#that last point has more to do with me than an inherent problem with the game

[yuyusboyfriend]

WATER˚˖𓍢ִִ໋🌊˚˖𓍢ִ✧˚.

500 follower special!

pairing: bestfriend's brother!wooyoung x ftm reader [gn reader coming soon!]

wordcount: 6,7k

content: Your best friend's twin has been the bane of your existence for the last 10 years. That was, until, he decided to visit your dreams.

warnings: nsfw, drinking, weed - both joints and a bong, drinking games, cunnilingus, pool sex, sex without a condom (dont!) afab ftm reader, use of words like cunt, clit etc. lmk if I'm missing anything!

soundtrack: water + truth or dare - tyla, Water - Ten

a/n: Thank you so much for 500 followers😭😭 I hope this fic makes up for all of my breaks between fics I made this as long as I could bc I really wanted to do smth special <333 also shoutout to @zh0nggucc1 for being my bsf 🙏❤️ one more note, this is proofread but I always manage to make a 1000 mistakes so I apologise for any!! Happy reading!

Masterlist!˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥

"Finally you're here! Took you long enough" your best friend shouts over the music, holding out a shot glass filled with a clear liquid, "Gotta do a shot before I let you in, Jongho's orders" she smirks as she salutes.

"Really? At-," you quickly glance at your phone," 5 pm? I thought drinking would start later?" you look over the girl's shoulder to see Jongho and Mingi already holding clear cups with some sort of concoction in them.

"Look I'm not arguing with Jongho, he'll throw me in the pool and I haven't changed into my swimsuit yet, so! Take the damn shot will you, pretty please?" she looked at you with big round eyes as if that would persuade your decision.

"I'll do it just stop looking at me like that, it's kind of scary…" you teased, grabbing the shot and throwing it back, hissing slightly at the burn.

"Atta boy! Now go say hi while I go get changed." she ran off before you could argue. As you stepped inside you were greeted by your two friends that you had just seen, Mingi throwing his arm over your shoulder pulling you close to him and offering you his cup. You took a sip out of curiosity about what they had been drinking, not surprised when it tasted of all the soju flavours mixed with a dash of some juice they'd found in the back of the cupboard.

"Mmm! That is awful! Best one yet Mingi I mean seriously they should get you making poison," you and Jongho laughed as Mingi shoved your shoulder and pouted.

You felt eyes on you from somewhere as you looked around the room, your vision landing on the one person you'd hoped you wouldn't have to see until at least 10 shots in. Wooyoung.

Wooyoung was the biggest pain in your ass, and what made it even worse was that he was your best friend's brother. You had been best friends with Vee since the rotten age of 12 years old. Since your first day at your new school, you had practically been attached at the hip, never being away from each other for more than a couple of days — the problem there was that her twin brother Wooyoung was also attached to your hip, and somehow knew how to get on your every last nerve. He never did anything inherently bad to you but you just found him irritating nonetheless, even as the years passed, the smirk on his face every time he said or did something that knew would rile you up irked you.

"Your little boyfriend is watching you again~" Mingi sang into your ear, obviously already tipsy because there was no way in hell you'd ever be with Wooyoung. Was he attractive? Objectively, you guessed so. Had he given you butterflies once or twice when he held your hips to pass you as you helped his mom with the dishes? Maybe? But that was just a natural reaction, it didn't mean anything. Did the clothes that he gave you after you came out smell like him and make you feel funny? … He uses a nice cologne, that's all— The point is he wouldn't date you with the way he acted and you wouldn't either. So it was fine. Totally. Fine.

You elbowed Mingi in the side causing him to double over dramatically and wail, making Jongho laugh even more. You laughed along but couldn't shake the feeling that Wooyoung was still staring at you, so you excused yourself from the boys to go see Hongjoong in the kitchen.

"Vee not with you?" He asked as he spotted you rounding the island to greet him.

"She's upstairs getting changed, Praying she won't be much longer, need her to swat Wooyoung away." Hongjoong laughed as he shook his head at your misery.

"Surely he's not that bad y/n, he's cool when he's with us, a yapper at most," you stared at him with disbelief.

"All of you. Traitors!" You sighed as Hongjoong began to laugh more.

"Who's a traitor?" Your muscles stiffened as you felt a familiar pair of hands on your sides, causing you to roll your eyes and ignore the dip in your stomach. One thing Wooyoung never seemed to understand was personal space, 'what's yours is mine' as he would say.

"We all think you're just the best Wooyoung but y/n doesn't agree," Hongjoong exclaims to the boy behind you. You shake your head at Hongjoong's words, they might be true but it was still rough he put you on the spot. Wooyoung's thumb massaged the flesh at your side as he placed his head on your shoulder.

"Impossible, y/n loves me, don't you?" He smirked as you looked down at him. That fucking smirk.

"yeah, about as much as the rock in my shoe right now," you huffed as you shrugged him off. "I'm getting in the pool, I'll see you lot there, yeah?" you announced, walking through the back door before hearing Vee's voice behind you.

"Wait for me!" She exclaimed slipping by her brother and joining your side, a cute and flowy bathing suit adorning her body as Hongjoong watched her flaunt past. As you got to the pool Vee turned to you, "What was happening with you and Woo back there?" you shook your head, already sick of hearing his name in such as short amount of time.

"Nothing was happening! He's just weird and clingy!" Vee looked at you with confusion, being able to read your thoughts and know them better than you do at this point.

"Then why are you being so defensive? He doesn't usually piss you off this bad, what happened?" She said in a soft tone, the tone that made you feel safe despite feeling so irritated. You knew the answer to her question, but your words fell short.

Last night you had a dream. About Wooyoung. Everything seemed normal until he sat down next to you on your best friend's bed and laid his hand against your thigh, his thumb circling the skin just as his hands would always do when they came into contact with you.

"You want me, don't you?" His big brown eyes stared into your own as he carried on massaging your flesh, tingles zipping up and down your spine as you sat there in utter shock. The close proximity forced you to take in all his features. His little moles under his eye and on his lip. His gorgeous jawline sculpted by god himself. The way his fresh out-of-the-shower hair was draped over his forehead and the way the water droplets rolled over his tanned skin. God, he really was pretty, wasn't he? Your eyes darted back and forth between his features before finally landing back on his lips. You felt yourself leaning forward, losing control of your muscles as you did.

"Yeah." Wooyoung's face moved towards yours and joined your lips together so gently you barely felt it as his free hand pressed to your neck to bring you closer, the warmth of his hands and lips sending you into overdrive-

And that's when you jolted up out of your sleep in a cold sweat.

"Hello? Earth to y/n?" Vee waved a hand in front of your face to try to gain your attention, "What you thinking about?

"I… I had a dream and it's freaking me out okay? No more questions." you mumbled out of embarrassment.

"About my brother!? That's definitely new…don't tell me if you had sex because that's gross but I'm gonna need details!" she looks at you with a look of curiosity and horror.

"Will you lower your voice? Good god, I'm about five seconds from drowning myself in your pool."

She sighs, "Fine, but just use protection, you'd be a great dad but I don't want to be an aunt yet, I'm already busy enough with Kyungmin." you mirror her look of horror from a minute ago.

"I'm not gonna have sex with him Jesus!" she laughs at your panicked expression before sitting down to dip her feet in the pool.

"You getting in or what? We've been standing around for long enough" she said before throwing herself into the pool, splashing you on the way in. You smile and set your stuff down on a chair before taking your shirt off and following suit.

You and Vee chilled in the pool as more guests arrived and began to fill the water around you with inflatables and games, music filling the air as the sky changed to purple and red hues, the fairy lights hung on the fence twinkling this the reflection of the water. After a while, you could feel your skin getting ready to shrivel in the water so you decided to get out and dry off and get a drink. Compared to earlier the kitchen was now filled with people, the majority you knew but there were still quite a few new faces, maybe Wooyoungs friends? you didn't really care to converse with people who associated with him, so you went straight to the drinks table.

Only to feel a stranger's hands around you, pulling you towards him, "Hey handsome, what are you drinking? I'll get it for you hm?" Great, some drunk asshole has already started making rounds but before you could even reply with a snide comment, Wooyoung had ripped the guy away from you and had a hand clutched onto the guy's shirt.

"Don't fucking touch him you asshole, if you're gonna act like this Minjun ill kick you out right fucking now." Woo hissed at.. minjun? so he must know him then. Minjun put his hands up in defeat and apologised to Wooyoung before walking to the living room. Wooyoung turned back to you looking you up and down with worry. He knew you weren't comfortable with that much physicality, especially with strangers, but it was still weird to see him so outwardly caring about the state you were in. Maybe he was always like this, but you opted to ignore him most of the time so you wouldn't know.

"Y/n you okay, he didn't hurt you right? do you want him out he can leave, I'm sorry I didn't think he'd be weird-" You cut off his rambling, just wanting to leave and put on a shirt to not feel so exposed for the time being.

"Woo, it's fine I'll survive." You were looking around until that moment, finally connecting with his eyes. You noticed that he had a rather surprised reaction, not understanding why until you replayed what you just said in your head.

You never called him Woo, that was only reserved for friends. You never considered yourself to be anything close to a friend to him so you refused to call him it, despite him telling you to the first time you met him. You didn't really want to discuss this with him any more than you already had, so you slid past him to go and grab your shirt.

"Seriously, what the fuck is happening with you two?" Vee laughed at her brother, "He's spoken to you more tonight than he has in the last 10 years and It's kind of freaking me out honestly." Wooyoung stood there still in a state of surprise, acknowledging his sister's words, before returning to his regular composure.

"Oh I'll figure it out, he can't keep a secret from me." He flashed a grin at his sister and sauntered to the living room, grabbing an empty bottle and calling everyone to sit down and play spin the bottle.

You reluctantly sat down in the fairly small circle after San linked arms with you and practically pulled you to it. Surprisingly most of the guests didn't want to play so most of them either sat down to spectate and cheer on the players or moved outside to relax in the warm summer night air.

"Who's going first then?" Seonghwa sighed looking around the circle, praying someone would volunteer so there wouldn't be an extensive game of rock paper scissors.

"One of the hosts should go first, it's courtesy" Yeosang chimed in, looking between Wooyoung and Vee.

"Ooh, I'll go then~" Vee chirped, leaning into the middle and giving the bottle a good spin. The circle of people watched the bottle circle round a few times before landing dead centre between Hongjoong and Mingi.

"That's pointing at me!" Mingi exclaimed to Hongjoong, only for Hongjoong to argue back that it was pointing at him.

Vee laughed at the bickering boys, "I'll kiss you both then, yeah?" She crawled over to where they were and gave them a quick peck each before moving back to her space. You rolled your eyes and laughed at the boys who were abashedly blushing next to you. They span the bottle a few more times before it finally landed on you. At this point the group was teetering on the edge of being buzzed and drunk, you being the former.

"Come on y/n spin it!~" Vee shouted not being able to register her volume now, obviously being the latter the way her cheeks were rosy. You reached over to the bottle and spun it, anticipation making your stomach churn. You watched it spin round and around, feeling as though it was taking hours to slow down. Finally, it came to a halt and your heart stopped, knowing damn well who was sitting in that direction. But as you looked up -

"Yunho! kiss! kiss! kiss!" the circle cheered and gawked at the two of you in excitement. You and Yunho met in the middle before pressing your lips together briefly, moving back to your designated spots. Yunhos cheeks were slightly flushed, mostly from the alcohol, but before you could think about it anymore, your eyes drifted to Wooyoung who was staring right back at you. His eyelids were lowered as he kept his gaze fixed on your lips. what the fuck? You would blame it on him drinking but he had drank less than you at the point, so it was kind of scaring your buzzed brain.

As you watched the bottle spin over and over again, it managed to keep narrowly avoiding you, making your stomach flip time and time again as it passed you. As the circle started to get bored, Vee suggested we amp up the tension by playing truth or dare.

"But if you decide not to do it you have to take a shot, okay?" The group nods in agreement and Vee spins the bottle once more to decide who the first victim is. As the bottle span once the tension rose in your chest, you could already feel who it was going to land on, and sure enough, it came to a halt pointing straight at the man across from you.

"Woo! Truth or dare?" He ponders for a second before deciding on his answer.

"Dare." Wooyoung looks at you before returning his line of sight to his sister. But, before she could answer with a dare, you chimed in first.

"I dare you to back Mingi's cup!" You looked at the growing horror on his face, as Mingi was famous for his awful attempts at being a mixologist, but Woo wasn't ready to lose a dare, even if the counterpart was only taking one shot instead. He wasn't really thinking at that moment since it was you who asked. You watched him stand up and walk over to Mingi, grabbing his cup and staring at it briefly while grimacing before bringing it to his soft lips and chugging it in one go. As he finished the drink he hissed at the taste and shook his head before giving Mingi a stinkeye and walking back to his seat.

"Okay, y/n, truth or dare" Wooyoung studied you, waiting for your answer.

"Uh, truth?" you stammered out trying to think about what Wooyoung would've made you do if you had picked dare, probably make you jump in the pool or-

"What was the last thing you touched yourself over?" what the fuck? the room filled with oohs and giggles while they waited for your answer. How the fuck could you tell them it was a dream about Wooyoung that had pushed you over the edge? you hadn't even told Vee because she still would have likely been horrified despite her interest

"um, a dream." The circle cheered and laughed again at your answer and you could feel your cheeks warming.

"what was it about y/n?" Wooyoung pushed more and the circle seemed to get more excited in anticipation of your reply.

You huffed at Wooyoung, "Not telling you weirdo, plus it's not 21 questions." feeling eyes on you at your small outburst. "I'm gonna get a drink, carry on without me, I'll be back." You smiled, putting on your best poker face before getting up and leaving the room. you could feel Wooyoungs eyes on the back of you as you walked out almost making you stumble. You walked through the kitchen, grabbed a fresh drink filled to the brim and walked out to the pool, slipping your shoes off once again and dipping your feet into the pool. You felt your body cool down in the summer night air as you swayed your legs in the water and sipped on your drink. Why was Wooyoung being so weird today? His gaze was making you feel dizzy, you'd never really felt this way about him so why was a silly dream affecting you so much? You felt as if he was reading your mind all night and it was starting to get to you honestly.

"You want to smoke?" The familiar voice nearly made you fall into the pool, Speak of the fucking devil. You turn your head to see the last person you would want to right now, holding a joint in one hand and a lighter in the other. Despite your need to be as far away as possible from this man right now, you couldn't pass up the one chance at relaxation being offered to you.

"…Sure." You reluctantly answered him. He took a seat way too close for your comfort at this moment, but you tried to shrug the weird feeling in your stomach off. You watched Wooyoung hold the joint between his fingers and light it, bringing it to his lips. He took a hit and handed it to you, smoke cascading out of his mouth while looking into your eyes.

"Your turn," He kept observing you as you took a hit from the joint, feeling it travel down into your lungs and relaxing you instantly. You took one more long puff before handing it back to the boy next to you and laid back to look up at the stars. You and Wooyoung kept passing it back and forth in silence till it was finished, him now laying back with you.

"Why do you hate me so much, y/n?" He said so quietly you barely caught it.

You sighed before formulating a reply, "You used to irritate me a lot when we were younger, you'd pushed my buttons too much and I started to dislike you more and more. Now though? I'm not really sure anymore." You tilted your head to look at Wooyoung only to see he was looking right back at you. He was always looking at you.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to be your friend, but you pushed me away and the only way I knew how to get your attention was to do what I did, and eventually I didn't even realise what I was doing to you, to our relationship." His words felt sincere, and fuck you felt horrible. You knew Wooyoung only acted that way with you and you hadn't even noticed why, not even after ten years of fighting. You kept looking into his eyes, and you could see the sadness in them. Was that always there and you just never noticed?

"I never said thank you for the clothes you gave me when I came out, did I?…thank you."

"I knew you needed them, they were waiting in a stack for the day you would claim them." before you could even realise it, you felt a tear roll down your cheek. Wooyoung hesitantly lifted his palm to your face and wiped the wetness from your face, stroking his finger under your eye and cupping your face with his hand. His soft thumb swiped back and forth, gently caressing your face.

He looked so pretty in the moonlight. The way the light sat on his lashes and defined his jaw made you want to touch. You craved to feel the surface of his skin grazing against your palm right now you could hardly fight it. Instead, you leaned into his chest and rested your head on his collarbone, not daring to look into his eyes right now, not daring to reveal the emotions in the expression that was on your face. He stroked your hair rhythmically and you felt your whole body relaxed into his touch, god was this what you were missing out on all this time?

"Don't fall asleep on me now, my sister will kill me if she sees I let you sleep on the floor," You chuckled into the warmth of his chest before finally sitting up, Wooyoung following you.

"you wanna go for a swim?" You smiled at him, not waiting for an answer, taking your shirt off and sliding into the heated pool. You swam to the middle, hearing a splash behind you, and turned around to see a now wet-haired Wooyoung following suit. You tried to ignore the fact that now he really reminded you of your dream - hair soaked, droplets dripping down his shimmering skin as his smile spread wide at you. You tried to swim away but your battle was quickly lost when you felt a hand grab your ankle and pull you under the water.

Your body flipped underwater, turning around to feel Wooyoung right above you. His hands came to your face and begged you to look in his eyes. You opened them to see his face inches from yours, and how desperate his eyes were to close the short distance between the two of you, and you were only a weak man. You pulled him down by the nape of his neck and joined your lips together and good lord, even underwater, it was still better than you imagined. Wooyoung broke the kiss after a few seconds and brought you back to the surface for air, not giving you long till he dived back in to kiss you once more, his hands begging to feel every inch of your waist and pull you towards him. The way his skin felt against yours felt hot and you needed more of it everywhere so desperately.

"Woo I need you," you whispered, trying to communicate with your eyes and praying he would understand.

"You have me, baby." His body moved you backwards, out of sight from the living room and windows, until your back hit the side of the pool. His mouth made its way to your neck, nipping at the skin before running his tongue over it. "Can I touch you?" He whispered into your ear, biting your earlobe.

You nodded into his shoulder, hungry for the feeling of his fingers in you. His hand slipped passed the waistband of your swim shorts, giving him straight access to you. His fingertip grazed up and down your slit, teasing your aching clit.

"Wooyoung please" You whined into his ear, deciding to take some sort of initiative and fidget with the strings of his shorts, tugging at them till he permitted you to touch.

"You wanna touch me, baby?" He grabbed your hand in his and slipped it into his shorts, letting you get a feel of the bottom of his stomach, hand slowly inching down till you reached the base of his girth. His other hand was still teasing your cunt, finally allowing one digit to slide into your hole. You moaned softly into his shoulder, writhing at the pleasure of feeling him in you, while still beating yourself up from missing out on this for so long.

As you were about to start stroking his cock you heard the back door open. You and Wooyoung shot your heads around to see who it was, quickly separating yourselves to not get caught. You heard the loud music bouncing throughout the house as a hoard of people spread out onto the porch, all ready to go for another swim, Vee carrying another speaker with her to liven up the night.

"What are you guys doing out here?" Vee shouted over the music, looking between the two of you with a shocked expression.

You looked at Wooyoung trying to formulate an answer, but you answered for him instead, "Oh, we were just talking… about stuff…" You watched her face try to decipher what you meant, but she came up short with answers. She could tell that both of you were stoned though, and honestly? She was grateful you were getting along, even if it was just for one night. Wooyoung watched Vee walk away, far enough before he asked you,

"Do you wanna go upstairs?" He pressed his body against you slightly, and you could feel how hard he was against your leg. His eyes were begging for this not to end here, and you didn't feel the need to argue for once in your life, So you dragged him to the ladder and got out first, ready with a towel for him once he got out so he could hide what was going on his shorts. Once he was out he clutched your hand in his own, pulling you through the house and up the stairs to the safety of his room. Before you could even react Wooyoung had you pressed up against the closed door, lips back on the underside of your jaw. Your eyes adjusted to the darkness of his room. You had only been in here a handful of times, in which you'd never spent long enough to have a good look around the area. As you examined the room, your eyes zeroed in on the bong on his bedside table.

"You have a bong?" Your voice came out hoarse.

"Yeah, you ever..?" Wooyoung questioned.

You looked at him, "No… Can I?" He smiled at you and brought you over to his bed. The bong was already filled with fresh water, as Wooyoung packed the bowl, grabbed his lighter and held it to the bowl igniting it. He inhaled for a few seconds before pulling the bowl out, inhaling the rest of the smoke. He gave you a smug grin at your amazement and handed the bong over to you.

"So I'm gonna light it for you, and when I pull the bowl out, I'm gonna need you to inhale the rest of it or it'll leave stale smoke in the chamber, okay? now I'll let you do a little hit to get you started, just put your lips on it like I did, baby." His sugarcoated pet names had your stomach doing flips, but you stayed focused on the task at hand. Your lips met the mouthpiece and you waited for wooyoungs signal.

"Okay I'm lighting it, start inhaling gently…" You followed his instructions, feeling the water bubbling and the smoke enter your mouth. "Okay inhale fully," Wooyoung concentrated as he pulled the bowl out, you felt the fresh air clear the bong and go into your mouth. You took your mouth off of the bong and exhaled, feeling a cough climb out of your throat with the smoke - Wooyoungs hand instantly joined you to rub circles on your back, a little laugh coming from him at your suffering. After you laughed with him, "Let me try again, I won't cough this time-" Wooyoung suddenly kissed you quickly, making your body follow him as he pulled away.

"Sorry, I just wanted to kiss you again." He looked…Bashful? You had never seen this on him, and God it made him look hotter, I mean, really how did you not realise any of this? He brought the bong back to your mouth getting ready to light it once more. "You wanna do the same or a bigger hit?"

You tried to think through your already clouded mind, "Big." was all you were able to come out with, too busy staring at his pretty face. You put your lips to the bong and Wooyoung repeated the process, adding an extra second before pulling the bowl out for you. You felt slightly lightheaded from the lack of oxygen, laying back slowly to ground yourself, hearing Woo take a hit above you. As Wooyoung joined your side, Your mind started filling with all the dirty things you wanted to do with him, all the things you could do to make up for wasted time. Woo felt you sit up and throw a leg over his waist so you were straddling him.

"You know what you asked me earlier? About what my dream was about?" You leant down to his face and whispered in the shell of his ear. "It was about you. I was dreaming about you, looking all sexy fresh out of the shower, touching me." You looked at his face, hooded eyes but still surprised at your confession. You ground your hips down on his bulge, feeling his hard-on grow against you once again

"Y/n…" You halted your movements, shit, had you done too much? Before you could worry you felt his hips rise looking for the friction "Oh God please don't stop, y/n." His hands landed on your hips and pulled you back down, moving your hips with his own. He whimpered under you as you rolled your hips along him, thumbs massaging your flesh. His head tilted back and you took your chance to nip at the base of his throat, and began to suck, leaving a blooming mark in its wake. Your mouth needed to be busy, begging to have Woo in it any way you could have him. You left a trail of bites on his collarbone leading up to the underside of his jaw and ears, making him huff with each one.

"Mine," you whispered. He heard you. Your words sent him into overdrive as he sat up and flipped your bodies so you were now under him before he started tugging at your shorts.

"need these stupid things off," He mumbled finally getting them off you, leaving you completely exposed. "Can I eat you out? I really wanna taste you." He patiently waited for your response like a dog waiting for a treat. As soon as you nodded, cheeks blushed, He dived in and started to devour your aching cunt. His tongue was working magic against your hole, nose rubbing your clit deliciously as he moaned into you. You writhed against his mouth, hands gripping his hair to ground you because of the way he took you to cloud nine.

You could already feel the orgasm building as he greedily ate you out. His tongue worked against your clit as he added a digit to your soaked hole, moving it in and out in a steady rhythm, desperate to bring you over the edge before he finally fucked you senseless. He was barely taking breaks to breathe, ready to die if it meant he'd die face buried in your sweet cunt, the way you clenched around his finger was going to make him cum in his shorts at just the feeling. Both of your senses were heightened from the weed and the pleasure was a hundred times stronger than usual, you weren't sure you were gonna last long and Wooyoung could tell. "You gonna come on my fingers, baby?" He said, voice croaky as he added another finger, "Cum on my face pretty boy, I want to feel you on my tongue when you do."

Wooyoungs words sent your body over the edge, and you seized up as you let go, feeling Wooyoung sucking your clit while you rode it out on his fingers. He unlatched his mouth from you, feeling your body calm down, and slid his fingers out of you to see them soaked in your arousal. You watched him with hooded eyes as he licked the traces of you off of his fingers. Fuck, that sight alone could've brought you to an orgasm again.

"Gonna fuck your pretty hole now, baby" You moaned at his tone, pulling him to you so you could taste yourself in his mouth, tongues moving in unison. Once you had a good grip on him, you pulled him back onto the bed and stood up to pull his shorts down. You watch his hard cock spring out from them and licked your lips at the sight. You knew it was big, you could feel it but fuck, the way it glistened from the precum leaking out of his tip, made your desire to taste him grow one hundred times. You leaned down to his tip and gripped the base, before running your tongue across it and sinking down about halfway. He whined feeling your mouth around his hardness, it was heaven but, "I don't wanna cum in your mouth baby, want you on my cock now," He begged you, needing to feel you, to connect you.

You needed him just as badly, so you moved upwards so you could straddle him. You lifted your hips and hovered over his cock, holding it so you could get the angle right before slowly sinking down on him. You felt so full as he entered you, the stretch feeling the best you had ever felt. You knew nothing else would ever feel the way Wooyoung felt in you at that moment, you would never be able to take another cock that would feel as good as he did. His voice cracked as you finally bottomed out on him, staying there until you both adjusted to the feeling.

"Holy fuck, give me a second or I'll bust early" Wooyoung huffed out, his chest sinking and rising quickly as if he had forgotten to breathe, because well, he did. "Fuck baby, you feel so good, your boy cunt is mine, it's mine you're mine oh my god." Wooyoung babbled, his brain completely fried from how you clenched around him.

"You ready for me to move, baby?" You whispered to Wooyoung, receiving a nod from Wooyoung as you started slowly rocking your hips back and forth. The feeling of him reaching deep into you was pure bliss. Wooyoungs hands had a death grip on your hips, fingertips digging into your soft flesh, making you moan with each movement.

"Fuck Wooyoung, you feel so good, I don't know how long I can last," You could already feel yourself losing control of your sanity, but you weren't about to let this end so quickly. You lifted your hips to slam back down onto his cock, making him moan loudly. You kept this rhythm going and the pleasure was overwhelming, feeling the way he hit your g spot so nicely each time you bounced on him.

"Ah fuck, fuck you feel so fucking amazing holy fuck please don't stop," His praises kept fueling you to sink onto him deeper and deeper with each stroke. You both were losing your sanity together and it was fucking incredible, if Wooyoung was ready to die happy before, he was even more sure now that he was buried so deep in you that he wasn't sure if he ever wanted to leave you and the way you gripped his throbbing member. Your body ached to be filled by Wooyoungs cum, not ready to feel empty once he was done. You craved to feel full like this for as long as you were on this earth, while Wooyoung was by your side.

"Baby I'm not gonna last much longer, where do you want me to cum?" Wooyoung wheezed out between breaths.

"In me, please god please, I need you in me," You begged, speeding your pace up as Wooyoung reached to circle your clit.

"Are you sure?" He said worried.

"It's fine I'm on the pill, please Woo I need it." Wooyoung rocked his hips aggressively as his orgasm built up, yours ready to spill over the edge. His hand sped up on your clit and finally, your orgasm hit you like a truck, ripping a guttural moan from your chest. Wooyoung felt you clenching around him so hard that his own orgasm followed suit, His soul being snatched from him as you kept riding out yours.

Your body turned to jelly as you finished and you flopped down onto Woo's chest, hearing his heart racing against your ear.

"Fuck me." He gasped out, still trying to catch his breath, making you laugh.

"I literally just did Woo." He pinched your side in response, making you laugh more, your arms wrapping around him. You sat there until you had both calmed down, before sliding out of you. You could feel his cum leaking out of you and you whined at the loss as he moved you to the side of him so he could clean up.

"Sorry, baby I gotta clean you, and me up. I'll be two seconds." You watched him walk to his bathroom, damn he's got a nice ass, you thought to yourself, waiting for him to come back. Sure enough, he was quick, and back with a washcloth to clean you up. He was careful as he wiped you down, knowing you'd still be sensitive after two orgasms. He handed you some of his clothes to put on and excused himself to get the two of you some water.

"Where have you been? and where's y/n? I can't find him," Vee questioned Wooyoung as he reached the bottom of the stairs, noticing he had changed into sleep clothes despite the party still going.

"Don't tell me…" Vee thought about the circumstance, and the guilty look on Wooyoung's face.

"Did you fuck my best friend??" She watched the corners of Wooyoung's mouth curl up, and she knew she already had the answer.

"Sorry?" Wooyoung said very unapologetically as Vee punched him in the arm.

"If you ever hurt him I'll kill you, I do not care if you're my twin. I still have kyungmin, you hear me?" Vee said dead seriously, slightly scaring Wooyoung, but he couldn't help but make fun.

"I solemnly swear to never hurt y/n as long as I live, Seargent!" vee punched him one more getting ready to send a very long message to y/n.

Wooyoung arrived back upstairs, two bottles of water in his arms and a few munchies in the other.

"Oh you're a godsend Wooyoung- never thought I'd say that…" You laughed with Wooyoung as he plopped down next to you in bed, putting a movie on and cuddling up to you.

"Sorry, it took so long for us to be friends, Wooyoung. Woo." You sighed, avoiding eye contact with him now, guilt still eating away at you after everything.

"I don't want to be friends." Wooyoung declared, waiting for you to look at him. You shot your head around, confused and concerned.

"What? What do you mean?"

Wooyoung smiled before answering, " I've loved you too long just to be friends, y/n." Tears filled your eyes as you wrapped yourself around him, needing his warmth. "I love you y/n."

"Love you too."

AHHHH tysm if you made it to the end I hope you enjoyed!!! <33333333 thank you again for 500 followers !!!❤️

#ateez x reader #ateez imagines #ateez smut #ateez imagine #kim hongjoong x reader #park seonghwa x reader #jeong yunho x reader #kang yeosang x reader #choi san x reader #song mingi x reader #jung wooyung imagines #jung wooyoung smut #jung wooyoung x reader #jung wooyoung #wooyoung imagines #wooyoung x reader #wooyoung smut #wooyoung #choi jongho x reader #ateez #ateez fanfiction #ateez wooyoung #ateez scenarios #ateez fanfic #ateez fic

[s0ftand0nly]

This is about to be a long, kind of rambly post so stick with me if you want to, but I feel like a lot of people who make posts about Anakin have not experienced what it’s like to be groomed into doing what you don’t want to.

And no, I’m not calling Sheev a pedophile. Grooming isn’t inherently sexual. I suppose you could swap the word out for manipulated if that’s what makes you more comfortable.

Anakin did not jump from a good home life to the Jedi temple. He went from being a literal slave with an unhealthy attachment to his mother out of necessity for survival into an environment where he was immediately told that he was wrong. I’m not here to debate whether the Jedi were wrong or if their rules were wrong- I am ONLY saying they were wrong for taking this child, 9 years old, and telling him that he is wrong and a coward for doing what he needed to to survive day to day not even a full week ago.

Anakin was raised as a slave. We see multiple times what it’s like for slaves, but what impacted me the most were the Clone Wars episodes where Obi-wan and Rex are sold into slavery. It’s said explicitly in the episode that the slavers we see frequently make deals with the Hutts, and that fact alone makes it very likely that Shmi and even possibly Anakin were in those camps themselves at one point. These slavers whip and abuse the people there, force them to wear shock collars and leave lasting scars on both Obi-wan and Rex when they were both only there for a couple weeks.

Shmi would have been in one of those camps for years. If Anakin had, it would have been when he was an infant.

We even learn in one episode in season 2 that it’s commonplace to perform surgery on new slaves in order to implant a tracker in them so they can never be free. Anakin was not a normal kid with a normal, happy life.

Enter Sheev, who is immediately in a position of power over him and, not only that, but has consistent access to him. Anakin probably already felt wronged by the Jedi for being told he was a coward, but wow! The senator of Naboo later Chancellor thinks he’s very brave!

Anakin spent his entire life struggling with the Jedi Code- not because he’s inherently evil or selfish like some people like to act, but because he grew up being told the exact opposite. He couldn’t leave his attachments, if he did neither of them would be protected and they would both be killed. He showed anger when told not to because that was all he had ever been shown unless by his mother.

But all the while, he had a little voice in his ear telling him that he’s not like the other Jedi, he’s special, he’s better. Sheev played on his insecurities in every single scene we see them in together. He tells him to react to his anger, to keep his attachments and to be selfish. Anakin only gets worse from there.

Anakin’s problem has never been that he is inherently selfish or inherently evil. His problem was that he had no one close to him to tell him no- and anyone who did he was told to cut off by Sheev.

The tragedy of Anakin’s story has never been that he’s uncaring or cares only about himself, it’s that he was a child (22 in ROTS! i have mutuals older than that!) who was being told what to do and how to act by a man well over three times his age and he listened.

#star wars #this post is so long lmfao i’m so sorry #anakin skywalker #i can never do anything but sympathize w him i’m sorry #this is not jedi bashing

[waynewifey]

aporia — b.w

part one : dear mr. wayne

part two: aftermath

part three: aporia

epilogue

sumary: aporia suggests “an impasse”, a knot or an inherent contradiction found in any text, an insuperable deadlock, or “double bind” of incompatible or contradictory meanings which are “undecidable”. [reference]

pairing: battinson/bruce wayne x reader

genre: drama & romance

warnings: mental health struggle, miscarriage, car crash, a lot of internal dialogue

word count: 2k

A/N: the more i write, the more i put myself in this story. i feel like this ‘you’ is so complex i can’t help but try to explain her further. part four will be bruce’s perspective on all of this + an epilogue. i’m so grateful for the amazing feedback given on the last two parts and for the new followers, thank you so so much. i hope you enjoy this. (also this gif??? HELLO???)

GOTHAM. USA.

— bargaining.

the uncomfortable silence makes you want to scream. she told you that was a normal reaction and they couldn't get rid of those moments, they were essential for your self reflection. the problem was being alone with your thoughts, even for just one minute. they keep deciding you won't recover any time soon. everyone keeps holding you like a cracked vase. even negligence was better than being put under the microscope.

"i don't know what you want me to say" you respond, your gaze anxiously shuffling between the objects in the room. the woman's eyes, however, don't ever leave your face. she holds that journal like a scientist analysing a mutation. like you're some weird thing.

"you should say whatever you feel like saying." that's what she always answers. dr. quinn was extremely stoic, even for a therapist. you still liked her, though, because her pragmatic approach helped you shift your point of view and see yourself from an outside perspective, which made you want to help yourself. after weeks of feeling extra irritable, still trying to forgive your husband for lying to you, you realised maybe everything was too much for you to handle by yourself. you wanted to go back to the real world but before that, you had to do this. a quick chat with your psychiatrist and he gave you the contact to harley quinn.

"i think i've been way too mean to bruce" your confession has her nodding, like that observation had been made sessions before and she was waiting for you to realise that. "he's been so supportive and helpful, but sometimes words just fly out of my mouth and i don't even mean them"

"do you think it's easier to blame him than to come to terms with what actually happened?" you can't answer, because this was all you've asked yourself lately. you were a coward, hiding behind his suffering to prevent confronting yours. it's easy to curse him, to reject him, but it's not what you want to do. lately it feels like you don't have any control over your emotions and actions. you thought maybe if you pushed away the last person that still cared for you, you could disappear in your loneliness and finally stop hurting. "y/n you've been through something terrible. the kind of thing we never think it's gonna happen to us. i know it doesn't feel real, but you have to face it that it is. the thing about trauma... you have to keep living with it. you have to keep going, because it doesn't go away. but this is your life and you don't get to stay on standby. you hurt the people you love because it's better than hurting yourself. you told me you feel bad about it, so why won't you change?"

why won't you? you don't even know where to start. it felt comfortable living in sorrow forever. horrible, but comfortable. again, it was in fact easier to blame him than to accept this was reality. but he's right outside, been waiting for you for two hours, as he has done twice a week for over a month. you weren't being fair to him. he didn't deserve this. dr. quinn sees the defeat in your eyes and sighs in a mission accomplished type of breath.

"think about this, okay? we'll talk on friday." you nod, as if you weren't already overthinking it.

bruce sees you before listening to you. he's created the habit to stay in the waiting room with headphones in, blasting loud music. he didn't want you to feel like he was prying on you. he also didn't want to listen anything you had to say about him. you had the right to be mad at him, given everything that had happened. he knew you didn't mean it when you bomb dropped the word 'divorce' every now and then. it would take you some time to get back to normal and he wouldn't rush you.

you walk to the car quietly and get into the driver's seat. he agreed to let you drive to and from therapy. the office was actually in dr. quinn's house, a little bit on the country side of the city, if you could call it that. it was a 50 minute drive with no traffic, roads empty enough for you to drift off in you thoughts. he watches you drive, eyes brightening up a little more everyday. he realised that trying to shield you from the world wasn't going to work out. you need to learn how to be on your own. he needs to learn how to care for you while away.

"i'm sorry," you caught him off guard, observing the curves of your face. he frowns at the unexplained sentence. you glance at him but look back at the road. "for the way i've been acting. for pushing you away. for being too complicated. i know you're trying to help… thank you for staying."

"darling, of course. for better or for worse, remember? i'm never leaving you. we're getting through this, together. and don't you worry about me, i'll be okay when you are too, alright? you're doing great, i can see how much you're working towards it." he holds out a hand for you and you take it, intertwining your fingers. his calloused palms are softer now, courtesy of the months without batman-ing. they still embrace yours entirely and warm the cold tips of your fingers.

"i love you" the sweetness of that feeling dominates your tastebuds and it's almost like the day you started dating. that innocent type of love that consist of the pure enjoyment of each others company. however, your attempt to savour the moment is ruined by a shape in your peripheral eyesight.

"i love you too" bruce's voice is muffled by the anxious thoughts taking over your mind. the panic starts to overflow. he notices your body getting stiff and the wheel looking loose on your hand. your breathing lost it's rhythm to creaking gasps. there's something wrong. your eyes are frozen in a vehicle. he's seen this van before. maybe not this one, but an identical one, in a security camera tape in court. it looks exactly like the one that took you. "baby, hey, hey. i'm right here." you don't pay any mind to the man beside you. you can't, not when your instincts are telling you to run. not when you can feel the gun getting knocked on your head over and over again. bruce is saying something. the tears are blurring your sight. this is too much.

he's calling you screaming at this point, tears are rolling down your cheeks and you still haven't looked away from the van. there's a bump coming up, the car is dangerously fast and you're not driving at all. he goes for the wheel but isn't quick enough. the tires wiggle, going in their own direction. the car changes lanes, getting in the wrong way of the street. another car is coming and the impact isn't light. your head is thrown forwards, the airbag covering your face. the windshield shatters and little pieces of glass get stuck in your hair. the crash isn't too bad, you're both still awake and only the front has been smashed. but you get out hyperventilating, falling onto the ground and weeping.

bruce gets out as well, only a scratch on the forehead. he has to kneel on the dirt to hold you up. for a while, he doesn't say anything. the other driver is standing, phone in the ear. he's also fine. the cars were the only damage. two other drivers stop by, offering help. you wish he could help you, but it seems as if there's something inherently wrong with you.

— depression.

the weeks following the accident were harsh. it took a while to get you believing in recovery again. you still weren't sure. somehow there was press at the site, so pictures of you crying next to a car crash made it to the papers. there's minor commentary online about you faking it for your husbands popularity. most of the netizens feel desperately sorry for you and have painted you to be their new princess diana, the comparison seems wild to you.

you only go online every three days or so, because you can't resist the urge to know what bruce hasn't been telling you. jokes on you, he's actually been a lot more transparent lately. you agreed that the batman would show up to the sentence of edward nashton, to pressure the jury with his presence. it worked and the criminal got life without parole. the lawyers said that your public presence impacted on his trial, as 20 years was the standard. you were just glad he wouldn't do that to anybody else ever again. the case got national and your family from outside the state, that you not-so-kindly kept in the dark, started making contact, victimising you all over again.

but things were getting better, gradually. it had been almost a year and it felt like that chapter of your life was finally being finished. you were trying to get your life back, including your driver's license. it was suspended for a while after the accident, so now you had to submit a bunch of medical records to prove that you were mentally fine to drive again. that's how you found yourself in bruce's home office, searching everywhere for your documents. you could've asked him where he put it, but he had just fallen asleep in the living room and you didn't want to disturb him.

in one of the desk's drawers, you find a folder with the local hospital logo on it. you open it, shuffling through the papers you've seen before. only one stands out, with "ob/gyn" on the top of the sheet. you wonder if there's anything helpful there. your eyes start reading the words one by one, listing the examinations they've done on you. the subject changes abruptly.

the ultrasound analysis reports the miscarriage of an unknown pregnancy to the patient's spouse.

you feel like you're about to throw up. the world starts spinning as you force yourself to continue to read.

the fetus was estimated to be in the development stage of the beginning of the second trimester. the miscarriage was most likely a result of several mechanical trauma. dilation and curettage was performed with the patient in a medically induced coma.

you try to remember to breathe in and breathe out just like dr. quinn taught you. you expect the tears but they don't come out. the panic doesn't come. it's suddenly so quiet. it's not like a hole has been punched through your chest, it's like you have no chest at all. it's like you don't even exist. you somehow sit down, your body does. you feel as if it's moving on it's own and you're just watching from afar. your thoughts sound so distant, so irrelevant. you can only think of the baby that had once been inside of you and you didn't even realised. you didn't have the time to love him. you've had him there, right there, the thing you wanted the most in the world and he was taken from you. everything was taken from you.

if a tree falls on a forest, and there's no one around to hear, does it still make a sound? it felt like your fall was silent.

#fluff imagine #robert pattinson x you #robert pattinson #robert pattinson imagine #battinson x you #batman x you #battinson #batman #the batman #the batman x reader #angst imagine #batman angst #fanfiction #batman x reader #harry potter imagines #golden trio era #james potter #marauders fanfiction #bruce wayne x you #bruce wayne smut #bruce wayne imagine #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne #bruce wayne angst #bruce wayne insert

[the-furthest-city-light]

My unhinged thoughts on Luffy and Garp's relationship post-Marineford

Y'all have a very lovely comment on one of my fics to blame for this rant on Luffy and Garp's relationship and where they stand after Marineford:

Luffy and Garp as they relate to each other is so interesting because I think despite his absences, Luffy acquired a lot of his ideas about what family is and isn't from Garp. And, maybe, learned to separate what a person is to him from who that person is, too. In a way I think that's why he imprinted so hard on Shanks--he's the first person Luffy met whose role in his life matches who he is as a person and it's why he builds himself a family by acquiring people whose goals match his own so that there IS no conflict. Fast forward to Luffy as a teenager, we see that when Luffy is confronted by a person who has a conflict with his own ideals and goals, it doesn't present an inherent issue for him--that's the primary way he relates to people anyway (for ex: Coby).

Garp is also the one who modeled for Luffy that presence/time spent doesn't correllate to the strength of a relationship, that just because Garp wasn't there all the time doesn't mean they don't have a bond. And yes this gave Luffy all the abandonment issues but it's clear that Luffy has accepted it by the time canon comes around. At some point he clearly decided to view it as "Gramps gave me what he needed and made sure I had a family to grow up with and that's plenty, of course he loves us," and not "Gramps abandoned me and never loved me."

On top of all of that, whatever else Garp did or did not think about him, Ace, and Sabo, and their dreams, Luffy grew up knowing that Garp valued them and their lives above the letter of the law and his job. Luffy never cared who Ace's dad was, but he grew up knowing that Garp also knew and always thought he deserved to have a chance to live, and always loved Ace even if he never approved of the kids' desire to be a pirate. He knows that Garp values family over the law.

And then there's Garp. Garp who Sengoku describes as "a family man more than a marine." Garp who refused (multiple!) promotions to the Admirality because he didn't want to serve the Celestial Dragons, Garp who Roger trusted with his very own kid. His parenting techniques might be...questionable (read: If this was a real man he would have CPS called on him so fast but we're going with the intended reading of him from the manga) but it's clear he loves the kids. We also know the man has a flexible view of the law, he's a Marine because he believes it's where he can do the most good/help the most people. He views the rules as things he can bend if not break (a quality that clearly gets stronger as the generations pass lmao). He doesn't seem to respect authority, but he DOES seem to respect the need for the perception of it, or at least the role the Marines need to play in the eyes of the public. He believes people need heroes to believe in, and he believes the Marines should fill that role, and that's what he spent his life trying to embody.

And then Marineford.

Garp is caught between these two things: his family, and the institution he devoted his life to. And it sucks, obviously. He goes to visit Ace in Impel Down and he tells him a few things, but Garp says 1) No one can stop the war (not even him), 2) he's proud of Luffy for everything he did at Enies Lobby and Sabaody, (which also tells Ace that he's not condemned in his eyes for being a pirate--the condemnation of his life is coming from the institution Garp works for, not from Garp as a judgement of the man he became).

Ace responds by saying Whitebeard is the only father he has (ouch--Garp is the only father figure Ace grew up with), which is the last exchange we have until this:

Garp believes in the need for the execution and the war in general--the problem for him is that this is his family. This is the baby he took responsibility for, a kid he's loved for years. So Garp doesn't do anything in the war, doesn't object or condem. All he does is take a seat next to Ace, keeps him company. And to be fair to Garp? It doesn't seem like Ace expects anything more. And it seems like he appreciates it.

So he's got one kid on the execution stand, and he's resolved to let him die for the sake of what he thinks is the greater good. And his other kid, the one chasing the same fate that's getting Ace killed now, is trying to save his life. And he just...watches it unfold, because he's trapped by his own convictions--another thing he passed down to both of the boys, so how can he betray what he told them and not hold steady to his own beliefs?

I think for Luffy, he probably didn't have much time to process Garp's presence at Marineford or his role in Ace's execution at the time. In fact the only time they really interract directly is this moment from a chapter literally titled "The Execution Platform":

The title obviously refers to the literal execution platform Ace is on that Luffy has been trying to reach the entire arc but metaphorically? It's also about this. Luffy, being confronted with a grandfather who is for some reason putting his job over his brother's life, and Garp, making a last ditch effort to stand by his own conviction.

There's no way Luffy can understand this decision in the moment--he already made the same one on Amazon Lily, where he was faced with the option to either go and meet his crew on Sabaody (keep following his dream) or go after Ace. He chose Ace, because Luffy always chooses people over his own goals. I think he would understand Garp more if he had been present for Garp and Ace's conversations on the scaffold, but he wasn't.

There's an argument to be made here that Garp is giving Luffy the opportunity to save his brother by stepping in himself and letting Luffy punch him. It would be more plausible except for the fact that Garp calls Luffy "Straw Hat" here instead of "Luffy." He drops the familiarity, and he sets himself in Luffy's way, even when Luffy begs him. I don't think Garp knew he was going to let Luffy knock him away until the very last second. Not until Luffy committed to punching him.

He gives Luffy this one last piece of advice, this one last chance to be his grandfather, where he says "this is the path you have chosen, and it will be difficult, but you're on it now and you have to commit.":

And he remembers Ace saying he wants to live, and lets Luffy hit him to get to his brother.

This is the last we see of their relationship. Luffy doesn't mention him again except to tell Chin Jao off in Dressrosa. Presumably he processed how his relationship with his grandfather has changed in the aftermath, but what he thinks about it? Mostly a mystery. All the things he got from Garp are still true, and I think he still probably manages to compartmentalize most of it as a person vs. dreams/conviction thing. Luffy wouldn't judge Garp for his decisions, and he wouldn't hold resentments either. Whatever he feels or doesn't feel toward Garp, it's definitely overshadowed by Ace's loss.

For Garp's part, the man retired immediately after the war. Luffy literally says "If I don't do everything I can to save Ace, I wouldn't be able to live with myself" a few chapters before the execution stand, and Garp didn't live with himself, at least not without changing his circumstances. He gave up his commission to run escorts for royalty and train people. We do know he's still proud of Luffy, like he told Ace in Impel Down, and he laughs when Luffy's New World exploits are brought up. Garp's the one with regrets, not Luffy, and I think if they ever speak again (who knows, with Garp being...y'know), it'll be about those regrets.

What else do you talk about with estranged family?

#one piece #luffy #garp #meta #long post #tp #marineford spoilers #dressrosa spoilers #impel down spoilers #reverie spoilers #egghead spoilers #tbh I felt a lot more sympathetic to Garp by the end of this than I expected #I mean he's still an idiot #what kind of grandfather doesn't fight the military to save his grandkid when he has the chance #but this is one piece and in the eyes of the series #Garp is not a bad guy because he was suffering a conflict of ideals #Luffy deserves to be mad at him but I doubt we're gonna get that/doubt he IS mad #just disappointed

[lgbtlunaverse]

I think i need to explain why this line makes me go so feral

I think the "fine! I'll kill myself after I kill you" line from nie mingjue in chapter 49 permanently altered my brain chemistry and it has something to do with precisely how i got into the mdzs fandom space in the first place.

I've mentioned it a few times but i started watching the untamed in late 2019 right as it was blowing up everywhere and, likely due to a combination of undiagnosed adhd wrecking my ability to be interested in anything for longer than 4 seconds and me very much not being used to the specific style of acting, especially during fightscenes, i never finished it. The only concrete memory i have of it is seeing wen qing's face and meng ziyi completely short circuiting my little gay brain. I remember more of staring endlessly at pictures of her than I remember of the plot. Press F to pay respects.

Flash forward a few years and a friend recommends me a fic writer for an fma fic (the fic riter in question is metisket) and i like their stlye so much i decide to read other stuf they've written. Here we get to our prime suspect: "the one body problem" a genuinely hilarious fic where jingyi gets posessed by wei wuxian like a year before the plot happens and they become awkward brain buddies. 10/10 i loved it (and still do) even though i remember huasiang showing up in my first reading and I, having fully forgotten his name, had no fucking clue what was going on. (Little did i know...)

Anyway flash forward ANOTHER year and I decide to reread that fic, and then the other untamed fic metisket wrote, a wen qing time travel fix it that's also real fun. And then i'm like. huh. that's fun. wonder if there's anything in their bookmarks.

And then, within 20 days, I had read approximately 350 fics. Many of them 100k+ words. I cannot stress enough how much this CONSUMED my brain's ability to do or think about anything else. I now think back to the early days of getting my adhd diagnosis and insisted that while i had pretty much all other symptoms, I did not get hyperfixations. Lol. Lmao, even.

I am mainly focused on wangxian and the junior quartet becuase they are my baby ducklings and i love them. I do come across some 3zun fics and I think huh... this is interesting. But the 3zun brainrot is LIGHT at this point.

The thing about reading more than 350 fanfics is that at some point you kind of piece the plot of the source material back together backwards. Especially because my favorite genre was time travel fix its, where characters relive the whole plot and like to make allusions to all the ways everything went wrong last time.

Because I'm still squarely in my wangxian + juniors (plus a heavy dosis of yunmeng sibling reconciliation) corner here... the feelings on jin guangyao in my fandom corner are. different from where I'd end up soon after. He is my special little guy though, so I do kind of immediatley develop a fondness for him, and I approach my 3zun and early nieyao thoughts specifcially from the assumption that the widespread opinion is that nie mingjue is a fine good guy and jgy is the evil one (I have not seen the bad nmj takes yet. well... I am seeing DIFFERENT bad nmj takes but they're nice to him. In, like, the wrong way. With no solid undertanding of the inherent tragedy at the heart of him that makes him so blorbo to me. But still.) major reactions to the stairs scene as I see them on twitter are "girlboss! He should've kicked him harder 💅"

And the baby jgy apologist in me goes :/ me no likey. And at this point I am also actively seeking out metas and analysis posts so i'm seeing some better opinions than that and getting a halfway solid graps on the themes. wwx and jgy being foils becomes very obvious to me very quickly. So, with my curent understanding of the plot, I go... you know all you people who are like "god i wish nmj would have killed jgy sooner" it uhh... kinda sounds like he'd have died if he did that. If he'd killed him before meng yao had gone off to spy there is a very big chance they'd have lost the sunshot campaign and most of the main cast would be dead. If he'd killed him at the stairs that's... well that's killing your sworn brother, which by the canon's own admission is a universally reviled crime, and jin guangshan could easily take advantage of this by demanding nmj's head in retribution, since he already wanted to get rid of him anyway. He doesn't give a fuck about a-yao of course but he could pretend well enough that he does. And what leg would nmj have to stand on? The jin clan is canonically both willing and able to slaughter entire clans for the murder or attempted murder of the leader or his family, and nie mingjue is the kinda guy who'd immediately offer himself up if it meant the rest of his clan would be spared.

This combined with jin guangyao specifcally dying for his murder of nie mingjue, with huaisang basically not caring much about everything else he does and wanting to get revenge only for his brother, it gives nieyao a sort of mutual doomed soulmates feel. For either of them, killing the other would spell death for themselves. They either both die or they both live, one cannot live on without the order. That's crunchy. I like it.

The fire palace though? well, on meng yao's part there is a real argument that if he'd let nmj get killed immediatly instead of dragging it out he wouldn't have been able to get wrh alone and distracted enough to assasinate him, so that's one half of the mutual doom coin, and if nmj had killed him during their fight there he's also done for. But after? Right before Xichen intervenes? I had no answer for that yet.

(You know what's coming. I did not)

It is at this point that i realize that if this is gonna keep being A Thing then i need to read the source material before I catch fatal fanon poisoning. Yes, I can piece together the plot and themes from seeing what stays consistent across fics and what are the author's own opinons. But I know just as well that sometimes fanon just agrees on shit that didn't happen and treats it like canon, and I have no way of knowing which is which. So I start reading the novel.

And of course, eventually I get to the empathy sequence. And remember, my "nieyao both live or both die" theory is heavy on my mind at this point, and the only stickler is that nmj could sort of have killed meng yao after the confrontation with wrh, still believing meng yao was actually working for him, and not a spy, and get off... not scott-free, Xichen won't be happy, but it's not gonna cost him his life.

And then I read THIS.

Please Imagine dropping a whole block of pure elemental sodium into water. Except the sodium is this quote and the water is my poor little delicate brain. Not only is my theory right, it is ten times more unhinged than i thought it was.

And considering that Nie Mingjue does not seem like the kind of guy who'd consider something like a life debt to have an expiration date, and because after this he will link himself legally and socially to jin guangyao as family and declare that one among their brotherhood turning against the others is to be met with a painful death, I can no longer read the scene at the stairscase in jinlintai without the impression that he is still planning to die afterwards. Which, if you wanted to make that scene even more painful, this is a very efficient way of losing all your remaining hinges.

I think I'd have gone crazy about this line no matter what context I heard it in, but this one specifically? where I'm already obsessed with idea of nieyao's deaths being connected by the narrative and missing just this one piece and having it confirmed? out loud? from one of the characters himself? It's like giving cocaine to a baby.

#mdzs #fandom #jin guangyao #meng yao #nie mingjue #nieyao #? sorta #this was months ago and i have long since worked my way through the whole novel #plus rereading empathy approximately 14 more times #funnily enough the fics that initially got me interested in 3zun don't gell so well with my reading of them anymore #still very well written and i can reread them happily but it's still kind of ironic #it is what i wanted i suppose. Making sure you don't fall for fanon means fanon sometimes becomes less enjoyable #also @helesia if you're reading this yes YOU are the friend and yes that means this is YOUR fault #i'm billing you for my next therapy appointment #not meta not a headcanon but a secret 3rd thing (unorganized rambling)

[petrichormore]

AND ONE MORE THING: DRAMATRIO IS FINE

(Also to be clear: I like analyzing these things. I enjoy “arguing” over these characters - it’s like enrichment to me, it’s fun, I’m never actually mad I just like writing long posts. And yeah the following is about the characters, not the CCs.)

I see a lot of people talking about how the election is tearing apart friendships - specifically the dramatrio and how Bad and Baghera don’t trust Forever anymore and yadda yadda

And to that I say: Are you sure?

(loooooong analysis below cut)

Are you sure? Because last I checked all three of them greet each other warmly. All three of them care deeply about each other and get along well. All three of them have repeatedly stated that they wouldn’t mind if one of the others became president - and that’s still true. They are at odds politically, maybe, but I think people are overestimating exactly how much they disagree. They argue about politics and they criticize each other’s points, yes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t trust each other or that they think anyone would “become a dictator.”

And I’m seeing that a lot too, on twitter and on tumblr: this idea that Bad and Baghera are convinced Forever and Cellbit will become dictators. And while I think it’s interesting… it isn’t true. I can only imagine this came from the debate where Bad and Baghera criticized insaneduo’s perceived embracing of centralized power? (So did Gegg/Slimecicle, btw) But once again, it’s not Forever and Cellbit that they distrust (well Cellbit maybe a little), it’s a position of centralized power that technically only has to listen to the Federation. Which is a valid ground on which to criticize an opponent’s platform, at least in my opinion. (I agree far more with socio-anarchy aka Bad’s position than a centralized government of any kind so I’m aware I’m biased on that.) But I’m not biased in saying that Bad and Baghera definitely don’t think Forever and Cellbit would become dictators, they’re simply wary of what the Federation could do, and also aware that absolutely power corrupts absolutely.

And before I get to how Bad and Forever are still clearly besties, I do want to hesitantly broach the idea that the position of president - as it’s presented by the federation - is not inherently democratic. In fact, I’d argue it’s kind of more similar to a dictator role, or maybe that of a monarch. The president is not required to listen to anyone, the president does not have to have the peoples’ agreement. The only force the president is actually required to answer to is that of the federation. Just because the president is called “the president” and the federation is making people vote for it doesn’t mean the position itself is democratic in nature - just the process by which the position is decided. You could call the president “king” or “ruler” and it would fit just as well.

Anyway.

Bad said just today that he thinks Forever would make a great president; his problem is not with Forever, his problem is with the Federation. In fact, Bad is still completely okay with Forever entering his and Dapper’s home, and if Bad really felt like Forever was a threat? I assure you that permission would be immediately revoked. And yet it hasn’t been.

Bad and Forever literally spent time with each other on stream today, and neither of them discussed politics because politics doesn’t matter in regards to their friendship. This has always been the case, and nothing has really changed. People claim Bad got more distrusting of his friends due to the election and I’d say he didn’t get more distrusting of his friends in particular - he just got more distrusting in general, because people were being secretive. He’s paranoid, and he’s right to be. Also I know Bad told Etoiles that he might (MIGHT) help Foolish kill other candidates (besides Gegg and Baghera) and I’m saying: He’s not serious. He’s not being serious. He’s a silly guy. Like try and picture Bad genuinely trying to help Foolish kill Forever. You can’t. I know you can’t. Because he’s not serious. If anything, he’d probably just want to watch Foolish get killed trying. This is the same guy who proposed a whale pit of death as a viable assassination method - he’s not actually out to kill anyone (except elquackity) he’s just messing around. He thinks it would be funny, and he’s right. If Bad actually kills a candidate (that’s not Elquackity) unprovoked I will be so so proud of him.

Because if Bad wanted Forever dead - if he truly thought he needed to kill Forever or Cellbit to save the island - they would be dead. And Bad would do it himself; he would do anything to protect the island’s inhabitants, and he’s fully capable of it (I recall Baghera getting upset with him specifically because he refused to promise not to, under any circumstances, kill her.) Bad will kill if he feels like he has to - he just honestly doesn’t really want to. It’s that shrimple.

#it’s not actually that shrimple #I’m leaving out a couple things but it’s long enough already #also the whole ‘bad doesn’t want to kill’ thing does NOT apply to quackity #either one of them actually #tldr the dramatrio is still going strong #also like honestly bad and forever didn’t sit together on a bench to watch the sunset because they don’t trust each other #they did that because they’re in lo #i mean what who said that #qsmp #qsmp character analysis #q!bbh character analysis #q!badboyhalo #q!forever #q!baghera #qsmp elections #qsmp politics #qsmp thoughts #additionally the whale death pit is based as fuck

[soullessjack]

so one of my other problems with babyjack is that the fandom just seems to have this sort of collective cognitive dissonance about it, in almost any context or discussion. like this post as probably my only standing example (bc it’s the only one to have gotten traction), there are all these tags about how babyjack leads to bad dean criticism, or how it’s nice in aus but they want canon complex jack, and like I’m not entirely disagreeing with that, but it is so fucking frustrating that people are still ignoring the actual problem with it and either only focusing on the most surface level issues that personally affect them or their corner of the fandom, or making up some point of acceptability for it that frankly isn’t theirs to make.

it’s the autistic experience of our struggles never being seen or cared about until they become other people’s inconveniences, and our voices being used to say something else entirely. when the main takeaway of that post is how the fandom’s treatment of jack being in a way he’s explicitly shown to hate being treated directly mirrors autistic people’s struggle for autonomy in the real world, I really do not need you to make it about how it makes your golden website boy dean look like a big meanie pants, okay? that’s definitely a part of it, but it’s not at all what we are talking about, and it 100% should not be the only reason you care.

and especially when the other takeaway is how this is just a smaller scale issue that comes from autistic infantilization, the absolute last take I want to hear is that you find that infantilization acceptable as long it’s an AU or something else separated from canon. believe me, I’m beyond glad more people actually prefer canon complex jack—like, I don’t think you guys understand that that is legitimately a rarity to find here— but the thing about babyjack is that the concept itself is inherently ableist, and directly relies on his complexities (and the representation he means for us) being removed and erased so that he can even exist in the context of those AU’s. It feels very… ‘have your cake and eat it too’ to me.

I’m trying not to sound angry or accusatory, but I am also tired of having to force civility on a problem that’s pretty much just an open secret thar everyone collectively ignores and beats bushes around solely because they prioritize #domesticdestiel over all. I mean, do you guys even hear yourselves sometimes? Like half of it just boils down to “Autistic infantilization is always bad, except for this one context where it makes my ship look domestic and redeems my blorbo,” and it’s getting really fucking annoying to have to constantly explain something that is not only painfully easy to understand, but is understood and actively ignored, and still play nice so that somebody out there might listen.

So many people will say they like canon Jack and want more of him from the fandom, and I more than agree, but motherfucker you have a blog! You have the tools! Be the change you want to see! He doesn’t have to be your fav or your blog thesis blorbo, but if you want it, you are literally fully equipped to make it! Write some meta, draw some fanart, whatever. Better yet, you could even stop engaging with and perpetuating content that actively pushes down on what you want and, I must reiterate, is actively harmful and ableist. If you want domestic silliness go right ahead, but you don’t need to resort to ableism to do it.

I don’t think I’m asking too much or asking rudely, and frankly I don’t even think I owe niceties to anyone when it’s a problem that has been openly ignored for 6 years and holds plenty of bearing in the real world concerning my identity and community and shit we face constantly. Outside of our screens, we are constantly fighting for autonomy and recognition and representation, and even to be seen as people. Online spaces, especially fandom spaces, are a huge source of escapism and support that we wouldn’t get otherwise. So for the love of god, please stop bringing that fight here.

#sorry I’m horribly caffeinated #spn #supernatural #spn fandom #spn family #fandom critical #fandom ableism #autism representation #autistic characters #jack kline #autistic jack kline #baby jack #toddler jack kline #baby au #baby jack au #spn critical #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #domestic destiel #sastiel #samcas #deancas #tfw2.0 #team free will 2.0 #dadstiel #dad!dean #dad!sam #dean critical

[tunedtostatic]

Blog updates 2024 edition, or more specifically, one big, potentially very good update: Last year when I did my 2023 blog updates, almost but not quite a year ago now, I said I might be within a month or so of things no longer being in serious crisis/my life being basically okay-adjacent. It is hard to write this even now but it turned out that that didn't work out - things did get better, especially for a chunk of six months in the middle of the year when I had safe housing and things felt wonderful compared to the last few years, but neither external circumstances nor my own ability to deal with {PTSD, external circumstances, &c} got to the point hoped for where I would be able to say "I'm living a life where things are more or less normal and okay." Even though I never quite reached things being okay-adjacent during that chunk of months and things got not great again end of summer to now, having that time of things being close to almost okay-adjacent was a very important springboard to me for make it to a point now where I might be within reach of actually okay-adjacent.

Right now, what I said last year about potentially being within a month or so of things being basically okay is potentially true again, and I think I have a better shot at it this time for both external reasons and personal "knowing more about what to do to get safe and having my shit together" reasons. I might be within reach of things being okay-adjacent and feeling like I have a real normal life outside of crises (here defined as safe housing, employment, no people hurting me in my immediate vicinity, financial and scheduling ability to manage physical medical issues on a day to day basis while still eating without mental health issues getting in the way of that, clothing in drawers not trash bags, nothing actively medically scary).

If so this will be for the first time since 2018 so of course it's a big deal to me. Right now of course I'm both excited and relieved things might work out soon and terrified that they won't.

Meanwhile (the reason beyond updating that I'm posting this!), as I get ready to fully move into the place that will hopefully be the "safe housing" part of this, it's been really hitting me that even though living a life that is normal-adjacent and okay-adjacent will inherently be orders of magnitude better than the last 5+ years and of course I'm prepared to be extremely grateful for that, I'm still going to have all the grief and emptiness I have now. Even though I will as always be (too) busy in some ways trying to get everything done in a day while dealing with chronic pain, no longer having so much time soaked up trying to survive whatever the problem of the week or PTSD meltdown of the day is means that I'm going to have hours and hours of empty time to fill every week.

When I talk about loss I know some people's minds will jump to the worst case personal scenarios so I will clarify that I am fortunate that by grief I don't mean the death of an immediate family member, not that kind of grief. A lot of different things - people who have been awful, deaths, horribleness in my neighborhood that was like family, lost time, and all the losses prior to the last few years in some ways since grief doesn't fully go away, and then things like a close friendship breakup last year that is not as painful as any of the above since we are both alive and managed to be kind to each other throughout the breakup but it's still over. It has been hitting me that a lot of the work of grieving everything from the past couple decades, like the work of dealing with PTSD, is what I had to get through these past couple years to have a chance of getting my shit together, but now that I've made enough headway on the work of grieving to be able to have a chance at my life being okay, the losses and emptiness themselves will still be there ("still be gone"?)

If anyone has suggestions for fun stuff to do, book and movie recommendations, &c, it would be a really good time for them! If anyone can recommend social stuff, e.g. friendly good-boundary-having discord servers, that would be amazing. I think y'all know my favorite things in fiction and music (fiddles, writing fanfic that comes to a screeching halt 2-3 times a chapter to talk about food, thoughtful meditations on torture?, swords) but I'm usually down to at least give media outside my wheelhouse a try.

[fiyasgideon]

It is irresponsible to nearly ruin an artist's reputation instead of privately or legally seeking repayment for an unreceived service. Artists are individual people, with flaws. They are not seeking to screw you over specifically, they are not inherently bad, unprofessional, or rude people for not being fulfilling or communicating on one order. You deserve to share your bad experience and be upset with that absolutely. But the reaction to that has gone so far as if she has robbed you of hundreds of dollars. Its really weird to see the community split like this over two artists we all love.

I completely understand where you are coming from, but I have to politely disagree with some of your points.

You say I am "ruining an artist's reputation instead of privately or legally seeking repayment for an unreceived service" and to that I have to point to my post where I explain my MANY attempts to contact her as privately as possible over the course of almost 8 months. I did everything I could, short of knocking on her door, to get a response from her.

And yes, I did try getting a refund from my bank, but all they said was that I need to get it through Paypal. So I tried getting it through Paypal, but because I used the "Friends and Family" option when sending it (something I had no problem doing for the other three commissions I had gotten from her, as I had trusted her) Paypal's refund options are limited. Not only that, but by the time I had given up on getting a response, the time window to file a dispute had passed. Without her sending me the money back herself, there was no other option (that I am aware of) to get my money back.

You also said "They are not seeking to screw you over specifically, they are not inherently bad, unprofessional, or rude people for not being fulfilling or communicating on one order" and I would have agreed with that, if not for the fact that I had already been made aware of her being in regular contact with someone I knew during the time she was purposefully ignoring my dms.

I know she was going through a tough time for a while, but I feel like I had been more than fair when I gave her the option to simply tell me she didn't feel like drawing and needed some time (of which I would have waited forever if she just kept me up to date every other month or so) or to just give me what she started (since I saw her start the commission the day after I sent the money) and I would have considered the transaction over. I made sure to reiterate these points many time in my many dms. Both options would have required little to no effort on her part. She is the one who continued to make the conscious choice to keep ignoring me.

And though I did call her unprofessional (because that's what her actions are) I never called her bad or rude. I have been very conscious of not trying to bad mouth her throughout this whole process. I have tried my best to only state facts and events as they happened. I am not trying at all to bash her as a person.

And finally, to your last statement of "the reaction to that has gone so far as if she has robbed you of hundreds of dollars" I only say, how dare you? Just because she didn't steal $1000 dollars from me doesn't mean that it wasn't theft. $500, $50, or $20, theft is theft. She may have only taken $50 from me, but how much must she take from the next person for them to be allowed to say something? You tell people to stay silent and let her take even $10 from them and she would end up stealing hundreds from just a few dozen victims. And nobody would know to be cautious of her because everyone she stole from was told not to say anything because "it wasn't like she took hundreds from you."

Now, I'm not saying she will go out and steal from everyone. Perhaps I am the only person she ends up stealing from, in which case I would be happy that nobody else looses their money. But I couldn't take that risk. If she does end up stealing from someone again (intentional or not) then I would feel partially responsible for not saying anything to warn others of the possibility.

I do find it a bit weird that the community is split on this. I would have thought that stealing, even if from a big name in a community, would be something not worth supporting. Despite what some people might think, I have tried doing anything and everything in my power to handle this in a civil and private manner. But there is just a point at which you need to throw in the towel and realize that it's not working and you need to change tactics.

That callout post was that tactic. If she won't send me the commission, give me my money back, or even respond to me, then I am done being nice enough to keep my silence.

#elhnrt #fiyas speaks #i am angry #i have been so patient and nice #but sometimes that doesn't work

[curejiraiya]

So AiPri huh.

I posted my live reactions on Twitter, but tldr of that was I was initially really excited. I think the idea of two arcade games, one that's more aimed children and one that's more aimed at long time fans is honestly genius. I think that they're going to make a lot of money out of that concept.

I also compared it a lot to Aikatsu. The art looks like Aikatsu, the plot that we know feels like Aikatsu. I think the two new main girls are pretty cool, they're designs are a lot simpler than PriMagi and I can't say I like that, but I don't dislike their designs I just like them less than PriMagi.

I'm also really excited for the music. I honestly feel like I called Auru's VA being the lead, but she deserves the role. She's really young and if this show stays around she'll grow into it. We didn't hear much but I liked the song we heard from the snippit of the arcade game, even a little more than Matsuri's song.

Though once the live stream ended my excitement has dropped a little bit. The anime is being done by a completely different production company, that means it's not going to keep a lot of its staff. To be blunt the writing is just going to be different, and I'm scared it's going to be more like the modern children's anime landscape where they're afraid to have things happen lmfao. They don't get deep enough into the plot as I want, and they leave all the crazy world building to the last few episodes. Now PriChan did this too so like there was a chance this was gonna happen anyway, but giving the show to a studio that's known for working on fucking pokémon terrifies me a little bit. I'm scared it's going to be shallow and bad.

Actually I think I'm just scared It's going to be Aikatsu. Aikatsu isn't a bad show, but it's not the Pretty Series. There isn't crazy lore and things that you could never expect to happen happening. The Pretty Series has a certain magic that I haven't felt in any other show, and I'm worried a new production team isn't going to be able to capture that.

The other two parts of my theory that lead me to believe this is true is 1. the split arcade game, because the arcade game that's meant more for adults has the old series girls on the front of the machine. Like it's being very blunt that it's pushing nostalgia, and the show itself isn't. I'm worried that their intentionally dividing the audiences so they can aim the show at a slightly lower demographic and not alienate the adults. and then 2. The theme of the show being makeup. Makeup itself is not inherently childish, but two-fold one it makes the show pointedly more for girls than unisex, which also is not a problem I just think the only reason they would do that is if they want to capture a very young child audience.

But the other point and this to me is the important one, is children's makeup toys in Japan are made to be temporary because the students are not allowed to wear makeup to school. So they have formulas meant for the kids to be able to rub off easily in their lip gloss and nail polishes. Because of this adults cannot buy these toys, because they're not going to wear fucking temporary lip gloss. It concerns me slightly that their main toy line with this series is something that adults aren't going to want at all. In comparison to something like prepara where the main toys are little plastic mics which make great display pieces for adults. Fun for all ages.

Now; lowering the target demographic age of the show doesn't necessarily mean a bad show, But I can't help but look at other shows airing for the demographic like PreCure or Aikatsu or even pokémon and as an adult viewer you can see that the shows have been slightly dumbed down then where they were when they started airing. or even where they were when Pretty Rhythm started airing. and it's my personal opinion that I don't really like these new shows that much, they're not bad but they're not as good as they used to be lmaooooo and it's not nostalgia because I didn't grow up with PreCure or Pretty.

That's the crux of my fears though, like I'm just afraid new production company, new people who haven't touched the show before, they're going to dumb it down. But we don't know yet.

Someone on Twitter pointed out that this opens up the production company to work on projects like PolePri or hahahaha omg say it with me, King of Prism 🤡 but I do like those kinds of shows that they've put out, and they seem to he pushing cheer screenings, so this could lead to good things in the end.

Sorry if this is slightly gloomy, I'm still excited! I'm just cautious.

#himitsu no aipri! #aipri #himitsu no aipri #pretty series

[h4amarch]

uh oh sisters! I’m back with more Kel Angst… but more like a Kel Character Study.

I’m sure Kel appreciators are already familiar with my analysis of how Kel thinks people value Mari’s theoretical opinions more than his real ones. But since that was at the end of a longer post which was just a “List of Fun Kel Facts :)” I think I didn’t really get to touch on the fact of why this has come to be.

Someone in the tags of that post wrote that Hero does this too, that the two brothers were raised to be people-pleasers and naturally tend to ignore their own feelings. And I absolutely 100% agree with this!!! But consider now: Kel was the little troublemaker, and Hero was the responsible one. To some degree, I think you can also make an argument as to how Hero’s role as the responsible one allowed Kel to be the troublemaker, and vice versa; whether it was by their own will or not, Kel traded positive attention for more freedom, and Hero did the opposite.

Hero is the one to handle responsibility first, and he’s older, too—so it goes that, inherently, Hero has made the better suggestions of the two of them during their childhood, from hangout ideas to problem solving. Kel is the one that makes the silly suggestions, the one that’s a little less realistic, the one that’s still filled with childish fantasies of Captain Spaceboy and renegade stories.

Until he isn’t. Until he’s grown up a little, until he’s slapped in the face by a tragic death, by a despondent, unresponsive brother—by nobody else knowing what to do any better than him.

So he tries—

“Hey Aubrey! Do you want to come to my birthday party? I know we haven’t really talked, this past year, but—”

“Helloooo, Sunny? It’s time for school, and I heard we’re gonna play basketball during gym! You don’t have to play, I can just shoot hoops and you can watch! I’m getting real good at it, I swear—”

“Morning, Basil! Did you need any help doing gardening stuff? I just wanted to see if anyone was free to hang out, but—”

“Hey Hero. Are you… feeling a bit better today? I was just wondering… if you wanted to go get Gino’s with me. Because I’m hungry, and I think it’d be fun if we went together—”

—and he fails.

“—you want to hold a birthday party? Are you- Are you serious?! Tomorrow’s the day she- and you- I- Did she mean nothing to you?!” (He wanted to distract Aubrey from it. But of course she wouldn’t forget.)

“—oh, Kel, good morning! I’m sorry, but I don’t think Sunny can come see you right now… We’re thinking of homeschooling, but… I’m sure he’ll come out to see you one day.” (School was just an excuse to ask for Sunny. Now what is he supposed to do?)

“—ah, um- I’m- I’m okay! I have to… to, um, check on the m-more delicate plants today so, um— m-maybe not today… I-I’m sorry.” (If he were better at not being clumsy, would Basil still have turned him away?)

“—I’m not hungry, Kel… Not today. It’s late anyway.” (He’s never hungry when Kel asks.)

Kel tries to handle things on his own, and it fails. He is confronted with the fact that, on his own, his ideas really are as stupid as Aubrey used to call them, and as silly as Basil and Sunny used to say they were, and as unrealistic as Hero used to tell him.

And Mari…

“—Hi, Mari. Sorry I couldn’t make it last week. But, uh… I was just wondering… if you… if you could maybe… tell me this is all a bad joke…? Because- they all said you- you did it on purpose, but… but I don’t think you would have wanted this, right…?”

(“Well, Kel! You’ve just made a very convincing point. Now I don’t know who to believe!”)

…

The only person who believed in him, the only one who bothered to indulge his ideas even a little bit, is gone.

And yet, just like when they were younger, the one time things work is—

“Mari wouldn’t have wanted to see you like this, Hero…”

—when Mari steps in.

“…what?”

And again.

“I can’t just leave here knowing that this is the person you’ve become. I mean… What would Mari think?”

“Why do you keep bringing her up?”

Granted, the reactions are always a bit rough. But it’s what makes people react, it’s what gets things to change.

So… yeah. Kel’s opinions don’t matter. They’re not supposed to—they’re supposed to make people laugh, or deadpan, or call him stupid so that he can start bantering and bickering, because it’s familiar, because it’s normal. It makes things a bit difficult if he wants to be all serious, but as always, Mari is there for him when his mind comes up blank.

Until she isn’t. Until Sunny says something, and Basil corroborates it. Until every little success he’s been able to achieve with Mari’s help dissipates like the cheap discount foamer in Sally’s bubble baths. Until Kel isn’t sure what Mari would have wanted.

Until Kel is left with only himself. Mari would have wanted—

—he wants—

—everyone to be happy. Everyone to stick together this time. Everyone to help him figure out what the hell he’s feeling right now. Everyone to help him figure out how to stay together when all he wants is to run. Everyone to come back to the room so they can talk, before they split apart again. Again. Not again. Not again.

But how will he do it without Mari?

#kel omori #omori kel #omori #omori (game) #kel angst #the box files #witness: me going wild with the colored text function #oh MAN could you imagine if this were here in 2012 #we would have all gone BUCKSHIT WILD

[traceyshortfilm]

Last night I had a conversation with a couple of friends, trying to explain to them how I've been wondering for several months now if I'm asexual. I felt like I had to explain every single reason why I do and they kept telling things like "maybe you just haven't found the right partner" , "maybe there are still some (other) things you could do in bed which don't involve penetration..." Or asking me Qs like: "but do you still masturbate, right?" And they didn't understand that aces can also masturbate.

The main question here is... Do you think I should continue getting myself into situations I know for sure are uncomfortable for me? Just for the sake of "finding out if I'm really ace". I think they're just invalidating my speech tbh. Maybe they don't believe in asexuality????

I'm so sorry that your friends weren't very understanding. I find that a lot of allosexual people see asexuality as a "problem"/"less fulfilling experience" and offer their perspective on fixing said "problem" or trying to find solutions to it. However - these "solutions" are made for allosexual people, not aces. Because your friends inherently see their personal experience as "correct", they may try and steer you in the direction that they, as allos, would find solutions in - "others things in bed without penetration" etc etc. I try not to assume any harm is meant by this, as it seems more like ignorance than maliciousness, but I also don't know your friend-group & dynamics. I totally feel your frustration in having to explain yourself, and have people always "devil's-advocate" you in conversation. I also pondered for many years whether I was ace or not, and had frustrating conversations as well.

Typically, if people have to *wonder * if they are something, 9 times out of 10 they are . Yes, it's perfectly normal for people to wonder things, and even allos at some point in their life might have wondered if they were ace. But the difference here is that you have pondered on this for months. You have had time to think about your experience and usually when people suspect they are ace, they never do so flippantly. If sexual attraction has never come naturally or easy to you, I think you very well may be ace. If asexual is the label that best aligns with how you feel, then you are asexual! I want you to know there is nothing wrong with using a label that fits you now, even if it changes later. Some lucky people find their label that perfectly describes them, and it never changes. But a lot of people go through a journey to find their truth & community. And that is a good thing! If you feel you are asexual, then you are. No one should invalidate that. You know yourself best and know your experience best. We have a video on our channel "How Can I Know If I'm Ace" - very simply put - if you don't typically experience sexual attraction, you are on the asexual spectrum, and by learning more about asexuality, can find the label that best fits you". Also, I'm not sure how open your friends are to learning about it, but they could do well to watch our Asexuality 101 series hahah!

Please don't put yourself in any uncomfortable situations - you know yourself better than anyone and you don't need to "find out" if you're "really asexual" or if "other alternatives" will work for you. Listen to your mind, body & spirit, and if your first reaction to situations is not excitement & attraction, then please don't force yourself to do anything. Your first reaction, your gut reaction is almost always right.

I know it's easier said than done, especially when coming from people whose opinions you hold in regard, but please don't let your friends make you think that: "yOu cAnT kNoCk iT tiLL yOu tRy iT". That's not true. I grew up around a lot of people who were experiencing sexual attraction & sexual feelings long before they ever had sex for the first time. So if they were able to know that they'd want & enjoy sex before trying it, how is you knowing you wouldn't want it before trying it any less valid? It's not.

I hope that in future conversations, your friends support you as any good friends would. Please know you always have community here in the asexual community and that you're not alone.

Long story short, if you feel asexual, then you really are asexual!

Sending so much love, care & support, thank you for sharing your story with me <3

#asks #asexuality #asexual #community #anon ask #lgbtqia #asexual community #acepride #asexual pride

[sophiamcdougall]

I saw a post earlier about "women's spaces" and how the writer had often experienced them as hostile rather than inherently safe and welcoming and therefore precious. Now, I could relate to that to some degree, as I still tend to start off pretty tense at events for, say, queer women even though I now go quite a lot of them: "hello I'm bi! If anyone's going to have a problem with that it would be nice to get it out of the way immediately!" But I do value some women's spaces. I would be sad if gendered loos, for instance, went away completely. I've had mad, intense conversations in women's loos that I do not think would have happened in an evenly mixed setting. I have experienced the Drunk Girl Oracle who exists nowhere but in the queue for the ladies: I want her habitat to continue to exist. But the thing is: no "women's space" I've ever been in has ever been this inviolate grove of Artemis where no man may set foot without getting turned into a fucking stag.

Trans women are women. Trans women belong in women's spaces. Trans women make me feel not less but more safe in women's spaces, for reasons that will become clear. When transphobes are screaming that the sky will and does fall in whenever a trans woman walks into a women's bathroom, of course I argue from that starting point.

But also I think it's worth examining the entire premise that spaces FOR [this type of person] are inherently spaces from which [that type of person] is banned.

So like, where are these women's spaces that don't come with the common-sense understanding that while usually, mostly you won't see men in there, if you do he's probably got reasons and its fine?

Is no one else seeing those signs that say "these premises are cleaned by male and female staff"? What about dads with small daughters? Is it really that bad if a man just plain gets lost or has one shot to avoid an emergency from time to time?

There was this meetup for bi people I used to go to. But of course there were never only bi people there. People brought along friends and partners who might be straight or gay. And oh-shit-it-turns-out-I'm-bi people who were still identifying as gay in the rest of their lives came on the quiet. And there was this one lesbian who -- ironically given a certain slur the GC crowd like to throw at bi women -- came quite unapologetically as a tourist, to observe our strange ways and, as she put it, to "encourage us."

These people were explicitly welcome. It was not a space from which not-bi people were barred. It was still a bi meetup. It was still a "bi space." I was at a sapphics' club night last Friday. And there were some men there. I mean, apparently cis, entirely male-presenting, gender-conforming men in the Women's Space™ . Some of them were bar staff, for starters. Is that OK with the GCs? Does all the terror and horror and loss at the thought of a man in your precious Women's Space go away if the man's being paid? If so, it seems oddly ... conditional. But also some of them some seemed not to be working but just sort of ... there. Maybe they were somebody's friends? They certainly didn't bother anyone. I didn't see where they ended up. You see, I was mainly focused on the hot chicks.

There's another wlw event I go to, to which a guy regularly shows up and we've chatted a few times. He usually wears what you'd conventionally call "women's clothes" but does not present as a woman. I know he uses he/him pronouns at present, (I asked) though he implied there was some possibility that might change. I don't know if he's a regular because he's a friend of the host or if he's a friend of the host because he's a regular. I don't know if something about the wlw label speaks to him on some personal level or if it's about queer solidarity, or if he's like the encouraging lesbian at the bi meetups. Whatever the reason, he's just there.

And aside from the fact that we have similar taste in hats, his presence in ye olde sapphic space also makes me feel more safe, for much the same reason the presence of a woman I know is trans does. I'm afraid it's selfish. Because if everyone's being cool about him, or about her, I can be pretty confident no one who finds out that I, too, disrupt binaries just by existing, is going to decide to ruin the evening over it. Because, you know, that has happened to me.

Now like I say, Actual Men in women's spaces aren't the reason trans women belong in women's spaces. But Actual Men entering women's spaces and not thereby ruining them forever do illustrate the utter pointlessness of thinking of women's spaces as these high-walled fortresses to begin with. Spaces for [a type of person] can exist, and still be porous. In fact, to be healthy and functional, they have to be.

[badbatchenthusiast]

a little realisation i came to today, about living with and coming to terms with having a hidden disability, especially neurodiversity, trauma and/or mental illness:

for the last six months, i have struggled quite a lot. it’s a high-stress time in my life where everything i do counts towards major life decisions, and the main message i’m hearing from the people around me is that i need to give it my all, work as hard as possible, or i’ll regret the opportunities i’ve missed.

needless to say, i haven’t been sleeping particularly well. i’ll go to lessons and then work a 4 hour shift on two, maybe three hours sleep. i’ve been so anxious that knowing i believe i’ll be exhausted the next morning no matter how much i sleep, and the 9hrs i’m set to get by sleeping early won’t be enough still (because life is inherently overwhelming and overstimulating as an autistic person). this makes me stressed about how i’m not sleeping until it’s five in the morning and i can finally relax enough to doze. everything is being impacted; my attendance has been slipping, my tutor is involved. it’s felt like i’ve been getting worse and not better, like life is going to continue going downhill until things i used to find easy — falling asleep, organising my own schedule, keeping my studies balanced with work and a social life — are things i’m finding almost impossible and are taking great effort to maintain at a reasonable standard.

but here’s the thing.

i’m not getting worse.

it feels like i am, because new problems are arising that weren’t there before, but someone i owe a lot to pointed out today that a year or two ago, i would not have been able to express myself. they wouldn’t register as problem areas, i’d just push myself into collapse. i would’ve worked myself into a meltdown instead of walking to the support office and informing them i needed to go home, would’ve been in verbal shutdown or unresponsive or having a panic attack instead of being able to stim and breathe through the overwhelm. today i made a calculated decision, of leaving early instead of sticking out for the rest of the day and probably exhausting myself enough to not be in tomorrow or the day after. and that’s huge.

my autism isn’t ‘improving’ despite me having less of the massive meltdowns or shutdowns that got me diagnosed in the first place. i’m probably more visibly autistic than i’ve ever been. my anxiety hasn’t lessened despite no longer having regular panic attacks.

but i’m catching it earlier. i can identify what’s going on with me before it becomes a crisis, and i’m starting to have the skills to run interventions.

when people say progress isn’t linear, i think this is part of it. i’m not getting worse, i can just see the problem now and put a name to it. the analogy that came to mind was a building, which before i could only tell was fragile when it caved in, is now having the work put it to rebuild properly. but before you can have a nice foundation and solid walls there’ll be a lot of looking around, and realising the concrete is cracked to shit and nothing is reinforced and those spots you never paid attention to are in fact black mould which are eating at your walls. and these are realisations i was not having before because i didn’t know, i didn’t have the tools or the understanding to make sense of it.

my floors are no longer collapsing on me at random. it’s instead a constant series of little things, because i can tell when a pipes burst and deal with it before it floods everything and rots the floors. but this awareness brings with it the feeling that something is wrong all the time. that there are constant little fires to snuff — that things are getting worse, not better. that yes i know how to stop a broken pipe from leaking now but it doesn’t change the situation, which is that the entire system needs swapping out for less rusting parts. it’s easy to get lost in all of this and forget that actually, before, this would’ve been a build up to a crisis and now it’s something i can deal with before it snowballs.

learning to cope and accommodate myself after being told my entire life that i am going to be impressive, that i’m capable of being high achieving in anything i put my mind to, has been rough. i was never going to succeed at the life other people talked about for me; i’m simply not able to work that hard without hurting myself, and honestly i think few people are even without a disability. i don’t want to live life for other people, i want to build something im proud of, for me, designed to make me feel good and comfortable and succeed in a way that makes sense for my ambitions and needs. and both are important; success isn’t out of the picture, i just need to rethink it so it includes being happy and coping with what i find difficult. i won’t lie, it has been a process of mourning someone who never existed, who i never could’ve been. i still resent sometimes the fact that i can’t go back to masking so much no one notices my symptoms.

but i’m improving. steadily and tangibly. it takes work, and at some point it’ll definitely feel like leaving the unstable building in place was preferable to the deconstruction because recreating it all with a healthy and sturdy foundation seems impossible, but it just takes time. you replace one brick at a time.

it gets better, i promise, even if it’s hard to believe. any step forward is progress, no matter how small, until you look back and realise you’ve come an unimaginably long way forward.

#personal #being autistic #autistic student #autistic #actually autistic #actually neurodivergent #this has been a little personal epiphany i wanted to share #and put out there so i could come back to #progress isn’t linear #but i promise it is progress

[anawkwardlady]

Hiiii, this is the anon from 2 weeks ago who said trans girl tohya would fix so many issues in umineko but couldn't talk about it because my wrist hurt turn out my wrist hurting was going to last a lot longer than expected, but it's better now :3, so :

There are a few issues that I have with umineko: 1)Ikuko and Tohya are not properly utilised - ikuko is a mouthpiece for the author and tohya's characterisation is hard to parse- the only reason I'm so attached to them as a duo is due to the fic 'Coracle' by Ncfan 2)The exploration of class a bit poor- sure we see how Kanon and Shannon suffer but in their happy alternate timeline, where Lion exists, the issue is not framed as one of class divide and wealth, but rather the family's lack fo acceptance of Sayo (which is also a problem but it wouldn't have fixed everything if they did accept her). TLDR Berkastel was right actually, the existence of the ushiromia family is inherently evil, as it is a microcosm of class oppression 3)there was an opportunity for an exploration of queer community, and finding acceptance outside of family had Tohya been made a trans girl due to Tohya being so separate from the family - I understand why that opportunity wasn't taken, Rhykishi is a cishet guy who probably didn't know much about queerness at the time of writing, and I'm glad that Ciconia is doing what umineko didn't, but I'm still mildly disappointed on that front 4) the wedding in episode 6- no I will not elaborate (lie)

I do have a couple more issues of course, but those aren't relevant rn, why? Because these three (four) problems I believe could be fixed with the inclusion of trans girl tohya How? Combine Ikuko and Tohya into one character (not in the sayo way, but in a 'sometimes you have to kill your darlings" writing advice way) and make this new character poor. Let me explain or rather, let me paint you a picture

You, Ange, sit in the living room of the author you have been looking for. It's small, you note, not a sprawling study filled with books like you imagined, and all the decor is rather cheap. The woman in front of you claims to be 30, but she looks older, you notice white roots at the top of her scalp, her hair looking hastily dyed black to hide said fact, and her skin beginning to wrinkle, her voice nasally and rough, perhaps she's a smoker? Despite all this, she guides you into the small room with grand movements- probably trying to come across as worldly, but there is an air of performativity to it, and rather than dignified she comes across as a bit dorky.

At one point say you've heard that the author was a man so you're you're surprised to have to have found her instead. She actually fidgets and tells you that a friend of hers is the one who handles the public side of this, she always wrote for the sake of it and had little care for the sudden surge of attention she has received recently.

Your lip curls at the phrasing "So you write about someone else's dead family 'for the sake of it'". The woman leans back in her chair, she repeats that she had never expected to gain the attention that she did, let alone for it to catch the eye from a member of the family itself, considering what an eyesore someone like her must be to someone of your status.

it should have come across as scornful, but rather she levels you with a knowing look. Instead of judgement you feel understood in a way you don't wish to be.

You divert your eyes.

Listen, what I want for this reimagined version of tohya to be a worst-case scenario. Without being picked up by a rich benefactor, post-incident Tohya would probably become homeless due to lacking any credentials and not even knowing their own name. That would most likely lead to their first few years of life as tohya to be rather rough, but it would have exposed them to other unwanted folk perhaps even leading them to discover the queer scene of the time Badabing bada-boom, tohya realises she's a girl

over the span of several years

and probably making it even more difficult than it already was

The only reason the Tohya Ange mets even has a modicum of financial stability is because of the community she found.

This all is important to me because of two reasons: 1) trans girl tohya shows that Sayo wasn't doomed 2) it showcases the consequences of separating oneself from an abusive family- primarily the financial consequences - I SAY THIS AS SOMEONE WHO HAS EXPERIENCE HELPING SOMEONE ESCAPE FINANCIAL ABUSE THAT SHIT SUCKS- IT WAS A YEAR LONG PAPERWORK NIGHTMARE TO GET THEM BENEFITS AND SOCIAL HOUSING- LIKE COME ON RYUKISHI YOU WERE A SOCIAL WORKER YOU COULD INCORPORATED IT INTO YOUR STORY, anyway 3) the woman that ange meets being post transition battler would not only tie into the themes of the story ("without love it can't be seen" ange can't recognise who tohya is without coming to terms with what that means) 4) (yeah these points just keep going) tohya would probably come across as a little less irresponsible than in canon. Unlike in canon were tohya only makes contact with ange decades later, this version of tohya does make an appearance once ange seeks her out (perhaps even the whole having a bunch of pen names with different clues leading to her even being intentionally placed for ange). But once she realises that ange does not recognise her and their first meeting not going all that well, tohya might decide that it's for the best - it would echo Sayo's story and in turn make it easier to emphasise with tohya's circumstances 5) also I just think it would just make certain scenes more fun? for me at least. Like I think ange respects ikuko in canon a bit too much. I imagine in this version ange would catch on that trans girl tohya is a dork and think that would lead to some that lead to some interesting banter- the sort of banter that leans uncomfortably close to sibling banter

That would mean that would also change ange's dynamic with featherine. I like to imagine ange being a bit more casual with featherine, perhaps even bullying her a bit for that dress (seriously what is up with that dress), and everyone else being weirded out that featherine doesn't just outright smite her for it

also, episode 6's wedding being battler and erika. Listen, I'm just mad that ryukishi just threw a rape metaphor and never elaborated- that stupid rape metaphor lives in my head and I think it's about time to charge it rent. Felix from Jokrono positied that that scene is there to reflect Ikoku's feeling on how a romance between her and tohya is doomed to never blossom, but personally I feel that's a stretch due to how Ikuko's feelings are never explored in the story and I don't think ryukishi was about to start doing so with the wedding scene as he never elaborated on it.

In my version of the narrative the wedding scene, it could signify tohya's guilt for her inability to be beatrice's groom, to be her prince. ("I mean in canon one of the chester sister's says that battler is more of a bride than a groom, come on ryukishi it was right there!!!) being wedded to erika could signify the fear of staying a man, and the wedding between battler and Beatrice signifies embracing trans lesbianism baby!

Ok I am simplifying it a bit- I honestly don't know what to do with the wedding even in this context, at least not without changing it rather drastically, but I need to get it out there or else this thing is going to stay in my brain. There's nothing wrong with having a rape metaphor in the wedding scene btw especially with a story that focuses on sexual violence like umineko I just wish it effected battler's or tohya's character you know?

And on a final note, tohya in this version wears a short white jean jacket with rolled sleeves with a knee-long black dress and short black hair cut just above the shoulders (aka just a better version of Ikuko's outfit from canon), and once ange and tohya meet again decades later once ange too has become an author, the colours of her outfit have inverted since her hair has gone fully white by then. i would send you a pic of the outfit but I can't find any pictures that match on google so I'd need to draw it- which I might do later

Okay so lets take it from the top lol 1) I usually don't focus much on these characters so I don't have a strong opinion on that, but maybe its in itself a proof of what you're saying here lol. 2) For the class part I don't exactly agree, I think the fact that the servants despite being here for so long are being targeted and distrusted needlessly + sayo being a victim of child labor and being forbidden to be too close to Jessica WHILE going to school with her, being a parallel of her having a normal childhood does say something about the class element. I get where you're going tho and yes, it could have been more developed on that part. 3) Well, but I'd rather something like this on the queerness part than if it tried to bit more than they could chew (and then become really clumsy in the message). I think it treats the subject with enough compassion and respect, thats all I wait for tbh. But I'm also not the right person to elaborate on the trans identity part. (and idk anything about Ciconia but glad its elaborating in the subject).

With all of that said, I do think your idea of Tohya being trans is smart and interesting, combining to characters in one and changing a bit the dynamics with Ange, and its true it would balance things out with Sayo, it holds water and all. The financial part I think was more to make everything easier (having time, opportunities and so on without putting more hours of explaining how its possible). (also that design sounds really cool!)

For the wedding scene and the rape metaphor : in some ways I feel like it was a good adding and in some ways i do not. I understand how it can feel out of place and I agree with you with the lack of following on all of that. I think its being taken as a "what happens in a game stays in the game" but... yeah. I personally just saw it as an illustration of how to feels to force a narrative and a truth without consideration, as a continuity of what happened in EP5 with the character assassination of Natsuhi (which btw, did give me that kind of ick too even if its not the same thing or situation). But for why Tohya made that specific choice I couldn't say for sure. With that said, I can't deny how impactful and chilling that scene was, it think it was extremely well done, but its too bad it was so consequence free :/ (i actually heard other criticism on that scene but more in comparison with how rape was treated in ep7 it was really good I wish I could find it again anyway).

#answered #umineko spoilers #tw rape

[alpaca-clouds]

What an actually just system would look like

Okay, with me ranting about the entire justice system the entire week, let me talk about what we can do to actually create a safe and just society.

Because as I have established over the last few days: No, I do not thin that police and prison or punitive justice in general is not the way to go.

The first thing you have to understand is how poverty and crime are related. Outside of white collar crime, poor people are more likely to commit crime. But not because someone who is poor has some inherent trait that makes them more violent or something, but because poverty creates a environment that makes for crimes to happen.

Best example is of course stealing. Most people who steal steal, because they do not have the money to afford what they are stealing any other way. Now, I know people will often have a lot more understanding for people stealing food, than for stuff like electronics, but I gotta ask you: Does someone who is poor not deserve some escapism through games and the like? Saying they do not deserve it is classism as well.

So, yeah, if you are poor, you will be more likely to steal.

Also, if you are poor and struggle to get a normal job that pays enough and the like, you will also be more likely to get drawn into organized crime to make ends meet and with that are also more likely to be drawn into the associated cycles of violence.

Also, also, there is the fact that people who struggle with poverty usually have more mental health struggles, which are also predictors of people either getting involved with drugs and drug crime - or with violence against themselves or others.

And lastly, people who lack money, often stay in unsafe familiar situation with abusive partners or abusive parents, which obviously makes it more likely that the people end up victims of crimes through their abusers.

So, to make it very simple: One thing to fight crime would be, to just fight poverty. Which under the current capitalist system would be easiest if we gave out enough UBI to finance people's life. On a long scale obviously an alternative to capitalism is needed, but for now UBI would help a ton.

As it might be obviously from what I already wrote: Bad mental health also increases the likelihood of someone to end up criminal. So, having a better mental health care system would already be helpful.

But at this point the police problem comes in, too. In a lot of cases of police violence there is not only racism playing into it, but also the police not knowing how to deal with mental breakdowns. So, instead of police, they should send out someone who is able to deal with those situations. Specialists and the like. That should be possible, right?

Now, of course, there is the kinds of violence that are not necessarily connected to poverty. Because there is also a lot of violence connected to sexism, racism, queermisia and ableism. People thinking they can enact violence onto a certain group because they have learned and internalized that this group of people are worth less than them. This is the most complicated thing to deal with. For one, it is often the type of crime that already gets underreported and that the police often doesn't give a flying fuck about.

But a big thing to start is to actually make sure people are better integrated and that kids learn about diversity early on, learn that people are all people.

Something people have to realize is, that police does ot prevent crimes. The police just "solve" some crimes. (Please keep in mind: Even with murders, the world is not true crime, where there are complicated murders to solve. Most murderers will actually easily confess, often being the ones calling the police.) More than that: The police often also refuses to take up complaints if they know that the crime is unlikely to be solved. Which is why a lot of reported rapes never got taken up by the police.

Now, to the problem of prisons. People always think that someone who commited a crime needs to be punished. But I gotta ask you: Why? It does not make the original crime undone.

Instead we do know that actually the current prison system makes it very likely that people will end up criminal again. Why? Well, for one, if you have been in prison, in most countries you are very unlikely to get reemployed - so go into poverty. Also, through prison, folks are super likely to be drawn into organized crime once again. So... Yeah, that ain't working, is it?

So... I really think prisons are bad. There have to be alternatives to it. Like good therapy and such.

Just... The entire current system is build around ideas profenly wrong. So... it is just unscientific to keep it around, if you ask me.

#solarpunk #justice system #punishment is not justice #acab #fuck the police #universal basic income #ubi #anarchism