it and see the problem in it.

Dumbass. Why am I analysing him again?

And this is what triggers his flow state. One of the craziest ones we've seen- why? Not as a flow state separately, no, but because this is what Rin is at this point in time. He may evolve, become a different person at whatever time, but at this point he's keen on finding a sense of self that isn't in relation to anyone else. Note how after the flow state- and the brutal comment Sae makes- he goes right back to "Crushing Sae Itoshi, but destroy Isagi Yoichi first". But now he's still in flow- a true, completely disconnected version of himself that is only influenced by his own thought process.

And Sae, of course, knows. I mean- it makes sense right? He's the only one who's seen Rin before he started playing football, before he became Itoshi Sae's little brother. When he really was just, Itoshi Rin.

At this point, however, he's still focusing on completely destroying expectations. An antithesis of everything he used to be called, everything he used to be. So his aura shifts to directly contradicting Sae's- it is still not his own.

This is why the unusual water theme comes in so late. It is Rin's, of course it is, but until the NEL/end of U20 he never knew of himself.

I will be skipping over the absolute trainwreck that is the ending of U20- you get it. Sae acknowledges Isagi, affirms just about every single one of Rin's insecurities, and this time repeat cycle. Destroy the target of Sae's attention, Isagi himself.

You know what the most interesting part of this all is? AFTER ALL THIS. He's learned so much, he's grown so much. Don't get me wrong, this younger sibling is learning to be his own person.

But. Then you see him in the current NEL Arc.

This fucking idiot- I mean. Ahem.

He's still thinking in terms of other people. Of course, now he's learned to separate himself from the equation, thankfully. But he's still not playing for himself. He's not "Itoshi Sae's little brother" anymore, he's the one who will "surpass Itoshi Sae and destroy Isagi".

Nagi asks the very good question of, what comes after that? Rin is no longer someone's shadow, but still thinks in terms of surpassing them, much like Nagi used to think before the Manshine vs BM Match. And this absolute nutcase. Replies.

You know, he's a stupid guy, but atleast he's honest about his thoughts. Makes it easier for me to analyse him, unlike his emotionally constipated brother.

He's describing it as a baby just born- fitting, because he's trying to find his footing after being label after label in someone else's story. Not that he was doing it intentionally, but it had become subconscious. He hasn't thought about the future, at all, because he can barely understand what he's doing now.

"Number 1? I don't care about that. What I care about is destroying you, Isagi." Well, I've rambled long enough. You get my point now. He's learning!! Like a baby bird learning to fly, very slowly. Hence the newly present water aura. This will become so much more interesting when we learn what happened to Sae in Spain, and if Rin finds out? Well. Maybe we can finally get the resolution I need them to have.

Because, god forbid they have another miscommunication. I will actually lose my mind.

But also, I'm someone who understands Rin on a really deep level because I've had similar experiences with mirroring an older sibling because I had nobody else to turn to for a role model or admire. And I tend to think of myself in terms of other people, too. So this analysis was something that came really naturally to me. I hope it was worth your time.

#blue lock #itoshi rin #itoshi sae #rin itoshi #sae itoshi #what else do i even tag wtf #please teach me how tags work #bllk #i hate them but i am also very intrigued by them #absolute idiots #txt: lune

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en-logs · 2 years

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i love you the most. sjy

pairing - jealous idol!jake x fem!reader

summary - your boyfriend, jake, gives you the silent treatment and goes onto reply fans on weverse so you try your best to get his attention by spamming on the app as well not knowing why he's being a big baby at the moment.

genre - pure fluff, nothing serious just playfulness

wc - 1.15k

a/n: it's literally a dream that i quite had a second ago and i'm writing this as soon as i woke up with my eyes half opened and all .. embarrassing really but i gotta keep the dream as a memory somehow so this is all just word vomit and what i could remember. not proofread. my read more button doesnt work on mobile T_T

cuddling against your boyfriend's chest in the middle of the living room trying to get comfortable on the leather couch, you watched him scroll through his phone giggling.

curious, you peeked a little and notice the weverse screen that you were familiar with. "would this be a cute reply?", jake flashed you his bright screen which made you squint a little as you read 'jakey loves you too' on the comment box that hasn't been sent out yet.

"why don't you ever reply to mine," you ask sulkingly but also meaning every word you had said because he's about to begin a mention party on weverse right now while you were both supposedly going to sleep.

jake ignored you and began the chaos that was about to blow his notifications up which made you start a mini tantrum going "aaaahhhhhh", "whyyy", and the occasional "jakeyyy" while lightly hitting on his chest to get his attention with him only giggling a little as a response but keeping his straight face a second later.

wanting an answer, you pulled out your own phone to enter the weverse app and joined the engenes in hopes to get the attention of your boyfriend on the internet too.

commenting all sorts of compliments, questions, stories you could ever think of at the moment which could beat the simple 'i love you jake' from an engene which started this entire thing.

"see, look this is my username", copying his movement earlier as you shoved your phone directly towards his face. "plus you've always known it- its the one that says 'jakeyismypuppy1115'.. i need a reply please please plea- don't make me snatch your phone right now to do it", whining even further as you shake his body which was almost falling off the couch if he wasn't supporting himself.

"jakeyyyyyy~ why won't you reply to me... i wanna show it off on my fan account on twitter too pleaaaaaswwe im about to off myself if you don't," earning another giggle from him however his face remained sterned after a light cough. "it's not funny," you tried to be serious, frowning at him.

"i won't reply to you." was all he had responded.

"wha.. why..", pushing yourself further away with your palm pressing on his chest to move yourself up.

jake removed his left arm which was supporting his head to type intensively into the weverse search bar more than ever before. "because what the hell is this," not thinking much of it, you glanced your eyes to his screen.

it was your profile with the recent post dated a few days ago, apart from this moment's fiasco of you trying to get jake's attention online, the post made you cringe a little after realising what it said.

"heeseung-ah, i love you the most ! i hope you eat well, rest well, and is always happy ! i love u sooo much ure my favorite. i'll always choose you ❤️"

he scrolled down a little more to show that heeseung, who is rarely online, had replied too. "heeseungie loves you too ☺️".

it took you awhile to process it a little, and it finally hit you that you made the post after watching a youtube compilation of your boyfriend's co-member which made you all happy inside as a fan and nothing more.

you didn't expect heeseung to reply to your post either. you were joyful that he did and bragged it on twitter, but it didn't stuck into your mind forever since you technically forgot it happened. jake's reply would matter to you more.

on heeseung's side however, he and all of the other boys knew of your weverse account from how jake would always reply to yours which raised some suspicion and later confirmed when jungwon saw the app left open on your phone with the profile flashing your username.

heeseung found the comment to be sweet and endearing, he loves you like the closest friend who has always been there for his bestfriend and the team even before debut.

your reminiscing thoughts were then killed by jake pouting at you with the post still up in your face.

"jakey.. i didn't mean tha- wait i did, i think heeseung deserves all the good things in life but i love you the most more than him," trying to comfort him, not caring about the app hybe created now.

he knew that you only meant well and was happy to know that you were a good person that likes his group as a whole.

jake, still determined with his plan in making you love him more than heeseung, even though you already do, continued sulking and crossing his arms away from you, staring into the silent tv.

you hugged him as tight as the koalas he had seen back in australia and a bunch of apologies + i love yous came running out your cute lips profusely.

your boyfriend wasn't budging at all which made you even more frustrated, you knew he was just being playful though from the countless of times he tried not to laugh.

giving up, you sat on the couch as he was still laying and proceeded to go over his body and walk to the kitchen in hopes to find heeseung somewhere eating ramen to prove jake that you were both just a couple of besties.

however the area was empty realising that the entire group left the two of you alone for some privacy, and that they would rather be outside than to see any form of pda.

your brain was wired to make milo, an australian chocolate drink, for your boyfriend as another cute form of "please love me and give me attention".

it was hard to reach the mugs knowing that riki purposely made it higher for laughs and gags. a little more and you'd be able to grab the spider-man mug that belonged to your baby jakey.

like any cliché, a hand made way to your waist as you felt your boyfriend's body lightly pressed against your back reaching for the cup that you were both eyeing for.

placing the blue spider-man mug in front of you with his right hand on your side fulling back hugging you now as he whispered, "i love you" with his soft lips touching the shell of your ear making you turn your head around from the tickling feeling.

with your body finally facing him, you cupped his cheeks and stared into his sparkly eyes. your thumbs grazing his soft skin and fingers moving his unkept fringe a little from the nap you both had in the afternoon, admiring all of his features before giving him a kiss.

not knowing that your phone was blowing up in the living room from the weverse notifications you were getting.

jakeyismypuppy1115

"i will make it my life's honor to love you forever, jake."

a post you made half an hour ago making sure beforehand to make it corny as possible so he would be pleasantly surprised, and of course to make a reaction out of your lovable boyfriend.

[ENHYPEN Weverse] Jake commented on jakeyismypuppy1115's post: "i love you more ❤️"

a/n: sorry u had to read all of that imo .. but aaa i swear i had a dream abt him bc i was watching his last en-log before bed.. i love u jake

talk to me here! likes & reblogs are appreciated <3

#enhypen #jake #enhypen imagines #enhypen drabbles #enhypen fluff #sim jake #sim jake fluff #enhypen jake x y/n #enhypen x reader #jake fluff #jake drabbles

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a-teacup-of-golden-cracks · 10 months

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WARNING! THIS POST IS LITERALLY SMUT.

This post is basically me copying something I wrote for a friend to help her get off, so if anything sounds weird I do apologize.

Anyways keep reading below the cut if you're wanting to read something that's apparently really good smut. Also it's long fair warning

CW: breeding, eldritch tentacle monster, consent given before scene, aphrodisiac drug use, minor pain, choking, double penetration, forced orgasm, probably overstim, large amounts of degradation (reader is called toy, fleshlight, cumdump and pet), reader is a vagina haver (pussy, clit and cunt used) and boob haver (tits, breasts and boobs used), but also has a prostate because this was originally written for a transfem who wanted full fem parts in roleplay

Please let me know if there's anything you want added to the content warning list :)

"Oh... oh you want that type of cuddles ehehe~"

The tentacles near your mouth and pussy start to get slimier and wetter.

"Well I would be happy to oblige if you're sure~"

You nod you head in confirmation, knowing full well what's about to happen and wanting every second of it. Almost as though I can hear your thoughts the tentacles on your arms begin binding them together, while the ones wrapping your legs spread you apart.

Two more tentacles come out of my back and wrap around your beautiful tits. I give them a squeeze and start flicking the nipples with the tips of the tentacles.

"M-Mistrum--" you say, somehow whining and moaning at the same time.

"Yes toy~?" I reply sweetly while I continue my work.

You try to open your mouth to speak again but only flustered moans come out as you feel little pricks on your skin all where the tentacles rest. The skin around the pricks feels warmer, more sensitive, and somehow softer. Your pussy starts to drip uncontrollably from the sensations, from the pleasure the drug I have injected gives you.

"m-mistrum--" you try again, softer this time.

"Yes toy~?" I say in the exact same way as the first time. I know full well at this point that you won't be able to talk because of the pleasure you're feeling, but that doesn't stop me from teasing you at all. "Have something to say~?"

"M-mmmmm" is all you can get out as another wave of the aphrodisiac takes you.

Then suddenly the pricks all over your body stop. You're left feeling hot and so fucking needy and horny, desperate for anything to happen to your body. The tentacles squeezing and playing with your tits feels almost unbearably good. The tentacles at your legs coil all the way up your thighs and each start to tease one of your holes. You feel the same pricking sensation down there as I inject more aphrodisiac directly to your most sensitive areas.

After I let you squirm and whimper, I say "I guess not" with an evil giggle. The tentacle near your ass inserts itself inside and you feel more pricks followed by more warmth. It quickly finds your love button and rubs against it. The tentacle at your front keeps teasing you, coiling around you pretty cunt but not touching anything in it.

"I'll put it in the front once you've finished twice from the back alone ehehe" I whisper huskily into your ear.

"Don't worry, it shouldn't take that long~" and with how sensitive you are it really doesn't feel like it either. The breast stimulation was already almost too much but when I start rubbing your prostate it is unbearable. You have to release somehow, let all this pleasure out of you. You try to squirm more, moaning as your back arches and hips buck. Heat washes over you and you cum the first time, your body becoming far more sensitive afterwards, amplified by the aphrodisiac running through your veins.

"Good pet, that's one~"

A new tentacle moves down to your pussy and starts to flick your clit and circle it while your still in the midst of cumming. The tentacle in your ass keeps wriggling inside you, milking the orgasm all the way out. I lean down and start sucking your squished breast. There's nothing left in my mind but a desire to feel you move out of your own control beneath me ❤️🩵

When I feel you getting close again I bite into the nipple to maximize the sensations you receive, giving you the bit of pain you crave.

"a-aahn~ mistrum--" You moan out as you push against me, whimpering and grinding against everything you can manage, hands grabbing at nothing.

"Open your mouth for me toy~"

"ahh,,," You open your mouth, sticking your tongue out obediently.

The tentacle at your head wraps all the way around your neck and then your jaw. It starts to squeeze gently, threatening to cut your blood and air flow at any moment. The large tip probes the entrance to your mouth and dives in. You feel it forcing past your feeble gag reflex and down your throat, further constricting your airway.

"Good toy, cum for me like this and I'll use your cunt~"

Your back arches and you shake, going over the edge again. You feel your brain melting, any semblance of free thought sloooowly dripping away...

Then I suddenly I pause for a moment, concern coming over my face, "still green? Anything you want more or less of?"

The tentacle in your mouth pulls out so that you can speak, and you quickly say "Very green, as green as is possible."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Hehe alright, yey" I say with a catlike grin. "Now be a good toy and let your thoughts fade~"

I push the tentacle back into you. My head tilts up to watch your face as I fill you. "Mmmmm how long will you last once I've filled all your holes ehehe~" I say before going back to biting your tit.

The tentacle that's been teasing your cunt for soooo long finally fills it entirely, stretching the walls and rubbing against the other tentacle in you.

"Let's find out~"

The tentacles inside you all begin thrusting and pulsing in time with each other, leaving you feeling so empty and then so incredibly full. On your boobs you can feel the tentacles start emitting lubricant. They squeeze and stretch your breasts before letting them return to their normal position in time with the thrusts.

Restrained and barely able to move from how weak the pleasure makes you, you're forced into an orgasm again. And again. And again. After the seventh your mind has gone completely blank and your eyes have rolled back into your head.

"Oh that didn't take long at all~" I keep stimulating every inch of your body, inside and out. Occasionally I give you more aphrodisiac to keep the pleasure at the absolute max you can feel, doing everything in my power to break you, ruin you, *make you mine*. Even after you cum it's barely five seconds before you're forced into another mind melting orgasm.

At some point you feel the tentacle in your pussy pull out and something else get shoved in, not that you're in a state of mind to comprehend anything other than the pleasure it gives you. You hear me moan above you as the object in your pussy starts thrusting into you, out of sync with everything else. "How do you feel cumdump~?"

With all your little remaining mental strength you eek out "s-sooo good...mmnn"

"Ehehe I'm glad, now milk my girldick with your orgasms~" I respond with a moan at the end.

The tentacle in your ass goes deeper to get the thicker part inside, just to make your pussy tighter around me. "mmmm fuuuuck, you're a perfect fleshlight. Mistrum is going to breed you now, she's going to fill your pussy with her seed"

Upon hearing the word breed you start to incoherently beg for me. Having just watched such a hot person be forced to make such pretty noises quickly pushes me to the edge. I have the two tentacles at your legs spread them completely flat so I can go as deep as possible when I bottom out in you and paint your insides white. I moan loudly above you as I finish, clearly enjoying my orgasm just as much as you enjoyed all of yours "good breeding pet, such a good toy for me ❤️🩵"

I give you one last orgasm to ensure that you milk me dry before pulling all the tentacles on and in you back into myself. My body collapse on top of you, girldick still inside to ensure nothing spills out. I purr with content as I hold my precious puppy in my arms and kiss their forehead

"You took me really really well. Thank you. Did you enjoy it too?"

#t4t breeding #t4t kink #ftm t4t #t4t smut #t4t puppy #nsft #topposting #trans nsft #nonbinary nsft #lgbt nsft #hornyposting #hornypost

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kidukami · 4 months

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☾┅ about me ┅ ☽

hi, call me mika! i'm 21+ and i go by they/them pronouns. i'm a se asian writer + aspiring literary translator based in the uk. this post is essentially a writeblr reintroduction as i am starting anew in the community with this blog, and i'm really excited to share my wips and connect with all you lovely writers out there! i'm also tag and/or interaction friendly (although my reply speed is... not the best especially for tag/ask games, but i'm trying!), so please don't be afraid to say hi ♡

☾┅ writing interests ┅ ☽

important note: my works may contain mature and potentially triggering topics. viewer discretion is advised.

╳ i'm mainly a prose fiction writer, although i may dabble in scriptwriting and poetry at times. ╳ genres: speculative fiction, historical fiction, thriller, literary fiction. ╳ themes: sociopolitical commentary, satire, dark comedy, angst/tragedy, tragicomedy, morally grey characters, queer romance. ╳ open to reading all genre and themes! you're more than welcome to reblog this with your wips or tag me in them, whether or not they feature any of the above. the above lists are not exhaustive because to this day i still don't know how my writing brain works. ╳ i take plenty of writing-related requests (beta/proofreading, critique, collabs, translation work, etc.)! please refer to my carrd for more info, or contact me directly for inquiries.

☾┅ main wips ┅ ☽

will o' the wisp :: adult sci-fi/thriller novel. ╳ award-winning talk show host and journalist noe crane is constantly treading a tightrope as he assumes his secret vigilante identity behind closed doors, but things get worse when his past comes back to haunt him. ╳ features: tragicomedy, morally grey characters, lgbt+ characters, complex relationships, modern setting, superpowers, conspiracies ╳ wip intro here!

the duña duology :: adult weird fiction duology. ╳ a troubled man in his 30s attempts to escape from his past and seeks refuge in a run-down inn, only to find himself caught up in a dangerous conspiracy against the world. ╳ features: adult (30+) characters, unlikeable protagonist, multiple universes, high concept, complex worldbuilding, retrofuturism, found family, conspiracies, aliens (?) wip intro coming soon! message if you want to be tagged.

a history of the tenshima gang feud (working title) :: new adult sci-fi/romance novel. ╳ when a national museum tour guide somehow travels back to the city's deadliest era in history as one of its disgraced figures, he will soon find that his beloved city isn't what it claims itself to be. ╳ features: time travel, alternate future, fictional setting, criminal underworld, ensemble cast, sociopolitical commentary, morally grey characters, lgbt+ characters, love triangle, lovers to enemies, friends to lovers, mcd, tragedy wip intro coming soon! message if you want to be tagged.

lilium carnage :: historical steampunk visual novel (collab with @nana7esque) ╳ four characters on two sides of the same coin. each of them are determined to deliver their own justice in the corrupted land of navona, even at the cost of their own lives, but little do they know that there will always be a bigger price to pay. ╳ features: alternate history, fictional setting, choice-based story, multiple endings, morally grey characters, lgbt+ characters, tragedy, enemies to lovers, complex chara dynamics wip intro coming soon! message if you want to be tagged.

☾┅ side wips ┅ ☽

shelved wips, wip ideas i have yet to develop, etc.

╳ by the kiss of the sleeping night :: thriller/romance webtoon collab with @nana7esque ╳ retelling of the nyi roro kidul myth ╳ modern setting character-driven script with each characters being an allegory to the seven deadly sins

feel free to interact with this post especially if you're also a writeblr! ♡

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #writeblr intro #intro post #writing #writeblr community

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1nvad3rz1m · 8 months

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On recapkidd/ang

So news is getting around about ang's unfortunate fate as they're allegedly on EOL (end of life) care after being unable to access health insurance from being deprived industry jobs. It's true that zadr (p*rn) is what kick started these events but it was not just invader zim fans that did this. This was, based on the timeline and evidence, a calculated attack from a few of ang's previous friends and acquaintances

So here's a run down, you can make your own judgements but here is the best I can offer as a timeline of events. PLEASE BE AWARE i am linking some twitter accounts that may have nsfw content! I am only linking to specific tweets with nothing explicit in them but I cannot promise the accounts themselves are clean.

This document is directly from ang themself, and gives a pretty detailed timeline of when this started (~2020) and features the most prominent ringleaders (jeraspat, holly, kyle, tai). i'll abbreviate it regardless but i highly recommend you read it

Ang's response

Basically, BEFORE their account as reapkid they joined jera's friendgroup. This group, for reasons unrelated to ang but they joined in the moment of, fell apart. If you've ever been unlucky enough to experience this you know where this goes, Ang's addition was blamed as the reason it fell apart.

Eventually Ang separated from this group but due to the scapegoat status and Jera's idolization of them (which you can read about in the doc) it wasn't over. This point is when Ang started drawing zadr and we knew them as recapkid here on tumblr. Jera is the primary reason Ang was targeted for this because as we all know after florpus release there was uptick in anti-zadr sentiment. What happens next is a long process of callouts by multiple different users and eventual doxxing of ang.

There's some max v jera drama (jera's callout for max, any orange block out is ang's name) that drags ang in but that wasn't the killing blow. tai (toydrill on twit)'s call out is what dealt the most damage. This almost definitively drove everyone away from ang. if you want to read the tweets and replies here it is. it isn't full of receipts like a typical callout but it does lead into the subsequent events.

Something important to note is the people turning against ang have their own taboo aspects and i want to point those out. tai has an obsession with a character from venture bros that is a "redeemed pedophile", vince (former friend of ang who was lamenting in the comments of tais tweet) was allegedly into monster furry porn so egregious that it made others call him a zoophile. my point here is that these people who crucified ang had their own questionable fictional tastes but justified it for their own benefit, their own moral stance doesn't hold up. That is not me passing judgement, just an aspect of the behaviors exhibited to consider that most people learning about the issue don't know about.

what happens next is a domino effect of people responding again i urge you to read the doc, this is the point i think that people turned on ang BECAUSE of invader zim. More of jera's friends get dragged in to antagonize ang, something important to remember is this was deliberate attacking they did not leave ang alone.

It starts to cross over into reality with holly (creator of lemonhead and lollipup, if youre familiar) who makes a callout post tagging all of ang's real friends and employers. Holly exhibited some strange behaviors in their relationship with Ang which is all documented but again, I am just focusing on the callouts.

Something I want to stress as Ang does in the document is that while Holly did go after their irl support system they did not get them fired from any job at this point for any online behavior. This is however setting up the eventual blacklisting that Ang suffered from, preventing them from work because of the public spectacle. Holly's narrative that Ang claimed they were fired for this did however impact some of their relations specifically from spindlehorse who believed ang was using them as a scapegoat and eventually viv cut off communication with them.

Ang worked on the mighty magiswords show and the show creator, kyle carrozza, allegedly spread their private nsfw content with coworkers and DID fire them for that reason after the callouts. This is the first documented case that I'm aware of of Ang being fired for this specifically. Here is Ang's account of it.

I want to highlight holly's response and call to action here, as it proves that this was not done out of a genuine need to keep others safe (or that ang was ever dangerous to begin with) but because of petty reasons. especially considering the behavior documented.

What happens after is an inability to get and keep jobs and being cut off from their health insurance. No, invader zim fans didn't get ang killed (they were a rather big part of it but alone that is not the issue). According to their friend puppy on twitter it wasn't just social backlash, it was also the flaws of the US healthcare system. It was unfortunately interconnected, especially when it's an industry that hinges on connections.

You can have your opinions on ang's content. You can have your opinions on how they responded. You can believe ang is leaving out a lot of information (based on all the info provided in the document im hard pressed to believe that is the case, but i digress) and you can believe that the industry can choose what content they think is permissible to work with (though the industry has and still does protect active predators, and people pick and choose which individuals they want to blacklist. rebecca sugar, anyone?)

The bottom line is this didnt start out as a moral issue, it started as a personal issue between friends. morality and fiction were simply an easy selling point, buzzwords to get people to rally on their side. the fact remains it was a years long orchestrated attack on someone that ultimately impacted their health and later their life.

#this is a little disorganized but i tried my best #i cant find all the links unfortunately a lot of this is quite old and twitter is like. borderline unusable #if you have questions you can ask there is a lot more that i didnt wanna overload this post with

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loslentesdepedrito · 5 months

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I'm Your Wife- Chapter Seven

Javi gif by: @skyshipper Jack gif by: @javier-pena My Masterlist

Pairing: Jack Daniels ‘Agent Whiskey’x Spanish-speaking f!reader and Javier Peña x Spanish-speaking f!reader (Spanish translations are provided.)

Previous Chapter: I'm Your Wife- Chapter Six

Word count: 9.2k+

Chapter summary: It's time for Ángel's surgery and the transplant preparation. Following the procedure, Jack visits his son, providing some closure regarding your marriage.

A/N: This chapter concludes the final installment of the series and stands as my penultimate post on this blog. Next week, hopefully, I'll be sharing one more post—a Din piece—officially wrapping up this blog. I intend to maintain my writing for another two weeks before ultimately closing my account. Thank you to everyone who has supported me!

Rating: 18+ No explicit content, but this is an 18+ page. Warning contains spoilers, but please read if you'd like!!! They are below the cut, but if you don't want to read them, the story starts after the Whiskey bottles. Also, Jack's texts are in bold.

CW: angst is back again, but a happy ending is guaranteed, some science, mentions of surgery, chemotherapy, and stem cell transplant, Jack cannot use an iPhone, Javi and Jack tension, jealousy, pregnancy, divorce, and childhood disease.

Your conversation with Jack three hours ago left you drained and exhausted, and now you're perched on the chair in the corner of your son's hospital room. You're engrossed in watching Ángel and Javi talk about an upcoming soccer game and the probability of their favorite team winning the match when your phone vibrates underneath your thigh. With a subtle shift, you reach for it and once it’s in your hand, you flip it over. Your phone is illuminated with a family picture of you with your husband and son in the background and there’s a message on your Notification Center.

Jack Daniels: HI. TEXTING YOU FROM MY NEW PHONE.

Another vibration follows, prompting a second message.

Jack Daniels: WHY DID THE TEXT SEND IN UPPERCASE?

The sequence of messages from Jack continues, each notification accompanied by a vibration.

Jack Daniels: HOW DO I TURN THIS OFF?

Jack Daniels: HELP me. Wait, I figured it out. Sorry.

You haven’t clicked on the messages to take you to the chat. Instead, you hold and press, sending him a brief response:

Hi, Jack.

He doesn’t send anything back, and you turn off your phone. As soon as the screen is black, it lights up again.

Jack Daniels: I went to the store and picked up a new phone.

A second later, an image comes through.

You hover over the message once more, and it’s a front selfie Jack took. Well, it’s not quite a full-face selfie. It only captures just beneath his eyes, and his eyes and face are not looking directly at the camera, so you guess he was looking down trying to take a picture of something else.

You’re proven correct when a second picture comes through. This time it’s a box of an iPhone.

There’s a bubble on your text chain, and this time you fully click, opening the message thread with Jack.

Sorry, I don’t know how this phone works. I just didn’t want my phone to fail, and you didn’t have a way to contact me, so I got a new one. Did I miss anything?

You reply back with:

Ángel is already ready to go, we’re just waiting for a room to open up in the OR. Could take hours, though.

How did he take the news?

Very well, actually. Saying he’s excited to go home is an understatement. He sensed that we were worried about his surgery and he kind of gave us a lecture on how important it is to listen to doctors and gave us a small list of the benefits of chemo ports. When we asked him how he knew about the port, he said, and I quote, "some light reading."

Jack doesn’t take long to reply:

Smart boy. He definitely got that from you.

A smile graces your lips at his message, but you decide to shift the conversation:

We never talked about it, but do you want us to tell Ángel that you’re his donor?

Your nerves are on edge, and waiting for Jack’s response heightens your anxiety. Glancing up from your phone, you see Ángel still in deep conversation with Javi. Your phone vibrates again, and you look down at Jack’s response:

No. I don’t want him to want a relationship with me because of the donation. If he wants a relationship with me, I want it to be because he truly wants it, not because he feels any obligation.

You exhale, relieved, and reply:

Okay, we won’t tell him.

Thank you.

A text bubble appears:

How do I send the accent on his name?

Suppressing a laugh, your fingers glide over the keyboard:

Press the letter A for a good two seconds, and a whole lot of options should appear. Click on the third one.

It doesn’t take Jack very long to send a single:

He follows with:

Be honest, does it sound a bit funny when I pronounce his name?

You weigh your options, lie or be honest. You decide to go with the latter:

A little bit.

I remember when you used to make fun of my accent…

Liar. I didn’t make fun of you.

I miss that...

Oh, God, not again.

You’re about to reprimand him when, by some divine intervention, a fist knocks on the door, followed by a man in a polo and khakis. Quickly, you turn your phone off, redirecting your full attention to the man.

“Hi, I’m Will. I’m with patient transport services, and I’m here to take Ángel down to the OR,” he says.

“Come in,” you invite.

Javi stands up and retrieves your thick to-go bag from underneath the sofa. It's filled with water bottles, a variety of snacks, sweaters, sweatpants, and a few changes of clothes—because, as Javi says, uno nunca sabe (one never knows).

Will walks over to Ángel and looks at his hospital bracelet. He takes out a phone with a bulky blue case and scans the ID barcode. Will asks to no one in particular, “Can you please confirm his full name and date of birth.”

Javi does that for you.

Will nods and types something onto the phone. After a moment, he looks at Ángel, “Hey, little man, how are you doing?”

Ángel smiles, “I’m good, sir. I'm just waiting to get my chemo port. After that, I can get chemo and then a transplant so I can go home.”

Will chuckles, “That's a great plan, buddy. We’ll get you down to the OR, and they’ll take good care of you so you can go home soon. Ready to go to the sixth floor?”

Ángel nods enthusiastically, his eyes filled with trust.

“Great,” Will says, glancing at you and Javi. “If you guys are ready, we can head downstairs.”

Javi, lifting the heavy bag over his shoulder, nods in agreement. He glances at Ángel, a mix of tenderness and concern in his eyes, and then turns to Will.

“He’ll be under anesthesia, right?” Javi asks, his voice a bit gruffer than usual.

Will offers a reassuring smile, “Yes, sir. That's what his chart says.”

Javi nods, visibly swallowing some of his worry. “Okay, let’s get him down there.” He moves to help his son get up from the bed. Will positions the wheelchair closer to Ángel's bed, and together, they carefully lower Ángel onto the wheelchair. You reach for one of the blankets—a gift from your father-in-law—and drape it over Ángel. Will takes the IV wire and secures it on the designated hook at the back of the wheelchair.

"Are we all set?" Will asks.

"Yes," you affirm, and then Will wheels Ángel toward the door. Javi, anticipating the need, beats them to the exit, opens the door, and holds it wide open to let them pass. Stepping into the corridor, Javi instinctively reaches for your hands, intertwining fingers not just for your comfort but for his own solace as well. Together, you trail behind your son as Will expertly steers Ángel's wheelchair through the hallway.

Descending from the tenth floor via the patient elevators, you and Javi follow Will, who scans his badge to usher you through the double doors into the pre-op room.

Guiding Ángel to the left side of the room, Will selects a quiet corner and draws back a side of the arctic blue diamond-print curtains, revealing an unoccupied bed. Positioning the wheelchair beside the bed, he assists Ángel in transitioning onto the soft mattress.

"Alright, good luck, buddy. You'll do great in there," Will encourages, raising a fist. Ángel meets it with his own, and as their fists connect, they both playfully mimic the sound of an explosion.

"Thanks, sir," Ángel replies, his voice carrying gratitude. Then, in a quiet and unsure tone, he adds, "I'll see you after?"

Will's smile is reassuring. "Absolutely. I'll be the one taking you back up."

With that, Will takes a step back, giving Ángel some space. He turns to you and your husband, saying, "It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Peña, Mrs. Peña. Someone should be with you shortly."

"Thanks for everything, Will," you say, watching as Will, with a warm smile, exits and closes the curtain, providing you with some privacy with your son.

With only one chair in the room, Javi insists you take a seat, not wanting you on your feet.

"¿Y tú? (what about you?)" you ask, concern etched in your voice and face. Maybe it's because you went so long without a partner prioritizing you, or because in the time your son has been in the hospital, Javier has really taken care of almost everything. Sometimes you can't help but feel guilty that he always puts your comfort above his own.

"Me paro (I’ll stand)," Javi shrugs his shoulders as if it's the most obvious choice in the world.

"Papi, you can sit here," Ángel offers, patting the mattress.

"Está bien (it's okay), mijo, I can stand for a while," he smiles, loving that his son is always considerate.

"Baja ese bolso (put down that bag), at least," you plead with him.

"I'm good, someone should be here soon," Javi reassures.

"Pero, Javi- (but, Javi-)" You're interrupted when you hear a woman asking if she can come in.

He smirks and whispers, "Ves (see)." Dropping his cocky look, Javi opens the curtain to let the woman in.

"Hello, my name is Dr. Gaddi. I'll be Angel's anesthesiologist. Can I please get a full name and a birthday?"

Your son happily responds to the doctor's requests while she verifies the information on the computer.

"Great, thank you, sweetheart. Mom or Dad, I'll need your signature on the consent forms. If one of you will please follow me," she says.

"I'll go," Javi says, and to your relief, he finally drops the bag from his shoulder.

"It's just straight this way," the anesthesiologist says, motioning past the curtain where the nurse station is in the middle of the big room.

Javier nods and follows the doctor. "Ya vengo mis amores (I’ll be back my loves)," he says with a big smile before closing the curtain.

Once on the other side of the curtain, where you and his son can't see him, he exhales a shaky breath. The fear is there, gnawing at him, although he doesn't want to show it. He wishes he could share it with you, as he normally would, but you're pregnant. The stress is already too much, and he doesn't want it to affect the baby. That thought terrifies him, and he can't risk it. Through the course of your marriage, he's come to understand that sometimes, marriage isn't a perfect fifty-fifty. There are moments when one partner has to carry more, and right now, he knows it's one of those moments. He must bear the fear and shoulder some of yours. While he wants to share these worries with you, a deep-seated commitment to putting family first holds him back. His protective nature takes precedence, always prioritizing his family.

Javier raises his head back up and quickly turns around to follow the doctor, who is waiting for him.

Once he catches up to her, she tells him the forms are for consent of treatment. The doctor reads the online document, informing Javi about the procedure, the benefits, and the risks it entails.

Dr. Gaddi must have seen the look on Javier's face after she listed the risks and the way he nearly crumbled when she said "or death" because she stopped and turned to him.

"But... everything will be okay, right? He’s in good hands?” Javi asks, his voice cracking as if he's on the verge of tears; even speaking those words makes his throat ache, causing a noticeable strain in his voice.

"Sir, I can't make any promises. Every surgery does come with risks, but my team and I have successfully done this procedure multiple times.”

Javi tries his best to remind himself that everyone in the OR is experienced and has done this procedure before.

"Where do I sign?" he manages to ask, his voice slowly regaining its composure.

While Javi is with Ángel's anesthesiologist, a nurse, and another doctor come in to check on Ángel. He had only managed a short nap, so now, as he rests, you take out your phone and send a text to Jack.

Hey. We're in the Pre-op area. There's a room in the OR now, and I've met his doctors. As soon as the anesthesiologist comes back, they'll take him.

Jack replies instantly as if he's been sitting by, waiting for his phone to ring:

Thank you for letting me know.

He sends a follow-up:

His surgery is only supposed to take an hour, right?

That's what the doctors said. I'm sure he won't be in there for too long.

As Javi, Dr. Gaddi, and a nurse approach, you text Jack:

The anesthesiologist will be here soon. I'll send you any updates I get, and I'm going to send you Javi's contact info just in case.

After adding Javi's phone number and hitting send, your husband and the surgical team arrive.

Dr. Gaddi approaches, “Hi, Mom, everything is ready on our end to take the patient to the OR."

“Okay,” you say, rising to your feet. The staff gathers around the bed and begins to move it. Ángel stirs at the movement, calling for you and Javi before opening his eyes.

Javi quickly rushes to your side, closer to your son, and reassures him, "It's okay."

"Oh, am I going to surgery?" Ángel asks.

"Yes, you are, Angel," the nurse responds as he releases the brakes on the left side.

"Oh, okay, yay," Ángel smiles.

The nurse chuckles at his excitement, "You know, not many kids are excited for surgery."

"I'm excited because chemo ports look more comfortable than the IV. It gets in my way when I do, like, anything," Ángel explains with a huff.

"Well, I've heard from other patients that they prefer the port, so hopefully you will too," says Dr. Gaddi as she stands to the side, waiting to wheel Ángel out of the room.

She turns to you and your husband, saying, "You guys can follow us until that red line, and then you'll be taken to the waiting room."

You start feeling more anxious, and Javier senses it. He begins to rub your lower back, his warm hand moving up and down, offering comfort.

"Okay, ready," says the nurse.

With the curtain open, they go through first, and you and Javi are right next to your son’s bed.

You're so hyper-focused on your son that you don't realize you've made it right before the line that you can't cross.

"Love you, Mommy, love you, Daddy," Ángel says, reaching out for your hand.

You take his little hand in yours, and Javi covers both of your hands with his.

"Te amamos más, mi niño (we love you more)," Javi tells him in a soft voice. Everyone can hear the love pouring out of his words.

Ángel knows this and doesn't try to contradict his dad because he knows it would be in vain. Instead, he simply says, "Nos vemos en un ratito (We’ll see each other in a little bit)."

"Okay, mijo," you say, fighting back tears.

The doors open, and Ángel is wheeled in. You think the tears are coming, but when you hear the light sound of your son's laughter, you're able to compose yourself.

"Would you like to be taken to the waiting room now?" a non-surgical nurse asks.

Thirty minutes pass, and you and Javier are seated in the waiting room, the only occupants at the moment. Purple chairs surround you, and you're on a blue seat cushion against the wall, your attention fixed on the TV opposite. It's a modest 35-inch screen designed to keep you informed about the ongoing surgery. Your son's name is displayed in green, and the message changes from ‘Surgery in progress: Incision and Pocket Creation’ to ‘Surgery in progress: Port Implantation.’

"They're placing the port-disk-chamber thingy inside the incision they made on his chest," Javi says matter-of-factly, pointing at the text.

You turn your head toward him, an amused smile playing on your lips. "'Port-disk-chamber thingy'—is that what the doctor said, Jav?"

He bursts out laughing, placing his right hand over his chest, realizing he was mimicking the tone doctors use when imparting information: authoritative. "Casi me cago del miedo (I almost shitted myself from fear) when the doctor told me step by step what they would do, so I don't remember exactly what he said," he chuckles.

Javier's laugh is contagious, and you can't help but laugh too. Your laughter fuels his, and vice versa. The only thing that interrupts your laughter is when you feel the baby kick.

"Ay, me pateó (oh, he kicked me)," you exclaim happily.

Javi instantly stops laughing too and shifts his hand to rest on your bump. As soon as you feel the weight of his hand on your stomach, your son responds with another kick, right where Javi's palm is placed.

A boyish look crosses your husband's face. He always loves feeling the baby kick, reminiscent of the first time he felt his first son kick.

"¿Hola, mijo, ya te despertaste? (Hi, my boy, have you woken up yet?)" he hums softly.

In response, the baby kicks again.

"He loves your voice so much. I swear he only kicks so you could talk to him. A mi no me quiere, nomas le gusta que le cantes y le leas (He doesn’t love me, he just likes it when you sing and read to him),” you huff out in fake annoyance.

"That's not true. The second-born is always the momma's boy. So the baby loves you the most," Javi says.

"And the youngest loves daddy the most, so no," you refute.

"He won't be the youngest for long," he grins suggestively.

You gasp, “ya me embarazaste, sinverguenza! (You already impregnated me!)"

"But if it was scientifically possible..."

"Shut up," you playfully scold him.

With Javi's hand still over your stomach, your son kicks again, this time much lighter.

"He's upset you told me to shut up," his gaze shifts from looking at you to your stomach as if he could see the baby, and he lowers his voice, “¿verdad, mijo? Dile a tu mami que no sea mala conmigo (right, mijo? Tell your mom to stop being mean to me).”

He looks back up at you, "te acuerdas cuando Ángel hizo eso por primera vez? (Do you remember when Ángel did that for the first time?).”

“Jesus Christ, he scared me, and he made you cry,” you laugh, a smile on your face remembering.

"Oh shit! I forgot to update Jack," you realize and scramble to get your phone. As you start typing to let him know what's going on in the OR, you tell Javi, "By the way, I gave him your phone number."

Javier lets out an unenthusiastic and dry, "Yay."

“Mira (look),” he says while you’re still typing. You look up to where Javi is pointing, and the TV changes to Surgery in progress: Catheter Insertion.

You wince, "They're in his vein now."

"The catheter is the tube that delivers the medicine to his body, right?"

"Yeah," you mumble, typing the next update to Jack.

Javi reaches for one of your hands and rubs soothing circles, “Deja de pensar en eso. Él está bien con ellos (stop thinking about it. He’s safe with them).”

He removes his hand and turns his body to the to-go bag. Javi reaches for the zipper and undoes it. He digs in the back, and you see him pull something out. "Do you need a blanket?" he asks, with a large fuzzy blue blanket in his hand and his soft brown eyes looking at you tenderly. Before you can reply, he places it in your lap and goes back to the bag. Javi fights a little and finally tugs a pillow out of the bag, "a pillow?" he asks with the same puppy eyes.

“I- thank you," you accept both items. You put the pillow behind you so you won't rest your back against the hard and cold wall. You take the blue blanket from your lap and extend it to drape it over the both of you.

"¿Tienes hambre? (are you hungry?)" Javi asks adjusting the blanket.

"Sí"

He goes back to the bag and pulls out some snacks: Goldfish, Chips Ahoy, granola bars, fruit snacks, dry plantain chips, and a pack of assorted nuts.

"Sorry, I don't have any actual food," he looks at what he's offered you and feels guilty at the limited options. Javi gets up quickly, "I can go get you real food. Are you craving anything?"

"Hey," you wrap your fingers around his wrist and grip somewhat tightly. You look up at him and push him to sit back down. "No. I don't want you to leave."

"Okay. I'll stay," he says softly, kissing where your hair and forehead meet.

A knock reverberates in the room, and a nurse comes in. "Hi," she says, closing the door to come closer to you. "Everything went well. There were no complications. They're ready to transfer Ángel to the Post-op room if you guys would like to follow me."

Both of you look relieved at the news, and you feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders.

"Thank you," you tell her, and Javi can't get any words out. His eyes are watering, and he tries his best to not let them fall.

He starts hurriedly putting away the snacks, just keeping the bag of nuts, while you fold the blanket back up into the neat roll Javi had it in. After the snacks, blanket, and pillow are in the bag again, Javi helps you get up. You send Jack a quick text informing him that everything went well, and you're on your way to see Ángel. Javi puts the bag over his shoulder, and you both follow the nurse to go see your son.

Next morning - Day 1 of Chemo:

Hey, Jack. Ángel is awake and doing well. He asked about having visitors and hoped you would come see him. We explained that it's not possible right now. He understood but wanted to call. Would you like to FaceTime?

That's great. What’s FaceTime?

It's a video call.

Yes. How do I do that?

Instead of texting him back, you initiate a FaceTime call and hand the phone off to Ángel when it starts to ring.

As soon as Jack accepts the call and his face takes over your screen, Ángel's little face lights up. "Mr. Jack!"

Jack's face mirrors Ángel's: a smile so wide, eyes so soft looking at his son.

"I just started chemotherapy," Ángel blurts out just before Jack greets him.

Jack's heart glows watching his son's face. "How are ya feeling?"

"Mmm... I feel okay. Oh! I got the surgery last night, and look at my chemo port." Your son takes one hand off your phone and pulls his hospital gown just enough to show Jack his port. "Look! You can see the bump of the port under my skin. Eww, it looks gross. It's so cool."

Jack laughs, and that makes Ángel move the phone back to his face.

"Does it hurt?" Jack asks.

"Nope. It was a little bit like... sore when I woke up, but it doesn’t hurt now. I had chemo in the morning, and it pinched for a second, but it's wayyy better than the IV."

"It's not a pain to use the restroom, huh?"

"It's easier and faster to go now," his brows pinch in the middle, "I almost peed myself once 'cus I had to wait for the wires to detangle from the bed." Ángel trails off, tilts his head to the side, and squints. "What do you have behind you? Is that a needle?"

Jack turns his head behind to see what his son saw. He had picked up the prescription he needed to be Ángel's donor from the pharmacy the previous night. Jack opened the box out of curiosity and took out a needle to look at, but then he got caught up texting you in the morning and forgot to put the small vial and needle back in the pharmacy bag.

"Umm... yeah?" Jack says uncertainly, not knowing how to explain it to his son. He doesn't want him to know that he's his donor, at least not yet. "That is some medicine I have to take in two days," Jack says, trying to keep it vague.

When the words come out of Jack's mouth, Ángel's eyes show pure concern, "Oh, are you sick?"

"No, buddy," Jack blurts out immediately, "I'm not sick. I'm just takin' them for... to... Just takin' them to stay healthy. They're like vitamins."

"Maybe I should take some so I could be healthy. What's the name of the medicine?"

Jack's heart drops at his son's words. His mind starts spinning, but he takes a deep breath. He'll be healthy soon, he tries to remind himself. "You can't take this one, buddy. It's for adults."

"Oh," he sounds disappointed, but his voice goes back to normal, "Well, that's okay. I can't take vitamins on chemo either way. I think. Vitamins can affect chemo because of cancer cells, but I don't have any so I don't know. I can ask later. How are the horses?"

Donation Day - Day 7 of Chemo:

Jack sat comfortably in a green chair, his right hand extended over a pillow, squeezing a small blue ball as his blood cycled through the machine. Two hours had passed since he settled into the chair. He arrived at the hospital early in the morning with the last dose of his five-day filgrastim prescription, and for the first time, someone other than him administered the injection. Throughout the morning, he had been texting you, checking in on his son, and, though he wouldn't admit it, checking in on you. Of course, he cared about his son and wanted to know every detail of what he was going through, but this had been the only line of communication he had with you for years, and he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity while you were willing to entertain his conversations. From you, he learned that Ángel's last day of chemo had gone smoothly.

Jack's head spun when he heard a knock against the door. His heart thumped wildly in his chest at the thought of seeing you. When the door opened, a wave of disappointment washed over him. It wasn't you who set foot in the room; it was fucking Javier.

Jack instantly tenses and clears his throat as Javier walks over to him.

"Hi."

Javi crosses his hands over his thick biceps, "How's the donation coming along?"

"It's goin' well. They think in 30 minutes we'll have enough for Ángel," Jack fills Javi in.

"H-how are umm... how are you feeling?" Javi gets the words out, although with much effort. He sounds physically pained asking a simple question to Jack.

"You sound very concerned for my well-being," Jack quips sarcastically.

Not really, Javi wants to say. Instead, he tells Jack, "I’m trying really hard to not hate you.”

It doesn't faze Jack one bit. "Same."

"So just don't do anything to piss me off. More like don't do anything else to piss me off even more," Javi lowers his voice more, "She's my wife; she tells me things. Don't you ever dare call her ‘baby’ again. You're lucky she's not that uncomfortable with ‘sugar’, but if she ever shows one ounce of discomfort, you will stop."

"She never minded all those names before," Jack challenges, glaring at Javi."

Javi smirks, wearing a shit-eating grin as he nonchalantly shrugs. "Yeah, she never did lots of things before me."

Jack is furious. All he sees is red, and just as he begins to rise from his chair to get up, the nurse walks in.

"Oh! A visitor," she exclaims.

"Hello," Javi greets the redheaded nurse in blue scrubs with ducks all over them.

Seeing the nurse enter, Jack comes to his senses and sits back down. Subconsciously, he squeezes the ball so tight in his hands that his knuckles turn white.

"Mr. Daniels, are you okay?" the nurse questions with concern. All she sees is her patient gripping the ball so tightly that his nails are about to rupture through the material. She moves to him and checks his arm to see if there are any signs the needle is causing pain.

Jack's glare tears from Javi and shifts to the nurse. "I'm okay, thank you for checkin’ in on me," he tells her and moves his hand to signal for the nurse to release his arm. "Nothin’ hurts," he smiles up at her.

The nurse understands and checks the progress of the donation. While looking at the machine, she decides to make small talk with her patient and his visitor. "Are you Mr. Daniels' brother?" She turns to ask Javi innocently.

"No," Jack's words drip with disgust.

Javi smiles at how fast Jack denies the nurse's initial thought and says "Not related," under his breath, mumbling, "Thank God."

The nurse doesn't seem to pick up on their animosity and comments, "You two look alike, what a coincidence. Best friends then?"

"No, nothing like that. My wife and I know him, and he's giving our son a gift," Javi says 'our' while looking at Jack.

Suddenly, Ángel crosses their minds, and they both feel some shame for their earlier behavior. They know they can't go on still hating each other because it'll eventually turn into a fight. They just don't know how to set aside their differences.

"I'll call the doctor to get her thoughts, but it looks like we have what we need for the donation," the nurse says, taking note of the blood volume. "In a few hours, one lucky little boy will receive the cells, and he’ll be one step closer to being healthy."

After Jack was hooked up to the machine for two and a half hours, the staff deemed the collection enough and sent the blood bag to the lab to confirm that Jack’s procedure had collected enough stem cells. Four hours later, it was confirmed that there were the desired amount of stem cells, and the team took the cells to Ángel’s room. Due to your son being immunocompromised, he isn't allowed to have visitors other than legal guardians. So, you and Javi update Jack on the transplant.

Day 11 post-transplant:

Remember how I told you he started grafting on the tenth day?

Yes! How his body was accepting the stem cells, and the cells were growing and making new cells.

Mhm. Well, if everything keeps going at the speed it’s been going, Ángel gets to go home in four days!!

Oh, wow! It’s just day 11 after the transplant, and the doctors estimated it wouldn't happen until closer to day 25! Can I go see him then? I know I was cleared to go five days ago, but because I wasn’t feeling well, I didn’t go. My fever’s still here, but I’ll continue to monitor myself.

Sure! You need to be cleared of a fever for 24 hours and have absolutely NO symptoms.

You have my word, sugar.

Day 14 post-transplant:

You're packing all of Ángel's belongings to take home. It's been 14 days since your son's transplant, and he's cleared to go home. You don't know who's happier— you, your husband, or your son. But that doesn't really matter; all that matters is that your family is together. Just as you're collecting your son's toys and getting them ready to shove into the white personal belongings bag, someone knocks on the door. Javi stops placing Ángel's books into a box and hurriedly opens the door. He was expecting the doctor to come in with discharge papers, but it was Jack waiting on the other side.

"Oh, right, you said you'd stop by," Javi remembered.

When you saw Jack standing there not quite stepping inside the room with a red gift bag, you gasped. "Sorry, we forgot you were going to stop by." You turned your neck and saw Ángel reading the book Jack had gifted him, One Hundred Fun Facts About Horses.

"Come in," you usher Jack in. "Mijo," you call, and Ángel looks up from the book he's got his nose buried in.

"Mr. Jack!" Ángel's face lights up like a Christmas tree. He pats a spot in his bed as he tells Jack to sit down next to him. "I want to show you something," Ángel puts the book aside and lowers his shirt to show Jack that the port is gone. "They took my port out!"

Jack almost reaches out and touches his son's scar but settles for examining it with his eyes. "Are you sore?"

"Not really. I'm just excited to go to my house. Did my mom tell you I'm leaving the hospital today?"

"Yeah," Jack chuckles, "she mentioned it. And here I brought you this," he lifts the gift bag onto the bed.

Ángel tears it open and begins to pull the items out. The first gift he reaches is a book, Her Right Foot. "Oh, my God!"

You see the title and direct your question to Jack, "He's wanted that book for a while, how did you know?"

"Really?" Jack's smiling ear to ear. "I just went to the bookstore and thought he'd like that one." His heart feels like it could rip right through his chest because he feels like he knows his son. Jack had browsed many children's books and read the synopsis of every last book. The one he had purchased was the one he felt his son would love, the book his son is currently holding, and Jack was right.

The little boy takes out the next item, which is a box. "A Lego set!" Ángel flips the black box to the front, and he sees that this particular set is one of horses. The horse in the center looked similar to Andor, one of Jack's horses his son loved the most. "Is this an Andalusian?" Ángel looks to Jack, his eyes sparkling."

Jack nods his head, "It is, buddy. It's like a mini Andor."

Ángel seems pleased with Jack's answer and moves on to the last gift. It was another box, but this one was a shoebox. The little boy lifted the top off, and he was met with boots—dark brown leather boots with beautiful and intricate stitching all throughout.

“Is that a longhorn?” Ángel points at the center of the boots. He doesn’t wait for an answer before speaking again, “My grandpa has longhorns on his ranch. Do you have them on your ranch, Mr. Daniels?”

"I don’t have any longhorns, but umm... I have the same boots," Jack looks down at the floor like he’s suddenly interested in the simple pattern of the hospital floor. He wasn’t sure what reaction he expected, but when his son's sweet voice reached his ears, Jack looked up.

"You do?" Ángel was beaming, a smile brighter than the sun. He leaps to move sideways so his legs would hang from the bed. He took his left boot and put it on his baby blue non-slip sock-clothed feet and did the same for the right boot. When both boots are on, he pinches the tip to feel where his toes are. Ángel drops to the floor and begins to walk, showing all three of you his new footwear.

"How did you get his shoe size?" You're amazed at how they seem to fit perfectly.

"I asked him," Jack nods his head towards your husband, who is smiling broadly, showing his perfect teeth. Javi squats down to Ángel's level and presses his fingers on his son's boot toe box to feel if they're pinching Ángel's feet. "Perfect fit," Javi smiles up at his son, dimple on display, still on the floor.

Once Javi's hands are removed from Ángel's boots, he runs to Jack, "Thank you so much, Mr. Jack," he says, jumping up and down. Ángel runs back to Javi, who is now standing up straight, "¡Papi, quiero una foto! (Daddy, I want a picture!)" Javi complies and takes out his phone from his back pocket.

You turn to Jack, and your voice falls to a whisper, "We're hosting a dinner in a few nights to celebrate Ángel coming home, and we'd love it if you'd join us."

Jack's head reels at the prospect of seeing you and Ángel in a few days, but beneath that excitement, there is fear, "Is your family going to be there?" he asks.

"Yes, and Javi's too."

"It's your family I'm worried about," he confesses, looking into your eyes.

You take in the way his face pales slightly, his eyes widen, and his eyebrows shoot near his hairline. "No. You're more than worried; you look genuinely scared, but you'll be fine."

"'Course I'll be there, Sugar," he says, looking at his son laughing while Javi takes his pictures. If Ángel was a happy and giddy boy before the transplant, Jack now sees how his innocence is amplified now that he's healthy, and Jack can't wait to see more of his son's childhood joy outside the hospital.

"Hey, can I talk with you alone before you leave?" Jack asks you, hoping you'll agree.

"Um, yeah, we can go outside," you agree, noting his urgent tone.

"Javi, Ángel, I'll be back soon. I'm just going to walk Jack out," you say, moving to the door with Jack on your heels.

"Okay, we'll keep packing, amor," Javi tells you, brushing his hand with yours. You lean into your husband for a while until Ángel and Jack say their goodbyes, promising they'll see each other at the dinner.

You and Jack exit the room, and you take him to a little corner further down the hall.

"What did you want to discuss?" you ask resting your back on the wall with brown and cream diamond wallpaper.

Jack's nervous to tell you what he wants: a father-and-son relationship with Ángel. You two never went into detail on how you would tell Ángel the truth about Jack and he's terrified of asking you for something this big so soon after a big weight of stress has been lifted off you.

"Jack?"

"Sorry," he clears his throat, "I wanted to talk to you about telling Ángel that I'm his dad- biological."

"Oh," you sound surprised. "Yeah. We didn't really discuss that, did we? I haven't thought about it in so long, I'm sorry. Maybe we can get some pointers from Ángels counselor?" You suggest. "Javi and I thought about making an appointment with a child therapist because of this entire hospital stay. We were hoping to get your opinion on that actually."

It's Jack's turn to be surprised. "I think that's wonderful, Sugar. Thank you for including me in the decision."

"Of course. I think it would be great if we could get the counselor's opinion on how to best handle the situation. And we too can figure out how this new dynamic would work. For example, medical decisions moving forward. We'll tell Ángel about you and I have no doubt he'll want to have the relationship you want to have with him. We can talk more about the appointment in a few days. We haven't set an exact date for the dinner but it will probably be this upcoming Sunday."

"I'll clear out my entire schedule," Jack says sincerely

"We'll have food for you that won't send you into a choking fit," you tease.

Jack covers his eyes with his hands, "God, 'M so sorry."

You laugh at his embarrassment, "No, it's okay. I understand the food we serve can take some getting used to." You continue to tell him about the plans for the dinner that is slowly turning into a party and he just stares at you while you keep talking he gets lost in the moment. He thinks about your laugh and the consideration you still have for him and suddenly Jack blurts out, “I love you."

The smile you had vanishes.

“Jack,” you warn dangerously. “We were doing so good, Jack.” You don't want to—can't see him now, so you close your eyes. The words only needed to be said once for them to threaten tears to spill. "How dare you say those words to me now?” You hiss, your tone now angry but more than anything, filled with frustration and pain. You thought you could handle seeing him, so you open your eyes. "What do you expect me to do with that? I won’t leave Javi if that’s what you’re hoping for.

"S-" Jack opens his mouth, but you cut him off immediately. "No, Jack, let me speak."

"Once, those three words would have made me the happiest person in the world, but now? They’re only causing pain,” you pause, exhaling a shaky breath. “You humiliated me, Jack. Time and time again. Even if I didn’t have Javi, I wouldn’t go back to you.” You sound defeated, your voice carrying the pain of past wounds, and it crushes you to keep thinking about the past.

“I did love you, through everything,” Jack whispers, his eyes searching yours. They are watery and dazed.

“I think…” you run your tongue over your lips and then purse them, “I think you loved me in your own way. But that’s not how I wanted to be loved. During our engagement, and more so during our marriage, I never really felt loved by you. Can you blame me for that if I can count with my fingers the amount of 'I love yous' you gave me?” Your words are like shards of glass, cutting through the air with the sharpness of your pain.

“When you did show me your love, I was so happy, Jack. So happy that I thought, hoped, you would give me more love, so I stayed with you. I longed for the morning you woke up and things would be different, better. Because that’s exactly what happened. You woke up after the night of our engagement, and you were a completely different person, and I couldn't comprehend what I did wrong. I was willing to stay with you forever for the odd chance one day you would feel for me how I felt for you.”

“And I stayed because I always hoped you would go back to your old self. Sometimes there were indications that you were going to become the old Jack. Well, I don’t know if I fooled myself, but sometimes I thought you were happy. Like right before I told you I was pregnant, you had this smile on your face….” Your voice trembles with the weight of those memories.

“Other times I genuinely thought you hated me, and then I thought that’s not possible. ‘Why would he ask me to marry him if he couldn’t stand me?’”

“Did you always think that?” He sounds sad, a quiet plea for understanding. But your heart, scarred by the past, struggles to find solace in his remorseful gaze.

“Yeah. When… when we were together, it was rare you would look at me in my face. The majority of times you had me face down. How do you think that made me feel? You made me feel used and disposable.”

“I wanted to be loved by you," you continue, your tone a mix of vulnerability and strength, "and you always made me feel like I was the other woman. Then I decided I should stop trying and let you go.”

“What changed?” Jack's question hangs in the air. Everything you’ve revealed up to this point has felt like glass shards embedded in his heart. He knows you still have a lot left to say, and it will continue to hurt him, but he owes it to you to hear everything you went through.

“I was at a park one day after you didn’t come home," you recall, emotion tinging your words. "I came across this older man, and he showed me pictures of his family. When he talked about his wife…” you pause, emotion catching up with you. “It was beautiful. And I realized that would never be you. You wouldn’t talk about me that way. Since that day, I took off my rose-colored lenses and thought everything through."

"I thought about your behavior but also about mine. I hated who I was because it sounds ridiculous, but I was jealous of someone who wasn't here anymore. And I swear I never wanted to replace her or erase her from your life, I just wanted you to love me too. I loved you so much; I would've settled for half the love you had for Allison, but you couldn't even give me that. I never told you you couldn't love or mourn Allison. She was your wife, I get that... but I was your wife too, and knowing you would never love me like you did her was slowly killing me.”

"I thought about one night, which I don't know if you remember," you confess, the vulnerability in your voice palpable. "But one night on her birthday, you got extremely drunk, and you kept slurring your words. I couldn't understand half of what you were saying, but I heard loud and clear when you yelled at me that you didn’t choose to stop loving her; you were forced to. And you said that you would’ve never looked at me otherwise. That you wish she came back and I disappeared… That we s- switched places,” you confess, exposing the scars engraved into your heart, and the pain of that night that is still etched in your memory—a wound that refused to fully heal. You were surprised that you weren't sobbing, because the night he told you those words, you felt your world had ended.

Jack was appalled, his face reflecting the shock and guilt that surged through him as he listened to your words. The heaviness of the past, the pain inflicted, all rushed back to him as a floodgate of memories suddenly opened, each carrying the weight of its own hurt.

"I always felt I was the third person in our marriage. You made me feel things I hated, and maybe even worse, I became someone I didn't recognize. After that day in the park, I was going to ask you for a divorce because I didn't want to be the person you settled for… then I found out I was pregnant. I wanted to give us one last try, and well, you remember what happened after I told you the news,” you say, the bitterness of the past lingering in your words.

"You kept hurting me, and you're smart, Jack. Did you not think I would leave you?"

Jack exhales, the reminder of his own mistakes heavy on him. "I think I couldn’t let ya go, so a part of me hoped you would leave me if I treated you horribly. Every day I fought with myself to treat you like you deserve, but I wasn’t strong enough to open up to you."

The silence lingers, and Jack takes the opportunity to share a piece of his truth. "The night after I proposed, I had a dream about Allison. She told me I was replacing her, and I dunno, instead of working out through my issues, I took it out on ya.”

“Over a dream? You... you let our relationship go to waste because of a dream,” you say, a mix of disbelief and frustration in your voice. You want to be angry at him because such a trivial thing ruined the chance of happiness, but then you put yourself in his shoes. "Oh, Jack," you add, this time with a tone of understanding and sadness.

“Have you been to therapy?” you ask him, your tone a mix of curiosity and concern.

“Yeah…” Jack admits with a small, self-deprecating laugh.

“Can I be honest?” you tilt your head, your fingers playing with the collar of your shirt.

He nods.

“I don’t think it helped.”

Jack smiles, a sheepish expression on his face, “If we’re being honest, I went in for two sessions and never saw my shrink again.”

“Well, your therapist probably knew what they were doing,” you playfully scold, but then your voice softens, "Please see a therapist so Ángel can get to know the best version of you. When I knew that Jack, he was amazing, and that's the man I want my son to know."

A sad smile greets Jack's face, "Yes, Sugar."

There's another thing you've always been curious to know but never had the stomach to ask, and this seems to be your window. "Can I ask, did you, um, did you ever sleep with someone else while we were married?"

"God no," the words tumble out of his mouth.

"Well, that's something, I guess," you say, a sense of relief evident in your voice.

"I'm really sorry about everything, sweetheart. I can't believe I ever hurt you. I just miss you so much. I’ve never regretted anything in my life as much as I do not telling you I loved you when we had a chance," Jack confesses, the weight of regret heavy in his words.

"It’s okay, Jack. I’m not your wife anymore, but we had some good times. Sometimes love doesn’t work out how we thought,” you tell Jack, your gaze turning when you hear footsteps that are familiar to you.

And Jack would forever kick himself for driving you away and not accepting your love. The only piece of solace is that Ángel will have a happy and full life, and you finally got the love you deserved and dreamed of.

Javi starts calling your name, and you answer him so he can walk over to where you are. Once Javi comes into view, he tells you that Ángel’s been discharged and that they're ready to go home.

Jack looks at you once more, his gaze lingering, as if trying to capture every detail to hold onto. He sees the love in your eyes for your husband, a love he once had the chance to cherish but let slip away. It hurts, but at the mention of his son, it gives him the slightest glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe, he has learned from his mistakes, and he'll find a way to be a part of your lives, even if it's not in the way he once dreamed. The love of his life and his son are happy and healthy, and that will have to be enough for him.

"Bye, Jack. I'll let you know what time we're having the dinner," you say, while Javi wraps his arms around you—a protective gesture that Jack once held the privilege of doing, but did so sparingly.

"Take care," Javi tells Jack over his shoulder, his voice firm but not unkind. He then leads you to Ángel's room, leaving Jack standing alone in the corridor, grappling with the ache of what could have been.

You both start heading down the hallway, and Javi pauses halfway. His eyes search yours, concern written all over his features.

"Are you okay?"

"I am now," you lean into him and smile. "Jack and I were talking about when we were married," you begin, and Javi tenses involuntarily.

"Hey, no, you don’t have anything to worry about," you reassure him, cupping his face with both of your hands. "Our talk was more about what went wrong, and the bottom line was that I‘m okay with the fact that he wasn’t the one for me."

Javi takes a deep breath, visibly trying to control the surge of emotions within him. "It’s just- me cae mal ese - (I don’t like that-)” You can't help but chuckle lightly at your husband's choice of words.

"As stupid as it sounds, I wanted to make it work when we were married. I saw it in his eyes, I felt it in his words and actions; he didn’t love me, and I couldn’t stay in a marriage like that. I wanted a life with him... It didn't work out, and it's okay. Everything I dreamed of having, I found it with you. I'm the happiest I've ever been at your side. You’re the love of my life and I love being your wife, don't ever doubt that, okay?" Since the beginning of your relationship, you always repeated your love to Javier, not because he was insecure, but because you knew how it felt to be second place, second best, a consolation prize, and you never wanted Javier to think that you settled for him after Jack.

"Say it again," Javi requests, a genuine smile softening his features as he looks down at you.

"What?"

“That you’re my wife," Jack wants you to repeat the words that make his heart flutter.

“I’m your wife," you say.

Javi, still reveling in the warmth of the words, spins his finger in a playful circle, silently requesting you to say the words again.

“I’m your wife," you repeat, the pride evident in your tone. You take Javi's hand and begin walking to your son’s room.

"Again," Javi insists, stopping you in your tracks.

“I’m your wife.”

“Otra vez," he requests, this time in Spanish.

You comply, “Soy tu esposa," you tell him and drag him further down the hall to your son's room.

When Javi playfully asks you to say it once more, this time it's you who stops. “Por dios, Javi, ¿en cuántos lenguajes quieres que te lo diga? (My God, Javi, how many languages do you want me to say it in?)” you feign annoyance.

He shrugs, answering with a mischievous grin, “En todos (in all of them).”

Amused, you grab him by the collar of his blue button-down shirt and bring him to a level where you can whisper into his ear, “Ay, Jav, apenas y hablas español (Oh, Jav, you barely speak Spanish).” You kiss his cheek and pull back, leaving him slightly offended but oddly proud. He had hoped for a different outcome when he saw you pull him down; the glint in your eyes made him believe you were going to kiss him on the lips. But, to his dismay, you chose to tease him instead.

"Take it back!" he demands as you stand right outside the door.

“Si lo dices en español (if you say it in Spanish),” you tease with a grin. Javier contemplates for a moment, and in the brief silence, Ángel's laughter and Dr. Navarro's voice echo from inside the room.

"Please?" Javi implores, wanting to savor one more of those heart-skipping phrases before joining his son. Unable to resist his pleading eyes any longer and mindful of the precious moments with Ángel, you relent.

“I’m your wife.”

END

Extended Note: The end! Thank you, everyone, for your kindness throughout the series. I truly appreciate every interaction 🥹.

As for my departure, I'm unsure whether I should deactivate my account or just private my writing. There's one post I received only positive comments on, especially from people with SPD who found it relatable. Apparently, there's a shortage of such stories, so I'm conflicted. Hopefully, I'll have a definitive decision next week.

I'm planning to post the Din story next Thursday; it's just one part, a sex pollen with Virgin!Din, titled 'Paleta.' I'm a fan of El Alfa, and I recently discovered that a song in his new album was sampled from the one I used for the Din story. It got me thinking about what I had written, and I wanted to share it with y’all before I bow out.

Thank you for reading 🫶🏽!

Taglist: @kchavez666 @ttupelohoneyy @mishasminion360 @ilovetaquitosmmmm @stileslvr @pedrostories

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