#seeing my takes and thinking im all wrong because they have no reading comprehension or critical thinking.

[thesherrinfordfacility]

the reading comprehension on this godforsaken website is genuinely insane. it's such shit ppl went after you for responding. fwiw you singlehandedly restored my faith in the GO fandom a little while back, some of the only well thought-out takes for miles (til i started clicking on the reblogs n found more). there was nothing wrong with defending yourself from people who didn't even read the meta. for something you put this much effort into, it'd be weirder not to be defensive

ive sat on the whole thing over the last dozen or so hours now, with a good mixture of upset, anger, some kind of numbness, and incredible amounts of anxiety. i posted that response out of the second; i was really angry, and i flew off the handle. whilst i don't appreciate being told by the other anon that i shouldn't be so attached/shouldn't have been so upset, they have a point, and were right to highlight (intentionally or not) at the very least that that is the root of the problem. i likened the fiasco to some secondary school bullshit, but i didn't realise - or want to acknowledge - that that applied to me too. the whole thing has reawakened ancient history that i thought i had gotten over years ago - more than a decade ago, even - and it very much turns out that that isn't the case, and was simply buried. the uncomfortable thing i also ran into is that the incident has made me re-examine myself with a little more, and definitely overdue, scrutiny - the post attacked at what i now think was my ego, and my over-confidence, and sense of entitlement. that's so uncomfortable to admit, but here we are.

i don't mind people disagreeing with me, but i still stand firm that i don't think sending an ask ridiculing someone, or adding tags that equally can be interpreted as being plain unkind, is a nice thing to do. it's shit - i felt humiliated, and self-conscious in a fandom that until this point, for all my controversial takes 😂 - had made me feel that i had a space to share them, and whilst may not be agreed with, would still be valued by nature of them belonging to a person. i have no doubt that everything on that post wasn't at all personal, but it still felt that what i had spent a lot of time, excitement, and joy writing was worthy of being laughed at, as if i were stupid for writing it (let me be clear - idc if people think the original post and the take within it is wrong, that's absolutely fair enough). it then called into question - what else have people been nice to me about, politely interacting with me about, and yet elsewhere those same people are being horrible about it?

that line of overthinking is entirely my issue, that's noone else's fault, but i do think that had these people just simply kept their opinion to a DM, or somewhere else where the original poster is unlikely/not going to see it, it might have all been avoided. people are entitled to share their opinion, i have no issues with that fact, but it can have consequences... just like the consequences of me rb'ing it once the anger had set in, and i ceased to think rationally. i am sorry that i reacted out of anger, without much - if any - rational thought; that it was bitchy as fuck, and - without the maelstrom of emotion attached to it, as it was from my perspective - it was objectively uncalled for. im embarrassed i reacted like that, and im aware that its only served to make me come across as even more ridiculous than the original post ever could 😂 but i want to settle in with what this has brought up, especially the shitty stuff that i thought i had long gotten over, and look at why i reacted the way i did - i think i was right to defend myself, but perhaps not in the way that i did.

as a separate note, and just really as a PSA to anyone waiting on me in my ask box or has sent me messages - im going to halt on posting any original posts/asks for a while (knowing me, because i can't help myself, a 'while' will probably be like a day). that's in part because im shitting bricks about posting anything in general (this ask response included), but also because - like i said before - i don't want to continue posting stuff when im now wondering how much is coming from a less-than-humble place - im worried that it's a lot more than i ever thought, which is vulnerable, but that's how it goes.

#ask #idk

[uriekukistan]

1, 23, and 24 for jjk for the ask game :p

suddenly i'm scared to have opinions but i do wanna get a lot of these things off my chest so

1 - the character everyone gets wrong :

i wanna say the character people get the most wrong is gojo actually. so many people just portray him as a cocky, silly guy, and miss the deep loneliness and insecurity that comes from being the strongest. its kinda sad because i think his inability to form a true and vulnerable connection is not only heartbreaking, but fundamental to the way he acts and how the story has played out thus far.

that being said, the most frustrating thing for me, and this is not an everyone thing, but i would say the overall...horniness of the jjk fandom contributes to a lot of mischaracterizations. im not saying there's anything wrong with writing or reading smut fics, but i think for a few characters their smut fic personalities have led to a more shallow understanding of their character. gojo is one, as i just mentioned, but also choso and sukuna. (im a bit scared to put this opinion out there, but it's been on my mind for a bit, ever since the gojo figure incident)

23 - ship you've unwillingly come around to :

i guess choso and yuki is one? i didn't really see it at first, but i guess it's kinda sweet, if a little bit one sided. i just don't see choso as the type to be seeking anything out like that, his priority is very clearly protecting his family.

there's more ships i wouldn't touch with a 10 foot poll that i don't see myself ever coming around to, such as MEGUMI AND SUKUNA???? aside from the fact that megumi is 15/16 and sukuna is 1000+, it's still an absolute no from me.

24 - topic that brings up the most rancid discourse :

i try not to get involved in jjk fandom discourse (except this post maybe?), and i wouldn't say this is "rancid" more-so irritating, but i mentioned today how i think specifically the tiktok jjk fandom lacks basic reading comprehension and analysis skills. people are understandably bored with the kind of cyclical writing gege has been putting out there recently, but also some of the ways in which they are criticizing jjk just show a lack of understanding of what's actually happening and the story that's trying to be told. spoilers here i'm sorry you thought the biggest supervillain of the series was going to be taken down easily? i'm sorry you weren't expecting lots of battles in jujutsu kaisen, which literally means sorcery battle? i think it was pretty obvious that this wasn't going to be a normal power of friendship manga from the junpei incident. the whole point of the hidden inventory arc was to show that the point was always to raise a new generation of sorcerers who would be able to work together and be the strongest together. gojo was never going to singlehandedly take down sukuna, and neither will any other character. the individual battles themselves could have more variety, but the direction the story was going was clear from pretty early on. no more spoilers

yeah anyway that's not really "discourse" im just sick of seeing the lists of reasons people think jjk is "mid" now, and all it is is them saying they dont understand plot points that were clearly established and explained.

#this got so long im so sorry #i've had a lot of things on my chest recently abt the jjk fandom #so thank you for the ask #gave me a sanctioned opportunity to rant #(like this isnt my blog where i can rant whenever i want)

[ossifer-bones]

whats the most interesting rachel ship to you? (not the same as your favorite, im asking about the most interesting) if you had to pick?

amberprice, amberfield, amberpricefield? (the rare rachel/steph, the never-before-seen rachel/alex?)

So, I just want to preface this by saying I read this question hours ago and haven't stopped thinking about it since then. I'm sorry for the slow reply but this is a very good question because it was difficult for me to answer lol

A big part of why I like shipping characters is because they're a great way of exploring the characters involved in a ship via how different facets of them are exposed during their interactions with different people, and how various ships can thus result in differing avenues of growth for a character due to the influence of the other person(s) in that ship. To put it more succinctly, you're gonna see a very different side of Chloe in a story where she's dating Victoria versus one where she's dating Rachel, and I really enjoy exploring those different sides of a character. Rotating fictional characters like 3D models is fun!

To give the most comprehensive answer I can, I'm actually gonna have to give my general thoughts on the ships you've listed here and lead up to a more definitive answer. There's a lot of other Rachel ships I have thoughts on that you haven't mentioned, like Amberchase and Ambermarsh, but I'm leaving them out due to that.

Amberfield - Assuming you've spent any time on my AO3 profile, you know I'm big on Amberfield. Right away I can tell you this ship is not the most interesting to me, but it's up there: we never see Rachel and Max interact in canon, which I will forever think is a shame considering the William Lives alt!timeline exists, and thus I just enjoy extrapolating what their interactions would've been like.

Rachel and Max parallel each other in a lot of ways (model vs photographer, both occupy the same position in Chloe's life that they trade out, Victoria equal parts being jealous of/attracted to them, and of course how alt!timeline Max is implied to have essentially occupied a similar spot on the social totem pole to Rachel) whilst simultaneously having a lot of key differences that make me deeply interested in what a relationship of any kind between the two would be like. The dynamic in my head I always envision is Max being a kind of grounding force to Rachel, while Rachel is able to coax a more adventurous side of Max out in a similar way to Chloe.

But there's also so many ways it could go wrong, how they could clash, and I do intend to explore those in my writing at some point. Amberfield is fun to think about!

Amberprice - Strong contendor for most interesting, though we're not quite there yet, this is a ship that to me is all about how you interpret both Rachel and Chloe. I have read so many fics that envision different versions of Amberprice that could all conceivably fit into canon, and for that reason I find this ship incredibly interesting.

Chloe was important to Rachel, Rachel was important to Chloe, and Chloe loved Rachel, but we don't know the real specifics aside from the events of Before the Storm (if you choose to take them as canon, I have opinions about this). This ship has so much raw potential because of how nebulous and undefined it really is. You can write it so many different ways! I love them.

Amberpricefield - This is my pick for most interesting.

You combine the unknown variable of how Max and Rachel would be around each other, the natural friction that would arise from them both being such important figures to Chloe (assuming you're writing something canon-adjacent), the differing ways you can choose to interpret the Amberprice component, and the question of how the triad is formed. So many conceivable variations in their dynamic, in how the relationship is formed, how you interpret the individual characters, how they'd interact with each other, there's so much fun to be had and I just find them so interesting to think about.

There is a lot of untapped potential when it comes to writing Amberpricefield, in my opinion, because a majority of the fics I've read err to the fluffier side of things instead of exploring how messy this ship really could be due to all the moving parts. For example, you cannot tell me there wouldn't be ungodly amounts of friction between Rachel and Max initially due to Rachel knowing full well how badly Max leaving messed with Chloe and Max distrusting this person she knows nothing about who has taken her position.

Amberchen - It's funny you mention Rachel/Alex because I did write a bit of this a while ago, though nothing worth posting. I find this ship to be an extremely interesting one specifically because of Alex's powers: Rachel is a character who revolves around people-pleasing, masking, and all manner of social performance. Underneath it all, she doesn't really know herself. She fears that there isn't a real her.

"Do you think there's a point when you've been acting so much that you don't even have your own personality anymore? You're just whatever you think other people want you to be?" - Rachel in BTS Ep 2, I love this moment so much.

Alex's powers let her read other people's emotions, tap into their thoughts, and gives her an insight others lack. None of Rachel's tricks would work on her, so she would be forced to engage with Alex as a person. Alex can see what's underneath it all, what Rachel can't or won't acknowledge, and that would be equal parts liberating and terrifying for Rachel. It's so interesting to think about how Amberchen would come about and in turn what their dynamic would be like if Alex's powers were in play.

Amberrich - Steph/Rachel. I'm gonna be honest, this ship doesn't do much for me on paper? I like Steph, I like Rachel, and I've read some really good Amberrich, but I can't really say I find this as interesting as other Rachel ships.

I think what is interesting is the contrast between Steph's strong sense of identity and Rachel's aformentioned insecurity about who she really is, which is paired nicely with their shared difficulty with openly expressing their emotions. They have areas of overlap but contrast in some key ways, which is always fun, but Amberrich just doesn't really linger in my mind the same way other ships do.

tl;dr amberpricefield baybee

#thanks for the ask! #i really enjoyed getting the opportunity to talk about this #life is strange #amberpricefield #amberprice #amberfield #amberchen #amberrich #asks

[ap0stle]

i feel like. so fucking annoying sometimes bc i will be like. "mann i understand outlast sooo much and everyone is soo dumb about it" and like im not. completely wrong. per se. at least on tumblr because everyone is fucking stupid on tumblr bc everyone is a horny 17 year old girl with zero reading comprehension but like. godd i wish i could find the right balance. u know. like im not stupid in the "waylon park is a twink" way but im not smart enough for super in depth discussions about the political, scientific and cultural stuff discussed sometimes on the subreddit or in the discord server. like i think that stuff is a little more appealing to me, but im also just. totally capable of being just as shallow as the first bitch and caring far too deeply about protagonists that we will probably never hear from again and whose stories are not the main point of outlast.

like i am so obsessed with outlast 2 and blake and his whole story. to an extent where i feel like it seems as though im missing the point in some ways, like. "why do you care so much about this guy and his life when the point is murkoff, the point is that religion is an excellent tool for dispensing 'justified' abuse and obtaining control etc etc (also literally just more murkoff wacky science)" and its like shut uppp i know!! i know the big picture! i care about it!! but i also care stupidly hard about this one guy whose backstory we still dont know a lot of, because the point isnt to get to know blake, its to get to further know murkoff through blake, and then throw him away. and i just cant!! do that!! i want to know how he got to where he is, i want to know him inside and out, i want inside his head!!!! (and yeah it would be stellar to know more of the prev protags as well lol)

but like. where am i. hello?? its outlast. my (admittedly narrow) experiences within the fandom exist in two extremes and they are seeing essentially cattle who miss the game's point completely, and people who are wayy smarter than i am who get the point and the point is what they care about. and dgmw im kinda talking out my ass rn, i have met more people in between than not, but when they lose interest in outlast i literally do not know how to find more people like them because i open up any avenue for community and am met with the aforementioned two extremes. like. how do i just... pick through and find people who understand it Like Me and care about it Like Me. i am just out here thinking so hard abt it all the time. like hello hi im here. im here!!!! im not one of them!!!!! take me!!!!!

#outlast #outlast 2 #sorry i am under the influence!!!! #and its 4am!!!!! aaaaa!!

[miss-wanna-write]

 im making bad decisions so buckle in.

A Non-Comprehensive List of Fun or Speculatory Milgram What If’s/Character Beliefs

i would like to credit @abyssalressentiment for helping build off or just listening to some of the more non-sense ones. also I’m [read more]ing this after Yuno’s.

Note: This was all made based only on the videos on the official youtube channel and some of their comments. If contradictory evidence is found in their drama’s or q&a’s, I have not read them and am not aware of it.

Haruka

he’s perfect, he’s diseased, he’s got nothing right going on and i want to see what he fucks up next.

Es is channeling my energy when they tell Haruka to try murdering them. let us fall together hand in unlovable hand :heart_eyes:

i’m literally so entrapped by the imagery in his mv’s that i cannot focus on theories. i’ve voting without logic for this one, girlies.

Yuno

i don’t actually have a lot of thoughts about Yuno, but i am very compelled by zenchizennou’s analysis on umbilical (link is to the post)

my takes are gonna be v pedestrian, lining up with a lot of others. compensated dating, an unexpected pregnancy, maybe a botched extortion either on her side or by someone who discovered her afterschool job, or maybe a bad client idk.

Fuuta

i wanna bully him so badly,,, he kinda deserves it,,,

okay, he is another one i have very little on because i completely misread his mv, initially. i thought he was so terminally online he deluded himself into seeing game overlays, and was in a fit of disconnect when he murder someone. i know, not even close to reality.

he’s just, so straight forward? and honestly, the guilty verdict was a better choice 1st round, cause i don’t doubt he’d have joined Kotoko in beating people up, or maneuvered her to better beat people up, if voted innocent.

Mu

i will say it now, if Mu doesn’t wow me with her second song, i’m going to vote her guilty.

crazy theory that makes no sense, incoming: what if Mu’s song isn’t chronological? what if she was bullied after she murdered the girl, and everyone knows she murdered that girl, but Mu didn’t get charged because we all know police forces be corrupt af and highly bribable.

listening to Es’s version of Afterpain really shows how Mu is twisting her words. as i’ve seen someone say before, she says sorry so you’re obligated to forgive her. if you don’t, she tried, you’re the one who won’t accept it. can’t you see that Mu is the one really in pain? despicable (mildly impressed)

Shidou

probably worked in palliative care, facing the stress and tears and anger of everyone he had to break the bad news to, until it got too much, of watching everyone he took care of fading and suffering and dying before his eyes until it got too much and he took drastic measures as...

an angel of death. maybe it started out as a genuine thing, where he would offer the service to terminal patients, but then snowballed until he would do it as punishment or just because, or maybe it was always retalitory because of the stress caused by dealing with patients families. i really can’t stop thinking about the dude whos DABDA reaction was Anger, at Kirisaki-sensei... okay no calling Shidou that sounds weird af. back to informality.

Japan doesn’t have any formal euthenasia laws, and the two doctors who were tried for it, one case passive (i.e. cutting off life support) one active (i.e. injection), were both found guilty of having caused death, so no matter why or how he did it Shidou would probably be a murderer for it.

i also think he engages in illegal organ harvesting, but in a way that, once you die he’ll harvest any viable organs regardless of your donor status card.

he also gives me the vibes of knowing he’s wrong, but either knowing he can’t stop, or fearing he can’t stop, which is why he wants to be found guilty.

Mahiru

i think her relationship was abusive on both sides. her reaction to the guilty verdict does not... make me feel comfortable. it’s not like Amane’s where she fell further into her beliefs, at least not in the same sense, but... she was treated cruelly and is reaffirming her love.

this is the easist for a q&a, or voice line, to contest, but it makes sense for why she was in the birdcage too, if she was in a physically abusive relationship.

Kazui

i have, what i like to refer to as my “apropose of canon” what if of, what if Kazui is a professional killer (maybe a honeypot *wink wonk*), and Hinako was originally supposed to be his target but then he fell in love. this has no reason except “professional killer au romance story”

Amane

there was never a right choice during her first vote. if we voted “innocent”, it would re-affirm the teachings instilled in her, when we voted “guilty” we subjected her to the same torment her ‘guardians’ probably did.

so her lines during the lineup in Undercover confirmed two things for me. 1) her cult’s faith healing was most likely a two sided belief thing, both the healer and the healed must believe for it to work. pretty standard typical stuff. 2) a broken promise is only logically followed by death. “cross my heart and hope to die” stuff.

the brainwashing really got her... i hope she gets help, and also doesn’t murder Shidou. please don’t kill Shidou, Amane. if you do Kotoko’s gonna murder someone for real and i have hope for her.

Mikoto

amazing what if: Mikoto’s DID affects the MV’s, not to a major extent, but to the extent that he (or rather, one of his alters) is aware of what’s happening. my bet’s on Green, but Red could be a possibility. Jackalope did say he doesn’t know how DID will affect Milgram.

piggybacking off of the theories that Mikoto has two alters, identifiable by a Red tint and Green tint, as opposed to the core’s blue tint, and will be refered to by colours as opposed to Blue who as the (presumed) core will just be called Mikoto, i will point out something that is very obvious, and probably not something ground breaking.

RGB is the colour spectrum used in light, maybe meaning that if we want to really see Mikoto for all he is, we need to consider every part of him as him. you must consider all motives, regardless of which part of him hosts them, with out that you have a tinted view, and if you don’t consider any of them, you’ve black out your sight.

adding a caveat that i do not have any formal learning in regards to DID and any observations i make are to be taken with a grain of salt and are not meant to offend.

Kotoko

another i am voting guilty, because hoo boy. i admit i may be slightly trying to play 5D chess to have the most people survive, but this is also because she needs humility, just like how Fuuta needs it.

both Ace and I agree that Kotoko didn’t attack Amane cause she either has a soft spot for kids, or sees Amane as the product of corruption rather than a cause of it, like the other three guilty verdicts.

also, meaning to be bi, hO BOY. only the fact that she would stomp me to death with her doc martins is keeping me sane.

#milgram #milgram theory #this will be updated some day and that is a threat!

[asrionsun]

i think im gonna leave the bg3 fandom entirely. [im sure no one cares, i dont contribute. im just ranting into the void for my own sake.] i hate pretty much all of the people in it because of their takes. its just disgusting, and its harming my mental health. its entirely ruined my enjoyment of the game, so im gonna abandon that too. [not to mention every update ruins more, takes more away, and alters it to fit the fucking terrible fandom views and leftoverdev bias of a story and characters that were once unique and wonderful.] im sick and tired of the abusiveness of the fandom toward the characters, the dismissal and belittlement of trauma, the fetishization, the ugliness of the way certain characters [gale specifically, but not ONLY him] are treated so fucking poorly and the insurmountable hypocrisy.

having to face the fact that so very many people are absolutely incapable of critical thinking and read things so extremely wrong - not able to parse emotions, cant read facial expressions and body language, cant/dont understand the story and the meaning of anything presented, miss the symbolism, can't understand inflection and delivery of lines and their emotional weight, the entire lack of comprehension of emotional and mental states or story elements and... everything else. its dragging me down so badly.

humanity is shit, people are complete and utter shit. it just sucks so bad, and everyone has destroyed any and all enthusiasm and joy i ever found in any of this because most people lack any depth or experience or ability to relate to anything without changing it to suit them entirely, thereby altering and ruining the story and its characters and flooding the entire fandom with head canons and misinterpretations until no one makes or discusses anything that isnt something run through a game of fandom headcanon telephone until its become unrecognizable and just... utterly hurtful and lost from its origin.

i... really hate yall. i dont understand why yall cant appreciate characters as they are. why do they need to be so entirely different for you to enjoy them? if gale doesnt suit your ideal, dont change HIM, go find a different character that fits your ideal instead. so when those of us that DO love actual gale go looking, we meet each other and get to see GALE. not some altered unrecognizable version that doesnt have any resemblance to the character we loved, who looks and acts entirely different. i fucking HATE yall.

#rant #dissapointment #especially the way gale is treated #im SICK of the changes yall make to gale #to his body #his personality #his skills #his story #his motivations #his history #not ONE of you writes or draws anything resembling canonical gale #you only make your gross OC's with gales name #you change his eye color #his face #and his body so much its vile #your fandom interp has poisoned the characters and story and weve lost them to your warped rewrite and headcanons #i fucking hate yall

[liz-allyn]

hi it’s me I know I’m late to the party but the only reason for that is because pt 13 left me speechless 😶 I had no words to comprehend how I felt or tell you how I felt what even are words ???! I don’t know all I know is that no language is comprehensive enough for me put into words how much I was taken aback by the last chapter I did not see THAT SCENE COMING MAAM WTF !!! I also wanna say Rex the lizard is so wholesome and cute although im terrified of lizards and reptiles of any sort but still cutie Rex can crawl away all he wants matt is in the story now which i was so looking forward to whole his entrance is not as iconic as dead pool(no ones could be tbh that scene inhabits my mind all day everyday) i really really love what he brings in to this chapter i.e peter acknowledging that he knows honey is hiding something from him CAUSE I KNEW IT IM HERE TO SAY I SUSPECTED IT FIRST!! Im so mad at pete right now i know he thinks its better if honey thinks he is a monster or whatever but new flash my guy shes already terrified of him and having feelings for him while being scared him is not Basis for anything really not relationship can even exist there because there is no fucking foundation im really running with there is definitely some other person feeding information to Wilson or john. I really do love the reoccurring themes you’ve established in the story because my dumb brain feels so happy and smart when they come up and i recognise them not to mention it gives the story such a consistent feel and proves how remarkable of a story teller you are. Now THE SCENE is so flawless im not going to waste words to describe how much in love it safe to say i had to find a dark corner of my room to go read it in. Im such a slut for angst and i can’t wait for things to unravel and fall apart completely and it feels like we are heading towards that but in such a slow way which i adore!! Its like watching animals evacuate a place per birds trying to fly away when there’s an earthquake or tsunami coming our way you know in your gut things are wrong but you can’t get yourself to get upon and leave even with all the warning signs flashing in neon because ohh the wreckage is gonna be so beautiful and wonderful i know it !!!

As always take care i love you stay hydrated

🌌

Hi, galaxy gal! I wondered where you were!!! Yessss that scene was something huh? I have so many thoughts about what you said but I’m trying to keep my mouth shut.

As far as that last thing you said ⬇️

#🌌.txt

[saraa-lancee]

ngl it's funny that you're willing to demonise all autistic people just to make sure a label is only applied to hyperspecific situations. being autistic is not an excuse to be weird towards women or cross boundaries - can it help explain it? yes. but autistic incels exist and implying they don't and normalising that sort of behaviour as an autistic trait 1) is ableist, and implies that autistic people have no control over their own behaviour, and 2) invalidates victims and survivors of sexual violence at the hands of men who happen to be autistic. its also dangerous.

just saying. mentality like that meant that, as an autistic teenager, I allowed close friends to take advantage of me because the line was blurred and it was much easier to rationalise and excuse. and it's scary to me to see that culture normalised because it stems from the patriarchal definition and understanding of autism. autistic people know right from wrong and do not hurt people by default.

I'm not attacking you, but rather hoping to just offer an alternative perspective. I hope you are having a nice day.

Lmao hello Anon.

I'm going to provide an "alternate" for you-- I didn't demonize autistic people. I am an autistic person who has struggled with understanding boundaries in the past. I am defending autistic people by pointing out that Weird and Incel are Aboslutely Not The Same, which, if you y'know, read, is the entire point of the whole fucking post! But please, tell me you enjoy conflating Wierd Characters with violent rapists. I'm here all day-- I can't wait to read this.

I also, literally in that post, pretty much said exactly what you said. No where did I say all autistic people intentionally hurt people. In fact, I believe I even stated that when Autistic people *do cross* boundaries, it's not always intentionally. But let's also not pretend that autistic people never hurt others. I'm sorry that happened to you anon, I really am. Lots of autistic people also have stories like that, and it's disgusting people are so ready to take advantage of us. I'm also sorry that you think I don't know this perspective already as an autistic Afab person-- nice assumption about me and my life. But I think you're the one who might need the new perspective here if you don't seem to realize that yeah, autistic people absolutely can be the perpetrators in a blurred line situation. Unfortunately, lots and lots of people also have stories were the were hurt *by* an autistic person. "Hurt" as in physically or psychologically (not just sexually), because as a 5 foot nothing woman having a tall man (autistic or not) forcefully grab you in public or start screaming at you can be fucking terrifying.

Autistic people aren't just victims, anon. Acting like we can only be victims is kinda like... infantilizing or something. Sorry, but in an uncertain consent situation, an autistic person can also Assault someone because they didn't understand enthusiastic consent (ie, don't understand the nuances of YES! Vs Well, okay... or how consent can become questionable in situations where substances are involved). This all assumes innocence as well-- believe it or not, some autistic people are like, bad people (they also still deserve to be viewed like full adults but also viewed fairly rather than ostracizated unfairly).

My bad, im just rambling. Once again, reading comprehension. You're just intentionally ignoring my origional point, which is that you absolutely cannot just call a character who you deem weird an Incel. Which is the entire fucking point of the post but once again, fantastic selective reading Choice. When I said we shouldn't view Weird Character as a violent proponent of Rape and violence against women, I was 100% definitely demonizing Autistic people. (I remember literally saying "this doesn't apply just to autistic people" with the specific stipulation that he is autistic coded to me, but being autistic isn't the only factor here, proving that you literally chose not to read/to assign language I didn't use and a viewpoint I don't have to me. As an autistic person, this is black and white, and that's *not what I fucking said*. Try again anon).

Again. The entire point was defending "weirdos". Since, y'know. Most Weirdos (affectionately, as a weirdo myself) are demonized (being labeled as an Incel is definitely a demonization, btw. Which again. Was the POINT OF THE FUCKIN POST).

Idk why I'm writing this, you people will read whatever you want from it and not what I'm actually saying, so whatever. Autistic people are unfairly victimized by society-- including this whole Incel business. You were victimized, and I am sincerely sorry for that. But if we view autistic people as, y'know, dynamic people, we have to accept it goes both ways and come to the understanding that all this isn't even about all that. It's about refusing to assign extreme malcontent to someone based on Wierd.

Anyway, long live the weirdos demonized in popular culture. Long live everyone who's been shunned and judged for "acting wierd" and long live everyone who's exclusion erased their chance for a "normal" "adjusted" life.

Have a good day, *anon*.

#the way everyone is missing the point #incels are VIOLENT #he was never VIOLENT #yet OP conflated his behavoir as obvious violence #this is not okay i dont care. #try actually reading and understanding the Main Point. #we learned this in English class did you finish middle school can you identify the Main Point #soren rants

[atlabeth]

neighborly things - sokka x fem!reader

summary: reader can’t make things for shit. thankfully, she has a cute and crafty neighbor willing to help her. 

a/n: im so sorry lmao. i have requests and i have 2 series that havent been updated in like a month but sometimes i just need to write a stupid little oneshot to get back in the writing mood. i did this in an hour 

im not a screwdriver expert so dont come at me if some of this info is wrong lmao 

wc: 1.6k 

warning(s): some cursing but otherwise pure fluff. also i didnt proofread im SORRY im pretty sure they laugh grin and smile like 200 times 

-

“Dammit!” 

 Anyone unfortunate enough to have a place near you during this time would have heard the phrase on more than twenty occasions, and it wasn’t even noon yet. You had gotten the parts in the mail to put together a new dresser a couple days ago, and had finally decided to take on the task. You didn’t know if it was because you were inexperienced with furniture or just lacked basic comprehension skills, but it was proving to be no less than Herculean. 

 You threw the screwdriver at the wall and fell back to the floor as you let your arms sprawl out above you. You had been trying to screw in a part for no less than thirty minutes, and if a miracle didn’t happen right about now, you were going to lose your mind. 

Your head snapped towards the door when she heard a knock, and your brows creased. “God?” You muttered as you got up, wondering if you had actually thought a miracle into existence. 

 You weren’t greeted by a deity when you opened the door, but the man standing in front of you was pretty damn close. With ocean blue eyes, hair pulled back in a ponytail with shaved sides, and toned arms, he was a sight to behold. But you had no idea why he was in front of your door. 

 “Hey, are you okay?” He questioned, genuine concern in his tone. 

 “Um, yeah, why?” You were trying to rack your brain for any memory of this guy — because you knew you would remember him if you had seen him before — but to no avail. “Also, who are you and why are you here?”

 “Right,” he chuckled. “My name’s Sokka. I’m your neighbor; I live—” he gestured at the door just next to your place, “—over there. Moved in a couple weeks ago, so that’s probably why you don’t know me. I’ve just been hearing a lot of cursing and loud noises coming from your place, so I figured I would stop in and see what was going on.” 

 “Oh. That’s.. very considerate of you, Sokka. I’m just…” you sighed and chuckled at the ridiculousness of it all. “I’m just trying to put together a dresser, and it’s not going well at all. That latest sound you heard was the culmination of my rage. I threw a screwdriver at the wall.” 

 “Yeah, that’ll do it,” he laughed. “Listen. I don’t wanna intrude on you or anything, but I happen to be pretty good at putting things together. I had to do a lot of furniture construction when I first moved in, plus I’m the one all my friends call when they need help with putting anything together. I could probably help you with whatever’s troubling you.”  

 “Are you serious?” 

 “Oh, no. I just go door to door joking around with people, asking if they need help with their furniture, sometimes I ask if their refrigerator is running? It really gets a kick out of them.” 

 You rolled your eyes goodnaturedly and stepped aside so he could enter your apartment. “Thank you so much, Sokka. I’ve read the instructions a million times, I seriously don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” 

 He crouched down and picked up the manual, turning to a dog-eared page and skimming over the instructions. He pointed at the screwdriver you had thrown against the wall and glanced back at you. “Is that the one you’ve been using?” 

 You closed and locked the door behind him then walked over to the wall, picking up the unfortunate victim of your anger and spinning it in your hands. “Yeah, why?” 

 “Do you know what kind it is?” 

 “Um.. maybe? God, I don’t know. I think it’s a Phillip’s head?” 

 Sokka laughed and shook his head, holding up the manual so you could see it. “That’s where you’re going wrong. You need a Pozidriv for these screws — they’re similar enough that anyone can make a mistake.”

 You stared at Sokka in complete amazement — apparently, your savior lived next door, and he came in the form of a handsome guy with basic knowledge on putting furniture together. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” you said as you walked over and took the booklet from himl. You flipped through it a couple times and read over the part, shaking your head in disbelief. 

 “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!” you repeated, louder this time. “Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get that thing to- to work, to screw, to— whatever you call it?” 

 “It’s actually to—”

 “Thirty minutes!” You interrupted, earning a small chuckle from Sokka. “Thirty damn minutes that I have been trying to get that screw in, and it’s all because I was using the wrong screwdriver. Why would they make screwdrivers that are so similar but aren’t interchangeable?!” 

 He shrugged and held up his hands. “Don’t ask me — I don’t make the rules, I just follow them. But like I said; this dresser might fall apart if you keep using this thing. I actually have a Pozidriv back at my place, I can go get it and we can finish this up together.” 

 “God, that would be the biggest help,” you admitted. “But I don’t wanna take up your time — I don’t know how I would even repay you.” 

 “I’m doing this because I want to help you,” he said. “You don’t have to repay me. Think of it as… as a neighborly thing.” 

 “A neighborly thing?” you repeated with a laugh. “Well, if you’re offering, I’m definitely not going to refuse.” 

 “I am offering,” Sokka winked. “And unless you want to be at this for another three days, I think you should take that offer.” 

 You pretended to deliberate over it before letting out an exaggerated sigh. “I guess I’ll let you help me. I mean, really you should be thanking me for this brilliant opportunity to, um.. hone your skills.” 

 He laughed, a brilliant sound that made your heart sing, and nodded as he went back to the door. “Thank you so much for letting me put together this dresser. Truly, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

 “Then I’m happy to be of assistance.” 

 Sokka grinned then unlocked and opened the door. “I’ll be right back, then we can get started.”

 -

 Once he got back, the two of you got to work. The next three hours passed so quickly as you and Sokka talked about everything from the work you did to people in your lives (no girlfriend, thankfully), to exchanging stories — even the silence, though rare, was comfortable. 

 Sokka pushed the last drawer into its place then clapped his hands as he stood up, admiring the fruits of your labor. “And that’s it! We’re done.”

 “Wait, we’re done? Already?” You set down the instruction manual and stood up as well, backing up to Sokka’s position to see what he saw. “Wow, that looks.. that looks just like the picture. We are good at this! Well, you’re really good at this, I’m good at keeping you entertained. But still!” 

 You held your hand up for a high five and he laughed, but not without meeting it with a satisfying clap. 

 “It does look pretty good,” he admitted. “And not only do you have a brand new, fully functioning dresser, you also had the priceless experience of spending three hours with the neighbor you know nothing about.” 

 “That’s not true,” you countered. “I know that you’re really good at putting things together, you’re a genius when it comes to anything math or science, and you hate blueberries.” 

 Sokka snickered and brushed his hands off on his jeans. “That’s everything there is to know.” 

 “I dunno, Sokka. You seem like a pretty interesting guy.”

 “Really?”

 “Yeah. It’s not every day that someone offers to put together a whole dresser just because they feel bad.”

 “Well—” he tore off a blank part of the instruction manual and picked up a spare pen from the counter, then put it up against the wall as he scribbled something on it. Sokka put the pen down and handed the slip of paper to you with a smile. “If you ever need any more help with furniture, then call me.” 

 You could feel your cheeks heat up as you took the paper. Your fingers brushed ever so slightly as you took the slip of paper, and you decided to just go for it. You bit back a grin and tried to sound as innocuous as possible. “And if I want to get to know you beyond the blueberries?” 

 Sokka laughed and leaned against the doorframe. “Definitely call me.”  

 “Great.” 

 The two of you smiled at each other like idiots for way too long before a notification from his phone broke the silence. He jumped from the sudden noise and dug his phone out of his pocket, giving you an apologetic look. “Sorry, my sister just texted me and I gotta get over to her place.” Sokka started towards the door then paused and turned around. “I actually had a lot of fun doing this, though. I’ll see you around, yeah?” 

 “Yeah.” You knew you had that same smile on your face, but it just wouldn’t go away. His energy was contagious. “Definitely.” 

 “Great.” He winked at you one last time then left, closing the door behind him, and finally snapping you out of your spell. 

 You leaned against the dresser and stared at the slip of paper in your hands, committing the number to memory. 

 You were definitely going to take him up on that offer. 

-

perm tag list: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin​

#avatar the last airbender #avatar #atla #avatar the last airbender fic #atla fic #avatar fic #sokka #sokka atla #sokka avatar #sokka fic #sokka x reader #sokka x reader fic #sokka x you #sokka x y/n #avatar x reader #avatar the last airbender x reader #sadie writes

[danniburgh]

Rushingly Bittersweet (Javier Peña x f!reader) part 21

Pairing: Javier Peña x ofc//f!reader with name.

Summary: After the fall of Escobar everything starts happening way too fast for Javier; his raise, his new office, his new team, the Cali cartel’s operation, the sudden arrival of a new agent that was transferred to his team for no apparent reason, the way he was falling in love with her almost unintentionally.

And he couldn’t seem to stop any of that.

Word count: +4.9k

Chapter warnings: uhm, this chapter is Javier’s perspective ehehe, so, beware fo feelings

A/N: This chapter is set in season three, episode ten. // again, i am really fucking sorry, but we are ALMOST DONE OMG, also i wanna say thanks to my official cheerleaders @queenofthefaceless and @maharani-radha-writes​ that helped me a lot and @alliterative-albatross​ that made me feel sure of some of the ideas i had for this chapter, i love you lots, guys. While proof reading this chapter for the first time i understood why it was the hardest to write, it was because i had just to strip myself naked and understand more of Javier Peña as i had built him... i just... im not quite pleased with the second half of this, but i know its needed.

ao3 // fic index // Masterlist // fic playlist

comments and reblogs are eternally appreciated 💓 let me know if you wanna be tagged

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gif: @javier-pena (thank you so much for making this when i needed it the most, ily)

The air weighed on his chest; he felt his lungs struggling to find air; as he drove home, he felt his heart pounding hard and fast, as if it wanted to rip out of his chest and run and hide and die.

As if his heart wanted the same he did.

Javier couldn’t sleep that night. He didn’t even try to close his eyes after climbing into bed.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw you.

Jesus Christ.

His mind was reeling, he couldn’t stop replaying every single thing you told him in his mind.

“My name is not Florencia Martín”

“A precarious situation”

“Another Los Pepes scenario”

“You do care, you care a lot”

He wanted to crawl into a deep hole and bury himself to stop his body from feeling.

Javier cringed deeply when he remembered he had told you he had fallen in love with you without even thinking about it.

That certainly wasn’t the way you were supposed to find out.

He guessed, while tossing around on his bed, on the same sheets that still smelled like you, that he had it coming. He probably deserved it. But that didn’t make him feel any better, it stung.

It burned.

Javier had stripped himself naked for you, more than just his body, he had let you see him; he had let you touch him; he had let you read him; he had let you know him.

He had let himself feel and… he had let himself think he deserved something good.

He felt like such an idiot, stupid and embarrassed because there you had been… Standing in front of him, in a place he thought it would become something close to his fortress, breaking him. And he let you.

God. He had known you for less than six months, and yet he let you have power over him. All that power to make him whatever you wanted. He had handed you a sledgehammer and his heart and soul on a porcelain platter for you to shatter.

And he just took it.

Javier huffed at his own thoughts while his eyes were glued to the ceiling.

He was an idiot, wasn’t he? Having let himself feel all those things he had been so beware of for a woman he never really knew.

What else was fake about you?

He felt that sting, known and oh so foreign clench in his throat and he fought it. He fought it hard. Why was he feeling like that?

“A precarious situation”

“You do care, you care a lot”

He sat up and brought his knees to his chest, clenching his jaw so tight his face started trembling.

He had to unclench it so he could open his mouth and gasp for air because his lungs were tightening in his chest and he knew he just had to let go. He shook his head to nothing and fought it again. He would not break. He couldn’t.

But then he remembered he was all alone. Just him and his mind and... he stopped fighting for the first time in years and allowed his feelings to pour down from his eyes.

Javier clenched his jaw again as he felt the thick, years old tears pouring and pouring, clouding his sight, flooding his face.

“Fuck,” he muttered to nothing, resting his face on his hand and his arm on his knee, his chest struggling with the silent sobs he was drowning in.

Javier cried for around an hour.

He allowed himself to cry, to cry for you, because if he had allowed himself to fall in love with you and he had allowed you to wield power over him, he deserved a chance to fall apart as well.

He had earned it.

His tears of grief and pain became tears of anger and pain.

He was so angry; at himself, because, thinking again about everything you had told him, you had said something right; he had dragged you into having whatever the hell you two had. He had kissed you and practically turned your wrist into starting something with him only, and just only because he felt lonely. Because he felt like maybe, for the first time in decades, he could have something good. Because he felt like maybe it was time for him to love and be loved again when, in reality, he didn’t deserve to be loved by anyone.

He had let himself believe you could be something else, less complicated. But how wrong he was… Him? Loved? As if. Him? In Colombia? Laughable.

That country… It became more than clear how much he had lost by going down there.

He huffed again in between tears at how it took a massive hit to the heart for him to realize how much he had lost in the years he had been there.

He was so angry; at the system. The fucking system that forced you and him into taking assignments you didn’t deserve to take. There wasn’t another moment he hated more right then, than the moment he had said yes to returning to Colombia. His dad was right, he didn’t like what he found. And it truly changed him before he could change it. How he wanted to have listened to him, how he wanted to not be the stubborn ass he was and just… said no.

And you? You had taken an assignment that promised unreachable things, one that forced you into turning into a liar, one that didn’t let you be yourself.

Fuck, was he really trying to find justifications for what you did even though you had broken him in pieces?

He was so angry; at you. For lying to him and from dropping the facade, for taking off the mask that he had rushed to love, for thinking he deserved the truth instead of you leaving once everything was over. He thought it would have hurt less if you had just… disappeared.

He wouldn’t be crying at three in the morning on his bed if you had just vanished into thin air.

Javier remembered seeing the hope in your eyes when you were telling him the truth, who you really were, he saw it and he wanted to tell you he forgave you. But neither of you deserved something that good.

He was sure it all was some kind of karma. A penance for all his sins, a way too high price he had to pay for all the shit he had done.

He realized then, while sitting on his bed in the middle of the night, the same one he had shared with you for nights that felt burned into his memory, that you and him weren’t so different.

That you two had more in common than he had first thought. That you, as he had said to you before, when you were still wrapped around his arms on that same bed, were a person who was willing to do anything for a greater cause. That you as well were capable of doing anything if you thought it did good, that you also were capable of sacrifice, of losing everything as long as you were doing what you thought was the right thing.

And you had told him, as you cried your eyes out in front of him, facing him and facing and taking all the repercussions of your actions, that you really thought it was the right thing to do.

The realization was truly bittersweet. He didn’t like that even when you had broken his heart and stepped on the pieces as you walked out, he still understood why you did it.

After that despaired, miserable night, he decided he was done bringing you to the front of his mind, so he shoved all the memories of you and tried to repress them in the back of his head along with countless others he didn’t rather to address.

The next day he stepped into the office with less than half an hour of sleep he had seemed to catch while condemning himself in the solitude of his room and avoided looking at your still cluttered desk. Full of you.

He ignored Stoddard when he asked him where you were as he stepped out of the office to head to Cali an hour later and while the elevator brought him down to the lobby he tried to drown the way the mention of your fake name made him feel.

That morning you walked directly to the CIA office, every step you gave into the embassy hurt in your body, mind and soul as if each one had a dagger embedded deeply and an invisible hand was twisting each dagger deeper. You felt the weight of the world on your shoulders. You entered, unannounced, into Stechner’s office, not even trying to hide the enormous amount of pain you were going through. You were tired of hiding things.

“Ah, my favorite DEA agent,” Stechner said when he saw you walk in “well, not anymore, I guess.” he smirked and you felt his gaze linger on your body, shamelessly.

“Let’s just get this over with.” you muttered, crossing your arms on your chest.

“Oh, this is more than over, alright?” the man leaned back on his chair and reached a manila folder that rested on top of others on his desk and raised it so you could see it “resignation, what a word,” he said, putting the folder back on the desk, opening the folder and taking the sole sheet of paper on his hand “really? after you failed almost epically?” Stechner smiled humorlessly and took your resignation letter in both hands and… ripped it in half.

You drowned a gasp.

“You have a flight to Washington today at noon.” he let out softly, feigning a comprehensive tone.

“Of course I do.” you mumbled, dropping your arms to the sides, feeling your eyes flood with tears as you saw him tossing the parts of your resignation letter in the trash can.

You blinked the tears away and quietly took a deep breath, halfway achieving a fake sense of stability you had fed yourself since the night before.

What were you thinking, after everything you did they would have let you get off easy? Of course not you silly girl.

“Oh, honey, you need a hug?” Stechner asked with a teasing gaze and a fake tone of worry “I bet breaking up with Peña really did something on you, you look like a mess”

You tightened your jaw and rolled your hands into fists, Stechner noticed, and his mocking face dropped.

“Anything else?” you asked him, voice hardened, with your eyes staring right into his, admonishing him, warning him. He knew what you were capable of, you knew he did.

He shook his head twice, and you lifted your chin up.

“I really wish you the best, sweetie.” he mumbled, dropping his gaze to his desk and trying to ignore the way your face turned into a scowl at the endearment.

“No, you don’t, you fucker,” you all but growled wanting nothing more than to erase that seemingly permanent smirk off his face that grew after he raised his head to look at you “you’re happy that I’m getting out of here like this,” you chuckled bitterly “you wanted this to happen, I hope you’re satisfied.” you let out all the venom you had been keeping inside you for that man in the last sentence you spat to him.

“You’re right, but I won’t say it,” he tutted and shook his head slowly “you really cost us a lot, sweetheart,” he mumbled and you were sure you were about to spit foam from the rage inside you “I hope you know that.”

You sighed and smiled bitterly at the man. Ever so fucking disgusting. For the first time in your life, you wanted something bad to happen to someone. And you didn’t regret it.

“I won’t ever forget it.” you spat at him in a soft voice that made him glare at you with a serious face.

You turned around and walked out of his office, leaving the door open, feeling his stare on your back.

Feeling, then more than ever, the insides of your mind finishing crashing down. Finally broken. Fully broken.

You walked towards the elevator and pushed the lobby button, hoping to dissolve in the way, hoping the elevator floor would just break and the void swallowed you and your body crashed against the concrete floor of the second basement.

But instead, the doors opened on the DEA floor and Stoddard stepped inside, shooting you a concerned smile as the doors closed.

“Hi, Florencia,” he looked at you and you tried to give him a smile, knowing you failed “you okay?” he asked, you blinked a few times before looking at him. He pushed his glasses up.

“Yeah!” you let out in a squeal “just peachy.” you drifted your eyes away and sighed again.

“I… thought you were in Cali.” Stoddard let out after a few seconds, you turned to see him with your brow furrowed.

“Cali?”

“Well… yeah,” he shrugged “the boss and the guys went back to Cali this morning.”

You let out a sigh, of both relief and worry.

“Oh,” you said under your breath “no, I…” you shook your head and tried to smile at him again and failed, this time he noticed “I needed to take care of something else.”

“I see,” he mumbled, the elevator doors opened and you stepped out “you sure you’re okay?” he asked, looking at you, you nodded several times.

“Yeah, Stod,” you assured him, trying to make him believe it, not quite sure if you believed yourself “I’m fine.”

Stoddard nodded at you as the elevator doors closed and you waved him once goodbye. Knowing it would be the last time. You walked out of the embassy in complete and utter shame, and some part inside you screamed that you deserved it.

Javier rescued another witness that day, because he still wanted to do something right even though he didn’t feel right himself.

But then, after sending Guillermo Pallomari to Miami, he had to return to his office. That place he had thought was his fortress, and then it was turned into… a dungeon.

He didn’t ignore your cluttered desk this time; he was alone in the office, there was no one that could say anything of him if he just… looked around.

A steel cup filled with different colored pens and only red markers, a pile of unsigned DEA reports, in one of the drawers a block of sticky notes running low, the same ones you made notes on and stuck on files when you reviewed them and that Javier hated to see because they were just so fucking bright, your red coffee cup you used when you didn’t have time to grab some at his house because he just kept kissing you until you both were late, which didn't happen at your place because Javier always woke up before you and started the coffee machine, a gun holster you hated to use because it just never clutched the way you wanted to your jeans and a small, brown journal he had never seen before and that he took because there wasn’t anyone that could say anything of him if he just… looked around.

He hesitated for a moment to open the journal, unsure of himself or of what he would find. The first page had your initials, your real initials written on the far left corner and just a list of names he didn’t recognize, next a few scribbles and a phone number. Javier skimmed through the pages and around the middle he found his name. Written in your pretty handwriting, with a few numbers underneath that looked dangerously close to file codes.

He snapped the journal closed and left it where he found it. He shouldn’t have looked.

In his office he found all the documents you had risked so much to gather and all the intel you just handed to him, pretty much as he had handed you his heart.

Javier let out a sigh and grabbed the folders, sitting behind the desk and opening the first one.

He re-read every single piece of information until his eyes stung from the exhaustion, or the cigarette smoke, or maybe more unshed tears he was once again fighting so hard to keep inside him.

Tears of sadness, it was a given. But also anger, and frustration and pain, and, as a bucket of freezing cold water, years of regrets fell on him.

Javier had tried, had tried hard to bury all that shit in some far, deep corner of his mind, as he had tried to bury you and all his memories of the last four? five? months. He really did. But at that moment, sheltered inside an office that didn’t feel like his anymore, past midnight, alone and so damn vulnerable, it all rose to the surface and he found himself drowning inside a sea of his own mistakes and past sins.

It was unbearable to stay there. So he grabbed the files that felt like burning in his hands and took off.

And so, Javier went back to an empty apartment that even though had been his for a long time, felt emptier than it had ever felt without you and reminded him only of you.

Why had he allowed his house to become a fucking shrine to the time you had spent there?

Everytime he looked at everything, from the fucking lamp at the corner of the end table to the damn waterbottle you left the last morning you were there on his kitchen counter, an image of you invaded his mind. Like a suffocating wildfire, spreading with the simplest blow of the wind. Covering him, trapping him, burning him and turning him into ashes.

That night he drank almost all the alcohol he had left in his house and even then, with his body full of booze, his intoxicated mind all the time returned to you. To your face, to your eyes and that color that was so common yet somehow looked so unique, to your voice and how you called his name either on a whisper or on a scold, to your smile and how apparently you had one only for him, to your hands and how you used them one night to touch him and the next morning to grip a gun, to how you drove him crazy from the very beginning. Fuck, he loved you. And he hated you all the same.

You gave him your resignation letter, you had left a job you claimed you loved so much that you had taken on something that did you so much wrong. You quit because of what they made you do, and probably, just probably, he had to do the same. Because of what they did to him.

Was it worth it? Everything he did… Was it worth something? Anything?

He thought again of everything he had done in the past decade and felt sick at what his brain was showing him. It really wasn’t.

The idea of doing something good, doing something that could give him a little peace invaded his mind and he spent half the night thinking of something he could do to finally, finally feel like he was helping.

The next morning he found himself sitting in the conference room with Crosby hovering around him. He huffed at himself, sitting there as if there was nothing wrong going around, with the ambassador looking at him with his ever so present judgemental smirk, as if he wasn't just pieces of a man that put himself together with the weakest glue when he got dressed that morning with less than two hours of sleep after being trapped inside his house that smelled like you with nothing but alcohol and time to think. His pop was right, they did something to him in that country. He just didn’t know what.

“Y’know how many times I’ve gotten a call from the Department of Justice and State the same morning?” Crosby rhetored, Javier looked at him, already tired of the lecture he was about to get “count ‘em on one finger, guess we have you to thank for that.”

Javier dropped his eyes to the oak table in front of him and absentmindedly tried to draw a pattern with the tip of his finger while half listening to Crosby telling him about his meeting with the Colombian president to demand that the gentlemen of Cali stayed in jail. He looked back at his boss and after half a second of pondering he told him he had a draft indictment of the president’s ties with the cartel, omitting the part of the story where he had drafted it half drunk the night before. And of course Crosby laughed at it.

Javier huffed again at himself when Crosby suggested he kept the draft to himself and he felt his blood starting to boil. He sighed and fought the urge to stand up and leave. What was he thinking? That a man like Crosby would back up a man like him? Just like that? What a naïve thought.

“The DOJ’s not gonna topple a government, Agent Peña,” the ambassador told him, obviating the statement, Javier felt his chest turn “you can’t tell me you’re surprised by that.”

“Some part of me was holding out hope, I guess.” he muttered to Crosby, who walked around the table and stood next to him, Javier didn’t even bother to hide his face from him, god how tired he was of hiding.

“Well, you should tell that part to grow the fuck up,” Crosby spat and Javier drowned a bitter chuckle “no, I mean it, Agent Peña, you should be happy,” the ambassador said and Javier frowned at the man “you played the system like a goddamn fiddle, you won.”

Javier opened his mouth to rebut the statement but Crosby just walked behind his chair and left the room, leaving him with the word in his mouth.

He felt his stomach toss in disgust, at his boss, at his job, at himself. Fuck that.

“Yes, sir.” he mumbled under his breath.

Did he really win something? The job that helped him escape from everything, the one at some point of his life felt like a dream, had become a nightmare. The woman he grew to love, after years and years of not feeling that, barely got out of there alive and the name he had whispered in extasis wasn’t even hers. Everything he had once believed in was melting away like wax on a candle and being washed away by a sea of regret, desolation and anger.

Did he really win something when he had lost everything? He had even lost himself in the process of what he and everyone around him had called a once in a lifetime opportunity to end a War that was so familiar to him it almost sat at the table on Thanksgiving with him and his dad.

And when he got out of the conference room, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, the idea of following your steps and quit became a lot more attractive to him.

So he went back to his empty home filled with your memories, resigned that he wouldn’t sleep much that night either, and stood in the middle of the living room, not knowing why he felt like a visitor in his own house, chain smoking, thinking about everything just because he wanted to stop thinking about you.

Javier walked to his window and dwindled himself to watch the cars down the street pass, the city was so unaware of everything. The country was so unaware of how it was being torn apart by the same people that were elected to take care of it. And he was so fucking angry, at everything and everyone, at himself. And so tired. Exhausted.

The phone rang behind him and he didn’t even flinch at the sound, even when practically no one called his house phone. He just let the machine get it.

“Hi, Javi, uhm…” he stiffened in place when he heard your voice and turned his head to eye the cradle “I know you probably don’t wanna listen to me right now but…” you sounded small, your voice sounded thin, Javier turned around and walked towards the phone “uhm, I wanted to apologize again and…” he felt like he couldn’t think, his mind was filled with your voice as if it were a fog that clouded his vision, he wanted to pick the phone up, he wanted to ask you where you were and tell you to come home to him, but his brain wasn’t letting him “I–I’m in Washington and I tho–thought…” his eyes closed on themselves when he heard you sigh and choke down a sob “forget it, uhm, I just… fuck…”

Javier looked at the phone, the sound of static still there, he pondered if he should just swallow his anger and his newfound pride and just pick up.

“I think someone will contact you about this and I just wanted to let you know I–I didn’t tell them anything about... us…” he heard you chuckle softly and he just stood there, rolling his hands into fists, waiting for you to say something else, “I’m sorry, Javi, uhm… I really think I did the right thing by telling you, I’m just sorry it had to be like this…” you sniffed on the phone and Javier sighed, “I guess I also wanted, uhm, to hear your voice… shit.” he closed his eyes and grabbed the phone.

“Hello?” he said and gripped the receiver when the sound of the cut line replied to him.

Javier threw the receiver on the floor and sat on the couch, cursing at himself for his weakness and his hesitation altogether.

He rested his head on his hands while thinking on the few things you had said, if you were in Washington talking to the directives that meant they didn’t let you resign, that meant they were firing you. And you called him to let him know his involvement was minimal, because still after everything you were trying to divert the backlash from him.

God how he was tired.

That’s when he decided, he was going to do it. Not only for what you had made him feel, but because he just needed to leave back all the baggage he had been carrying with him for almost a decade. He needed to let go. He knew it, he needed to free himself of something that turned him entirely into a different person that wasn't even close to what he had been before, because no one else would do it for him.

And he had nothing else to lose. Absolutely nothing.

Once that thought occupied his mind, he finally could lay down on the couch and sleep.

The next morning Javier just re-dressed and called his journalist contact, he had decided, in his pre-sleep haze, that he was just gonna tell the truth. To everyone.

Just as you did with him, he was going to use all the information you had given to him to redeem yourself of your own baggage to get rid of some of his.

Even when he didn’t want to think of you, you were still helping him.

And the truth went out as he told it, and he let himself out of the whole situation by following your steps.

Until the ambassador called him into his office later that day and that time… Javier felt like he could tell the man absolutely anything.

He had nothing else to lose.

When he walked into the office Crosby was watching the news about his little interview. Javier walked and sat in across from him, feeling something that looked like freedom. But his mind was still reeling with guilt and loss.

“You didn’t really call the country that we’re guests in a narco democracy.” Crosby asked without asking, Javier looked at the man and shook his head once.

“Are you sayin’ that it isn’t?” he replied, looking at the ambassador tightening his jaw.

“The state department’s livid.”

Javier nodded a few times.

“Good, they’re responsible,” he let out and shrugged slightly “we all are.”

“Samper is not going anywhere.” Crosby let him know, quite exasperated. Javier dropped his eyes to the man’s desk.

“Well, at least people know the truth.” he said, including himself in the sentence. No more lies.

Javier saw Crosby shake his head and study the four walls that surrounded them, and he caught himself wanting to read him like you would be able to.

“I want you gone, Peña,” the ambassador told him, Javier guessed so “so do the colombians.”

“I understand, sir.” Javier replied and Crosby said nothing else. He looked at the ambassador for a few seconds and saw also a shell of a man. He guesses that it wasn’t so much the job that took a person’s humanity, but the context in which they do it.

He stood up and walked towards the door.

“You know…” Crosby called, Javier turned around “any aspirations you had for your career just got dragged behind the barn and shot.”

Javier licked his lower lip and allowed himself to look intently at the ambassador, the man looked at him with something he thought was pity.

“I resigned from the DEA this morning.”

Crosby stood up straighter when he heard it, Javier said it almost solemnly, and saying it out loud not only made it more real, but it really made him feel light as a feather for the first time since he was a teenager when he walked out of the ambassador’s office for the last time in his life.

←previous // next→

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[rotshop]

get prankt this isn't an angst fic lol ,,

ANYWAY ,, i realized earlier that i could've just been calling 'auditor reader' employer reader this whole time and then i had a funny silly goofy little idea and now we r here,,,lol,,, ill proof read this later but i did this in one go no breaks so . help.

I might continue this later so!! consider this a sort of 'introduction' if u will,,

note ; auditor uses he / she / they pronouns in this bc ive decided im just going to push my propaganda onto all of you <333 also Hank uses he / they / xe

tw ; dissociation, dereality, some light body horror

Bloody Management

"This is out of your jurisdiction. You've wasted enough time here," you seethed dryly, staring down at the shorter being. "You've made no progress and have only proved your operation to be a strain on our relations and resources."

"Out of MY jurisdiction? YOU'VE never even been there before! You think you can just storm in and suddenly kick me out of my own work?" Auditor shot back, hands slamming down on the mahogany desk in front of her.

"Yes, actually, I do," you snapped, eyes narrowing. "I think you're forgetting just who you're speaking to. You've let this drag on for far too long and your ego has grown in tandem with its pointlessness."

Sighing, you leaned back in your chair, pinching the bridge of your nose as you continued. "Look, I understand. You put effort and thought into this little pet project of yours, but the results have all proven zilch. You fucked up, that's fine, but you can't keep meddling with this reality in hopes something will suddenly work again! All you're doing is tearing and poking holes the rest of us will have to deal with later."

"If you just gave me a little more time I could-"

"We've been giving you time. We've given you more time than we've ever given any project like yours," you gave a desperate look, "It's over. You tried and we tried, there's nothing that can be done. If you just worked with us then we could help you."

There was a long silence as they faltered, hands falling into their lap as their gaze followed, landing on the floor.

"And what happens to my Nevada?"

"We'll try and clean it up again. Return it to..some sort of normalcy," you hummed, "Though, with some of those tears in the fabric it'll take a bit longer than anticipated. That..clown, is proving to be rather difficult."

You paused, grin finding it's way onto your face.

"It's been tricky, if you will."

"Not the time."

You gave a 'tsk' in response, shrugging lightly, "I don't regret it."

"You'll be going back to our depths, effective immediately. While this project was a failure, we're still curious to see if there's anything else that can be done in a different time and place."

"And what about you? Are you going to sit all pretty in this fake office for the rest of eternity?" She questioned sarcastically, eyes dragging up to meet yours.

"God, I wish. I mean, seriously, you have no idea how nice it is to have some peace and quiet after dealing with that fuckin' office."

With a dry snicker and -presumably- an eye roll, they finally stood accepting their defeat.

"I presume I'll be seeing you?"

"If your little posse doesn't cause me too much trouble, yes."

"Have fun with that, I do hope it's as grueling as possible," he hummed, turning and striding towards the door to nothing.

"Thanks, was nice seeing you too."

The door peering to the void shuts soundlessly.

.

.

.

"Was the pun really that bad?.."

---

"What do you mean they're just neutral suddenly? It's not like they all just suddenly unionized or sum' shit! There's gotta be something going on," Deimos groaned, irritation dragging onto him and clinging desperately.

"Well- What do you want me to say! I'm just as confused as you are," Sanford huffed back over comms, making a vague gesture with no audience.

Hank stood in the other room, staring down at the few agents that were on their knees with their hands held tight behind their heads. They'd made no attempt to attack Sanford and xem, simply staring in a bit of surprise when the two'd busted in. It'd completely thrown the raid off, leaving them both in a state of stunned confusion. The agent that they'd asked about the sudden change in demeanor just gave some shaky shrug, stammering out that they'd all received an order to not attack under any circumstances from some unknown contact. 'They really just listen to anyone then?..'

It was hard to believe, hard to find any reason or meaning in that lead to any conclusive endings. Which, had lead to a small dispute going nowhere and fast. Hank only picked up on little parts of it, the words being muffled and distorted through the wall. Xe didn't really have much interest in getting a clearer reading of it though, it didn't sound like it meant much.

"Look, I'm just going to try and look for any documents or actual recordings of this apparent 'ghost order,' alright?..." A pause. "Deimos? Are you there? Shit- Of course the line dies now of all times."

The line wasn't dead. It was somewhere else, some-when else.

---

The ground felt cold.

.

.

No, was it warm?

Wait- No no no, it wasn't warm..

.

.

.

Was it even the ground?

.

.

Did it even matter?

.

Deimos could fuzzily recall it. Arguing with Sanford over the line. The points he made exactly didn't seem to ring through the fog of confusion and numb in his mind. Something about the Auditor, the agents, blah bla..something.

He'd been making to say something else when he'd seen it, something off in the corner of his eye. It wasn't anything huge, if you asked him he wouldn't even be able to tell you what it was. There was something wrong, but there wasn't. The ground was cold, but it was warm.

Something was wrong.

Everything is fine.

He'd turned around, looking around for whatever in his vision wasn't right.

That's rude to say, you know.

He'd never found it, something reaching from the depths to grab him.

You're making me sound awfully cruel.

With a groan, he picked himself up off the ground to observe his surroundings. White and black stretched infinitely around him, the 'ground' underneath him was the deepest of not-color while the 'sky' was its blinding twin. A building stood in front of him, a mix of ivory and ink twisted to form its structure. The door faced him, standing tall and straight as a soldier in spite of how tilted and off the world felt.

Before he could even really register it, something was pulling him up off the floor. There were no hands or strings physically attached, nothing sticking from him to drag into the infinite beyond his comprehension, no no. It was something quiet, a ghost or a whisper in his mind that pulled him through the ocean and to shore. The door grew larger- closer. His mind grew blanker. His hand twisted the knob.

Color flooded into his vision finally, the room in front of him coated in it graciously. The floors were a velvet carpeting, a wine red that felt of lavish and glitzy. The walls were lined in bookshelves, each filled to the brim with titles somewhere between poetry and latin white noise where imagination fell. At the head of the room stood a desk, polished mahogany standing tall and still, frozen indefinitely in time. Behind it, you.

Me.

Once again, he was pulled forward. Each step fell in front of the other, unsure of weight behind them and noise that followed suite. He felt half there. Half of a man and half of a void. It was..something.

Not pleasant, not bad.

The ground wasn't cold, wasn't warm.

It just was.

He finds himself meeting your gaze as he plops down into one of the seats in front of you. He finds his neck straining and bowing under phantom limbs that aren't there. He finds his eyes training on yours which stare back pointedly, finds himself between hot and cold. He finds himself sitting down before you as he watches from the window.

There's no window in the room.

"You must be so confused."

Your voice is in front of him, right? That's where you are, so your voice should be coming from there. It isn't though. It's around him somewhere. Even as you tilt your head to the side the noise of your own voice doesn't seem to follow it.

"Don't think too much on this all, alright?"

You mutter something. 'These grunts really weren't made for this- to be here. I'm surprised he even woke up.'

Someone nods in agreement.

"Wh..who are you?"

Is that his voice? It is. It has to be, it fell from his own mouth. He barely even felt it move. Is it his mouth? It has to be.

You pause for a moment, seemingly caught off guard. He doesn't know if its because he spoke or because of what he asked. Nobody clarifies.

"Why don't you call me [name]? That'll be easiest for you. I do apologize for dragging you here rather than appearing there," you hum, leaning forward on your desk. "I just wanted to make sure we had the utmost privacy."

I wanted to make sure you wouldn't be able to forget.

"Now, Deimos," is that his name? "I need to tell you something, I have to work on restoring things for you, so I can't deliver this message to everyone myself in the most..effective of ways. You won't mind filling your friends in for me, right?"

He doesn't answer. He can't. His tongue is lead and his mouth is stuck shut, if he opens it will surely be left that way for the rest of infinity- for the rest of this place, this time. Someone says yes in his voice.

"Good. Now, try to listen carefully..."

---

He wakes up on sand. He's sitting up quickly, stilted as his mind finds his body. His tongue is lighter, teeth separated once more as his jaws are their own entities again. The cliff is still under him, wind passing by him peacefully. The horizon stretches infinite.

The ground is warm, there's no mistaking it.

"Deimos? Are you there?"

He pauses briefly.

"I need to tell you guys something."

#deimos x reader #SORTA??????? #I MEAN. U GASLIGHT GATEKEEP GIRLBOSS HIS ASS SO LIKE. TAKE THAT AS U WILL... #idk he's definitely in gay love w/ you but like in that 'aha hey bestie what if we kisses and you were a cosmic horror :flushed:' #madness combat imagines #madness combat x reader #madcom imagines #madcom x reader #auditor reader #employer reader #<- gonna be usin that tag too now ig??

[ncssian]

some nessian fics i really like + why i like them;

this coincidentally went along with @anidealiveson's thanksvember idea, but it's a little different. these are either my favorite nessian fics ever or fics that i thought did something really well so im gonna put them in the hall of fame anyway :)

(also im sure most people have already heard of most of these but idc)

***

Sympathy for the Devil by @saphie3243: ACOTAR series told from Nesta's POV; maybe the best and most comprehensive take on Nesta's thoughts, inner workings, and emotions. It gives such an honest glimpse into her character that it feels like canon. Would recommend if you love reading longass essays on why Nesta is the way she is.

POETRY by @sayosdreams: short oneshot where Nessian are assigned to a creative writing project together that was just tender enough to imprint on my mind forever; on this list for the line "I think I just fell a little bit in love with you."

Drops of Sapphire by @sayosdreams: open for a surprise :)

Like Pristine Glass by @ladynestaarcheron: I only read one chapter of this fic and it was the last one, which meant I cried all night and refused to read it from the beginning b/c it hurt (also great writing). Features Nesta running away from the Night Court, Nesta with kids, and Cassian being forced to face his mistakes.

Tidal by @flowerflamestars: No thoughts all I know is that Pacific Rim sexy!!! The aesthetic makes me feral and jaeger-pilot Nessian make me feral!!

Love Her Like She Should Be Loved by @julemmaes: This fic is so crucial for anyone who's ever wanted to slap the IC around or see Cassian stand up for his girl. I wish there was a word for this specific trope b/c it's my favorite trope ever, but for now I call it romantic-partner-goes-feral-when-people-are-mean-to-the-love-of-their-life. Also Nesta being treated like an outcast will never not make me cry.

Sister by @theoverlyenthusiasticwriter: the same trope as LHLSSBL! Newly mated to Nesta, Cassian's temper is hanging on by a thread when he has to be around Rhys and the IC, remembering how they treated Nesta when she was depressed and alone. Very angsty and dramatic ficlet; 5 stars. (this person has a lot of amazing nessian fics this one is just my favorite)

Under The Weather by @thewayshedreamed: my favorite take of the many Cassian-taking-care-of-sick-Nesta fics out there. It feels extra special when Nesta and Cassian are barely acquaintances but he'll drop everything to take care of her anyway. Also caring Cassian>>> cocky Cassian.

Hellhound by @thewayshedreamed: more caring Cassian! He intervenes when Nesta is on the verge of a panic attack and helps calm her down and it's all very sweet and soft. (oneshot)

Mad Woman by @smallerinfinities: this fic is fairly new but it instantly grabbed my attention; it has escort Cassian providing Nesta with ~therapy~ which I didn't know I needed until I read it for myself. (multipart)

What's Wrong With A Good Story? by @maastrash: I can't believe I forgot to add this the first time around but this fic is a Nessian staple! Other than Nesta in scrubs and terminally ill Cassian (crying), the relationship development in this fic is adorable and makes me not care if the ending is tragic or not.

A Court of Fever and Frustration by @theoverlyenthusiasticwriter: nesta takes care of cassian this time, and it's PERFECTTT. romance has always been about the little details to me, and this fic is full of little details: rubbing someone's back, knowing where they're hurting without asking, soothing touches. i also think being sick makes characters vulnerable in a way that physical injuries just can't and i love seeing cassian absolutely wrecked in front of nesta. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

some hand-picked faves from @lady-therion's masterlist (these are the five-star comfort fics for when i'm really missing nessian):

Close Quarters: snowed-in-a-cabin fic that is soft, warm, and ~tender~

The Warrior's Heart: mostly smut, but like poignant smut? it's not necessarily emotional but it makes me emotional, and it's entirely because of the writing.

Entirely My Own: more of the same type of smut that makes me feel the same way as TWH. i think the word i'm looking for is "intimacy", and it's my absolute favorite thing to find in a fic.

Honorable mention goes to Her Dark Affection: dom!Nesta, enough said.

this is definitely not an exhaustive list and im sure i've forgotten a lot of wonderful fics, but i will be updating this as i find/remember more fics i love! also make sure to check out the complete masterlists of all these writers bc there are definitely works not on this list that i think people would enjoy the hell out of.

#ficrec #nessian #ncssian recommends stuff #nessian fic #nesta archeron #cassian

[filipinoizukuu]

pls tell me more of ur fic pet peeves

K OSMFKS OKAY MAN. man. HSDBBSJDJS

so i have like. a FUCK ton of pet peeves for fics, and i just wanted to say first that fanfic should not be placed in any boxes or standards because it is freely written and it is something meant to be enjoyed. these are my opinions and all peeve me to only a certain degree (meaning it squicks me out at worst)—so if you are a fic writer and you find yourself doing any of these things, do NOT take it to heart and just know i love you for doing what you do and i wish you all the best ♡

im gonna give reasons why certain things peeve me so i dont just sound like im bitching but generally, when reading ANY fics, i dislike the ff:

- long paragraphs with no breaks. bro i have adhd i cant go through all of this im going to get LOST.

- underlining, bolding, italicizing, AND capitalizing statements for emphasis like sir its chill i think i get the point. imho if you wrote your scene well enough and paced it properly, the most you'll need is an italics and maybe an exclamation mark. u gotta trust ur own writing and the reading comprehension of your audience.

- jittery perspective jumps especially when its fic about characters who use the same pronouns and youre constantly shifting the thoughts being presented. it... gets kinda confusing.

- FIRST PERSON POV. ITS NOT BAD I JUST GET SO JARRED BECAUSE SASUKE UCHIHA IS DOING WHAT TO ME??

everything else like grammar and punctuation and spelling is literally just. whatever. like as long as i get your point i really dont care. sometimes writers dont speak english fluently. sometimes writers just fuck up and dont have betas. sometimes writers just post their chapters at 3 am and leave all their mistakes out for god. i have no right to judge.

for personal bnha fic pet peeves, ig most of my annoyance lies on characterization and my own personal beliefs

- i already said it previously but i cannot STRESS how much i dislike the whole "fuck redemption arcs and fuck all authority figures except LoV for some reason" theme. it annoys me and i just flat out dont agree with it

- HATE tropes that reduce deku to being like 🥺👉👈 uwu okie soft helpless bean. theres nothing wrong with it if thats how you prefer deku, but i just get annoyed by it

- ANYTIME BKDK HAS AN UNEQUAL DYNAMIC. again. nothing wrong with exploring it in fanfiction. i just dislike reading fics that make either deku or bakugou blatantly weaker than the other. i love quirkless deku fics but i hate ones where he's also characterized as amounting to nothing and still acts like bakugous punching bag/okay with bakugou disrespecting him. their whole dynamic in canon is built on a great deal of respect

- speaking of bkdks power dynamic, FRICK GOSH I HATE SEEING FICS WHERE DEKU "realizes bakugous been abusing him for years!" and gets him expelled from ua and everyone claps. like. LIKE??? N. NO???? thats not how it works 😭

- all might slander. also unjustified or unnuanced endeavor slander where they dont tackle the complexity of his character. also also unjustified or unnuanced bakugous mom slander. this ones a bit controversial so i wont talk about it much.

- sexist homophobic or racist bakugou. im kicking that away. no. especially fics where bakugous past bullying is explained as "repressed homosexuality". i like making that as a joke but i genuinely do no believe in it.

- BAD MOM MIDORIYA INKO. ITS A TROPE I SEE SOMETIMES AND IT MAKES ME CRY I DONT HAVE A RATIONAL REASONING FOR IT I JUST LOVE INKO

- fics where ochako is obviously very reduced into a supporting figure with absolutely no dimension except being a supportive character and maybe having a shoe-horned wlw romance just for the sake of making her unavailable. shes my fave bnha girl and sometimes in fics i can literally FEEL her character being butchered to only show up when deku needs Love Advice. *note that this only applies when literally every other male character has something else going on for them and its just the females being sidelined into Boy Advice Givers and Talking Sense.

- fics that very obviously belittle asian principles and culture. family means a GOOD DEAL to a lot of asian cultures and fics that spout "if you dont like your family then leave and find your own! its that simple!" usually sound incredibly ignorant or outright claim moral superiority to the weight of familial bond in asian culture. same with manners, respect, and discipline.

- jeALOUSY/CHEATING FICS OK IM SELFISH I ONLY WANT BKDK TOGETHER LIKE IM DEKUBOWL ONLY SOMETIMES BUT BKDK ALWAYS HAS TO END UP TOGETHER

- "murdering is ok if its characters i hate 🥰" ... listen, you do you bestie but like. no thanks. if i wanted to read about mineta getting murdered by momo with a pistol i dont think id be opening a bkdk soulmarks au

- any dekusquad slander 😭 i love them okay

- *kicks mean/bakugou-hating todoroki out the door*

- *kicks 'all mha characters text, talk, and behave like 14 year old stan twt users (no offense ok i speak like that too)' fics out the door*

- *kicks bratty deku and/or bakugou out the door*

thats. all i can think of atm.

#asks #cat #long post #bkdk #i have. thoughts on things. #this will be one of the only times i guess ill discuss my opinions

[deniigi]

bro, work made me depressed that I literally left my seat to regain any resemblance of joy or something equivalent before breaking down again. Do you think you can provide a ficlet I involving Peter and Sam to cheer me up?

FUCK CAPITALISM

TAKE THIS

Title: Calibrating

Summary: Sam and Peter talk themselves towards a meaningful discussion.

---------

Peter did this thing—this infuriating thing where he texted shit like ‘come over’ and then Sam had to bend over backwards to be flirty and coy.

It was imperative that he came across as flirty and coy.

Im-fucking-perative, regardless of what Leilani said or Matt’s annoyance at what he called the ‘jungle of depravity’ that overtook the group chat pretty much daily.

Sam didn’t care.

If Peter texted the group or sent any message that might be construed upside-down as something romantic or sexual, Sam not only had to catch it, but he had to volley it back.

This, he told Leilani, sealed their No-Homo contract.

She stared at him.

He decided to demonstrate.

“See, here, look, I’ll show you,” he said, dragging out his phone. “Exhibit A. There he is, see? Asking about the strength of PVC pipe in pounds per meter like a fuckin’ tease. Now I can’t just let him think that I saw that and didn’t think of it as a metaphor, alright? So I say—”

“Sam, why does he need to know the strength of PVC pipe?” Leilani interrupted.

It didn’t matter. That wasn’t the point of this discussion.

“I’m sending a winky-face,” Sam informed her as he did that very thing.

Leilani stared harder than before.

But look, skepticism was unrewarded. Peter texted a kiss right back and said ‘oh boo, you always know just want to say.’

How could she not see the No-Homo? Sam could do this all day. He could and there would be absolutely no problems and he wouldn’t want to suffocate himself in his pillow at the end of it all.

It was fine.

“Samuel,” Leilani said, “I’m going to tell you something and I want you to hear it with an open heart. Will you open your heart for me?”

Sam spun around in his chair and arranged his arms and legs so that they were as open as they could feasibly be without being obscene.

“I am more open than a boiled clam,” he informed her.

Leilani blinked slowly, then shook her head and checked over her shoulders. She waved him in closer. Then closer. And then close enough that he could smell her perfume on her neck.

“You’re the tease,” she said.

Then she left the backroom. And Sam could only stare after her, frozen in horror as his wide-open heart wrinkled in on itself, picking up mass and gravity until it was naught but a black hole.

“I’m the tease?” he whispered to himself in shock.

Oh no.

OH NO.

 --

  “SENSEI.”

Matt dropped his collection of folders and swore, clutching at his chest.

“We have discussed volume, Sam,” he said, bending down to collect his paper children.

Sam took the opportunity to throw both arms around his neck from behind as a threat.

“Don’t lie,” he warned. “Swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, amen.”

Matt stood up and Sam felt his toes leave the floor. He hadn’t planned this far ahead.

“Or what?” Matt asked, 110% unfazed.

Sam wished that his feet weren’t kicking around in air here. It really put a dent in his intimidation factor.

“Am I a tease?” he asked.

Matt faced front with heavy eyebrows. Sam couldn’t see his face from this angle, but he knew that aura of irritation.

“If you have to ask the question, then you already know the answer,” Matt said. “Does that help?”

“No, I hate you now, actually,” Sam told him.

Matt dropped him right on his ass.

 --

 There had to be a way to attain proof. To determine once and for all that it was Sam who was in the wrong here, misinterpreting things like the genius that he was.

Thankfully, Sam’s experience of growing up as a non-only child for the last two decades had prepared him exactly for this type of conversation.

 SC: HANNAH AM I A TEASE???

HC: yes

HC: next question

SC: FUCK.

SC: WHAT IF ITS NOT NO-HOMO?

HC: my dear brother, the only options if something is not no-homo is for it to be no-no or homo-homo.

SC: Murder me

HC: gladly

SC: I’m in possible homo-homo with spiderman

HC: are you sure it’s not no-no?

SC: MURDER ME

HC: okay but like if it’s no-no then this is not a problem, right?

SC: If it’s no-no then I’ve read every sign wrong and I deserve to become a partially eaten tadpole awash in an indifferent boiling sea

HC: okay so we’re leaning INTO the drama today I gotcha. Alright but like, just for the sake of arguing, what if it was homo-homo?

SC: then I need you to bury my body somewhere no one will ever find it because my heart can’t stand requited love you know this about me.

HC: give me your login

SC: thank you I love you you’re the only person who matters

 --

 BT: Spiderman.

SM: Blindspot. DMing? You okay?

BT: this is Hannah.

SM: OH

SM: hi Hannah are you okay? Did you need something?

BT: My brother never got tested for reading comprehension but would have failed anyways. Can you arbitrate an arbitrary argument for us?

SM: I’m positive that there is a link between those two ideas that I am missing, but sure?

BT: okay are you ready?

SM: my loins have been girded.

BT: gross. you two are made for each other. Okay: what are your opinions on 24yo Chinese dudes with bad vision who are 5’7” tall, with terrible hair and brains as big and gaseous as Jupiter?

SM: positive

BT: you’re so romantic spidey.

SM: I know

BT: I’m going to tell him now

SM: WAIT DON’T TELL HIM

BT: byeeeeeee

 --

 Sam was going to have a heart attack. He couldn’t look at his phone. He was just going to lay here until he wasted away into a fossil.

Mm, yes, what a wonderful way to escape any and all feelings. That was—

His phone chirped and he nearly fell out of his chair in a hurry to answer it.

 HC: [image] [image]

HC: you owe me your bones

SC: AFASDFADFAS:FJaf’asdfjahsdlfihasdl’fas

SC: TAKE THEM

HC: if you fuck spiderman you have to get pregnant and demand alimony for your beautiful mixed babies Samuel

SC: Darling sister, we’ve talked about this. it isn’t going to happen I still have yet to steal a womb

HC: try harder

HC: ttyl

--

 Okay, this was fine.

Everything was fine.

Spidey liked Sam back, it was no big deal. Spidey liked everyone back. Even the teases.

Even.

The.

Teases.

Fuck, Sam had to move.

 --

 Foggy caught him biting his nails to pieces over the copy machine and asked him if he was okay. He was not. Foggy could read this off him. He didn’t ask again, but he did say that if Sam was feeling particularly anxious about something he was welcome to go have his breakdown upstairs in Kirsten’s kitchen instead of downstairs among the files.

Sam appreciated his offer. He hiked up the stairs, and halfway up, his phone chirped.

His heart stopped.

It chirped again, and then again. By the time he got to the top of the stairs, it was chirping every couple of seconds with messages being typed and sent at mach speed.

He kicked off his shoes and went to go stand over Kirsten’s sink to open the first one.

  PP: Sam it’s peter hey listen your sister messaged me

PP: and was asking some pretty invasive questions and I replied to her. I don’t know if you saw them but I just wanted to say that if that makes you uncomfortable in any way know that I absolutely don’t mind and I’ll stop

PP: you can tell me to fuck off if that crossed your boundaries. I shouldn’t have even messaged her back without asking you

PP: and obviously in future I won’t talk to her until I’ve cleared it with you I just wasn’t thinking I’m never thinking it’s a little hard to think sometimes

PP: especially when you message me back and I get caught up in the games and the emojis and stuff and like I’m sure that sometimes I overstep but I don’t mean to and you can tell me at any point if you want me to stop

PP: I guess I just really like to talk to you sometimes and it’s fun to have someone to banter with who actually banters back like not in a mean way but in a really nice and funny way. you’re an easy guy to talk to is what I’m saying

PP: which I’m sure you get a lot. I don’t mean that I want to like tell you all my problems I swear it’s not that it’s just more of a AHHHHH I don’t even know what I’m saying I think it’s sorry???

PP: I’m sorry??? I don’t mean to imply anything that isn’t there and I don’t want to make you feel like you have to either. Ar e you mad? Please don’t be mad okay wait no I’ve sent like seven fucking messages I’m being a creep oh my god IM SORRY ILL SHUT UP NOW OKAY SORRY BYE

  Oh nooooo.

The panic-induced infodump was not only familiar but horrendously endearing.

Sam had to explode now.

Man. Bummer.

  SC: it’s okay Peter

PP: OH THANK GOD

PP: is it tho??? Are you sure?

SC: I have positive feelings towards people like you too

  Sam’s heart pounded. He almost locked his phone and threw it in the sink, but another text came in just as that thought finished crossing his mind.

  PP: you do?

SC: yes of course I do

PP: oh nice

SC: yeah

  Annnnnnnd cue mutual nerd awkwardness. Great. Well done, Sam, you’ve done it again.

He sighed and turned away from the sink and sunk down onto the floor with his back against it.

Such a loser, Chung. So painfully awkward. Would it kill you to, just for once, slow down and chill for a minute?

God.

  PP: hey sam?

  No, Sam just wanted to sit on this floor and wallow.

  PP: hello? Are you still there?

 --

Sam let his head fall back against the sink. He closed his eyes.

His phone rang in his hand and he nearly had a heart attack. His fingers scrabbled over its face and the caller ID read ‘Peter Parker.’

Oh god.

Oh no.

Be cool. Be cool. Be cool.

“Hello?” he answered to the scratchy phone silence on the other side of the line.

He frowned.

“Hello?” he tried again, a smidge less desperate.

“Hi.”

There he was.

“Hey,” Sam said. “Sorry, just got awkward.”

Peter laughed through the line.

“Me too,” he said. “That was awkward.”

Yeah.

“Yeah.”

A long pause.

“I’m doing it again,” Sam moaned into his hand.

“No, no. Hey, you’re good,” Peter said. “I was just uh. Calling because.” He trailed off.

Sam waited.

“Sam? You still there?”

He startled and cleared his throat.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he said. “Sorry, zoning out a little bit. You know, busy day.”

“Yeah,” Peter said.  “Yeah, I know.”

Sam breathed as quietly as he could. He could almost hear Peter doing the same on his end.

“Sorry, I’ve gotta g—” Sam started.

“Hey, do you like me?”

HNG.

“No?” Sam answered and then punched himself in the leg. “Sorry. Uh. I didn’t—I mean, uh. Yes. Of course I like you. You’re a really good person. I admire you a lot.”

Hannah, oh Hannah, where is thine shovel? Sam needed it to dig this grave deeper, please.

“Oh. Okay, I just—I guess I uh, have a hard time reading the tone of your texts sometimes,” Peter said.

“It’s okay, I get that a lot,” Sam said. “I’ll try harder to be more direct.”

“No,” Peter said. “No, no, you don’t have to change anything.”

“Oh? Okay, well. Maybe I still will, though,” Sam said.

If Peter wouldn’t have heard him, he would have started to try to fit his whole fist in his mouth.

Five minutes of conversation and they were still saying nothing.

“Sam?”

He swallowed.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Next time you’re in the city, would you, uh, maybe want to go out somewhere? With me?”

Out? What like, to a movie or something?

“Yeah, just like that,” Peter said. “’Cause I uh. Would like to. Do that, I mean. With you.”

“With me?” Sam asked. “Oh right, and your other friends, uh, names—sorry, I’m bad with names. N-ned?”

“No,” Peter said oddly abruptly. “Well, I mean—I don’t mean it like that. I just—just with you. For now. That’s what I mean.”

“Oh. Uh. Kinda like a date?” Sam asked through the forcefield of self-hatred that felt like it spanned the entire continental US.

There was a pause. Sam held his breath.

“Yeah,” Peter said. “Exactly like a date. If you don’t mind—you know, doing that with me.”

AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

“Are you trying to lure me to a secondary location, Mr. Parker?” Sam asked seriously.

The laugh that met him made all the muscles in his shoulders relax.

“Maybe if the bit at the first location goes well,” Peter said. Then added hurriedly, “If you’re down for that.”

Sam was down for it right now.

Actually, maybe not in Kirsten’s kitchen. But like, right now in a different location.

“If it’s a movie date, we can do it through Netflix Party,” he pointed out faux-lightly. “It wouldn’t be the same, but we could do it this weekend, even. Saturday—I’m off Saturday.”

Peter said nothing for a long time.

“Okay. Saturday,” he finally agreed, “I can do Saturday. Kinda hard to hold your hand through a screen, but I can give it my best shot?”

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFfffffff.

“Oh, I bet you will,” Sam nearly choked.

“You’re really cute, Sam.”

NO. SHUT UP. YOU ARE.

“Thanks.”

“I wanted to kiss you last time you were here, but I was too, uh. Shy. Embarrassed. One of them.”

Sam was going to puke, but in like, the happiest kind of way.

“I like you a lot too, Peter,” he whispered.

“Are you crying?”

“What? No.”

“Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.”

“Shut up, I’m not. I—the old man’s downstairs, his ears aren’t as good through ceilings, but I just want to make sure—”

“Uh-huh,” Peter said. “I’m sure that’s what it is. So I’ll see you Saturday? Maybe Facetime or something?”

“Yeah, Saturday,” Sam said. “I’ll send you a time when I know. I’ve gotta go. Meltdown-alloted-breaktime is over.”

Peter laughed.

“Alright, man, I’ll talk to you later. Bye now.”

“Bye,” Sam said lamely.

He hung up the phone. He did not scream. But he did fist pump and then fall onto his side.

 ---------

Here’s to hoping things get easier for you anon!!

#fic #ficlet #btsm #samuel chung #peter parker #I just love them being awkward nerds with each other #I JUST WANT THEM TO KISS AND THEN CRY A LITTLE ABOUT IT ITS FINE

[theunconcernedembalmer]

what’s the issue with elisop? is it just bc you hc aesop as ace? im so concerned by seeing ppl adamantly opposed to mlm/wlw ships but im also genuinely curious about why you dislike it and other lgbt ships so much lol

hmm. that is a strong accusation, n i find it just a bit odd. are you new here? or perhaps you are taking personal offense at my dislike towards a favourite ship of yours and using the lgbt argument as moral high ground?

whatever the case may be, i thank you for asking. if u r truly looking for an answer, its below the cut n it is very very long. mind u these are all my personal opinions n i am in no way policing how others enjoy ships. just in case this wasnt clear; i dont wish to start discourse on this blog, especially since my takes are probably... unpopular.

firstly i would like to address the “disliking lgbt ships” bit, because this has very strong implications in itself. i have nothing against lgbt ships. i enjoy them, even. if the two characters have chemistry between each other, i ship it. however, the moment characterization is broken for the sake of romance, i lose interest. this is generally my stance on ships in general, n this applies for both straight n lgbt ships. 

the ships themselves are fine. however, i do have issues with the ship dynamics, so ill let u in on that.

i want to touch on mlm ships in particular; i believe u are familiar with the top/bottom dynamic that is rampant in these kinds of ships? (i wont deny that this dynamic can be found in other types of ships, but for arguments sake i will be focusing on gay ships because i feel that this occurs more commonly here) its such a popular dynamic that is prone to stripping the personality from one if not both characters, only for them to be reduced to being dominant/submissive. for a character to be pigeonholed into a stereotypical category based on... preferred sexual positions? its just downright insulting, never mind the larger more problematic implications of it. top/bottom is not indicative of someones personality, by the way. flattening multi dimensional characters into these stereotypes is so so so insulting.

unfortunately this is The Most Popular portrayal of just about any gay ship around. ive seen it being used everywhere in so many fandoms n it just about becomes apparent to me that ppl come to stories looking for a Ship. not the stories, nor the characters, just a ship. while id like to say theres nothing wrong with that, keep in mind not everyone is just looking for 2 characters that look pretty next to each other. if i ship something, i see interesting n meaningful interactions between 2 characters, which is so often not the case once u bring in the top/bottom dynamic. why is it so popular? because somehow this is what ppl like from a gay ship n hence it sells. ppl want the drama, characterizations be damned. ppl want to see the big kiss that happens in the end, n maybe the sexy parts that come after. characterizations be damned.

so u can say im a little wary of gay ships when they cross my feed. hell, as a joseph aesop shipper i see this trope everywhere n im pretty disappointed as well. small tangent but i feel like this is the reason why zh0ngli n ch1lde is so popular in g3nshin. i try to see the appeal, i really do, but after a long while of analyzing their respective characters i dont think they have as much chemistry as ppl think they do. dont even get me started on how incredibly ooc they make either of these very interesting n unique characters in ship portrayals. all because of the top/bottom dynamic that ppl want to see. i say this for that particular ship, but this is pretty much the case for a lot of ships out there, n the latter part is painfully true even when the 2 characters do have potential between each other. ill say it again im disgusted by the blatant disrespect to the characterizations if all ppl ever want is 2 pretty puppets to mush lips together. cos thats what theyre essentially reduced to this way.

n its so obvious to see when an artist subscribes to this rhetoric, because u can so clearly see it in the way they draw their characters. the “top” generally has sharper features to go with their “dominating personality”, while the “bottom” has disturbingly softer, feminine, dare i say sometimes child like features “to submit”. n thats where the uwu soft gay trope comes from, i believe. which, in case u still dont know, i hate with a burning passion.

so again for ppl with impaired reading comprehension, im fine with ships, including lgbt ones, but the moment u break characterization for the sake of the ship, im not that okay with it. u want to do it for a short crack comic? fine. but if thats the only way ur portraying the 2 characters then im immediately wary of ur content. ill still look at it cos usually the art is really good, but im very very wary. so im not “adamantly opposed”, just very critical of how the ships are being portrayed. if other ppl want to enjoy their ships like that, sure. just dont expect me to join in on something i dont agree on.

.

now id like to address not shipping “because i hc aesop as ace”. for ppl who are new to the blog (hello there), im an ace in a romantic relationship, so thats definitely not the reason i dont ship elisop. its more of being in a relationship has largely shaped my views towards romance as a whole. even before i met my boyfriend, i hated the romance genre in stories n media. most of it comes off as incredibly forced, especially those love triangles they seem to love putting into teen novels. thats one reason why i stopped reading when i was younger, but i digress.

did i partake in shipping when i was younger? i did. for a gay ship too (if anyone really wants to know, its kurotsukki from haikyuu. at least this was one that i can remember, i was mostly working on my 20 odd ocs for the longest time). i also used to write little short romance ficlets that i never posted anywhere cos i hated (n still do hate) my writing. but writing romance when u dont have experience was really just a way of projecting n probably a way of coping for myself, not that i knew at that time. but after i actually started a relationship with my boyfriend (whom i love n cherish a lot thank u very much), i began to see how much all these have skewed my views towards romance n have actually done some harm to our relationship. the bullshit that the general media feeds u constantly doesnt help in the slightest either.

quick topic shift to elisop in particular (about time, right?). i already stated that i only ship characters if i sense chemistry between the two personalities, n if u have seen the part where i dont ship elisop then u must have seen how agonized i am over not being able to have a concrete personality for eli. that is the main problem i have with elisop: eli does not feel like a solid character to me. n that is a huge problem, because if he doesnt have any defining characteristics besides being mild n nice, then he can be whoever i want him to be. (i have done this in my exorcist comics, i will admit this. n the fact that i can just do that... it really does not sit well with me personally.)

n that is dangerous.

back to young me doing lil ship things. i think its also pretty safe to say when u really do ship 2 characters, chances are u kinda really relate very very hard to at least one of them. that very quickly can turn into projecting, n shipping therefore is not “exploring the relationship between 2 characters” n it becomes “my preferred dating simulator 101″. of course this isnt always the case, but at least it was for me, n subconsciously it might be for lots of ppl too. n since this is ur mental playground, u call the shots, n there is no consequences if u slightly (or even entirely) alter one or both personalities to fit ur desired narrative. n u wouldnt even notice or know, cos ur blind to ur own biasness.

we bring our perceived notions into real life, im sure u know that. so when ur partner does not become that perfect knight in shining armour, or when they get upset at things that u do (which is a very normal thing by the way), n u think (very subconsciously), That isnt what my otp would do, something is wrong here (nothing is wrong, actually its just ur skewed perception of a stable romantic relationship). why wouldnt ur otp do this? because u are both halves of ur otps, there is no hidden secrets between them (apart from the pining part but thats irrelevant), n again they have been altered to fit ur preferred narrative. 

a real relationship requires a lot of communication between parties, because newsflash, liking someone doesnt mean that u have to like every single thing they do, they will make mistakes n it will hurt u, n guess what, the reverse is also true. if u do go with absoutely anything that they would do with 0 objections whatsoever, ur not crushing on someone, ur idolizing them, n that power imbalance is detrimental to a relationship. these things are not obvious to ppl, especially when the whole climate is hell bent on getting into romantic relationships by a certain age or some bullshit. communication is key n is pretty much the only way to solve relationship issues, because the other person has a lot that u r not seeing n vice versa. as similar as 2 ppl can be, i doubt u can have 100% the same thoughts on all things. i dont make the rules.

so in ur mental playground u focus on the fluffy parts, maybe there is communication, but rarely is there any meaningful conflict. thats unrealistic, n if u bring that mindset to an actual relationship, thats not going to end well. i say meaningful conflict, because yes, generally u shouldnt have conflicts with ur significant other. but inevitably when ur with each other for long enough, u will realize that there are habits that u must change in order to be with the other person. habits that are harmful to the other person directly, or harmful habits towards yourself that indirectly harm the other person. these are meaningful in a sense that if left alone, it will manifest into larger problems that will harm u, the other person n the relationship as a whole. its meaningful to the relationship.

all these is made even worse if ur neurodivergent. maladaptive coping practices, self sabotaging behaviours, inherent disabilities. all these must be adjusted n addressed. im so incredibly thankful for my boyfriend for being incredibly patient with me when working all these out, n it has not been easy for me to work on myself n all my problems, n im still not done working on them. this aspect is often not explored in romance in general (or properly), n there is a very good chance i would have still been stuck in the unhealthy mindset of “this isnt like my otp, maybe we’re not meant to be”. because loving someone is a choice. no one is made for each other, it is a conscious choice made between 2 ppl to make things work. this is how arranged marriages work, i am told, n i do see the appeal, not that it actually does appeal to me culturally.

special mention to the kurotsukki ship, cos from there i found a very, very good fic that explored their relationship before n after getting together, n it actually showed aspects of this problem in the incredibly slow burn of (at that time) 20+ chapters. it was just one fic (n a very good one at that, i believe it was called Leviticus), but it had a lesson i never thought i needed to learn, n learn it i did, with a lot of help from my dear. 

this is also probably the reason why i dont really want to delve too much into romance now. i know its a lot of work, n everything (mostly) that the media feeds u is really false advertising, but ppl eat that shit up n so it remains one of the most popular genres to date. im just very wary that if i do start on a romantic story, i want to be able to show it in a way like that fic did, the truths of relationships, because i dont want to make something that sells, i want to make something that meaningful to me, if a little indulgent. n that also includes being very careful in how the respective characterizations will change in a relationship. almost too careful now that i think about it, but its not something that i mind. i was never one for romance from the start, n now im very careful about shipping because of what happened to me persoanlly.

okay enough about me, lets talk about aesop. in any au u put the character in, the essence of the character must remain despite the change in environment. so lets say we have ur typical modern au. dead mom, check. shitty mentor doing illegal stuff? also check. autistic boy with social anxiety? we’re good to go. all these have implications on aesop as a character, n while ppl are aware of this, again the way they go about portraying it can go, in my personal opinion, very wrong. ppl who immediately woobify aesop completely because he has autism annoy me. ppl who reduce him to uwu soft boi cos he has social anxiety do not know how the disorder really works n as someone who has that i hate it to the core. ppl who do all these for the sake of ship have lost my respect. its insulting.

remember the top/bottom dynamic? not that elisop is completely free from that (even if i dont know much about eli, to put him in either one of those stereotypes feels very insulting to his character. i wont even say anything about doing it to aesop its so upsetting), but its not entirely made up of either. but now i want to introduce another trope i am very wary of, which is “i can fix him”. im sure u guys have seen the meme going around poking fun at this trope (for those who havent, its along the lines of “u can fix him? well i can be his worst nightmare”) n no doubt yall would have seen it n gotten sick of it in some forced hetero romantic bullshit. we have one damsel in distress with a saviour that solves all their problems just by existing n being romo with each other.

remember “my preferred dating simulator 101″? this is not mutually exclusive n from my point of view this is dangerously close to this trope. lets be real, if it was actually a thing that all ur deep rooted trauma magically disappears if someone were to waltz into ur life, we would want it. definitely. no painfully dissecting ur own problems n constantly facing them head on. real life states that this is not the case, but it will not stop us from dreaming. n so this trope is born n lives n will go on.

(finally) pulling aesop n eli into this, at least in my mind, u have one severely traumatized boy with lots of issues n u have this. nice mild guy who can be anything u want him to be. i hope u can see where im going with this, n thats the direction i see some elisop heading towards (i dont read a lot of elisop to be fair). if u came from my eli character talk, i mentioned that it is incredibly one sided. this is exactly what im talking about.

putting it all together in case u havent already, aesop is the damsel in distress, whose problems magically disappear because of elis godly kindness n little to no work on improving himself, n they lived happily n gayly ever after.

can u tell how much that does not appeal to me. 

never mind the butchering of character that inevitably happens somewhere somehow, the unrealistically perfect themes n implications of this trope makes me so viscerally uncomfortable. this is, of course, due to personal reasons, n i definitely see the appeal of this dynamic because i would probably have been interested in this once upon a time as well. but as i am now, with everything i have explained up there n everything i have been through, i would politely rather not.

n its difficult to think of another dynamic, because of how little i know about eli apart from him being this saint, which easily makes him a candidate for being aesops trauma panacea. never mind aesop rarely, if ever, does anything for eli as a character in return, n its so damaging to buy into this rhetoric, where a person like this who would solve all ur issues no strings attached exists somewhere in the world. they really dont. a relationship has to be mutually benefitting, or it will be draining n disastrous. maybe u say, Oh its nice to imagine it once in a while. n yeah, i agree, except once in a while is a little difficult to keep track of n that is sort of what happened to me. id rather stay as far away as possible from this kind of unrealistic fantasy, i just got this shit sorted out with myself n my boyfriend.

i have some other reasons, but theyre more personally problematic, so i wont go into them here. but this is mostly n generally why i do not ship elisop romantically. if u do, u do u, and have fun, but again dont expect me to join u. thank u for coming to my ted talk, this took a lot longer than expected.

#mun rambles #its me the mun #unconcerned ramblings #posting this now cos this is a question ive been getting #although this has been worded in the most unnecessarily passive aggressive way possible that i do not appreciate #im wary about all u so called social justice warriors championing this n that liberal idea when all u want to do is stir shit #thankfully i dont have much experience with this but just passively seeing all these ppl run their mouths is getting very annoying #but just know that i will not tolerate any of that bullshit here. because if u really do care about ppl as much as u say u do #then why r u attacking ppl period #ur really just hiding behind a righteous excuse to harm people. thats disgusting. i dont want u here

[kareofbears]

persona 5 strikers thoughts and feelings

This is going to be a long post. Like, the type of post you’d only really have time to read when you’re trying to sleep but you’re not ready to be unconscious yet so you’re just looking for something to do to spend your time with minimal effort. 

So in 2018, a masterpiece was born into the world: Into the Spider-verse was released and it was amazing—it’s honestly the best spiderman movie we have without a doubt, and it’ll be very far into the future before Spider-verse is beaten as the best spiderman movie. Them’s the facts. Then in 2019, Spider-man: Far From Home was dropped. It’s a great movie! Great characters, great continuation of who these characters are and works fantastic as a continuation of a story. It’s really hard trying to take the torch of a previous movie (or in Marvel’s case, juggling twenty something movies) and come up with a new movie that both works on its own, as well as being the next step in this series of films. Thus, with that idea in mind, I think it’s kind of unfair to judge into the spiderverse and far from home, because these are two movies with two completely different objectives in mind. 

Okay, so this is still a persona 5 strikers post, I promise, but the idea is the same: Persona 5 could basically do whatever it wanted—new story, new characters, new everything, and it’s just plain old awesome. However, Persona 5 strikers did not have that sort of freedom. It was bound to the original game, and it had its own rules and stuff it had to keep intact, characters they had to work with, and on top of that, it had to justify its existence as a sequel (lets pretend money doesnt exist lmfao). 

SO, the big question is: did it do that? Did it justify its existence? 

And my answer: holy fuck did it ever do that

I came into this game knowing the extreme bare minimum. I knew there was someone named Sophia, and i knew there was roadtrip, and i knew there were Personas. That’s my knowledge of it before i played it on the Switch.  I should also clarify like, early on, that i was not expecting anything from this game. At all. I was the world’s biggest cynic of this game—if you scroll down my p5s tag far enough, youll just see me complaining about a game that hasn’t even come out yet. I was fully expecting to have this be a Waifu show, and any male character that isn’t Akira to just be shoved aside like some kind of nerd in a high school hallway, and i have never been more pleased to be wrong. In fact, i actually owe it an apology, because of how fucking rude i was for no reason!!! Because this game deserves everything to be honest. 

Persona 5 strikers is, frankly, insane. Insane in the sense that it got to pull shit off that just would never have existed in the original game, because the original game is scared. It had to be as impressive as possible and garner as much attention as possible. Strikers does not have that problem—every single person who bought that game does not need to be convinced that persona 5 is a good game. They already played it. That means Atlus can just fuck around and have a good time, and man did they have a good time. There’s still scenes that still shock me if i think about it too hard, because i’m used to atlus having to follow this sort of rule set when it comes to persona 5 (or any of the main games im assuming, but i havent played them.) And on top of that, there’s still shit that’s Atlus Trademarked Branded in a good way. The style of story of story telling, and revealing the mystery that is so integral to what p5 is, is still there. 

So, to make this even a little bit comprehensible, i will make a list! 

First of all, What is this game?

In short, this game is an OVA of an anime. It’s bonus side content that has one thing in mind: to showcase these lovable characters more by putting them in fun situations. That’s it, and it is just phenomenal. That was the main point of, i’d say, like forty hours of the game. It’s just fun times with fun characters. 

But to get deeper of what i think is happening, or what they were thinking during the development, is that this is a second opportunity. Persona 5 (as we all know) had a lot of problems, and we were not quiet about those problems. We yelled it all out, made posts, made complaints on every social media platform ever. And Atlus heard all of them, and Strikers is a way to mitigate those mistakes. Aside from being a fun OVA, Strikers also works to be a deeper exploration of these characters—more specifically, the characters that did not receive much in the original game. Creating this sequel is having the ability to redo what they felt (or to be more specific, we felt) in the original game while adding new ones. I will get to that in a second.  

The format of the game 

Absolutely brilliant to throw them on a road trip. P5V already forced us to experience Shibuya for 200+ hours, and im so glad that they didn’t do that again. Going from town to town, making us experience these new places alongside our favorite characters is so good, and it just makes sense. It’s fun, it’s lighthearted, and it’s actually shockingly good. But one thing i do want to talk about early on is the way the story unfolds and the villains that they use, and what they do with it because it’s very interesting. 

So as we explore japan and stuff, we encounter jails, and with those jails comes an antagonist. This antagonist works to be a parallel to one of our characters. That character will find it in their hearts to feel bad for the antagonist, because the antagonist could have been them had the original game not happen. At first I thought all of the thieves were gonna get an antagonist, and i was really hyped for the ryuji one. And then came to hour forty of the game where i realized “yeah that’s not gonna happen. There’s just not enough time.” And i was right, and the game ended. But i am not salty at all, honestly, because the people who got a direct antagonist were: Ann, Yusuke, and Haru. (we wont count zen and sophie). 

Is there a trend??? Yes. these are all characters in the original game that have received the worst treatment by atlus. The three of them are basically cast aside the minute they finished their original arc, and its horrible! BUT that’s why this is the path that atlus chose for them—to give them more depth, and screentime, and a way to show their inner self. That isn’t to say that the ones who aren’t those three (makoto, futaba, mona, akira, ryuji) didn’t get anything. Futaba still has her thing at the end with ichinose, and she was very prevalent and animated during the rest of the game. Mona and Akira have to be a focal points, that’s just the nature of the game. The other two though, I will talk about in depth in a second.  

Makoto

Y’all i poke fun at shumako fans sometimes cause its kind of easy and fun, but i honestly love makoto. In my very first playthrough of p5 (my first ever jrpg game, first persona game, i had no idea what i was doing), i had only maxed out two characters: ryuji and makoto. And i know she had a lot of screentime and love in the original game which is great, but i truly felt like she was dissed in this game. Her only roles were

A driver

Someone to tell them “we don’t have a choice. Let’s keep going and see where this takes us.” (seriously, if you replay this game, you will see how much she does this)

Idk, i just wish she had more to do, especially compared to how much love they gave the other characters. 

But let’s talk about some of the new characters! 

Zenkichi

Damn you atlus. Damn you and your insistence at bringing in cop characters. I was fully on board with hating zenkichi, i was fucking ready for it. I was convinced that there was nothing they could do convince to like zenkichi. I was immune to their copaganda. 

And then i ended up loving him, which makes me sad a little bit. I didn’t realize how desperate i was to have an adult who has a persona. Someone who wants the world to change just as much as they do, while still having that aspect of them that makes them adult. Like??? As someone who is technically an adult, its a breath of fresh air. An adult. Who fights. For justice. Using a persona. And god i love akane so much, and her obsession with the thieves (that scene is probably in my top ten fave scenes of the game). Also what i loved about zenkichi is that he fucking hates the cops!! He hates the system of the cops!! And thats why i actually really started to love him!! Because i thought it was atlus saying that the systematic problem of the police cannot be solved by one person, and zenkichi threw away his badge. I actually cried at that part!! 

But then he became a cop again, and i was just :/ but as a character, i really love him to bits and would love to do a study on him, or at least use him as an outside pov. But! i absolutely love his persona, since im a les miserables fan hehe

Sophia 

she’s probably my favorite new aspect of the game. I was ready to not like her—again, i just suck like that, lmfao—and when i saw her, i was scared that she was just another waifu. I mean, she was very cute after all. But then as the game went on, i thought she was a little too cute. And even further into the game, i finally slapped myself in the face and realized oh my god shes not a waifu. Shes a sister. 

That blew my mind, im ngl to you. A female character that isn’t supposed to be romanced? By jove, what a miracle! 

And she…is an amazing character. Im sorry, i just love her so much. I love her so much that she  probably ranks as my fifth or sixth favorite character which is surprising even to me. Everything about her is delightful and invigorating. She’s funny??? Her comedic timing is amazing, and she has such chemistry with the rest of the team. She’s actually useful to the plot, and while her character design is a little too on the nose for me in terms of cuteness (i mean, good god she’s wearing oversized sweater to show how cute and tiny she is, and her hair has literal hearts in it), she is absolutely lovable. 

But what i actually really wanna gush about for a second is sophia at the last stage of the game. You get the idea, i dont really like to get excited over things, so at this point i figured that there was nothing this game could do to shock me. 

And then sophia had a persona awakening. 

Like. holy fuck did i yell. I didnt realize what was happening until the music had already kicked in. and its just so fucking smart!!! Sophia??? The ai?? With no heart?? gOT A PERSONA???? AWAKENING??? BECAUSE SHE LEARNED WHAT THE HEART IS AND THE PASSION THAT YOU NEED IN ORDER TO GET A PERSONA??? I started crying honestly, because it was just so smart. And looking back on it now, its obvious!! Of course it would lead to this, it only made sense that the culmination of her character arc leads to her getting a persona, nothing else would have been as good. Also, her voice actor is just amazing?? When she was talking to ichinose at the end, i actually got incredibly emotional because of the line reads. Its just so spot on and it really captures the essence of sophia.

Muah. five stars Atlus. You got me. 

Ryuji <3!!!!

Oh man. Oh boy. Okay. so where do i start. 

Yall know i love him. Hes probably my favorite fictional male character of all time, and he is the one i was the absolute most cynical about in this game. I was expecting literally nothing. Nothing. Like. nothing. I thought he was just gonna keep being used as a joke, or a gag, and he’s gonna be super horny all the time for the other girls and it was gonna make me mad and there was gonna be some insane homophobic/queerphobic jokes in every other scene and i know i was being unfair, but i cant help it. 

And then i played the first two hours of the game, and i cried the entire time. Because ryuji has never been better than he is in this game. Its crazy. 

The ryuji in persona 5 strikers is who ryuji should have been/how he should have been treated this entire time. From the actual funny jokes (for example, the gold bar joke + his reaction to it in the beginning of the game), defending his female friends instead of being the one people need to defend from (natsume arc), and the fact that he was the one to be there with morgana and akira in the very beginning of the game. Its such a small thing that they didnt even need to do, but it was such an integral part of the original game for me, that i just was convinced that nothing like this was going to happen. But then it happened. Its just small stuff like that that could have been overlooked but it wasn’t because this game? Persona 5 strikers? Fucking loves ryuji. 

The actual respect they gave this boy is insane and i wasn't ready for it. Like, they gave the shujin trio lunch, they gave the little charm of the katana when they were in natsume’s jail, and, in my opinion this is the second-best thing that they could have given ryuji is sophia. Ryuji and sophia are the pinnacle of a brother & sister bonding relationship in the game that isn’t akira & futaba. And its really prevalent too?? Small stuff from the beginning of the game (pulling her out of a jail, calling her shorty), but then you have the iconic “shut the fuck up” scene, and that scene was so well characterized and written and voice acted, that somehow him saying “fuck” was the least exciting part of that scene to me. Ryuji is an older brother to her, like its undoubtable, and its only further cemented at the end of the game where Ryuji helps out ichinose because he knows how much sophia cares about her. This game. Love ryuji. And i love. This game. 

You know what else i love? Akiryu. 

Guys. i was fully prepared to starve in terms of akiryu. But theres just. So much of it. I wont get too deep into it, because i think this aspect of the game for me still needs marinate a little bit. Like, what was that last shot when EMMA died and Ryuji walked to approach Akira so they could relish in their victory together?? And the smile from both of them??? What the fuck. That was amazing. Also Joker being saved by Ryuji when he was about to fall from the cliff to save sophia??? WHAT. The LEADER AND HIS RIGHT HAND MAN? WHAT. anyway. If theres anything i want to keep for myself in my own brain, its the akiryu aspect of this game, so i wont talk too much about that part of things (instead, itll probably manifest in fic lmfaooo). 

Sure, there’s tidbits of stuff i dont like that they gave ryuji: sexualizing ann in that one cut scene and making him touch the jails even though it hurts, and i recognize those and frown at them, but for the most part, i am blown away with how they treated him.

Basically, Ryuji has never been better. From the opening of the game with him being the first text message and the one to sling his arm around akira, to the very last cut scene where it was ryuji wordlessly leaving because he’s so confident that they would never be separated for long, this game adores Ryuji and i am so so happy to say that.

The Royal aspect of things

Yeah, i had to talk about this, but itll be a short thing i just wanted to point out. Because the last part of this game...is persona 5 royal. Which is curious. Like taking reality and giving that power to someone else so you dont have to experience suffering anymore? And even like, the final section just looked a lot like the top half of maruki’s palace?? And whats even crazier is that we had a boss fight with sophia, just like how we had a boss fight with sumire? Royal and Strikers have like, the same thesis statement. It’s kind of uncanny.It’s interesting, it’s like atlus came up with these two ideas, and then just decided they liked both of them so much that they just did it twice. I don’t mind though—actually, in terms of how the last Palace/Jails go, i probably like them both about equally. 

Though i did love the final battle in this one more than i did in royal. Splitting into teams?? Thats cool as fuck, and really innovative and i didnt see it coming. It also kicked my ass. A lot. 

Now for the last stretch: the small stuff!

The music — bomb as fuck. In my heart, Daredevil is ranked the same as Rivers. Axe to grind is also amazing, but Daredevil owns me

Akechi — i really debated whether or not to talk about him, but i figured a bullet point should be enough. Im really shocked that he wasnt in this at all. Like not even a name drop. If this is an OVA, and the point of the game is to please the fans, and akechi is arguably the fan favorite character, i was really ready for something. But there was nothing, except for the pancake hallway if that even counts as a reference. Thats it. Thats all i wanted to say about him.

The humour — FUCKING HILARIOUS im convinced that in my fifty hour playtime, five of that is dedicated to me laughing and unable to continue the game 

Akira — so much personality! His lines of dialogue are crazy sometimes (like. Whats up with him saying Ryuji has ‘nice abs’ when they were in bath? Im crazy and even i dont know what the fuck that could mean) 

Battle system — oh my god i almost forgot to talk about this. I love it! I kind of miss the turn based aspect just because i found it very comforting for some reason, but this hack and slash style of gameplay is so invigorating because i do feel like it justifies shit like the baton pass and huge attacks.  This battle system fully encompases how the Phantom Thieves are supposed to fight, you know what i mean?

Anyway, thats my thoughts on strikers. Loved it. Amazing. 9.3/10, wouldve been higher but Konoe’s Jail almost bored me to death. Also im a monster and i didnt do any requests that isn’t a fun one, teehee. As if i play persona 5 for the persona aspect of things.

#cant believe im done #but you know what? #i was actually at peace when i finished it #so i consider that a good healty thing #p5s #alex plays p5s #mine #p5 #my moon and stars #the leader and his right hand man