#this was supposed to be like a paragraph

[joyaphoria]

when i tell you that bokuto is impatient, i mean he is impatient. you'll be at your mutual friends' birthday party, and he'll come up to you and tug at your sleeve, telling your friends that he needs to borrow you for a second. you'll shrug at them and follow him, only to yelp when he yanks you into the bathroom and pins you against the door, locking it right after. you'll gasp when you feel the full weight of his body press against into yours, as he seems to melt into every curve and crevice. you'll have your hands against his chest, trying to push him off, to warn him that someone might hear, but your whimpers fall on deaf ears. he'll hold your wrists, nuzzling his nose against your ear, pleading with you to touch him.

'need you so badly, baby,' he'll groan, rutting his hips against yours. you'll gasp and move your hands to squeeze his shoulders once you feel his erection pressing against your clit ever so forcefully, unsure of whether you're now pulling him in or pushing him off. ‘take ‘em off,’ he’ll whimper, clawing at your shirt desperately, ‘please, baby.’ in a swift motion his fingers are unbuttoning your jeans as his lips begin an assault on your neck, leaving bruises for days, though they're simply overlapping the ones he left last night. you'll cry out once he slips a thick finger into the heat of your cunt, his other hand fumbling at his own jeans to undo the zipper.

'b-bo, please,' you'll moan, as he pushes in with a second finger, reaching up and curving forward, his thumb pressing over your clit. he'll pull his cock out, spreading his precum all over himself as he ruts into his hand. you'll gasp when he pulls his fingers out of you, only to yank your panties all the way down to your knees, and push into you in one motion. you'll bite into your hand to stifle a scream, as bo hooks one arm under your knee, lifting it up to allow him to press deeper, to fill you up with his thick, pulsing cock. you'll rise onto your tippy toes on your other foot, then rush forward to tackle his lips in a bruising kiss. he'll lose his balance and fall down — you following soon after — and you'll thank the heavens that the bathroom was spacey, and that he managed to miss hitting his head against the toilet bowl by about two inches. you'll jump on his cock desperately, nails digging into the skin of his tummy, before leaning down again to fuck his mouth with your own. he'll groan so desperately, so painfully, before flipping you over and pressing one of your legs upwards, thigh against your stomach, rutting into you ruthlessly.

its messy and so, so dirty, the two of you dancing across the bathroom floor, your arms flailing as you search for something to anchor yourself to. you'll gasp and muffle a scream when you feel teeth bite on your nipple, not even realizing that somewhere along the way, your shirt was torn right down the middle. eventually he'll bury his face in your tits and angle his hips upwards, as they seem to tremble and stutter almost painfully. his fat cock will shake violently inside of you as he comes, hard. you'll feel some of his cum try to squeeze out, clearly impossible since you're so tightly suctioned onto him, his cock being the very thing that molded your sweet pussy.

then he'll open his eyes and watch you for a sweet moment, before continuing his assault, his hips slamming straight into you. you're once again being pushed up the bathroom floor, your back sliding as you pull him against you and scream into his neck, wrapping your legs around him. he'll pick you up and sit back on his heels, yanking your hips down to meet his every thrust. when you feel your climax approaching, you'll grab the back on his head and shove it onto your breast, and needing no further indicator, he'll latch onto your nipple and bite, pulling and kneading as you bite into the plush skin between his neck and shoulder, shaking and trembling as it hits you, back arching and thighs squeezing.

everyone avoids eye contact once you two finally find your way out of the bathroom, and bokuto simply takes it as an invitation to drag you to the car and back home, where he plans to pump some more of his cum into his babies little pussy.

#—joylovesyou #—joysministuffs #mdni #this was supposed to be like a paragraph #sorry #haikyuu #haikyuu smut #hq #hq smut #haikyuu x reader smut #hq x reader smut #bokuto koutaro #bokuto smut #bokuto x reader #bokuto x reader smut #bokuto #bokuto kotarou

[cinnnamongrl]

just had disgusting filthy thoughts about ellie showing you off to loser!abby who’s never been with a girl before (mutuals look away i’m shy)

ellie having you spread open on the bed, vibrator held against your clit as you squirm, unable to move far with your feet tied down.

“y’hear those pretty little sounds she’s making?”. abby nodded. “‘s cause she’s gettin’ close again” it was true, you were approaching your third orgasm of the night, desperate to come yet overstimulated all at the same time. abby nodded again, face red and boxers soaked through. “look at her little pussy clenching around nothing” ellie told her “desperate to be filled, poor thing.” abby cleared her throat “are you gonna…?”

ellie shook her head. “gotta make her wait for it. makes her so fucking needy” you huffed from the other end of the bed, tears filling your eyes at your desperation “‘s too much ellie. please” abby looked to ellie, slight concern on her face but ellie just turned back to the pretty display she’d created “dumb little thing’s just being pathetic. she’s gonna come again soon”. your head felt more fucked than ever before. the combination of another orgasm approaching and your girlfriend talking to abby about you like you weren’t even there was making your mind fall deeper into a submissive fuzzy mess.

“you wanna touch?” ellie asked and abby’s eyes widened. “‘s ok. she’d like that. wouldn’t you, pretty girl? you nodded fervently “please. touch me abby” abby almost wanted to pinch herself, convinced she was having some kind of hyper-realistic wet dream. she reached out hesitantly. “so fucking wet isn’t she? i think she likes being spread out for us like this” abby managed to breathe out a small “yeah” and she brought a thick finger to your dripping hole. “jus fill her up, nice and slow” ellie told her and you moaned loud as abby followed her instructions.

“s-so tight” abby mumbled as you tried to relax, the stimulation on your clit making it almost impossible not to clench down. “always is,” ellie mused “no matter how many times i fuck her pretty little pussy.” abby groaned at the feeling of you stretched around her and ellie’s dirty words. “now move your fingers properly and make her cum”

#this was supposed to be like 1 paragraph lol #i’m writing college!ellie i promise but this came to me via h-word brain postal service and i had to share #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams smut #abby anderson smut #abby anderson x reader #ellabs x reader #ellabs x reader smut #abby x ellie x reader #ellie x abby x reader #slutty thoughts🩷🍓

[luvrxbunny]

i think Miguel would get turned on by little things. like little details that someone would normally overlook or have no reaction to

so what made me think of this is specifically when girls say to guys that they’re gonna like— “fuck the life outta him” because technically it’s the guy doing the fucking but i think the tiny bit of role reversal would haunt his mind. he’s distracted for the rest of the day. his boner that he acquired when you said that never goes away

also if omg— i think this is just gonna turn into Miguel secretly wanting to be dominated (or just generally wanting to be treated how he treats others in a relationship) so hold on tight

if you’re passing him in the kitchen or something and— AHAHAAAA okay wait

so Miguel is chopping something in the kitchen but you need to get past him for the fridge or something. so he’s chop chop chopping and you scoot by, resting your hands on his hips to lean him forward a bit with a small “sorry, baby.” as you scooch by. you’d just hear his chopping stop and he’s getting hard already. you have about 30mins before he’s fed up and comes to u begging.

AND IF U DEFEND HIM??? omg he loses his shit. like falling into subspace no matter where u guys are— maybe not fully under but man is slipping.

let’s say you’re at a bar w Miguel and you go to the bathroom for two seconds. a girl approaches him all like “wanna buy me a drink, handsome?” and he’s like “oh! i’m flattered but i have a girlfriend!! so…” she’s like scoff scoff!! “she doesn’t need to know” wink wink and that irks him. it’s rude to his character and it’s rude to u. “i would never do that to her” he’s done w the convo so he turns back to the tv behind the bar, opting to watch whatever is happening there rather than the bitch beside him. but she’s still yapping! “what?? babe.. this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for u!! u can’t bend your rules just a little? *batting her ugly lashes* for me..?”

he just straight up rolls his eyes at her. she looks nothing like you so— “you are far from what i’d consider beautiful” he doesn’t even turn to her as he says it— he’s done w the conversation! but this bitch starts throwing a fit. “you’re a piece of shit loser okay?? you don’t know shit about beauty!! have u looked in the mirror honey?? looking like a fucking meatball is not in style alright?? i was doing you a fucking—“ she’s going on and on. some of her comments are starting to actually hurt Miguel’s feelings a bit (w his body issues and all) he’s about to just get up and wait by the girls bathroom for you but he’s scared to be seen as a creep. he feels dread sleeping in. he doesn’t know how long he’ll have to endure this before you come back and you both can just leave. “you’re an ugly 👏🏻 mother 👏🏻 fuck👏🏻er okay sweetheart?? you—“

“i’m sorry. did you call my boyfriend sweetheart?” relief floods through him at the sound of your voice. his head whips to see you, you have a playful smile on your face— but he knows the anger hidden behind it. it sends a little shock of excitement through his body. the woman’s eyes are wide as she stares at you, like she didn’t believe him when he said he had a girlfriend. “i— sis, listen”

you cut her off “i’m definitely not your sister. go on.” she pauses for a bit— shocked at your coldness before continuing. “girl to girl. you can do so much better, okay? your man— although “loyal” he is—“ you cut her off with a genuine laugh at he way she put quotations around the word ‘loyal’. “baby? finish your drink, okay? we’re leaving soon.” you look right past the girl, barely acknowledging her presence. Miguel nods frantically and downs the rest of his beer as you turn back to the girl.

“look. he’s my boyfriend. my man. i don’t care what you have to say. i don’t care what you say he did but i bet you i can guess the entire scenario” you have a confident, almost smug look on your face that has a fire burning in Miguel’s stomach. “you.” you pause to look her up and down with a weakly suppressed laugh. “tried to get at him… and then threw a hissy fit when he rejected you.. right?” she’s obviously embarrassed, staring at her shoes with an angry look. “well he said that i was ugly.”

you’re grabbing your purse from the chair behind her as she whispers that last part. you can barely make out what it says but you’re not even surprised. “and?” is all you say before walking out with Miguel.

in the cab he’s silent, worried that you’re upset until you speak up. “sorry if i was a hit mean back there.” you laugh a bit embarrassed. you go on to say that you know you shouldn’t have been rude, that people should spread positivity and more but he has to cut you off

“that was so hot, baby.” you take in his obviously disheveled, incredibly aroused state and give him a smirk. “yeah?”

you end up jerking him off in the back of the uber 🤪

he’s super whiny, whimpering, and will not stop begging for more

when u guys get married he gets really into choking u cus it shows off his wedding band

omf you’d do something nice for him while he’s sick— like make him soup or something and he’ll get hard

“you- you made this.. for me?” you’re baffled. “yes..? Miguel you’re sick remember? oh god this is way worse than i thought… do you know where you are, baby?” he laughs. “i know where i am! i just— that’s so- that’s so sweet, baby.” you shake your head and give him a spoonful, feeding him like he’s a baby. you’re focused on his mouth, subconsciously making silly faces as you pour the soup into his mouth. he’s watching you the whole time.

after that spoonful you go for another but he takes the bowl and places it on the nightstand. “wha— you don’t like it?” he smiles and shakes his head at your immediate doubt. “i love it, baby” is all he says as he pulls you into his lap, pressing his dick into you and begging you to ride him for all he’s worth

#i need to control how much i write 😭 #this was supposed to be a little like #one paragraph each #now look #tsk tsk tsk #miguel o'hara #miguel imagine #miguel ohara #miguel x reader #miguel spiderman #miguel smut #miguel 2099 #miguel o hara #atsv miguel #miguel spiderverse #miguel o’hara smut #miguel x you #miguel x y/n #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel o’hara x y/n #miguel o’hara x you #miguel o’hara fanfiction #miguel o’hara imagine #miguel o’hara fic #miguel o’hara fluff #miguel o’hara headcanon #spiderman 2099 miguel o'hara #2099 #sm 2099 #spiderman 2099

[strangersteddierthings]

Childhood friends AU Idea

Steve and Eddie are best friends who make plans to learn the elvish alphabet from The Hobbit so that they can pass notes without worrying about other people reading them.

The end of the school year (Eddie in 6th, Steve in 5th) brings a sadness to the two. Eddie's going to middle school and Steve's not yet, but they can hang out on weekends, and they have all summer so no worries. (Also, it gives Steve a little more time to learn elvish, since it'll be a whole year until they're in the same school again.)

Except yes worries because two weeks into summer, Eddie vanishes. When Steve bikes to his house to investigate, the whole house is empty. Packed up and gone. Steve goes to Wayne for answer and all he gets is a smile that doesn't really reassure and words of "his dad got a job opportunity, had to move on short notice. But don't worry, kiddo. I'll get you the number to their new place so you can call."

He learns elvish anyway. It's harder without Eddie to help but he's determined. Eddie might return, or maybe he'll get an address one day. Send a letter to Eddie in full Elvish.

Steve never gets a number or address. Summer ends and sixth grade comes. He doesn't want to forget all the elvish he's learned, just in case. So, he decides to keep a journal. He can write all about everything that's happening and when he sees Eddie, he can give it to him. It's a double win. Eddie will know everything he's missed out on AND it'll help Steve practice elvish.

Sixth grade ends. Eddie doesn't return. Steve did make friends with Carol Perkins though, so he's not as lonely. He hopes Eddie made a new friend, too. But not a new best friend. That's Steve's position, always.

Seventh grade brings Tommy Hagan, but still no Eddie. It brings a growth spurt and sports. Steve likes the easy camaraderie that comes with sports teams. It's like having a lot of friends, which Steve will only admit to needing in his journal. Needing many little connections of friendship to hold together the big hole Eddie left behind.

The summer between seventh and eighth grade brings him a Bruce Springsteen concert. He'd never thought of a boy kissing another boy until he'd witnessed it on stage but he thinks about it a lot after. The end of that summer brings an awaken he refuses to shy away from even if he has to hide it

Eighth grade brings popularity. Steve's good looking, rich, and liked among his peers. It brings the first (and last) time his dad says he's proud of him.

(Steve will spend the rest of his high school career chasing his father's approval.)

Freshman year brings Eddie back, but he's different. His hair is longer and his clothes are darker and he's distant. Defiant and angry. Steve would recognize him anywhere, dressed in anyway.

Eddie doesn't want his friendship anymore. Avoids him in the halls and cafeteria, but Steve is nothing if not persistent. He writes a full letter in elvish to slip into Eddie's locker, but Eddie catches him. Shoves the letter back, unopened, unread, with a harsh whispered, "Don't you get it Harrington? I don't want to be your friend. Fuck off."

Steve doesn't understand why. Not until the table top rants start. Conformity and jocks and brain-dead rich kids who get by on favoritism.

It hurts. Steve feels his heart break the day he finally gets the not-so-subtle messages drilled into his mind. Eddie hates sports, and rich people, and stupid people. Eddie hates all the things that Steve is.

Eddie hates him.

Sophomore year brings Steve a lot of things. It brings the acknowledgment that he was probably in love with Eddie, the way his heart twists the day he sees Eddie flirting with a girl in the hallway, the way he wants the lights out when hooking up with someone so he can imagine a different person pressed against him, the way he gravitates towards brunettes with brown eyes and the flickering hope it might make Eddie jealous. (The way he'd said the wrong name when Brent went down on him, too absorbed in the fantasy of someone else to get it right. Brent hadn't been offended by it, he'd been thinking of someone else, too. Steve finds solidarity for a little bit, until the school year ends and Brent leaves Hawkins.)

Junior year turns Steve's life upside down (pun intended) with monster's coming out of walls. There's probably a lot more he should write about but his journal's pretty empty this year. Too traumatized to document. (Too afraid of what Eddie would say because Steve still writes in his journal like he plans on sending it to Eddie one day. Better to write nothing than sound crazy.)

And halfway through his senior year (don't think about how he's in it with Eddie, about the 4 classes they share, about how Eddie still won't meet his eye) he wants to fade into the background. Nancy and he break up. She's with Jonathan and he hears the whispers of how pathetic he is to be eating lunch with his ex and the guy that 'stole' her. Steve knows that's a lie, Nancy made her choice, and no one can say otherwise, but it hurts to hear. He can't be bothered to try and make new friends. How would he explain the nightmares? The skittishness. The fear of the dark, of pumpkin patches, of his own damn pool now that he's had time to process last year?

Then, the next year brings him Robin. Well. First it brings him an embarrassing uniform and then Russian torture (don't think about it. Don't think about how he'll shorthand the stock list by writing it in Elvish sometimes. Don't think about how the Russian's almost believe they just work for Scoops until they find the stock list in his pocket. Don't think about how they don't believe that the strange script they can't identify isn't proof he's a spy), but in the end he gets Robin. A Platonic Soulmate who understands the hidden side of him. She asked if he was ever in love, and he thinks of the Eddie he used to know, longs to know again, and describes her instead. She rejects him in the softest way possible and then confesses about Tammy, and he confesses about Eddie in turn.

1986 brings Eddie back into his life in the worst way possible. With a bottle to his neck and them both acting like they've never spoken before. It brings twisting guts as Steve lies awake thinking about Eddie alone in a boathouse instead of sharing a bed with him like they used to in elementary school. It brings Steve leading them to Skull Rock (popularized as a make out spot but started as a set of boys' favorite place to play pirates during the summer). Dustin and Eddie make references Steve pretends to not know, despite his own copies of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and the numerous amounts of notebooks turned journals with elvish scrawled throughout.

There's a trek through the Upside Down. In another universe, Steve imagines he and Eddie talk. In this one, Robin sticks to his side like an extension of him (which she is), and glares at Eddie every time he looks in Steve's direction. Robin knows everything, knows it all, because there are no secrets between them.

They make plans to stop Vecna, once and for all, and Robin confesses she has a fear. That it won't turn out okay this time, but they have to try anyway. Steve clinks his bottle against hers and looks across the field to Eddie and Dustin. The stakes feel so much higher this time.

"I'm going to talk to Eddie if we survive. Make it right," he says.

"No. He's going to make it right because you didn't do anything wrong," Robin says, which is more support than he thought he'd get given the grudge she holds in his favor.

Eddie said make him pay and Steve does. Nancy advances, shotgun shot after shot and Steve's bounding down the stairs. Vecna beats him to the ground floor but not by much.

A hatchet's not the best tool to remove a head with but he manages. When he looks up, Nancy and Robin are looking down, both approving.

They find Dustin sobbing over Eddie and- and-

Steve's certain he's broken several of Eddie's ribs but he's breathing again, Nancy finds his pulse beneath all the blood, and Robin's retrieved the cut sheets to make bandages out of. Nothing is clean in this world, infection could kill him later, he might not save Eddie like he wants, but fucking Christ, at least if death claims him, it'll be on the right side of the world in a hospital.

Dustin, Robin, and Steve are at Eddie's side when Nancy leads Wayne into the room. They knew she went out looking for him (Steve was going to but Nancy had shoved him back in the chair with a look that left no room for argument) but even so they're startled by him.

Wayne has always been stoic and reserved, so it's no surprise to Steve when he just lets out a low whistle and says, "of all the people I might see here, you weren't one of 'em."

Steve swallows thickly and says, "well. I am. Here, I mean."

And Wayne gives him a watery smile and crosses the room. Pulls Steve into a hug that Steve thinks he probably wants to give to Eddie instead, but Eddie's not awake and standing and Steve is. But then Wayne says, "I told Eddie he couldn' chase ya away. That if he just talked to ya, you'd understand. He tried so hard to make ya hate him, and for what? For ya to be at his bedside anyway."

And Steve sobs. Loud and ugly and suddenly Dustin's there, and so are Robin and Nancy, and it's probably the most awkward hug for all the others but it's the best hug Steve's had in years. He doesn't even care that he's crying because how can he? Wayne's all but confirmed that Eddie doesn't hate him, maybe never hated him. That Eddie has an explanation, a reason for it all, and all he wants is Eddie to wake up and tell him.

Steve finally gets his apology two days after Eddie's release. It's the first time they've been alone together since- well, since elementary school. Wayne drove him here then lied about needing to check on something and said he'd be back in an hour or so before abandoned them to the awkward silence in Steve's living room.

"I'm sorry, Steve!" Eddie blurts out loudly, then looks startled by his own yelling.

"I know. I forgive you."

"You shouldn't."

"I know. Still do anyway. Would like to know what happened, though."

And Eddie tells him. How his father's debts came calling and they ran. How his mom got sick real fast, and his father's crime spree and prison sentence following her passing. How Eddie discovered the same thing about himself that Steve did but didn't have the same acceptance of himself. Hated that another thing marked him as Other. Freak.

He tells Steve how he couldn't let Steve back in because he was afraid of losing him again if he ever learned.

"I didn't think you'd be okay being friends with a faggot," Eddie spits the word out, dirty and mean and directed at himself.

Steve makes a decision then. "Follow me." And he helps Eddie up the stairs and into his room. Eddie sits on the bed and watches as Steve digs out notebook after notebook after notebook, until they're a tower on his bed. Then he topples them over in his search for the first.

Eddie takes the offered notebook with confusion on his face, looking from the cover, where 1978 is written on it. The summer Eddie vanished from Steve's life.

"Open it."

Eddie does and gasps. "Steve. Is this-"

"Every single one of these notebooks was written to you. For you. About you. I read The Hobbit for you. The Lord of the Rings. I learned elvish for you. I think I've been a little bit in love with you since the day we met on the playground on my second day of first grade."

"Steve," it comes out breathless and awed.

"Eddie," Steve repeats back to him, just as breathless as Eddie tosses the notebook aside and reaches for Steve instead. Hauls him in to kiss him senseless amongst the proof of Steve's devotion.

#steddie #fic #this was supposed to be a paragraph or two #why am i like this #steve has a complicated relationship with his parents #but they arent terrible #the picture descriptions have translation for the elvish if you wanna know what Steves been writing in his journals

[comradekatara]

Your atla analysis is the best so I wanted to ask your opinion on something I've found the fandom fairly divided on - what did you think of Azula's ending within the show proper? Unnecessarily cruel or a necessary tragedy? Would you say that her mental breakdown was too conveniently brought about in order to 'nerf' her for the final agni kai? Also, do you think it was 'right' for Zuko to have fought with his sister at all or would it have been better for him to seek a more humane way to end the cycle of violence?

okay so im saying this as someone who loves azula to death like she has always been one of my absolute favorite characters ever since i was a kid and i’ve always vastly preferred her to zuko and found her to be extremely compelling and eminently sympathetic. i am saying this now before the azula stans come for me. i believe in their beliefs. but i also think her downfall is perfectly executed, and putting aside all the bullshit with the comics and whatever else, it’s a really powerful conclusion to her arc. obviously that isn’t to say that she wouldn’t continue to grow and develop in a postcanon scenario (i have a whole recovery arc for her mapped out in my head, like i do believe in her Healing Journey) but from a narrative perspective, her telos is in fact very thematically satisfying.

no, she wasn’t nerfed so that they could beat her in a fight. the fact that she falls apart is what makes them feel that they can confidently take her on (although i do think in a fair fight katara could win anyway), but the whole point is that it’s not about winning or losing in combat. the whole point is that zuko and azula being pitted against each other in this gratuitous ritual of violence as the culmination of their arcs is fundamentally tragic. yes it’s a bad decision to fight her, and zuko should have chosen another path, but the whole point is that he’s flawed and can only subscribe to the logic he has spent his whole life internalizing through violence and abuse.

that’s why aang’s fight against ozai, while tragic in its own way, is also a triumph for the way in which his ideals prevail in the face of genocide, while zuko and azula’s fight is very patently tragic. there is no moment of victory or triumph. even as zuko sacrifices himself in a beautiful mirroring of “the crossroads of destiny” and as katara uses the element of her people combined with techniques across other cultures to use azula’s hubris and ideology of domination against her, it’s presented as moments of personal growth occurring within a very tragic yet inevitable situation. it was inevitable because azula had always been positioned as an extension of her father, and thus to disempower ozai also means disempowering azula, his favorite site of projection, his favorite weapon.

yeah, it does rub me the wrong way when zuko asks katara whether she’d like to help him “put azula in her place.” it’s not a kind way to talk about your abused younger sister. but it’s also important to understand that zuko doesn’t really recognize his sister’s pain, despite the fact that they obviously share a father, because he’s always assumed that she was untouchable as their perfect golden child and thus never a victim. and he’s wrong. zuko and katara expect a battle of triumph and glory, noble heroes fighting valiantly so that good may prevail over evil. but as they discover here, even more so than their previous discovery two episodes prior, a battle is not a legendary event filled with bombast and beauty until after it has been historicized. often a war is simply fought between pathetic, desperate people who see no other option but to fight.

aang’s ultimate refusal to fight despite having all the power in the world is what makes him so important as the protagonist. but katara and zuko both share a more simplistic view of morality and what it means to be good. and zuko assumes that by fighting azula, he can only be punching up, because she has always been positioned as his superior, and she (in her own words!) is a “monster.” and then azula loses, and his entire worldview shatters. joking about putting her in her place makes way for the realization that behind all her posturing and lying (to herself more than anyone) and performance and cognitive dissonance, azula has always been broken, perhaps even more than he is.

azula says “im sorry it has to end this way, brother,” to which zuko replies “no you’re not.” but i think azula is truly sorry, because in her ideal world, she wouldn’t be fighting zuko. she doesn’t actually want to kill him, as much as she claims to. she’s already reached the conclusion that zuko will only truly reach once their fight is over. she lacks a support system, and she needs one, desperately. if she could somehow get her family back, do everything differently, less afraid of the consequences, she would. she’s smirking, she sounds almost facetious, but really, she is sorry. as of this moment, she really doesn’t want it to end this way. but zuko cannot accept that, because in his mind, azula is evil. azula has no soul nor feeling. azula always lies.

her breakdown doesn’t come out of nowhere, either. it’s precipitated by everyone she has ever cared about betraying her. first zuko betrays her, then mai, then ty lee, and then ozai — the person she has staked her entire identity to and to whom she has pledged her undying loyalty and obedience, become nothing more than a vessel for his whims — discards her because she had the audacity to care about someone other than him. what i don’t think zuko realizes, and perhaps will never realize, is that azula betrayed ozai by bringing zuko back home. he was not supposed to be brought back with honor and with glory. azula specifically orchestrated the fight in the catacombs to motivate him to join her, and it’s not because she’s some cruel sadistic monster who wanted to separate a poor innocent soft uwu bean from his loving uncle, it’s because she genuinely believes that she’s doing what’s best for him. she believes that their uncle is a traitor and a bad influence, and she believes that bringing zuko home with his honor “restored” is an act of love. to her it is.

yes, she claims that she was actually just manipulating him so that she wouldn’t have to take the fall if the avatar was actually alive, but also, she’s clearly just covering her own ass. she didn’t know about the spirit water, and only started improvising when zuko started showing hesitation. but even if she was only using zuko, then that was an insane risk to take, because either way she was lying directly to ozai’s face. and zuko admits it to ozai while simultaneously committing treason, so of course ozai would blame azula, his perfect golden child who tried to violate his decree by bringing zuko back home a prisoner at best and dead at worst, and instead found a way to restore his princehood with glory.

we only see ozai dismissing and discarding azula in the finale, but it’s clearly a tension that’s been bubbling since the day of black sun. and we know this because we do see azula falling apart before the finale. in “the boiling rock” she is betrayed by her only friends. in “the southern raiders” we see that this has taken a toll on her, that she is already somewhat unhinged. she and zuko tie in a one on one fight for the first time. and she takes down her hair as she uses her hairpin to secure herself against the edge of a cliff. unlike zuko, who is helped by his friends and allies, who has a support system. it’s a very precarious position; she’s literally on a cliff’s edge, alone, her hair down signifying her unraveling mental state. azula having her hair down signals to us an audience that she is in a position of vulnerability. she is able to mask this terrifying moment wherein she nearly plummets to her death with a triumphant smirk, but it should be evident to us all that her security is fragile here.

and the thing is, even though she’s always masked it with a smirk and perfect poise, her security has always been fragile. azula has never been safe. azula’s breakdown is simply the culmination of her realization that no matter how hard she tries, she will never be ozai’s perfect weapon, because she is a human being. she is a child, no less. and there is no one in her entire life who loves her for nothing. zuko has iroh, who affirms to him that he could never be angry with zuko, that all he wants is simply what is best for zuko. but azula doesn’t have unconditional support in her life. she doesn’t even have support.

everyone she ever thought she could trust has betrayed her, and so she yells that trust is for fools. because she feels like a fool. of course fear is the only way; it’s what kept her in line all these years. azula is someone who is ruled by fear, and who is broken by the recognition that fear isn’t enough. her downfall is necessarily tragic because her worldview is wrong. the imperialist logic of terror as a tool for domination is her own undoing, just as ozai’s undoing is losing the weapon he has staked his national identity to. it’s a battle of ideals. aang v ozai: pacifism v imperialism. katara and zuko v azula: love and support v fear and isolation.

zuko is unfair to azula, it’s true. he tries to fight her even as he can clearly recognize that “she’s slipping.” instead of trying to help his little sister, he uses that weakness to his advantage, tries to exploit her pain so that he can finally, for the first time ever, beat her in a fight. it’s cruel, but it’s also how siblings act. especially considering the conditions under which they were raised, and how zuko has always viewed her. and in zuko’s defense, she has tried to kill him multiple times lately, both in “the boiling rock” and in “the southern raiders.” zuko is someone who gets fixated on a goal and blocks out everything else, including recognition of his surroundings or empathy for others. so of course when he’s promised to put azula in her place he’s going to exploit her weaknesses to do so. after all, isn’t exploiting his weaknesses exactly what azula does best? so he allows himself to stoop to her level, and in fact only redeems himself through his sacrifice for katara. but it is when azula is chained to the grate and zuko and katara, leaning on each other, look down and observe the sheer extent on her pain, that zuko realizes that “putting azula in her place” isn’t actually a victory. it feels really, really bad, actually.

they’re in a similar position as they were when they faced yon rha. and now it is zuko’s turn to understand that he is not a storybook hero triumphing over evil, but rather a human being, facing another human being, in a conflict that is larger than themselves. to “put someone in their place” is to imply a logic of domination, of inherent superiority, that someone has stepped out of line and must be reordered neatly into the hierarchy. but aang disputes the notion, ozai’s notion, that humanity can be classified along these lines, that there exists an ontological superiority among some and not others. so operation: putting azula in her place was always going to be flawed, even if she was performing competency the way she always does, because they’re nonetheless subscribing to her logic.

of course they should be helping azula, of course they should be reaching out to abuse victims through support instead of more violence. but first they must recognize her victimhood. first they must come to understand that they didn’t get lucky, and they didn’t dominate her because they are more “powerful,” that they weren’t “putting her in her place.” they must understand that they are not heroes fighting villains in a glorious trial by combat. that the logic of the agni kai is flawed. that they are all victims. that they are all just scared, hurt children who are still grieving their mothers.

#update: ok i readmored it 👍🏼 #azula #analysis #zuko #katara #ozai #azula&zuko #azula&ozai #asks #malatilata #ugh azula is such a beautiful character….. i love her sm #her arc is so beautifully perfectly tragic #just thinking abt the mirror scene gets me sooo . distraught #this was supposed to be like 2 paragraphs lol #as is always the way . with me..

[steveshairychest]

Steve and Eddie first meet when Eddie pulls a very starstruck Steve up onto the stage at a Corroded Coffin concert.

Eddie had intented to wrap his arm around Steve and just do a bit of fan service, maybe kiss his cheek, but he's instead left standing there in shock as Steve snatches the microphone from him and sings the song with the most gorgeous voice he's ever heard.

His voice sounds like pure sunlight, and it's so strange to hear such a melodic voice sing the dirty lyrics of his song. But the crowd loves it. The boy is smiling and walking around the stage as if this is his own concert and not Eddie's. Eddie is prepared to just let him do the whole show, he never wants this guy to stop singing. HIs voice is amazing.

Eddie nearly drops to one knee and proposes right then and there to the golden boy in a hand-made Corroded Coffin shirt. Eddie didn't believe in love at first sight until now. He's so dumb struck he nearly forgets to take the microphone back after the song finishes. The boy smiles sheepishly and jumps back down into the crowd and is gone from Eddie's sight too quickly.

Eddie thinks he might have just fallen in love. And for real this time. He told chrissy he loved the pizza delivery guy last week but this- this is something else. He feels like he's been electrocuted

He's not surprised to find his entire Twitter feed is just hundreds of pictures of him standing there like a fool as the beautiful fan sang his song. All his fans are trying to find the mystery guy's social media, which Eddie thanks the heavens for because he didn't even get the guy's number.

#this was supposed to be like one paragraph #oh well lmao #steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #st4 vol2 #steveddie #stranger things s4

[cryptidfuckery]

Today I got to tell our waiter that yhe tattoo of a Dinosuar he has is of an anklyosaurus

#I'm drunk we were supposed to write but i think raquel is just like. finishing ome of ym paragraphs and thats about what we'll have gottwn #done #im drunk #:)

[meownotgood]

thinking about aki who's a bit of a pervert.

you find yourself over at aki's place to drink an awful lot these days. he's been inviting you, and it's not like you have any reason to say no. work has been stressful, you could use the break. it's more fun to drink with him anyways, with just him. aki is kind and thoughtful, he's reserved and he isn't like all the other guys in your department that turn into idiots the moment they've had a drop of alcohol.

no, aki is sweet. gentlemanly, you'd say. innocent, even. he told you one time that he's never had a girlfriend before.

aki's your best friend, the kind of guy someone might bring home to their parents — the only guy you have absolutely no problem getting shitfaced around because you know he'd stop at nothing to take care of you.

and once you've had a bit too much to drink (because you always seem to) aki will do as he always does: insist you stay the night instead of trying to go home. it'd be dangerous for you to try and travel when you're this inebriated. he's looking out for you, that's all.

although, tonight, one thing is different from before. usually, he'd give you his guest room to have all to yourself. but now that denji and power have moved in, aki supposes there's no other option than to have you sleep with him.

he's not going to allow you to sleep on the living room floor, that's just rude. you're a guest. his closest friend. it's getting cold these days, you'd be freezing if you had to do that. besides, you trust aki more than anyone, so you have no problem sleeping in his bed next to him, do you?

of course not.

aki's just being polite, like he always is, and you're none the wiser. he's polite when he offers to toss your clothes in the laundry and give you his to sleep in. he wants you to be comfortable, that's certainly true, but it definitely isn't also because he was hoping for a chance to touch your stockings and your bra. he commits the feeling of the fabric to memory, the way your stockings stretch when he pulls at them — they stretch the same way around your thighs, too. he drags his fingers across the intricate lace of your bra — lace? he didn't think you were the type to like something like that, but it makes sense. it'd look better if it was on you.

he compares the size of his hand to the size of your bra and tries not to forget that either before tossing everything in the wash. maybe he'll get lucky, and you'll forget to grab your clothes before rushing home.

he scoops you up and carries you to bed when you're too exhausted and drunk to move. he's trying not to think anything dirty as he sets you down in the center of his bed and props himself up over you; he's breathing hard, starting to sweat, the sight of you under him is the prettiest thing he's ever seen, but his breath gets caught in his lungs when you wrap your arms around him and pull his body close to yours with a drunken giggle. aki leans his head into your shoulder, and he doesn't attempt to separate the two of you.

yeah, and it's really only out of politeness that aki's offered to have you sleep in his bed. it's not because he grows warm to the ends of his ears at just the thought of someone, of you sleeping beside him. nobody's ever slept with him like this before. he can hear your breathing, he can feel it on his neck. he shifts away from you a little and he can see the bare skin of your collarbones peeking out when his shirt that's way too big for you starts slipping down your figure. god.

he won't sleep tonight, he's already sure of it. but how could he? between this and the way you were acting earlier, how is he supposed to get any sleep?

you're such a sweetheart when you're drunk, more than you are usually, you'll sway left and right and end up clinging onto aki's arm to keep yourself steady. you'll coo his name so sweetly into his ear, you'll thank him for inviting you and mumble something about how much you appreciate him, how good of a friend he is.

you're welcome, aki tells you with a completely level tone, despite the fact his heart is fucking hammering in his chest so hard it hurts because you've really just thanked him, you're happy because of him, you really are. he wants to make you even happier, he wants you to sing his praises more. he wants to hear your soft voice pant his name over and over again.

he's terrible, really. maybe it's because of his lack of intimacy. maybe the frustration of always being alone. maybe it's his fault to begin with for falling so head over heels for you. aki has no idea.

he can't help but feel guilty every time he invites you over, knowing it's because he wants to be close to you and have you all to himself. he hates how he can never seem to stop ogling you, hates how he can't even get a moment of sleep right now because you're hugging him, you're fast asleep with your arms around him and he can't think, he's so hard his poor cock is throbbing.

aki shifts off of you, tearing your arms away from him and curling up at your side. he mutters a quiet I'm sorry when you grumble with displeasure in your sleep, he tugs the blanket around you and lifts your head to tuck his pillow underneath.

turning over, he forces his eyes to close. aki ignores the ache in his gut, he resists the urge to slip his hand down his pants while you're lying right beside him. he breathes in shuddery gasps, says a silent prayer to himself that you'll stay for at least a few more hours tomorrow.

it'll be fine. he'll forget about all of this until next time. when you're gone.

because if you've slept with him, even after you've left, his sheets and his blankets will smell like you. the clothes you wore, too. then, when he's lying in bed at night, all alone, with the shirt you were wearing pressed up to his nose, and maybe the stockings you wore the day before in his fist and around his dick (if you managed to forget them), it'll be so much easier to imagine whatever the hell he wants about you. and you'll have no idea.

#this was supposed to be like two paragraphs but the aki demons got a hold of me a little #aki hayakawa x reader #aki x reader #aki <3

[ryllen]

Look what came through the mail today! The letters & ( •̀ω•́ )σ 3 little gremlins from letterstoear.

Just wanna say i adore the flower stickers on the letters too much, they are that much worth mentioning.

#letterstoear #nui #twst #twisted wonderland #sebek zigvolt #malleus draconia #twst grim #mod posting #okay but i love squishing the bears with my thumb; they just have the right thickness to be pressed on #i really like the flower stickers; they look like romantically artistic wax seal #the letters are pleasantly nice #i love the part where cheka personally request for an audience with yuu thru sebek 🥺🥺🥹🥹 too cute hnggh ....... #sebek becoming our little mailman for our little invitation aw 🥹 for those who wanna know the context of the letter; #i requested a letter from sebek that he sent home while he was away accompanying malleus on other country duty #my other favorite part is just him simply opening the letter with 'My love' #i'm sealed 🥹 the first paragraph is written so sweetly #i enjoy reading the letter slowly outside in peaceful afternoon today; i ran it through together with sebek nui #this will be my treasured keepsake from now on 🥹; it seriously made me miss letters and wish i have someone to send this kind of letter to #it was a bit funny how the envelope sebek's letter came from is sticked with the guys from free! sticker fhsdsh 🤣😂 #and me with the white haired guy like WHo are u?? fsjdsdjsd (´つヮ⊂); but it's a really nice service #the thank you letter came with such a cute and yummy folding paper; thank you for the stickers too #i feel like there's a bit whoopsie on grim's winky eye fshfh like i think the sharpie just blurs the separating space '<' supposed to have #and just combine it all together into one angry eye; and sebek bear's eyes are just a little bigger than i expected it to be #but the more i look at them i think they are just having a little individuality & still cute #i embraced it all together while knowing the fact none of handmade thing would always be the same one with the other; hehe sebek nui has fr #i kinda forget that there's this kind of clip earring fshd; because i always get the ones that work like screw from aliexpress #i know that the literal clip one would just be literal meaning of pain fsh; just like the magnet one my father once got me when i was a kid #it was painful but pretty; tho i lost it quickly bcs magnet easily get loosed once one part of it moves around when u touch ur hair or face #anyhow i had a pleasant day because of this; thank you very much ! sebek nui said 'thank you' too! ‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚. ❀ ✿ 𖤣…

[aroaceleovaldez]

i desperately need the fandom to do more with the fact that Percy’s attitude/emotions/physical state are directly influenced by the water around him even if he’s not directly interacting with it.

Every time we see Percy in the winter he’s notably more cold and snappier and easily annoyed, or generally is more serious when he’s in a cold environment. He gets more aggressive and prone to violence when by the rivers of the Underworld. He literally becomes toxic when Achlys brings out her poisons. He gets more mellow and generally more confident or at ease when by the Pacific, and gets even more mellow/goofy when in the Mediterranean. He gets overwhelmingly fatigued in the evil aquarium when all the tanks have sedatives in them, even though he doesn’t directly interact with the water at all. He also gets stronger when it rains. But also can create rain. Don’t think about that part too much, that’s really OP. Also his eyes (and Sally’s!) change color to match the water around him. Our “standard” for Percy is in the summer and next to the Atlantic (specifically in either Manhattan or Long Island. Does this change things significantly? Idk, up to you, but they have been cleaning up the Hudson a lot in recent years). This is his “default.” Every other scenario he’s going to start leaning to match the weather or water.

So where’s all the content of Percy going to different places and just shenanigans of how this affects him. Percy goes to a salt flat and is just so snarky the entire time (and his eyes look like mirrors). Percy getting grumpy in the desert or landlocked states. Percy going to Devils Hole in Death Valley and just gets really scary for .2 seconds. Percy going to Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone and his eyes just turn rainbow. Percy at the grocery store walking by the lobsters and he just has a whole breakdown cause they’re so stressed it fucks him up, or he walks by the betta isle in a pet store and nearly dies instantly cause all the little betta cups are just pure ammonia. Someone uses one of those water flavor things in their drink and Percy’s eyes turn the same color for a minute. Percy somehow just walks by the Fountain of Salmacis and is just really confused by the directions his thoughts go in for the all of like two minutes he spends within radius of it. Come on people, we have options.

#pjo #percy jackson #riordanverse #character analysis #< like half char analysis i suppose #there's a paragraph of analysis in there i'll count it

[whoisspence]

i wish i could go to a peaceful little place and watch the sunset with him after a long day :(

. 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　

the same place. you always go to the same place when you want some peace and quiet from the fbi agent life, nobody knew about it, it was just a little spot that was only yours, with nothing on it but tall grass and surrounded by trees, you have no idea how you found it but you're glad you did, to you it was the best place in the world to watch the stars or the sunset after a long day of work, it was your little secret.

one day someone was already there when you arrived, a familiar face, that guy that you thought you had nothing in common with besides having the same job has him, spencer reid also thought that place was only his, his little secret, he explained how he went there often as well, but neither of you were mad the other was there, it was quite the opposite actually even though it was never in your plans to share that place with anyone, for some reason, you felt nothing but happiness when you saw him there.

after that the two of you started to go there together after work, hoping the others didn't notice you two leaving at the same time so often, after only a couple late night conversations you realised how good it felt to be around him, to talk to him, that's something you never knew by only working on cases with him, that maybe he wasn't just the annoying guy you worked with after all, he knew how to talk about things other than boring facts and statistics, he became someone you wanted to be around all the time and you started to feel a pain on your chest when it came to say goodbye, even tho you knew you would see him again tomorrow.

"pinky promise this will always be our little secret?" you asked him.

"i promise" he replied with a soft smile as he interlocked his pinky with yours.

you couldn't be happier that now you two will forever share a little secret, you couldn't be happier that now you two will forever share the same place.

. 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　⁺ 　 . 　

i'm sorry if there's any misspelled words and i'm also sorry if this sucks :')

#i don't know if this is stupid #i can't tell #if it is please do not tell me #this was supposed to be a paragraph but then i started yappin #like always #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid aesthetic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #whoisspence

[varpusvaras]

Fox and the Guard first learn about sugar once they start to do rounds in the Senate. They have these nifty little caf machines in the halls there, with these little cubes you're supposed to mix in to your liking. Thorn steals few of them once and puts one in Fox's morning caf. Sugar becomes the most trafficked substance in the Guard.

Some time later, after one really, really long day, that had included dredging in the lower levels, running up and down more stairs that was humanely possible, and being hosed down in cold water multiple times (why was all the water always cold on Coruscant?), Commander Fox goes to report to Senator Organa. He's one of the nice Senators (the nice Senator, if you ask Fox), and the man gives him one look and makes Fox sit down, and hands him a cup of something warm.

"I'm not really a chef", Senator Organa says, "and my office doesn't really have cooking equipment, so this is all I have at hand, but you really look like you need some warm food inside you, Commander."

It's against at least seven different protocols and regulations to accept anything from the Senators, let alone food, but Fox is tired and cold and the last time he has had something warm to eat that wasn't caf was...honestly he's not sure anymore.

The liquid in the cup looks to be some sort of soup, and Fox takes a sip from it. He stops and stares at it.

Senator Organa tilts his head.

"Is everything alright, Commander?" He asks.

"Yes, Sir", Fox answers quickly. "I just wasn't expecting the taste."

Senator Organa looks a bit puzzled, even if he is doing his best to to hide it.

"Well, it is rather easy to make, if you like it", he says then. "The ingredients are really basic, so I could bring some down to the Guard. It's just some roots and salt-"

"Salt?" Fox interrupts before his own thoughts have even finished. "Like, from the ocean?"

Senator Organa looks both really puzzled, and kind of like he wants to laugh. What Fox wants to do, is to die immediately.

"Well, some places do get their salt from the ocean", Senator Organa says, and then pauses. "...am I correct in my assumption that salt isn't widely in use on Kamino? Senator Burtoni complains every time her food has even touched it."

"It appears so", Fox says, trying not to sound like his next step is jumping out from the office's window.

"I see", Senator Organa nods. He then looks at the cup in Fox's hands and smiles. "Do you want some more, Commander?"

Fox also looks at the cup in his hands. It's empty. Fox doesn't remember finishing it.

Senator Organa already has more soup out, and Fox feels like it would be more impolite to say no.

"Yes, Sir", he says.

He finishes three more cups before he has to go, and Senator Organa looks vaguely like he has been robbed of a great joy in life as he cannot continue feeding Fox more soup. Fox also vaguely feels like he's been robbed.

(The rest of the Guard also seems to feel like that, judging from the looks on their faces when salt appears in their base's mess one morning, and their food starts to...have a taste.)

("Do you think it's too soon, if I introduce spices to them?" Bail asks the hologram of his wife on his desk.

"Start slow", Breha answers. "And no chilis without warnings.")

#fox thinks of all the water on kamino like all that salt just swimming in there #freely without anyone caring #Fox: I wish I was salt #Bail really wants to just feed the man lmao #this was also supposed to be like three paragraphs oops #commander fox #bail organa #breha organa #bail/breha/fox #but like pre-relationship #just assume that they are canon to everything I post lmao #sw #tcw

[rainbow-femme]

Thinking too much about AFTG again and I know we rag on Neil for being oblivious but I don’t think Andrew understands for most of the story that Neil likes him back

(FYI I haven’t read all the extra content, Nora may have said something about Andrew’s mindset that contradicts this, I don’t care it’s my literary analysis and I control my interpretation and the only canon that exists is what’s in the books. Also I’m Jewish, and the number one rule is anything can be true so long as you can back it up textually)

You’ve got the whole “I’m not your answer and you sure as fuck aren’t mine” line. By this point two things have happened recently: Neil has become outwardly more emotionally and physically vulnerable, and Neil has shown more interest in spending time with Andrew as well as interest in Andrew in general. And Andrew’s response to this seems to be the assumption that Neil is having a crisis he isn’t sharing and seems to have decided that Andrew is the answer to fixing that crisis. To be fair he is having a crisis, Andrew is just an unrelated benefit.

Which makes sense, most of his relationships are based, at least in Andrew’s mind, on him providing a service in exchange for someone’s presence in his life due to his belief that people will not be around him otherwise. So if Neil is looking at him in an open, appreciative, and interested way he seems to assume it’s because Neil, the terrified guy on the run from something, has found himself enjoying the stability Andrew provides and is seeing being near Andrew as a solution to his problems. That maybe Neil has tricked himself into thinking he has feelings for Andrew because he likes having someone take care of him and that’s the reason, and we see from Andrew stopping the kiss when Neil is upset that he does not consider being interested in someone while emotionally vulnerable to be real consent, therefore if Neil is interested in him due to being upset and afraid that is not Neil actually being interested. He also is clearly very agitated by this first kiss, seeming to see himself as a predator who lost control and harmed Neil by taking advantage of him.

He also continues to do nice things for Neil after getting back, despite initially seeming to express frustration, disinterest, and distaste for Neil. Giving him keys to the car, buying him a new charger, giving Neil the shotgun seat. Andrew’s habit of feeling the need to incentivize the people he cares for to stay with him, as well as what appears to naturally be his love language of giving gifts and acts of service as a replacement for verbally sharing emotions. I’m not saying that when he’s doing nice things it’s for personal gain, but I think part of him feels good doing it and part of him believes this is all he has to offer this person. He got back and didn’t say nice things to Neil because he can’t, but he can quietly take care of Neil in a way that says “please stay with me, I want you to be ok” that he verbally can’t. He knows Neil values the ability to leave upsetting situations, that Neil reacted positively the last time Andrew gave him keys, gives Neil a way to charge his phone ie have a lifeline to safety and Andrew when needed, and he’s saying that he still implicitly trusts Neil with things that are important to him. And of course shotgun means “I want you to be the person who is nearest to me”. He similarly starts making a habit of sitting next to Neil when the team is together. Andrew very much is a cat, he’s going to swat at you but also glue himself to your side

There’s also the various moments where Andrew states out loud that he has an attraction and growing emotional attachment to Neil that he has already written off as impossible. He calls Neil a pipe dream, says he knows nothing will come of having an interest in Neil without having made any attempts to see if Neil is interested. If you follow up a confession of interest with a statement that nothing will happen, you can’t be hurt by rejection because you didn’t give the person a chance to reject you.

And it doesn’t seem like it’s because Andrew is purposely avoiding attachments to people. Most of the effort he puts into his life is in his relationships, specifically into giving people reasons to stay near him. He makes the deals with Kevin and Aaron, he could have gone to a school with a more competitive Exy program but went to one where Nicky and Aaron could come and be on the team and in fact made that a requirement, he proves to Kevin that he made the right choice in making Andrew his shield by attacking anyone who hurts Kevin and putting a target on his own back. Before the start of the books we know he went out of his way to connect with Renee and do things for her that meant a lot to her, things that again seem to represent “I am doing her a favor, therefore she will be more likely to stay.” And anything else could be written off as born again Christian charity rather than acknowledge she has love and care for him.

He doesn’t see an attempt at connecting with Neil to be useless because he has no interest in building relationships with people, if there’s anything Andrew is passionate about it’s building and maintaining relationships with people. He sees it as obviously useless because there’s no way Neil would legitimately want to be with Andrew in the same way that Andrew wants him, that it is impossible to consider Neil reciprocating the way he’s feeling because all he wants is Neil himself and he doesn’t think anyone could just want him and think it’s enough.

Neil says he allowed himself to be abused by the Raven’s for two weeks on the chance he could help Andrew, that he wants to care for Andrew even without any personal benefit, and that is when Andrew calls him a pipe dream. Neil has just said that he, the guy who previously was so terrified for his own safety that he put it above all else, would willingly sacrifice his safety for Andrew. When Neil says this Andrew covers his mouth to make him stop talking, which to me suggests that this revelation was an absolute gut punch to him, that what happened to Neil was not only for his sake but accomplished nothing. Andrew’s reaction to Neil saying this is to say that Neil was supposed to be a side effect of the drugs. Meaning what Neil just said made him feel so strongly for Neil that he previously assumed it could not possibly be something he naturally has the capacity to feel.

(And he stills says that he doesn’t think he could ever have from Neil what he wants. So yeah Neil isn’t the only one who can hear a heartfelt confession and come to the conclusion that the other person is completely uninterested)

Also the whole “there is no this” conversation they loop through a few times. Again, Andrew loves building relationships, but they all are ticking clocks in his head, most of them graduation unless he can come up with something to convince them to stay. And then Neil keeps trying to say that there exists a relationship between them that has not been carefully negotiated with a clear end date, which is probably terrifying to a guy who doesn’t think he can trust anyone unless he is providing them something that makes him more useful around than not.

What Neil is proposing is that Andrew has intrinsic value and his presence is all Neil wants, and that probably seems terrifying and untrue. If Neil isn’t getting a tangible benefit that outweighs any perceived inconveniences, and if there is no point where they “re-up” their contract, then at any moment Neil could change his mind and take this thing away from Andrew. He’s had people he loved decide he’s not worth it, he knows it can happen and how terrible it is to experience. He willingly dealt with Drake and harmed himself to keep Cass, and he still lost her because he in and of himself wasn’t enough to be kept and loved because he wasn’t easy enough to love, he was broken, he was damaged. There can’t be a non transactional relationship between them because Andrew can’t see himself being enough and thinks losing it would be too painful to willingly risk

(Nicky, Kevin, and Aaron also seem to have this same view as Neil in their own way of Andrew’s inherent worth to them. Nicky really deserves more recognition for clawing his way to happiness then willingly giving it all up and upending his life and doing things repeatedly that make him unhappy because he cares so much for Aaron and Andrew, aligning himself against possible friends who could make him happy because he will always choose supporting Andrew over himself. And you have Aaron showing that he will fight Andrew tooth and nail if it means they can have a good and lasting relationship, and we see Kevin form genuine love and affection for Andrew outside of their deal, but again Andrew seems to view the relationships at the time as transactional or obligatory on their ends)

Or my favorite, the scene where Andrew makes a comment about Neil’s “neck fetish.” Neil has kissed his neck only about two times by that point, and both times it has elicited what is clearly a pleasurable response from Andrew. But Andrew can’t accept the idea that Neil is doing something with no benefit to himself and only a benefit to Andrew, that he is choosing to take time away from his own immediate pleasure to do something solely for Andrew’s enjoyment of the moment

Neil responds to the comment by saying “You like it, I like that you like it.” Neil is saying that he cares enough about Andrew to have paid attention to what pleases him and wants to take the time when they’re together to make Andrew feel good in a way that Andrew makes him feel good, that he knows Andrew has trauma with physical touch on most of his body but this is a way he can reciprocate that has no negative connotations for Andrew and serves solely to make him feel good. And Andrew does not or cannot let himself see it that way because it’s too vulnerable.

The sex is supposed to be transactional, this is what Andrew has to offer to make Neil stay with him, uninterrupted time of Andrew making him feel good and asking for nothing in return. Neil is breaking the rules, he’s making it reciprocated, if he is making Andrew feel good then Andrew doesn’t have that safety net of being the one with something to offer. So it has to be something that secretly benefits Neil, it has to be that Neil is getting something out of it or Andrew is back to not having anything special that he offers to make Neil stay with him. If it’s just Neil sitting back while Andrew gets him off then Andrew is automatically the most convenient sexual partner for Neil and he won’t look for someone else. If it’s reciprocal, then it stops being a favor Andrew is doing and takes effort on Neil’s end, as well as means the sex includes Andrew knowing what it’s like to be loved and cared for, which means he will feel it’s absence when Neil inevitably leaves because Andrew isn’t convenient enough.

It honestly seems like the turning point is his conversation with Aaron about breaking their deal, Aaron making him choose their deal or Neil. Because it A. Forces Andrew to see that Aaron intends to stay in his life without the deal, meaning that yes one of the most important people in Andrew’s world loves him without a contract. And B. It forces Andrew into a position where he has to take a leap of faith that Neil isn’t going to just walk away, that Neil sees Andrew the way Andrew sees him. And I wonder if Aaron brought up the conversation he had with Neil, that Neil said he didn’t think Andrew would fight for him, and he realized that Neil not only has been thinking about him the way he was thinking about Neil, but that he had this person in his life that he cared about and he was acting in a way that made that person not feel valued and it could probably cause the very thing he wants to avoid by pushing him away.

So you finally get the very end of the last book where Andrew doesn’t deny it when Neil says Andrew likes him, which is for him incredibly vulnerable. He’s shown that he will always protect Neil without their deal of protection, and Neil has shown that he sees everything about Andrew that other people don’t like and he loves Andrew anyway.

Because the story is from Neil’s point of view we see his internal growth as he learns to recognize and accept love and care from others but Andrew has been doing the same, realizing and trusting that Kevin and his family will still be there even if he has nothing tangible to offer, and accepting that someone could genuinely know and understand him, all the things that make him inconvenient, and still want him with no extra incentive because even as broken as he sees himself to be he still has value to others and he can trust Neil in the way he wants Neil to trust him

#long post #this got so much longer than I intended oh my god #this was supposed to be like 3 paragraphs max #I have a lot of thoughts about Andrew desperately wanting love without thinking he can have it #even though he has people who love him #aftg #all for the game #tfc #andrew minyard #neil josten #andreil

[thattargboy]

Imagine…

Being Aegon’s sister-wife and he tries to get you and your children to run away with him across the Narrow Sea to avoid being crowned King.

“You need to get up,” You awoke to your husband frantic, and presumably drunk, shaking your shoulder. You shrugged him off and rolled over but it did not sway him.

“Darling, get up,” Aegon said frantically. “We have to go.”

“My love,” you said as you sat up, yawning and wiping the sleep dust from your eyes. “‘Tis the hour of the owl, let me sleep. What could be so important?”

“Our father is dead,” Aegon said solemnly, his words like ice water over you. “Mother and Grandsire mean to name me king. I already have our dragons prepared for flight.”

Your eyes shot open. Whatever state you expected to see your husband in, fully dressed, somewhat sober and dry-eyed, holding your babe with a panicked wet nurse and your two sleepy toddlers on his tail was certainly not it.

“Seven Hells,” you said and rose from bed, running both your hands down your face. You always knew this day would come, and yet even as your father’s health deteriorated, you did not expect it so soon. Perhaps you were blinding yourself, not wanting to face what will, what is, coming after. “How do you even know? I’ve heard nothing of this.”

“When I was… in the city, I had heard Mother’s handmaiden talking with someone; she said Father supposedly named me his heir on his deathbed. With only Mother as a witness. I do not want to stay.” Uprooting our lives over gossip he heard while he was out whoring?

“Are we going somewhere?” Aemon, your eldest, asked. His sister sniffled but he held her hand. You did not know what to say. This was all too much to process. “Is Grandsire dead?”

Your children held no love for their inattentive grandsire, nor did you for your father, but the information clearly distressed all of them. Or perhaps it was their father’s clear panic that was scaring them. Aegon held your little Daerion on his hip, who clearly did not want to be awake, and looked like he was on the verge of wailing.

Aemon and Elaena stood behind him with the nursemaid. The twins were still in their sleep-clothes and held the toy dragons they cannot sleep without. The very picture of innocence and confusion.

You took Daerion from his father’s arms and cradled the small boy. Aegon took your hand, eyes pleading.

“What is it you mean to do?” You asked, trying to keep your voice down. “Take off on Sunfyre and Moonborne to find Saera Targaryen and live in her pillow house for the rest of our days?”

“That sounds lovely to me,” he said.

“Be serious, Aegon!” You chided as you bounced your son. “We cannot run away from our duty, from our family.”

“I am serious, we cannot stay. Being King is the last thing I want, I will hardly be good at it,” Aegon said, taking your face in his hands and pressing his forehead against yours. “My duty is to protect you and our children, and leaving will do that, you know what crowning me will cause. The wet nurse may go wherever she wishes after Daerion is weaned.”

He was serious, that was the bad part. And he was right, which was even worse— whether or not your father truly did name Aegon heir mattered little. Any attempt to put Aegon on the throne will be seen by your half-sister and her supporters as an act of war, putting you and your children in danger.

“We must act swiftly, just say the word.” Aegon kissed you, once, twice, tears finally filling his eyes. “Please, Y/N. Do this for me, out of the love you have for me as a wife, as a twin.”

Most husbands would demand this of you, tearing you and your children from all you have ever known, yours is begging. You kissed your son’s forehead and contemplated, unsure of your next move. Unsure of the future and safety of your family, scared and confused.

Notes: I gave you and Aegon the same amount of children as Aegon and Helaena (twin son and daughter and a younger son) but I didn’t want them to be the same so I changed the names. All their children are named in honor of their siblings. Please tell me what you think, comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

Ao3 repost if you want to read it there instead

#aegon targaryen x reader #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon ii x reader #aegon targaryen x you #aegon ii x you #aegon targaryen x sister reader #house of the dragon imagine #hotd imagine #aegon imagine #aegon ii imagine #aegon targaryen imagine #aegon targaryen x targaryen reader #hotd fanfic #aegon ii angst #aegon targaryen angst #targaryen reader #aegon targaryen x wife #this was supposed to be like. three paragraphs. this man possessed me #angst

[saionjeans]

ok so. miki’s sunlit garden is the literal sunlit garden where he and kozue played piano together as children. it’s the defining version of this narrative device, and in a way, it’s the most straightforward. miki is leaving the garden and entering the world of teenagers. he is scared of growing up, and he misses the effortless, uncomplicated bond he shared with his sister when they were children, before being inculcated into a world of sexual power and abuse, before his parents divorced and his beautiful nuclear family was rent asunder by real-world complications. i genuinely think every 13-ish year old goes through this grief and a desire to hold onto the past, to remain in this perfect nostalgic bubble through which you view your childhood. it’s probably the most universal and identifiable instance of the motif of the sunlit garden.

then it gets more complicated. nanami’s sunlit garden is her memories of short-haired touga, of her big brother showing her his affection, making her feel special, worthy, and loved. but unlike miki, she doesn’t miss being a part of the ideal nuclear family. for one thing, both she and touga are adopted. of course, she doesn’t actually know that, but it nonetheless problematizes the bioessentialist logic upon which the nuclear family [abuse factory] structure is predicated. secondly, it’s clear that she was always the scapegoat to touga’s golden child. which is why it’s not that she loves her sibling as an extension of her childhood nostalgia, but that her entire value system fundamentally revolves around touga, because he was the only person in her formative years who ever showed her the slightest sliver of affection. and in all her memories of him, he has short hair (like dios, like miki), because subconsciously she doesn’t even want him to be her Prince, her patriarchal savior, she wanted him to be someone who loved her because she inherently deserves love. she does treat him like her prince in the present, but that’s only because it’s how her love for him must take form in ohtori. deep down, she doesn’t want a prince, a lover, or even a brother; she wants a friend who will love her for nothing. but she has no way of expressing that, not in a world that claims true friendship is for fools. so instead she values him for their biological ties, for his status as a kiryuu, for his patriarchal role as the eldest son in their perfect nuclear family. and she refuses to acknowledge how she demeans herself in the process of worshipping him, how she’ll drown herself and cook herself and cage herself, debase herself and dehumanize herself for his illusory love. and that is what the sunlit garden means to nanami.

as for saionji, the sunlit garden also constitutes his memories with touga, of a “before” that is much more definable in the sense that there is clearly a moment where it becomes “after.” one day they are riding their bike through the rain after kendo practice, and they decide to take shelter in a church. and saionji sees touga become someone he fears and also envies. someone who wields the power to project something eternal, to inspire, to save. and he exerts his power in a subtly violent way, by transgressing invisible boundaries. saionji cannot harness that power, so he attempts to exert it clumsily, through immediate, obvious, physical forms of violence. it never quite packs the same punch as touga’s manipulation, no matter how hard he tries. but what saionji really longs for is not to possess touga’s power, but to go back to the way things were before touga decided he wanted power. touga thinks true friendship is for fools, but like nanami, all saionji wants is to be touga’s true friend. and isn’t that just tragic?

of course, that’s not all saionji wants. but his desire is complicated by the fact that he clearly also resents the sexual acts he is being put through by touga, even if in other circumstances, it could be what he wanted. juri’s situation, her sunlit garden, is similar to saionji’s in this respect. all she wants is shiori, but she doesn’t want the shiori she is being presented with. she wants the shiori from an illusory idealized past in which they were true friends, before shiori betrayed her and revealed her ugly feelings in the process. like miki with kozue, nanami and saionji with touga, utena and anthy with dios, mikage with mamiya, juri is idealizing a version of the object of her affection who never really existed. shiori’s ugly feelings were always latent. unlike miki’s sunlit garden, nanami’s flashback to touga’s party and sea of photographs, or saionji’s memories of touga tenderly wrapping his hand, juri does not even have memories of shiori that are not defined by her betrayal. yes she has shiori reaching out, holding a rose, saying “believe in miracles and they will know your heart,” but it’s an obvious fiction. juri doesn’t know shiori at all, and the shiori juri knows is not the shiori she loves. the sunlit garden is always a garden of illusion.

utena’s sunlit garden, which opens many episodes, is perhaps the most obvious example of this fact. she completely rewrote her own formative memory to better suit the dominant patriarchal narratives she was forced to adopt all her life. and you can say that akio actively tampered with her memories, but functionally speaking, that’s the same thing. even more so than the others, her sunlit garden is a palimpsest; she idealizes a past and a prince that never actually existed. sure akio and anthy exist, but her “prince” is not either of them. the locus of her will to live, that eternal thing, is a fiction. but her desire to help others in need is genuine. and that is what differentiates utena’s sunlit garden first and foremost. it is not founded on a selfish desire to cling to a perfect past of illusion, but on the selfless desire to keep moving forward in hopes of a better future. they all want to hold onto something eternal, including utena in her desire to keep her parents with her, and all of those desires are perfectly understandable and eminently sympathetic, but utena is different because that day that akio showed her anthy’s suffering, utena’s desire shifted from a memory to a telos.

mikage’s sunlit garden thus becomes a cautionary tale to all the members of the student council who wish to live in a memory, perfectly suspended, pinned in place like a butterfly on display. just as a caterpillar must become a butterfly, a child must enter the world of adults. mamiya is beautiful because he has the luxury of dying young, of being immortalized on a carousel, of never losing his innocence. mikage is what happens to people who idealize eternity through escaping into nostalgia. the world keeps moving on without them, and they become ghosts, trapped in a past that no one can recall.

so what of akio? he uses people’s sunlit gardens against them, he manipulates time and memory, feeds off nostalgia and the grief of lost childhood. he cultivates his garden to resemble golden days, and as he invites you through his gates, ensnares you. so what does that mean, when his goal, too, is to achieve eternity? above all he wants to forge a sword that will break through the closed gates and reinstate his former glory. of anyone in ohtori, he is the one most deeply entrenched in his oh so cozy coffin. for all that he knows his promises to be illusory, he also clings to that logic, he also mourns dios. he longs for his golden days despite knowing that they’re untenable, despite being well aware of the toll it took on anthy. and even fully aware of the extent of his exploitation, of the fundamental illusion of eternity, he still attempts to attain it, he still instantiates himself in a cycle on the carousel, condemned to ghosthood, a butterfly pinned in place.

finally, we must look to the absent figure, the outlier. what, or rather who, is touga’s sunlit garden? the movie tells us it is utena, that he embodied the princely role in the truest sense and that this is his deepest aspiration. but i don’t know if that’s necessarily how i read him. anthy and touga are foils, two sides of the same coin. anthy doesn’t have a “sunlit garden” per se, because she has long given up on the idea of returning to a time when she loved dios, before the swords of hatred pierced her heart. but she has a literal sunlit garden, and her role is to tend the flowers in it and never leave. she has a literal coffin, guarded carefully in the chambers of her heart. anthy knows better than to cling to an idealized past, but still, she cannot find a way to move forward. so she gets stuck in a circular present, where both past and future are illusory concepts. it is not enough to simply know that the past is gone, one must also strive for a better future. it is why utena and anthy’s promise to drink tea and laugh together in ten years is just so powerful within ohtori’s timeless walls. i’d bet anything that touga also doesn’t have an idealized past. if, again, we use the movie to inform our understanding of him, he was always aware of the abuse that pervaded his world, he was never an innocent. but instead of desiring reform, like utena, of wanting to save those suffering, he wants to be the one inflicting that suffering as much as possible. to cope, he accepts his abuse as a necessary consequence of existence, and assumes that anyone capable of abusing him is simply more powerful, and thus deserves to exert their power over him, just as he deserves to exert his power over those less powerful than he is. so like anthy, he doesn’t have a sunlit garden, but he has a coffin, and a garden, and a carousel. and like anthy, he must choose for himself whether he wishes to remain a complicit victim, or to leave his cozy coffin and find a way to move forward. and that, only time can tell.

#analysis #manalysis #u #UMM. THIS POST WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ONE PARAGRAPH????? OOPS #it’s 2 am now. fuck #the sunlit garden #miki #nanami #touga #saionji #utena #anthy #akio #mikage #juri #shiori #mamiya #dios #this was just me rambling as a way to organize my thoughts #it’s incredibly stream of consciousness #i am in no way trying to make an argument here im just trying to like. parse my thoughts on the sunlit garden #(the land of illusion….. anyone else hongloumeng pilled.?) #long post

[bolshefem]

if you think people are more empathetic to women than men you are straight up fucking delusional. men have proved themself almost INCAPABLE of empathy for women, and this is statistically and empirically supported. they are incapable of understanding that women have an internal life, do not see us as humans with emotions who exist external to them. look at the comments on a post of a man talking about self harm vs a woman. "men's mental health matters too🥺" "I'm proud of you" vs "attention whore" "sideways for attention downwards for results" "ugly bitch trying to get sympathy"

this is what happens for ANYTHING regarding sexual assault, mental health, suffering, trauma.

or an overweight man vs woman "keep your head up king👑" "you got this bro, I believe in you" "these women don't deserve you." (like totally unprompted not discussing relationships) Or often no comments on his weight at all if he's not talking about it. For a woman, no matter WHAT she is posting about "landwhale" "starve yourself" "put down the burger" "kys fat b*tch" and the most vile and insanely cruel comments The amount of threads and forums dedicated to eviscerating degrading and insulting overweight women on places like lolcow and kiwi farms and just social media in general and I genuinely have never seen one for a man. Same thing with things like facial deformities, the comments are unbelievably cruel to these women.

the level of vitriol is not even remotely comparable, and I don't even think it's mostly a double standard. I think they just lack the capacity to feel empathy towards women and perceive them as human and capable of feeling pain. Things are solely perceived in how they relate to them and thought to be performances for men. Women exist to serve them and if they don't give them a boner they don't deserve to be alive. If something, no matter how innocuous, pisses them off in the slightest they don't have a single qualm because they just don't view them as real people and full human beings with internal lives. women having emotions is inherently manipulative, anything they say or do is a performance for men. And like look at things such as the gender credibility gap https://www.tedxmilehigh.com/gender-credibility-gap/ Women are systematically less believed as witnesses in a courtroom, reporters, academic authorities, in claims of sexual assault, discrimination, or harassment.*

Women's reports of pain symptoms are less likely to be believed by doctors, and they are staggering more likely to not receive proper medication, go undiagnosed and untreated. Women are 32% more likely to die post-op if their surgeon is a man. "Womens' pain not taken as seriously as mens' pain. Researchers found that when male and female patients expressed the same amount of pain, observers viewed female patients' pain as less intense "(sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210406164124.htm) "Nearly three-quarters of cases where a disease primarily affects one gender, the so-called “men's diseases” are overfunded, while the “women's diseases” are dramatically underfunded."

https://www.concernusa.org/story/gender-bias-in-healthcare/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/interactive/2022/women-pain-gender-bias-doctors/ https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/gender-bias-in-medical-diagnosis#how-does-it-affect-diagnosis https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/women-and-pain-disparities-in-experience-and-treatment-2017100912562 I could literally go on on this topic forever. The gender empathy gap is a form of epistemic violence against women.

* "Suicidal behaviour and self-harm in women can be viewed by family, health professionals and the community as attention-seeking, manipulative and non-serious, which can negatively influence how young women are treated." (Curtis, 2016) *Men with overweight tend to be perceived as wise or experienced, while women's credibility tends to decrease with excess weight... women seem to experience higher levels of weight stigmatization than men, even at lower levels of excess weight (Flint et al., 2016)

*Women are at greater risk for weight/height discrimination than men (Puhl et al, 2008)

*so many papers on this but "Across the board, women are perceived to be less credible than men. Especially women’s testimonies of rape and sexual harassment are widely trivialized and disregarded, even though reports of sexual abuse are not more likely to be false than reports of other crimes" (Schreurs, 2020) more like Mack, 1993

#RAMBLE #this was supposed to be like two paragraphs #sorry for the mess but worth a read