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zvtara-was-never-canon · 5 months

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you once said that the ZK do not allow the canonical Zuko to show real, sometimes ugly signs of trauma. can you write more about this? because that's what I always felt when I came across their terrible takes, but I couldn't express it.

Gladly! But first, I need to mention the sign of trauma that Zuko usually lacks - and that, for some reason, the fandom insists defines his character:

Fear

Don't get wrong, I'm not saying Zuko never experienced fear. We all saw that poor boy on his knees, crying, begging his father not to hurt him.

But in "Zuko Alone" we also see 10-year-old Zuko get bitter that only his younger sister was expected to show off her firebending skills, and deciding that he would go against his father and demonstrate his own skills to the Fire Lord - that despite the fact that he knew Azula was better at it than he was. Even when it goes wrong, he is upset, but doesn't look afraid of the consequences.

That same episode shows Azula mocking him for playing with knives despite not even being good at it, and even though the fandom insists she was his worst fear ever since he was a child, Zuko responds with a "Put an apple on your head and we'll see how good I am." That little guy has exactly zero chill.

Let's not forget why he was banished either: Despite being considered too young to be in that war meeting, Zuko demanded to be there, eventually got his way, and despite having been told not to say anything, the second he hears a general suggest using their own men as "fresh meat" to lure the enemy, Zuko speaks out against it. And at the start of the Agni Kai, he looked 100% ready to fight a grown ass man with battle experience - until he saw it was his father/Fire Lord.

Let's not forget his Agni Kai with Zhao, which was his idea and that he actually won - and before that, he openly calls Ozai a fool, to which Zhao points out that banishment clearly not teach Zuko to watch his mouth. Or the time he openly challenged Azula in Ba Sing Se and they only didn't fight then and there because Azula knew she'd have the advantage by using the Dai Li. Hell, at the start of that very season, after she tried to lure him to a trap, Zuko's first reaction is to charge at her, fire-daggers in hand. That boy is the definition of "Fuck around and find out."

He has also done things like choosing to save his uncle from earthbenders instead of chasing Aang, crossing a blockade and going into actual Fire Nation territory even though he legally is no longer allowed to do that, and helped rescue Aang from Zhao as the Blue Spirit. It shows us that Zuko doesn't have an issue with temporarely deviating from his mission because of something HE deems important even though his father doesn't, openly disregarding Ozai's orders, and even basically saying "My father will have the Avatar as a prisoner only if I'm the one to capture him"

And, of course, on the day of the eclipse, Zuko grabs his swords and directly threatens Ozai, telling that bastard to sit the fuck down, shut up, and listen to his list of reasons why he sucks as a parent, ruler and person.

Zuko is brave. Unbelievably so. He is fierce, proud, and impulsive to the point of getting himself in situations that he should have known would not go his way (like fighting a waterbender in the snow, in the full moon) because he is very much a "act first, think later" kind of guy. So the fandom's insistence that he is constantly paralyzed by fear is a gross over-simplification of how his trauma affects him.

We only see him genuinely afraid of Ozai twice. During the Agni Kai itself, and then again when he WANTS to speak out against his father's plan to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground, but can't bring himself to because he remembers what happened last time he spoke out against that kind of horrible thing during a war meeting, at that very room. It took something THAT triggering to make him cower before a challenge.

However, fear wasn't the only reason why didn't speak out during that moment, and that takes us to the first "ugly" sign of trauma that the fandom as a whole likes to pretend Zuko wasn't repeatedly shown to experience:

"My father is right about me, actually"

Zuko doesn't think Ozai was wrong to disfigure and banish him. How could he? Nobody in that entire room stood up to at least try to support him, not even his uncle - who also once said "Why would your father have banished you if he didn't care about you?" because, surprise surprise, nobody in that family knows how to help someone through trauma because they're all dealing with their own shit. Even his crew, who WAS sympathetic to him after finding out how he got that scar, were still 100% willing to not only support Ozai, but risk their lives for him.

Zuko isn't just trying to heal from abuse, he is trying to heal from victim-blaming, and to go against YEARS of indoctrination that say the Fire Lord can do no wrong. That's part of why it was so difficult for Iroh and others to help him: Zuko didn't believe that he needed or deserved help.

And that is also one of his three major unhealthy coping mechanisms. Claiming that HE needs to prove himself to Ozai, that HE needs to make up for HIS mistakes, not the other way around.

It might seem strange that this could be a way to cope, but look at it this way: If it WAS his fault instead of Ozai's, then that means his dad is not an unfair, abusive piece of shit that is unbelievably cruel and impossible to please. Zuko just needs to accomplish this mission of capturing the Avatar and everything will be fine, they'll be a normal family again, and he won't have to be afraid of someone he thought he could trust.

It was like Iroh said: Things are never going to be the same ever agin, but the Avatar gives Zuko HOPE. And that hope that his abuser will one day have a change of heart and be a loving father to him again is both what allows Zuko not to give into despair - and what keeps him trapped in that awful situation.

Misplaced Anger

Another "unpleasant" sign of trauma that Zuko has is how he clearly has an anger problem. Sure, he's a moody teenager with a short fuse, but we see over and over again that he tends to blow things way out of proportion, and that when faced a fact or opinion he doesn't like, he is quick to lash out at someone with VERY cruel words (see him calling Iroh a lazy, shallow, jealous old man in "Avatar State", or calling him crazy and saying if he wasn't in prison, he'd be sleeping in a gutter in "The Headband").

Through the entire show, many people faced Zuko's wrath - Iroh, Aang and friends, his crew, Azula, innocent people of the Earth Kingdom, Mai, Ty Lee, that one rando that talked to Mai, and even Zuko himself.

The one person that usually escapes said wrath is, ironically, Ozai. In "Zuko Alone" he refuses to believe his father would ever be capable of harming him, in "Avatar State" he snaps at Iroh for doubting that Ozai really changed his mind about the whole banishment thing.

He is mad at Aang for being too difficult to capture, and at Zhao for stealing his one chance to come home. He never stops to question if it's fair that his father had him chase someone that was presumed dead, aka an impossible task, as the condition to bring him home. He also never addresses how he feels about the reason WHY said banishment happened until the Day Of Black Sun.

He is mad at Azula for lying to him and trying to take him home as a prisoner. He never gets mad at his father for not only wanting to lock him away forever because ZHAO screwed up at the North Pole, nor how messed up it was that he put Azula in charge of said mission.

For fuck's sake, in the day of the eclipse, we find out that Zuko legit believed his mother was DEAD - and the entire circumstance was shady as hell and put Ozai in a very bad light. Yet Zuko still wanted his love, still wanted to be a "worthy" son.

He HAS to direct his anger at other people, otherwise he'll realize that no, his father, the adult that was meant to care for him, is a complete monster.

Everytime Zuko lashes out at other people before confronting Ozai, he's basically acting like someone who is drowning and, in a panic, is trying to pull the nearest person under so he can try to breathe. It is one of the most accurate and honest representations of trauma and abuse, and it makes me SO mad when people erase it in their fics because "poor, innocent, helpless turtleduck that can do no wrong" makes Zuko look like less of a dick - and also completely strips him of his agency.

And that isn't even the thing that fans ignore the most. That "honor" goes to the simple fact that Zuko, as expected of a child raised to believe the Fire Lord can do no wrong, decided that Azula had the right idea and that the best way to avoid being a victim again was...

Copying His Abuser

Zuko has REPEATEDLY let his "inner Ozai" out through the show.

He is all manipulative by not letting the pirates know he was chasing the Avatar who was worth A LOT more than the scrowl they'd get as a reward for helping him, and by using Katara's necklace as a way to try and get her to say where Aang was.

He repeatedly steals stuff from innocent people (including some who helped him, like Song) because, in his own words "These people should just be giving stuff to us" - aka he's very much an entitled prince.

He betrays his uncle by joining Azula in Ba Sing Se, leading to Iroh being thrown in prison. He also doesn't give a shit when Katara says "I thought you had changed!" and he sends a freaking assassin after the Gaang. Even him refusing to tell Azula that there was a chance Aang could still be alive works both as a "Zuko doesn't trust Azula to not use that against him, and for good reason" and "Zuko did not even stop to think that, since Azula was the one who killed Aang, him coming back also puts HER in danger, because he's too focused on his own problems to notice anybody else's."

More importantly, he rejected a chance of a ceasefire with the Gaang three times (The Blue Spirit, The Chase, Crossroads of Destiny), much like Ozai refused his shot at ending the war in the finale before his battle with Aang, and not only did he challenge Zhao to an Agni Kai and seriously consider burning him, he also threatened one of his crewmen by saying he'd "teach him respect" - which we found out later that episode was what Ozai right before disfiguring poor Zuko.

For fuck's sake, Ozai was literally designed to look like an older Zuko. One without a scar, one that was never banished, one that never had to see first-hand all the death and suffering war brings and reflect on the role he plays in it.

Finally, we have the war meetings in "Nightmares And Daydreams", in which Zuko doesn't speak out against his father's completely inhumane plans to deal with the Earth Kingdom. When talking about it with Mai, he says "I was the perfect prince, the son my father wanted. But I wasn't me."

That is the turning point for Zuko for a reason. It's him finally being forced to acknowledge that, to become Ozai's ideal son, to earn his (conditional) love, to not be his victim he has to be just as bad as he is, just as cruel, just as unfair - and we see in Azula's breakdown how Zuko likely would have ended up if he accepted that path.

But he didn't, and that was not easy because even though it was the morally correct choice, it'd require him to sacrifice everything - his title as a prince, his right to be in the Fire Nation, his relationship with Mai, his (extremelly complicated, sometimes good, often awful) bond with Azula, the "easy" way to get literally anything he wanted at everyone else's expense, and, of course, accept that his father was never going to love him, was never going to change, and was never going to feel sorry for abusing him.

Erasing such a central conflict of his character for the sake of denying he ever did anything wrong is, ironically, removing one of Zuko's most noble character traits: his inability to just live with himself after doing something horrible. There's a reason he is in deep conflict even after getting everything he wanted after the fall of Ba Sing Se - he knows he doesn't deserve it after what he's done.

If you ignore his mistakes and the horrible consequences it had for other people, you also ignore Zuko's growth. This puts him more in the position of a good guy being held hostage by the evil villain, not of a troubled child that redeems himself as he matures.

No flaws, no mistakes, no growth, no arc.

Trauma Doesn't Just Go Away

This one is, by far, the bad trope regarding Zuko's trauma that Zutarians are the most guilt of: assuming that if he just gets enough comforting hugs (mainly from Katara), all of his inner turmoil will suddenly be healed. No more sadness, no more fear, no more of the ugly traits they never acknowledge in the first place. Just a happy, fully recovered Zuko.

But that's just not how these things work. Having the support of a loved one helps victims feel better, but it won't magically make everything okay. Trauma is a really difficult thing to handle. There's good days, bad days, relapses, bad habits that are difficult to move past from. And not only are there cases in which people take YEARS to recover, there are also cases in which they never fully heal, and instead just learn to live with that burden that is still very much present.

I understand the desire to show in fics and headcanons that Zuko will eventually be fully healed and happy, but the way Zutarians make Katara act as not just his girlfriend, but as basically his therapist that needs to find miracle solutions for every single one of his problems, comfort him whenever any minor inconvenience happens until he's gotten enough hugs to be magically okay doesn't just reveal how hypocritical they are, since they insist Kataang is about Katara being Aang's girlfriend/mom/baby-sitter, but also that they legit do not understand a damn thing about trauma and how it works.

Which takes me to:

How Mai Actually Did Right By Zuko

Poor, poor Mai. She gets blamed for "bring out the worst in Zuko", for not being "supportive", for being too cold and unemotional, for not "seeing the real him" - yet she's one of the characters that CONSISTENLY help put Zuko back on his track.

She offers him emotional support and lots of signs of affection over and over again - telling him not worry when they're arriving at the Fire Nation, pointing out she doesn't hate him when she says she's beautiful when she hates the world, explicitly saying she cares about him in The Beach, being incredibly sweet and loving to him during all of Nightmares and Daydreams, and then again in the finale by helping him get dressed up and acting all cute as they get back together.

But she also holds him accountable when he screws up. She doesn't let him use his difficult life as an excuse to be a jerk and calls him out when he's being unreasonable, or when she feels mistreated/like he's making a mistake (see The Beach and Boiling Rock Part 2).

But since the fandom loves to completely erase Zuko's mistakes AND to not let go of a stupid ship war, this completely changes the context, making Mai out to be this awful, bitchy girlfriend, when in reality, she did a great job handling Zuko - sometimes even better than the fan favorite and mentor figure Zuko had through most of his arc.

Uncle Iroh Fucked Up

Before all of you try to kill me, let me make one thing clear here: I love Uncle Iroh. He is one of the most awesome characters in the show, and I fully believe he was trying his best to help Zuko.

But he is still a human being that makes mistakes, and he was raised in the same dysfunctional family Zuko was, meaning he often had NO IDEA how to handle his deeply traumatized teenage nephew/son.

Him spending all of book 1 trying to help Zuko capture Aang so he could go back to living with the guy that disfigured him is already bad enough, but we also have the episode "Avatar State" in which Iroh asks "Why would your father banish you if he didn't care about you?"

Obviously he only did these things because he didn't want Zuko give into despair and depression - but he is still, at best, ignoring the issue, and at worst actively making excuses for Ozai's abuse of his own son. This backfires on him spectacularly, as Zuko sides with Azula over him both in the first and last episode of the season specifically because he believes that appeasing Ozai is the right thing to do, as he was only banished "for his own good."

But THE biggest mistake Iroh made when it came to helping Zuko was his refusal to accept that no, Zuko was never going to be happy by living a quiet, simple life in Ba Sing Se - even after Zuko explicitly said as much to his face.

Obviously, to some extent, Iroh HAS to make Zuko accept that he won't ever be able to come back home after Ozai literally ordered Azula to capture him, but he could have tried to find some kind of middle ground with Zuko, since being a waiter clearly wasn't making him happy.

"Oh, but what about how Zuko started acting after his metamorphosis? He was so happy about working on the tea-shop with his uncle, and that was supposed to reveal his true self!"

Yes, it was supposed to do that. But we saw how Zuko acted after actually dealing with his trauma and redeeming himself. He was obviously in a much healthier place, both mentally and spiritually, but he was still moody, still sarcastic, still as proud as ever, and even Iroh recognized that he was meant to be Fire Lord.

Zuko's arc has a lot to do with identity, with how he sees himself. At that point, the only thing he still had in life was his uncle - so he was acting like him, because there seemed to be no other role model, no other path. Seeing that weird, cheery, relaxed, always-seeing-the-good-side-of-things version of Zuko was honestly unnerving.

And Iroh thought that Zuko basically giving himself the Lake Laogai treatment was okay because he following in his footsteps, doing what helped IROH heal and change - he didn't realize it was never gonna be able to do the same for Zuko.

The very second Azula shows up, even when she's being hostile, Zuko drops the facade, because she's a reminder of both his old life and what he thought his future would be. And when she offers him "redemption" Iroh tried to advice Zuko against joining her by saying "The redemption she offers is not for you" (as in not for someone who is doing better and doesn't need to return to the Fire Nation) and "It's time for you to choose. It's time for you to choose good." How is it a choice if Iroh is explicitly saying which option Zuko cannot pick, essentially making the decision for him?

Iroh didn't just get the way to help Zuko wrong - he didn't realize his nephew didn't believe he needed help. They were not on the same page at all, and that contribuited to Zuko betraying him.

Though, thankfully, it ended up being for the best, as Zuko found his own way to redemption by himself.

Conclusion

This fandom as a whole tends to not understand Zuko at all and just eat up a bunch of fanon while pretending to be so intellectual, which I very much resent it for.

#anti zutara #pro maiko #pro mai #zuko is not an awkward turtleduck

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burr-ell · 11 days

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On the Matter of Trinket

So I had a lot of good things to say about Vox Machina: Kith & Kin, and I stand by them, but I do have one sticking point—the story of how Vex got Trinket. Since this extends beyond Kith & Kin and to canon as a whole, I thought it should be its own post.

So here's what happened, per stream canon in 1x65:

VAX: What's the dagger [that Saundor was referring to]? VEX: Oh, that. Yeah, I killed a couple people and I saved Trinket, that's all. VAX: When? You'll have to be more specific than that. VEX: Do you remember when I brought Trinket back to camp? VAX: Originally? VEX: Yeah! All those years ago? VAX: Yes! I thought it was a terrible idea. I was dead wrong. VEX: Well…turns out, I found him in a camp where I'd been taken. VAX: What? VEX: Yes, and there was some really dark people there, and they had harvested Trinket's mother. [...] I did what I had to do, and I killed them. VAX: The people that took you. VEX: Yes. I did. VAX: The people that took you from me? VEX: Yes. And I saved Trinket that night, and that's what Saundor saw. More than anything I just… I don't know how he saw it. VAX: Are you just creeped out because he knew or because of what happened? Why are you upset? VEX: I'm not. VAX: Well, listen. I wasn't there. I don't know what happened, but… you came back to me, so whatever happened can't be wrong.

This incident is recounted in full by Laura Bailey in a short story she wrote from Vex's first-person perspective explaining to Matt why she was so protective of Trinket, which can be found here. Even if you lack that context, though, it's clear from this conversation that Vax very explicitly did not know what happened. This is not easily missable, either; there isn't leeway to insert him into that backstory without directly contradicting what's happening in this scene.

In Kith & Kin, however, Vex tells the story of when she got Trinket to a little girl she meets, and says that Vax was actually there and helped fight off the poachers who kidnapped her—not really anything of note that she didn't do herself in the original, but he was there. This could be taken as simply her softening or embellishing the story to make it more exciting for a child, but the narration otherwise notes where Vex has left details out and does not imply that Vax's presence is an alteration. Additionally, later on in the denouement, Vex thinks about everything that's happened and reflects on "two young half-elven twins fighting monsters in a horrible poachers' camp", again suggesting that Vax was indeed there. This is further supported by The Legend of Vox Machina's change to the story, which also added Vax and had him be the one to break Vex out (originally she did it herself), and those two combined together suggests that this is going to be considered the canon narrative going forward.

Now, I'm not inclined to think any of this was done in bad faith, so don't misread me here, but I am disappointed by the change.

The conversation between Vex and Vax in episode 65 is very important for what it says about Vex and their relationship. (It furthermore serves as a parallel to a scene in episode 42, where Vax tells Vex about the circumstances of his joining the Clasp, the secrecy of which is maintained in Kith & Kin). Vex was so traumatized by this incident that it was brought up to emotionally torment and manipulate her years after it happened, and the fact that she never told Vax about it until he asked speaks to how important it was to her to avoid talking about it. Vex is a character who struggles with letting down her walls and taking off her masks, and not only could she not bring herself to explain it even to Vax at any point in the intervening years, but when she finally does, his words of support and reassurance don't even work—she still ruminates on Saundor's words at night following this conversation. That matters for the full context of where she is, and where the twins are, at this time in the narrative.

Now you can make the argument that this change only highlights a different facet of their respective stories: Vex is hurt by this incident in a way Vax is not. The problem with this is that we already have an element of their story that serves this narrative function—Syngorn, where Vex took the elves' racism and their father's abuse much more personally than Vax did. As an adult, she tries to wear a mask of untouchability and contempt for the place, but she did everything she could to measure up and meet their standards in the hopes of one day pleasing them and finding acceptance, while Vax pushed back against it at every turn and openly rebelled and caused trouble. Vax's disdain for Syngorn is straightforward; Vex's is much more complicated, and it feels redundant for the Trinket incident to repeat this pattern. It also robs the characters of the much more interesting story from the stream, where Vex keeps this to herself and doesn't seem to feel better even after Vax tries to comfort her.

As I've said, I do really enjoy Kith & Kin and TLOVM, and there are changes made in the animated adaptation that I really enjoy or even think are better than stream canon, but necessary changes to adapt a story to a different medium are different from an important character moment being undercut in canon supplementary material. Not only does Vax's insertion into this incident fail to substantively add anything to it, but it actively detracts from both his and Vex's stories as a whole. And as someone with a lot of love for Campaign 1, the willingness to do that kind of retcon unsettles me.

#critical role #cr meta #vex'ahlia #vax'ildan #long post

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sgiandubh · 9 months

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No Liberace's smile

Warning: this will take forever to read. It didn't take forever to write or research, though. But since I will be gone tomorrow and back well, next Saturday, let it be done with a bang.

S the Actor. S the Entrepreneur. S the NYT (3x!) best-seller Writer. Coach S. S the Lover. S the Womanizer. S the Husband. S the Father.

Is something missing, in this deck of Happy Families?

S the (closeted) Gay, of course.

It doesn't really matter the man himself took the time to deny it loud and clear. Twice. This avatar, fueled by idiocy, hatred and ignorance, makes regularly the rounds, each and every time we dare to celebrate something, anything really. It serves three tribes and serves them well: the Congregation of Domestic Bliss (aka Taiters). The Data Lounge crowd. And the Disgruntled Harpies, who once were some of the most fervent Ginger Jesus worshippers, but whose hopes, dreams and trust wrecked on the shores of Quarantein Ha-wa-wee.

It is the proper of calumny to leave a pungent, persistent trail wherever it fumbles around. Calomniez, calomniez, il en restera toujours quelque chose, Beaumarchais once wrote. Calumny, calumny, something's gonna stick - in a very lazy, but dependable translation. This one is particularly vicious, because it sounds coherent: he trades in make-believe, lots of actors are, precedents exist. And my favorite: it explains everything (fun fact: it doesn't even start to cover the shitshow).

Four exhibits should put us out of this dumpster. Chronologically and comparatively:

Exhibit A: Rough Beginnings (2009)

This one is the most touted on Tumblr, by that horrible woman Queen Puff thought was the same person as Paul C. (and was probably wrong). In a nutshell, she was in London then, she often went to the theatre, she was in the know, fuck knows what else, but she has SOURCES, too: there is nothing straight about his bat.

I suppose this person must have watched Nicholas de Jongh's Plague Over England, a play essentially narrating a scandalous episode of John Gielgud's biography, with a heavy-handed focus on homophobia in Britain during the 50's.

He got naked on stage! He kissed a man! Oh, oh, oh... the rumor! the scandal! (insert domestic fire shrieks) My eyes! Quick, let's fetch the smelling salts! And chlorine! I need a good rinse!

You would imagine Sodom & Gomorrah Ltd on that stage, eh?

Tumblrettes United of the disgruntled sort, did your talkative friend ever show you this devastating Guardian chronicle, signed by their in-house critic, John M. Morrison on February 27th 2009 (https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2009/feb/26/de-jongh-plague-over-england) ?

Should I sign it or use a pistol flare? It wasn't exactly scandalous, the only thing is the text was really, really piss poor. S is only gracing the above picture, hovering over the article: no mention of him whatsoever. Unlike Somerset 2019, a most Unremarkable Performance.

And S himself was very interested to explore precisely this kind of progressive-ish acting, as he clearly writes in Waypoints. This sounds legit - this is business, baby:

Exhibit B: Know your Classics, bi@ tches (2010)

*channeling Tears for Fears* Data Lounge, I am talking to you/[something, something]/These are the things I could do without...

Aside the already very, very tired stock stories purporting that "my dog's aunt knew Heughan and yeah, he was so, so, so gay I could cry", all you have (I checked!) is 1 (one) absolutely dubious BTS pic taken on the set of that terrible dud, Young Alexander, shot in Egypt, circa 2010. Prominently featuring S's waxed calves (see? gay AF!), an unbecoming, supremely effeminate white tunic and *gasp* a bong (no comments were made on that one, a pity). Yeah, you got it: I am writing and I am laughing at the same time. Freak.

How the hell do you want him to look but, pardon my French, queer as a three-dollar bill? You clearly have no idea about sexual ambiguity as social norm in Ancient Greece and also no clue about that fascinating Alexander himself, his life and his yeah, blatant, documented bisexuality.

Take one of the most interesting sources (yeah, only serious ones, with FACTS) of the Late Antiquity, a guy named Athenaeus of Naucratis. He left us The Banquet of the Learned, a fifteen-volume encyclopedic compilation on the pleasures of eating and drinking and doing it in style, along with some juicy gossip. For example, this (open in separate tab, it's worth it):

What do we read? Alexander's mom, dad and tutor (Aristotle, my favorite Greek philosopher, along with Diogenes) are worried he finally might not really be into women, after all. The future of the Macedonian Kingdom itself is at stake (that watery semen made me choke on my Coke) and this is a very serious affair of the state. The most cost-effective and discreet solution is to handsomely pay that Callixeina courtesan from (famous for pin-ups) Thessaly and be done with it.

Apparently, it worked, not without some resistance. If you ever have the curiosity to go on that (in)famous Wikipedia, you will find a whole page dedicated to Alexander the Great's personal life. It reads exactly like the ABC, do-re-mi summer soccer mercato, feat. the Fitness Harem. One of the major joys of Classical studies is to realize we really didn't invent anything new.

But I digress again, so onwards to ...

Exhibit C: Jobbing Actor on the Road, nothing straight about his Bat (2011-2013)

Once the Batman show is on world tour, things are looking a bit better and it is time to try and lockpick America. Still, the struggle is real:

Also, this:

This is something no one noticed. And this is very clear: how on Earth do you expect to commit to a relationship, any relationship, when your basic needs, according to Maslow's Pyramid (a roof, a job, a steady paycheck, etc), are not satisfied? What would you offer your woman? Your precarity? Your insecurity? Your fear and shame of the bailiffs? A pint of cheap Polish beer? A futon in Golders Green?

But let's conveniently not answer these questions. Let's pretend that poverty has no impact on one's sexual life or dating history. Let's just endlessly cackle and blather on a drunk tweet stating candidly - and perfectly truly - "there's nothing straight about my Bat". I hate to quote myself - for any good speaker, this is a defeat- but, LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE OF MORDOR:

Exhibit D: A French example - the case of Michel Serrault

The 1979 comedy La Cage aux Folles, later adapted for the US public under the name of Birds of a Feather (that Robin Williams/Nathan Lane forgettable gay movie) is absolutely representative for the live and let live French approach to homosexuality, ever since it was decriminalized by the revolutionary Penal Code of 1791. This is why I chose Michel Serrault, one of its two leads, to illustrate my Gay Anon post. Not to mention Serrault was a genius who could play absolutely anyone, from a retired hitman in Matthieu Kassowitz' Assassin(s) to Zaza Napoli.

This balding, ageing, cantankerous drag queen (sound is horrific, but you've got English subtitles - granted, you lose about 30% of the hysterical hilarity in translation, but it is what it is), as seen here in a domestic scene opposite her partner, played by notorious womanizer Ugo Tognazzi:

youtube

By the limp standards of Mordor, Serrault must have been a French LGBTQ+ institution, given his stellar, flawless acting, isn't it?

Incorrect, dolls. In his real, personal life Serrault was a devout Catholic, an exemplary father of two and a one-woman man. His wife, Nita Serrault, whom he met in drama school and never looked back.

It almost sounds like... but no, this cannot be..

The hard, gruesome life of shippers.

#Youtube

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frogsare-friends · 6 months

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i've said it so many times before. but i'll say it again. conrad was fucking evil in the car scene. and if jere had done that he'd be murdered. i just don't get how anyone can see that as him being hot or funny. i can admit petty conrad is alright "sounds like an aunt julia problem" "i'm sorry my grandpa didn't love you as much as he loved my mom but i'm not surprised (idk the exact quote)" and i like julia. it has nothing to do with being team conrad or team jeremiah. he's legit just a fucking dick.

he's a dick to belly obviously, but i'm specifically talking abt jeremiah here bc belly is an afterthought. he didn't wanna yell at her, he already did that. he wanted to make jeremiah feel worthless, and like he didn't deserve to be chosen. and he did. "jeremiah just too insecure, he can't believe belly chose him" BC CONRAD WAS MAKING HIM FEEL THAT WAY. "but... finch is fun" knowing that that's a huge insecurity for jere wasn't funny and it wasn't just petty. it was genuinely horrible for him to say. he wanted jeremiah to know that everyone else thought conrad was better, and conrad knows (thinks) he's better. he wants to remind jeremiah that belly loved the idea of amazing, smart, strong, emotional, mysterious conrad, and (even though this isn't true, it's jeremiah's insecurities bc of adam and susannah and the fact everyone fucking worships conrad) he's not amazing and smart and strong and emotional and mysterious. "i remember last year it was seven" bc he wants to tell jeremiah that he wasn't serious about those people so how can he be serious about belly. he wants him to think that belly doesn't want something serious with him bc she knows his history and knows he hasn't been in serious relationships before her. "who's the better kisser" (which, bffr you do not want the answer to that question conrad) bc he wants jeremiah to know that he's better than him. in all the ways that matter and don't, he wants him to know he's better and belly knows it too. and obviously those things aren't true. conrad doesn't even think these things. he's literally just a manipulative dick. like i don't think he's terrible or unredeemable, but he is manipulative. he always pulls out insecurities or stuff he knows will hurt the other person in fights. in this one it hurt bc jeremiah thought all of that was true and that conrad really thought that. in the party fight it hurt bc even though jeremiah knew it wasn't true, he knew conrad wanted to hurt him. someone that he has had to pick up the pieces after his entire life, someone he looks up to and most of all cares about, wants to hurt him. that's fucked.

anyway, lots of words to say fuck conrad for the car scene, it's so much deeper than some petty stuff. also, conrad is a shitty brother. i don't care. he is. the fisher family dynamic is that adam fucks it all up. susannah refuses to acknowledge that things are fucked up. conrad carries the burden of it being fucked up. jeremiah has to cheer everyone up, pick up the pieces when conrad drops them (which isn't his fault he shouldn't be carrying that burden but just bc it's not his fault doesn't mean it can't hurt jeremiah) and glue them back together, put on a happy face, and deal with everyone neglecting him. let's not pretend conrad has excuses jeremiah doesn't. "conrad had to carry this burden" and jeremiah had to do fucking everything else.

#jeremiah fisher #tsitp #the summer i turned pretty #tsitp jeremiah #belly conklin #conrad fisher #belly x jeremiah #tsitp belly #tsitp conrad #belly x conrad #ik i said fuck a lot in this post #“intelligent people...” fuck off.#i'm very intelligent #hence why i know ways to add emphasis #italics or capitalization or even bold wasn't enough #“being a fisher is a closed door affair”#- an amazing fantastic glorious made me cry fanfic i read

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observers-journal · 8 months

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Do you think that the whole controversy with Tenoch has caused ER to either be more popular among social media and the public or just less as if people are turning away from her? Especially since the 'so-called' evidence that she posted was used against her to call her out on her lies as well as her crimes and history. Also, I wonder if politicians who have tried to be associated with her, such as that one deputy who schemed with her to try to pass the stealthing law by dragging Tenoch, are avoiding and turning away from her due to probably realizing how toxic and criminal she really is. Because it's amazing how they are all silent instead of supporting her, even with the access to the media power that they have that they could use to promote her such as they did with her case as there is not much news going on except for what she posts on Twitter, even with her acid case. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that no one prominent is really on her side publicly, except her lawyer and followers, which makes her really all alone. She probably does these horrible things as a way to feel good about herself and have some self-importance, which would have been sad, if it wasn't for the fact that she tramples and hurts others with her family to do so. If there is one important thing that I have learned in my two and a half decades of life on Earth that is very true, it's that the bill always comes due, and I feel that her bill for all that she has done might be on its way.

Thank you for the submission, anon! You pose a very interesting theory, which I agree can be true.

I'm gonna be a bit more cautious here about my answer, mostly because everything is so chaotic, nuanced and layered it's hard to tease out a specific reason for this. Whatever I say is purely my opinion, so please take it with a pinch of salt.

She could be the case of "bad publicity is still publicity". If she truly is trying for a political career, this might bring her some exposure. Politics is usually dirty and messy, and any kind of exposure helps. I have a feeling she's not very big on her own, but tries to show herself by using the few contacts she has gained, and the nexus she has from her own family. She cares a lot about her carefully constructed image, coz that's what she has going for her. That public sympathy and an activist image.

On the other hand, an equally valid argument is the one you raise. And that I suspect too: this is gonna come back to bite her. Everyone acts to preserve their self-interests, and so we have seen people distancing themselves from her. The amount of stuff she and her family has going on is a biggg problem for her. It's not like other politicians are not toxic or criminal, they just hide it better.

She definitely created a big ruckus and then nothing came of it. So to some extent, I think her temporary social media popularity is down. Will it continue to be that way? I can't say. Does it reflect the ground reality? I don't know.

I don't want to pass any personal comments on her as a person, and keep myself limited to her case with Tenoch. I feel bad for her acid attack, but what she did to him was nasty. Terrible.

Here's what I suspect. All of our conclusions are based on publicly available info. Behind the scenes? She could have quieted down and shifted her focus elsewhere (other cases that are more important). She might have found solace in the fact that she was able to successfully deliver a blow to Tenoch's career. She might be covering up her criminal traces. She might be working on her network politically. Or she might be quietly planning another attack on Tenoch (I actually doubt that).

But boy do I hope he sues the hell out of her.

Sorry for such a long post! I had thoughts. I hope you keep the world bright through your goodness and optimism! 🫶

#tenoch huerta #tenoch huerta mejia #jose tenoch huerta mejia #maria elena rios #elena rios #long answer #i had thoughts #anon asks #answered

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feralkwe · 2 days

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my family lost someone last night.

she's not someone anyone in the family liked very much, though many of us spent portions of our lives loving her. many of us still do in our own way. she was very sick for a very long time and that sickness caused her to do many selfish things that hurt many people. she leaves a legacy of wreckage behind her, for sure. i personally did a lot of work repairing some of the damage left in the wake of her illness. she was for the most part estranged and in almost every way possible it was for the better.

but she died horribly, in a way that no one deserves to, not even if it's partially of their own making. like i said, she was very sick. i spent some time this morning talking my mother and brother through some complicated feelings about her, because i am the only person in my family who has worked to develop tools for dealing with feelings. i endeavored to remind them that while death does not make someone a saint, and that you're not required to forgive a person the wrongs they've done against you, it's okay if you still need to grieve for the love lost. for the person you loved. and also i had to talk them through the fact that she wasn't actually a terrible monster, either. that the thing everyone hates her for doing was, in fact, an act of love. it might be, in my hard won opinion, the most selfless and loving thing she'd done in her too-short life.

it's easy to look at an action someone takes and only see the ways it hurts you while losing sight of the selflessness of the act. almost my entire family hates her for what she did, but through a lot of therapy and talking it through with my besties (ilu both so much!), i've spent several years quietly thanking her for that choice. it gave me things i will always be grateful for, even if it also hurt and still hurts me in many ways. but it was a loving gasp made in a moment of clarity, and something only she could have given.

in her good times she was sweet. funny. she reminded me, both in appearance and style and manner, of avril lavigne (which may be what attracted my brother to her). she liked to team up with me in lovingly dragging my brother, a beloved pastime of mine. she gave us two beautiful boys who were my entire world for quite a while (and in many ways still are). those boys are still too young to understand her illness and the gift she gave them, but i hope that i can guide them toward doing so one day.

it's tragic that her life was cut short in such a horrifying way. no matter what anyone thinks of her, she deserved better. every human being does. we did not speak for the last many years, and i don't know if that was a good thing or not. i certainly could not have prevented what happened. i can't undo it. terrible things sometimes happen for no reason. we can do nothing but continue on.

what i can do is remember her. i can remember she lived, that she loved, that she lost, and that in the height of her illness she did the right thing, even if that thing continues to leave painful ripples through my family. and i can and will do my best to remind people that no human is all good or all bad. that sometimes things hurt so they can heal. that it's okay to mourn someone you loved even if they harmed you, and that doesn't mean you have to forgive them.

i don't need or even want any sort of sentiment extended to me for her loss. we were not close anymore, and like i said, i'm not sure if that was good or bad. i will quietly cry it out and grieve the person i believe she was, and my life will remain largely unchanged by her loss. what you can do for me, if you are moved to do anything at all, is to help me spread the reminder of the complexity of humanity.

#b does life #death cw #grief cw

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hard--headed--woman · 2 months

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Hey!!! (This isn’t a hate message! I’m writing by anonymous because I’m quite scared of my friends finding out I quite like radfem ideology)

I was listening to “The witch trials of Jk Rowling” (have you heard it?) and I was just wondering on why certain celebrities can be forgiven or their mistakes can be forgotten by the public but Jk rowling is from now on, a “terrible person”??

I’m quite young, a teenager, and I relate to the HP books so much. Obviously, I have a lot of respect for JK and I one day want to be a writer too… so I just can’t seem to understand why she’s so continuously hated. I know lots of other celebrities are attacked and hated on.. but people always seem to move on. But never from her.

Its just been an itch I can’t scratch, and I know it’s because of sexism, but again, lots of others have done terrible things. But nobody ever seems able to move on from JK. Everytime HP is brought up, she HAS to be insulted.

(Sorry for the rant! I just don’t have anyone to tell!!)

Do you have any thoughts on this?

Heyy! Thank you for the ask and sorry for the late reply!

You've got a point here. It's absolutely true : people not being able to move on from JK Rowling isn’t logical. Many celebrities have done far more horrible things and people have moved on. So why don't they do the same thing for her ? I personally think there are several reasons :

1) She's a woman. Obvious answer but still important ; a lot of the hate and violence directed at JK Rowling comes from sexism and misogyny. They wouldn't hate her as much if she wasn't female. We know that women and men aren't held to the same standards. Men can do absolutely a lot of things and be forgiven. Women do not have that privilege : in fact we get hated for very stupid little mistakes, harmless things, for having different opinions... If she was a man, she wouldn't receive all this hate. But she isn’t. And it shows in the language people use against her that their hatred comes, for a big part, from misogyny. Perhaps they'd have moved on if JK was a man, but she is a woman.

2) She cares about women and put women first. People hate that. Men have to come first, especially if you're a woman. But JK ? She does things for women and she is proud of it. People hate female solidarity. They hate seeing women caring for other women. They hate that she's ready to fight the whole world and popular ideologies to help women. It's not what women are supposed to do.

3) Related to the two first points but... she is everything people hate in a woman. She has power, she is successful, smart, funny, confident, she expresses her opinions even on controversial topics, she is strong minded, unbothered by their bullshit... They hate that she's a successful woman, that she speaks her mind and isn’t afraid to say what she thinks, they hate that a woman does not support their ideology, they hate that she will not apologize, they hate that she is smart, they hate that she is confident, they hate everything about her. A woman isn’t supposed to be like this. A woman is supposed to put people's (men's) feelings first, to be sweet and submissive, to apologize or back down if she does something people didn't like... well she said fuck that. And now they're angry.

4) We know that TRAs are basically MRAs. The trans rights movement is a men's rights movement. It's a misogynistic movement that benefits the patriarchy. It oppresses women and give even more power to men. So when JK Rowling fights against it, she fights against something that put men first, give them more power, help them break women's boundaries... that's everything people hate. The men feel attacked, their fandom is offended. She fights against their movement. You can't criticize the patriarchy and try to prevent men to get what they want. People are so shocked that a woman does it.

5) Jealousy. Is tied to everything else, but people are jealous because she did something unique. No one had ever written books that successful before. No one had ever made that much money from writing books before. I feel like many people were waiting for a reason to hate on her, or at least are happy to have one now. They'd like to erase her name, so that history and people forget her success and the fact that no writer ever had as much success. They'd like to prove that she isn’t special or that they're better than her. Plus, she is a woman. Can you imagine how mad people are that a woman had done something as huge as that ? Especially since she proved that she was a good person after that, giving a lot of money to charity, spending billions of dollars to create ways to help women and children... They'd like to prove she isn’t that great.

6) She criticizes gender ideology and TRAS are losers and crying babies lol

Many celebrities have done terrible things, but people moved on because it didn't hit all these sensitive points. To me, at least. I'll add if more reasons come to my mind (I think I had more and then I forgot them) but for now I think that's all.

#anon #asks

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teamdilf · 3 months

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Break and skin for Ceci and Tully, I’m already bracing

break: What would cause your OC to break down completely? What do they look like when that happens? Has anyone ever seen them at their lowest?

Tullia - She broke down completely after Tarquin died, and it involved a lot of crying and screaming at Sparatus' home on the Citadel, where she was staying after evacuating off Palaven. For a time, she lost the will to live, and when Cerberus tried to take over the Citadel, she defended Sparatus' staff at the house, and was actually disappointed the house and panic room weren't breached, because she wanted to fight and she wanted to die on her feet.

This really scares her - she's always been a fighter and she's never, ever given up, but she perceives herself as being on the verge of giving up. She throws herself into charity work, calling and haranguing everyone she can think of for donations to help the turian refugees, but what really starts her on the road to healing is recognizing that she still wants a life with Adrien, even if she's furious with him for his role in their son's death, and rescuing Marcus and Nero on the Citadel.

Cecilia - Cecilia is a tougher one. I think her biggest breakdown comes in response to Castis' insistence that they'll find a treatment for her and that she'll respond to it. In her mind, his unending optimism was a naive coping strategy, and she needs for him to get in his head that she is going to die, and that there are things that need to be done while she still has the capacity to make her own decisions. That came in the form of a shouting match.

Now, had she lost one of her children, I think that would have been a very ugly breakdown indeed. Castis and Solana hide the fact that Garrus has left his job and gone off to who knows where specifically so that Cecilia won't worry - and so they don't have to tell her the news repeatedly and break her heart every single time. "He's busy with work" is how they protect a very ill Cecilia from the terrible worry they're feeling.

skin: How comfortable is your OC in their skin? Do they grapple with anything that lives inside them—a beast, a curse, a failure, a monster? How do they face the smallest, weakest, most horrible version of themself? Are they able to acknowledge it at all?

Tullia - The part of Tullia that she's most ashamed of is the way she told Adrien he wasn't so different from his father after all, after learning about Tarquin's death. For the most part, she's very comfortable with the person she is; she's confident and secure, but when she was at her very worst, weaponized Adrien's greatest fear and hurt him in a way few others ever could. She has to live with that, and for the rest of her life, tries to make sure he knows what a good dad he is, and that he's more than the worst mistake he ever made.

Cecilia - Cecilia has an anxiety disorder and is prone to panic attacks. After her diagnosis during her early days of basic training, I think she was probably pretty hard on herself, because it became clear that she would never live up to the "turian ideal". The thing is, her family, her friends, and her immediate superiors understood! She discovered an important part of herself - and the reason why she'd always felt so deeply scared from the time she was a young child. She has a medical condition, received an accommodation, and was discharged to serve the Hierarchy in another way - no big deal!

Still, she's not that ideal, and there were people who didn't understand. Castis taking the revelation so casually, despite being in the military himself at the time, was a real relief for her. She learns coping strategies over the years - she's neurotic about money so she handles the family's finances. She worries about Castis on the Citadel, so he makes every effort to text her goodnight every single night - and is very good at warning her if he would be unable to for some reason. I think she does need a bit of help to learn what accommodations she needs, and that it is fine to have different needs from the other people around her.

#ask games #Thank you!#Tullia Victus #Cecilia Vakarian

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merakiui · 1 year

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Hey Mera! This may be a bit random but I was wondering what your fave type of villain is? I was watching some old Disney movies and I have to say that my fave villains are probably Ursula and Hades. I think they are a perfect balance between animated and imposing villains. They have such distinct personalities and are such memorable characters, in my opinion. (My fave part of the little mermaid has always been Ursula, I always found her to be so cool).

Hello!! :D aaaa favorite type of villain! Ursula and Hades are very good choices. Recently I watched Hercules and so I completely understand Hades's appeal as a villain. He was very funny and I liked his banter with Meg, especially when she was trying to tell him that Hercules was different and he says, "he's a guy!"

Ursula was also another favorite from my childhood, so your taste is very immaculate. I have always loved "Poor, Unfortunate Souls" and I liked how clever she was when making deals (surely this love for Little Mermaid won't lead to my love for a certain trio in a Disney mobile game known as Twisted Wonderland). Her lair always unnerved me as a child because of the garden of polyps she had. Knowing that those polyps were once merfolk who made deals with her and couldn't repay debts was so eerie to me!

Another villain I absolutely love is Dr. Facilier omg!!!! Princess and the Frog is one of my favorite Disney films and I love how cunning he is. So charismatic and casual!! It was really too good. orz his death scene frightened me as a child. It was wonderfully creepy, and I loved how ruthless he could be when it came to tricking others.

I also really liked Claude Frollo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame because he's done so well. He is so unsettling and horrifying and monstrous! When I watched it many months ago, I wasn't expecting to be so genuinely disturbed. He really is a villain in every manner of the word. I was rooting for his demise as the film reached its climax and aaaa it was so satisfying to watch him fall to his death!

This isn't Disney, but I liked Jack Horner in Puss in Boots 2. He was really refreshing because he was a genuinely evil character and he embraced that nature. Of course I also greatly enjoyed Death. He was so eerie with the whistling and the way in which he stalked Puss. Every one of his scenes had me at the edge of my seat. >0<

As for my favorite type of villain, it would have to be the kinds who appear friendly at first and seem like they might be on your side before it's revealed that they are, in fact, terribly evil. I like the concept of luring a person in with disarming behaviors, only to bring your jaws down when they're right where you want them. It's always so haunting when a character you think is sweet and good turns out to be vile and cruel.

I also enjoy villains who play the most complex mind games. And I also like villains who are very cute and appear innocent but turn out to be downright horrible. The contrast of cute and creepy will always be one of my favorite things! And then there are also villains with tragic backstories. I like those kinds of villains because I get to peer into their past and wonder what may have shaped them into a villain.

#chit chat #aaaa please forgive my ramblings i hope you are not bothered by a long reply >_<

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britts-galaxy-brain · 1 year

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even if the fanfic you say was written by lily was, that doesn't make her a predator. i wrote some horrible pairings between adults and minors when i was big into my artemis fowl phase and i've drawn characters in ways i shouldn't have before. lily having made mistakes in the past doesn't make her a bad person. ee all fuck up sometimes. it's not the important thing. the important thing is that she tries to keep attention off that kind of thing and limits sexual stuff to stuff we can all click off of. if i didn't want to see her stream or watch her videos or whatever, i could and can just hit the back button. yeah, i guess flashing is kinda cringe, but cishet dudes do it all the time and no one calls them predators. it's just a thing some people do. It's not great but it's not anywhere near as graphic as the stuff guys at my school do, joking about raping girls and who they wouldn't fuck even if they were too drunk to see straight etc.

it's maybe five seconds of boobs. that's NOTHING. and it's transphobic that people slam her for this but if guys at my school joke about wanting to facefuck me it's "boys will be boys lol". why should a trans woman get so much more anger for a sexual joke so much more minor? what has she done wrong that the cishet guys who i CANNOT escape with a simple click haven't? i've never seen her flash but if i did it's one click away from being out of my life. the old dude who stares at my boobs in the library is way worse than lily. if she wasn't trans no one would give a damn.

and for your information, she has messaged me after i sent her fanart - and we talked briefly about fanart and how to navigate the tags on a fanart website i use that she's unfamiliar with. that's it. there was nothing sexual, nothing inappropriate, no red flags. just a pretty normal conversation and then she moved on. she's not evil or predatory or whatever. she's just some woman on the internet. all she's guilty of is maybe having written some bad fics and showing a few inches of skin. i've been raped. i know what abuse is. "hey how do you exclude tags on this site anyway? i keep looking for ___ character and only getting art of them with ___" is not abuse.

...Oh my. Yall I'm gonna need some help here.

There are screenshots of Lily's old Tumblr where the first three were linked, Lily talked about it openly, she even used to have a NFSW blog dedicated to it despite the fact that its most notable plot point involved grooming and molesting children and a young teenager. There are also video clips of Lily herself admitting to writing it. She was writing the sequels long into her 20s, which is well beyond the age an adult should be writing about those ages.

The people at your school are just as disgusting and the fact that they aren't getting reprimanded immediately is a sad failure of the adults around you. The adults in your life should be taking that just as seriously as we're taking Lily's behavior. It is just as predatory and sick, and I'm truly sorry the adults in your life are failing at this. I grew up in a similar situation myself, and it was a huge reason I ended up getting involved with adults I shouldn't have been involved with. Much like you, it had become normalized in my head, and I justified the adults who were taking advantage of me. It didn't make it right. They were predators who knew what they were doing, and wanted to manipulate and use me.

Lily uses a lot of maliciously manipulative tactics to get her audience, notably people your age, to sympathize with her. It's a form of emotional manipulation. None of us are transohobic in any capacity, and at least three of the people who are or have called her out for this are trans themselves. Accusing us of transphobia is one of the many lies she tells her audience so she can pretend to be a victim, and manipulate her audience into immediately disregarding us. If she can get her audience to believe we're terrible bigots by playing into their emotions, they're less likely to want to look at the hard evidence and corroborating experiences many of us have had with her.

Anon, I can promise you Lily has been lying to you to keep you around for her own selfish purposes. None of us are right-leaning in any capacity. Many of us are trans or otherwise not cisgender. Many of us aren't straight. Many Natives have spoken out against her. Many black people have spoken out against her. Kinksters have spoken out against her. Just about every group she performatively fights for has called her out for horrendous misinformation, racial fetishization, promoting extreme violence, pathological lying, smear campaigning, sockpuppeting (that she still does to this day by sending herself fake anon asks on a regular basis), zoophilia, and pedophilia. The last two have more than enough hard evidence out of her own keyboard to back up.

I'm truly sorry for what you're going through IRL. What those boys around you are saying is still predatory, still disgusting, and should absolutely be addressed by the adults around you. The fact rhat they aren't doesn't mean what those boys are doing is normal or okay. And it certainly doesn't mean what Lily is doing is normal or okay. People like Lily prey on people in your situation, who unfortunately haven't been shown that this behavior is abusive and horrible. This is what she relies on, and why she refuses to set up a revenue stream on a more adult-oriented website. There are many popular sites where she could be openly sexual with other adults and get paid well for it, but she refuses to go to those sites. It's because she gets off on the audience she has now, which consists of a lot of minors in situations like yours. Her and I are the same age, and I can tell you what she is doing is not something someone our age should EVER be doing. Period. It is predatory, she knows full well it is predatory, yet she's doing it anyway and lying to people so she doesn't get caught.

Please be safe, anon. I know it gets heavy as all hell dealing with what you're dealing with. There are people out here that genuinely do want you safe and I hope you get out of your current environment soon.

#this is heartbreaking #godspeed anon #you'll get out and be okay #you deserve so much better #lily peet #lily orchard #peet post

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electrasev5nwrites · 9 months

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Ninja Daily: Vapors 93

'Those are boobs that I never wanted to see,' Jiraiya thought a bit glumly, feeling simultaneously like the worst kind of dirty old man and disappointed in himself for failing to be the great super pervert all the time. No one was perfect, of course, but he had high standards. Speaking of which.

"Why the hell did the fact that Danzo had this on his chest mean that you put it on yours?" He groused good-naturedly, using an ink brush to trace along a line to try to discern where it ended and where the overlapping strokes began. "The stomach gate would have worked just as well." And that way, he wouldn't have to stare at his goddaughter in a skimpy bra. Aiko shrugged, causing his brush to slip ever so slightly.

"It wasn't like I put a lot of planning into it," she defended mildly. "I didn't have an abundance of time." Helpfully, she tugged the fabric on her left breast a few centimeters over to expose the end of the tattoo.

Jiraiya flickered his eyes skyward and prayed for strength, and then did his level best to pretend he wasn't staring at boobs. It was just a canvas for an insidious seal; that was all. Just a seal condensed about the size of his goddaughters hand, which she had apparently pressed over her chest in a slightly off-center way, slipping barely over and under the base of her right breast and almost to the peak of-

'Think professional thoughts,' Jiraiya commanded himself. 'No matter how uncomfortable this is, it has to be done.'

But, boobs! He choked down a sob. He'd never forgive Tsunade for making him do this. She could have found another seal mas… okay, so that was untrue. He glared a little resentfully at the matrix in front of his face and tried not to breathe the scent of what appeared to be an alluring mixture of rosewater and dog in too deeply. Apparently, Aiko hadn't really figured out that as an attractive young woman, she was supposed to not smell like dogs. It was charming, in a way that helped him remember that he was not intending to view her as a sexual entity. Nope, just his goddaughter, who was still silly enough to roll around in the dirt with horribly hairy dogs instead of getting a nice, dignified summons. For her height, though, she'd grown enormous- gah!

"It's strange," Aiko commented, sounding genuine. "Usually when I move a seal, it acts like one of my own and it loses visibility until chakra is channeled into it. Is this one ever going to behave like that?"

"No," he snorted, taking a moment to regret teaching her how to make her own seals before she'd really been taught the mid-level theory. Talent, creativity, and insight were just a recipe for trouble without the rote knowledge of all the things that could and had gone terribly wrong in the past. In his short experience, Uzumaki were curious as cats, and nearly twice as likely to get their fool selves blown up. Mostly on account of how cats didn't have thumbs and explosives.

To be fair, he'd never trained an Uzumaki before. Could he really be blamed for misunderstanding what it meant to have a student with an Uzumaki's touch and instinct for fuinjutsu as opposed to being a fuinjutsu genius like Minato? Because they were very different creatures.

Jiraiya resigned himself to teaching. "You were right that this was meant to fail when Danzo died. That means that it's only dangerous when it becomes inactive. Your seals become visible when they're active or forcibly jolted with chakra, right? Well, this one is always active, and thus always visible. Worry when you can't see it," he joked darkly.

Aiko was the last person who'd have to worry about this seal when it faltered, on account of the fact that she'd have to have recently come down with a bad case of 'deceased' for that to happen.

At the moment, he really didn't see a solution. He really didn't want to experiment with a volatile explosive on someone he didn't want blown up.

He settled back with a sigh, and rubbed at his chin contemplatively. "Are you sure Danzo said that this would kill the ROOT agents when he died?"

Aiko blinked at his skeptical tone, and her eyes took on that distant quality that generally meant she was lost in thought. "I asked what would happen to 'us' when he died, and he said that he had no successor. He said that we would pass with him," she recited easily.

Jiraiya groaned, and slapped his forehead.

"What?" His goddaughter blinked up at him, honestly perplexed by his reaction.

"I think that you two were experiencing a fundamental misunderstanding," Jiraiya managed, trying not to giggle at just how hopelessly bad at communication Danzo and Aiko must have been as a conversational pair. "Think on what he said: you were referring to ROOT as individuals, right? I think he was referring to ROOT as a group. His statement that he had no successor makes more sense in a context that assumes he was talking about what would happen to the organization after his death, not the individuals who make it up. He probably meant that ROOT would fall apart, since he didn't trust anyone else with a small army."

Danzo hadn't been completely divorced from reality. If several hundred of Konoha's shinobi just dropped over at once, it would negatively impact their ability to do their jobs. He'd been pro-Konoha, one hundred and crazy percent, not an idiot.

"What," Aiko said flatly.

If the situation had been different, he might have laughed at her put out expression. Instead, he nodded solemnly. "Yes, if you'd taken him to detonate outside of Konoha, there probably would have been no repercussions except that Tsunade would have to come up with a really good story for his wake when someone inevitably asks why it looked like he was squeezed through a fine mesh strainer on the way over."

His goddaughter was slowly turning red. Standing by the sink, Tsunade slapped a palm to her forehead.

Amused despite himself, he forced his expression to remain merely curious. "Shame that you tried to do the noble thing, and ended up just making a hassle for yourself and got a tattoo for your trouble," he sighed theatrically. "I don't think I can remove it, by the way. It's severely unstable after what you did to it." He heaved a careless shrug. "Here's hoping you learn to love the way it looks."

It was kind of cool-looking, if the observer wasn't much of a seal-smith. If they were… Well, it would take a brave man to squeeze those boobies after having seen twirls of explosive notes on them.

'As her godfather, should I be in support of scary seals that decrease the likelihood of boobie squeezing?' he wondered philosophically. He didn't really care if she got laid or not, but it seemed like a godfatherly concern to have.

"When it was on him, it was expressed in utilitarian black bars," Aiko said stiffly, as if that would help her situation.

Jiraiya nodded indulgently. "Like I said, you destabilized it. Bet it hurt going on, huh? You peeled off the polishing layer that was holding everything all neat." He mindlessly poked the seal, and then drew his thumb back as if burnt when the flesh under it gave in a way that reminded him exactly what he was touching. In an attempt to retain nonchalance, he quickly finished, "That's why you have this here. It's the underlying structure. Do me a favor, and don't try to move anything explosive again, okay kid?"

Maybe, given time to play with the sketch he'd made, he could figure out a way to gradually filter out the chakra locks that weaponized the damn thing, but he hardly wanted her playing around with it. Just wasn't smart.

She closed her eyes, leaned her face forward into her palms, and gave a quiet whimper. Through her hands, she glumly mumbled out, "I'm going to end up the most scarred-up, disfigured kunoichi there has ever been, aren't I?"

"It's not that bad," he tried to reassure her, even while a smile tugged at his lips. Who knew she had a spot of vanity?

"Well, out you go," Tsunade said briskly, tossing Aiko's shirt back to the girl. The teen blinked, but pulled it on over her head and hustled out of the examination room as best as she could. She lingered uncertainly at the doorway for a moment.

"Ah, do I need to come back?"

"I'll call you if I need you." The mask of polite detachment stuttered on Tsunade's face, and Aiko's eyes widened. Wisely, she beat a quick retreat out into the ANBU facility. Tsunade instantly looked pissed and rounded on him. "Why did you tell her that, you numbskull?"

Jiraiya blinked at her, honestly not understanding what he had done wrong. "I'm not sure I deserve that," he grumbled, furrowing his brow.

Tsunade rolled her eyes and slapped the back of his head. "That girl had one humanitarian impulse, and then you went and told her it was a waste of her time!" she snapped. Slapping him didn't seem to have satisfied her need to punish him, so she grabbed his shoulders with her scary claw-fingers and shook him in time with her next words. "That's not how you reward shinobi when they show improvement," she practically hissed. "Positive reinforcement is the first lesson in management!"

'Which clearly, you have mastered,' thought the man who had just done Tsunade a favor despite the severe discomfort the situation put him through.

A little frightened that this was about to devolve further, he dropped to his knees to escape her grip and held his hands out placatingly. "Calm down, hime! Think about what you're saying. Was I supposed to lie to her? She'd figure it out eventually," he wheedled. "Aiko isn't that thick, and she has a personal interest. Wouldn't it be even worse if she found out we misled her?"

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled, before heaving a sigh. "So how is this going to affect how we deal with ROOT?

"What are you doing?" Yukimasa's voice called out curiously.

Guiltily, Aiko jerked away from the closed examination door and blinked up at her captain innocently. He looked incongruously windswept, as though he'd been fluffing up his dark hair absentmindedly. "Being damned with faint praise," she informed him sweetly, and then started walking before he could figure out she'd been eavesdropping on the Hokage and scold her. "Fancy seeing you here."

"We have a training session in an hour," he cautiously informed her, as if he thought she really didn't know that.

'Yes, thank you, captain obvious. Is the sky still blue? How about water, is it wet?'

"I know," she simply replied. "Is there anything edible in the cafeteria today? I'm peckish."

Yukimasa snorted, eyes looking even wearier than usual. "Has there ever been anything edible there?" he asked rhetorically. When she didn't change direction, he winced. "You're seriously going to eat there?" When she didn't respond to the incredulous tone or change her path, he hastily added, "I'm pretty sure we only have the cafeteria as a way to punish recruits."

Aiko shrugged. "S'not that bad."

The look he gave her would have been more fitting if he'd walked in on her stabbing herself with needles.

'Drama queen. Everything served there is perfectly nutritious. If unidentifiable.'

He gave a suspicious stare to the plate she filled, but grudgingly deigned to sit at the same table with her. Before she took a bite, Aiko took a moment to examine him. She thought she knew what was going on, but couldn't really let on. May as well give him an opening. "Is there any particular reason you're hovering, captain? I think I'll survive the mystery meat without an A-class assist."

"I think that's supposed to be tofu," he deflected, running his hand through his hair in a way that didn't do much to hide that he was stressed. At her unimpressed expression, he gave a sigh and admitted, "I have some bad news. But I'd like to wait for Aoto to show up."

'Yepp, he's found out about Shou,' her mind filled in glumly. 'I'm going to have to do some acting. It would be inhuman to be completely unaffected, but sincerity would be a bad approach. As far as they know, I have no reason to feel guilty.'

That decided, she let her brow crease a little in worry and gave him a searching look, as if thinking over the implications of the fact that he hadn't mentioned waiting for Boar as well, but let the topic drop. She ate lightly, knowing that it would be a bad idea to have a heavy stomach before a workout, but also not eager to work out on an empty stomach.

When she heard the words, "Boar died in action," a few minutes later, Aiko allowed her body to become very still. Her eyes she purposefully widened just an iota, and her jaw clenched. This would have been easier if they hadn't ditched masks for training after they'd traded names, but she could still trick two people who were caught up in their own thoughts.

It did feel awful and strange to try to practice team drills with just three people. Yukimasa called a halt early, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I think we'll call it for the day," he decided softly, green eyes troubled.

'We'll probably have a replacement soon,' Aiko thought a little regretfully as she changed back into street clothes and left the room she maintained in the ANBU dorms. The idea of working with someone else on patrols left an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

Not that the team was always exactly the same—when one of them was on another mission that conflicted with patrol duty, a replacement was slotted in to keep the roster full, but that was different from an actual change to the team.

'What did you expect?' She scolded herself irritably, yanking her hair out of a ponytail with a bit too much force and all but stomping down the hall and out of the building. It was an almost obnoxiously beautiful day, but Aiko didn't spare so much as a thought for her change of surroundings. 'You killed your teammate, obviously things can't go back to normal. Grow the hell up, dummy.'

"Oh, hey! Aiko."

She blinked away from her thoughts and turned to visually search through the crowds for the source of that familiar voice.

"I didn't know you were back," she greeted neutrally. Her tone didn't match the way she dutifully opened her arms up for a hug, which Naruto bounded into. Karin and Sasuke trudged behind, looking just as filthy as the blond, but less cheerful about it.

"We just came in," Karin sighed, adjusting her glasses and rubbing futilely at caked-in dirt that looked like the world's worst tan line under her right eye. "The whole Akatsuki hunting thing isn't going as planned."

Naruto scoffed at her and waved a mocking finger in his cousin's face. "Tsk tsk, we're not supposed to talk about our mission before we debrief," he playfully scolded.

Once the irony inherent in that statement had sunk in, Sasuke reached out robotically to punch Naruto in the gut. "First of all, it's Aiko, not an enemy nin," he sighed. "And secondly, protocol isn't funny. I hate to say it, but the moron is inadvertently right. We need to go report."

"Have fun with that," Aiko waved them off, feeling amused despite herself. They really did look good as a team: long suffering Sasuke herding the much more energetic and naughty Uzumaki around like brightly colored cats winding around his ankles for attention. Their skill sets were complementary as well, despite the fact that there were two medics on the team, a situation that was normally tactically untenable. Karin and Sasuke were both sufficiently sturdy that they would be assets, not dead weight in need of protection. All three of them had both close range and long range skills, and contracts with scarily heavy-duty summons. They were pretty well prepared to complete any non-specialized mission that didn't involve subtlety or diplomacy.

'Maybe Tsunade-sama will keep them as a team, for nostalgia's sake if nothing else. Snake, slug, and toad makes a good combat combination.'

She stopped in her tracks when she reached her apartment. Not because anything was necessarily wrong, but because someone seemed to have made the mistake of thinking that her apartment belonged to someone else.

"Ah, hello?" Aiko asked uncertainly. The burly man leaning against the wall unfolded to look at her—and she blinked in recognition. "Ah, Akimichi-san," she greeted uncertainly.

He gave her a good-natured grin. "Come now, didn't I tell you to call me Choza?"

'Oh. I guess he remembers.'

"Did you?" she asked noncommittally, juggling her keys. "That was a while ago." 'And I didn't expect you to seek me out,' she finished silently. He seemed to pick up on that, and raised an eyebrow at her.

"It seems like yesterday to me." He straightened and stepped away from the wall. "I don't mean to be rude, but may I come in? I'd like to speak with you."

'About what happened in Rouran? What really needs to be discussed?'

She was confused, but obligingly enough held the door out. "I'm afraid I don't think I have any house shoes in your size," she admitted apologetically as she switched out her own shoes. Choza was built far bigger than Kakashi or Yamato. He didn't seem to mind skidding around in his socks as she prepared tea, so Aiko shrugged the breach in decorum off.

"So…" she began uncertainly, not sure how to ask 'why are you in my house' without seeming rude. It wasn't as if she was particularly put-out by his presence. From her little experience with him, he seemed like a nice man.

Luckily, he took pity on her. "Nasty business with Danzo, eh?"

It wasn't an opening she was expecting. "Excuse me?" Aiko asked cautiously, hiding her mouth behind her cup.

Choza seemed amused. "Come now, no need to try to keep things from me. I was the one who poisoned him. You can hardly incriminate yourself to me."

Oh. That made more sense. "I wondered how Tsunade-sama had taken care of things," Aiko admitted frankly. "She moved much more quickly than I had anticipated."

"An understatement, I'm sure," Choza snorted. "Danzo's being painted pretty for the sake of village security, but the small council knows the gist of what happened. Indirectly, that's why I'm here, by the way." He took a small sip and politely put down his tea. "Were you aware that the small clan head council was voting on whether or not the Uzumaki should be on the large council?"

Bemused, Aiko shook her head. "No, but I wouldn't mind losing that," she admitted honestly. "It would be a relief. I only accepted the nomination because I had to."

He stared at her for a moment, and then tossed his head back in a genuine laugh. "Aiko-chan, you're killing me." Choza patted the table in a strange gesture she didn't recognize, before helpfully elaborating. "I mean that they think it's demeaning to put a clan that Konoha has recognized as allies since the time of the first on the large council. You're officially invited to the small council."

His expression was open and friendly. She almost felt bad for groaning audibly and cradling her head in her hands. It was a concerted effort not to whine, 'seriously?' like a bratty preteen. Of course he was serious. He wouldn't come over here just to mess with her head. A hand the size of a dinner plate reached out to comfortingly pat her shoulder.

"You know," he began cautiously; "you don't have to accept."

Optimistically, she lifted her head just a bit to peek at him through her fingers.

"Really?"

He seemed to be stifling a smile at the hopefulness in her voice. His eyes were crinkling up slightly. "Really," Choza confirmed solemnly. "It'll still be there for you, but it can be deferred for quite some time. No one can make you accept the seat, not even the Hokage."

"That is the person I was worried about pressuring me," Aiko half-grumbled, too cheered to really be properly resentful of how bossy Tsunade could be. "That wouldn't have any negative repercussions?"

Choza seemed to waver slightly. "Well, yes and no," he admitted. "It depends on what you want. How familiar are you with the laws governing clan conventions?"

Aiko gave him a blank stare as an answer. He seemed a little outraged by that.

"No one taught yo- Of course they wouldn't have," he interrupted himself with a sigh, smoothing a hand over his chest armor in thought. "Kushina would have been the one who'd do that for you." The clan head fixed her with a sympathetic look. "She was a remarkable woman," he confided solemnly. "I can't replace her, but if you'd like, I could try to remedy that gap in your education."

It seemed like a suggestion that would only help her.

'But I can hardly ask what his angle is,' she scolded her paranoid mind, even as she struggled for a response. 'That'd be rude, especially since he's offering to do me a favor.'

Choza seemed to have some hint as to her dilemma, because his face softened into a soothing smile. "I regretted not doing right by you kids," he admitted softly. "I told myself that it wasn't my business, and that you seemed to be growing up perfectly well. Besides, I could never have explained why I cared, since we were forbidden to so much as hint about your parentage until Tsunade made the information public. But Minato was my teammate and my friend. He would be proud to see the young woman you've become. I think you should know that."

She was struck completely dumb, and more than a bit uncomfortable. Would he really have been proud of her? And why was Choza reaching out to her and not Naruto?

"Your brother seems to have found confidants," he continued.

'That was positively uncanny,' Aiko thought, bewildered. Was she really so obvious, or was he just that insightful?

Minato'd had odd moments like that too, now that she thought about it. Maybe it was some secret jutsu that fathers had. Like how mothers and Hyuuga had 'eyes in the back of the head no jutsu', supposedly.

Or perhaps that had been a joke and she'd just misunderstood? The woman who'd said that at market had laughed afterwards. It sort of sounded like a useful jutsu. She hoped it was real.

"He's good at finding parental figures, actually," Choza continued with a mild smile that took the potential sting out of the words and their corollary implication that Aiko wasn't good at endearing herself to possible parental figures. "Don't think the village didn't talk about him calling the Sandaime 'grandfather'," he chortled fondly. His eyes went a little misty when he continued, "and Ichiraku-san nearly went out of business when he first started encouraging Naruto to hang around the stall. It took intentional intervention from cooler heads who understood more than most what it means to have a bijuu sealed to keep him enough patronage to stay afloat. But he couldn't have known that anyone would advocate for him. A businessman doesn't endanger his livelihood lightly. No, Naruto seems to be doing fine."

"But I don't play well with others," Aiko completely dryly when he seemed to be struggling for words. "No, it's fine. I know I'm not half as charismatic as Naruto is." She shrugged to show she really didn't mind. "But I get along fine, and I don't really need to be taken care of."

Choza regarded her sadly for a moment before painting on a little smile. "Doesn't hurt to have a friendly ear, though, does it?" he asked rhetorically, politely removing his gaze. "Hatake-san is a good man, but I doubt that he routinely sat you down to talk about your feelings when you were a genin."

Involuntarily, she snorted. He most certainly had not.

"Alright," Aiko gave in on an impulse. "I would love to learn from you, Choza-san."

"Wonderful!" He clapped his hands. "How does tonight sound? You should know your options, before a reply is required."

That first time she met his family for dinner (because conversations with friends are best had over food, Aiko-chan) it rapidly became apparent that there was a lot that she didn't know. For example, that he could help her access sealed records of her clan's history, and that Minato had once eaten so much mochi that he threw up gelatinous pink vomit on the Fire Lady's shoes at a cherry tree viewing festival. Luckily, she didn't recognize him ten years later when he was sworn in as Hokage, or it might have been awkward.

It was weird to sit at a table with someone else's family and learn about her own, but she could get used to it.

"Can't I bring my only adorable godchild a gift when I see them for the first time in a very long time?" Jiraiya wheedled, holding out the eldritch abomination dangerously close to invading her personal bubble. Aiko took an unsubtle step backwards.

"I'm your godchild too," Naruto pointed out distractedly, even as he flipped through the book of pre-made sealing notes he'd been gifted.

"Yeah, but you're not cute," Sasuke helpfully filled in, none too subtly peering over the blond's shoulder. At least, until Naruto dropped the notes to the ground and leapt at him.

Aiko ignored the ensuring fight where Naruto tried to tackle Sasuke to the ground to get him to admit that he was adorable, believe it, and gave Jiraiya a weary expression. She was perfectly fine with him pretending that they hadn't already exchanged their greetings. This was less fine.

"How old do you think I am?" she asked skeptically. His eyes watered in surprisingly convincing grief, so she reluctantly reached out and accepted the oversized plush frog. "Thanks," she lied unconvincingly. "I'll treasure it always."

'and burn it immediately.'

"Isn't it adorable?" he giggled, reaching out to tweak her nose.

She closed her eyes and grimaced, tolerantly enduring his attempts to embarrass her. Okay, enough was enough. "If you're going to buy my affections, you're going to have to step it up," Aiko warned him. The glint of amusement on his eyes let on that he wasn't really insulted, so she continued even as he mimed heartbreak. "I'm thinking something that sparkles."

"How shallow, Aiko-chan," he cooed, wiping away a fake tear. "Maybe you're just being bitter that I never shared my contract with you. How would you feel about-"

"No, that's fine," Aiko interrupted. The slightly high pitch and sudden interjection betrayed enough obvious weakness that all three of the males in the clearing turned to give her an evaluative stare. She took a moment to curse Jiraiya for ambushing them as they waited on Kakashi for training. Shinobi were drawn to weakness, unfortunately. Hazard of the trade. Even as she cursed herself for the tactical error, Sasuke slowly drew one eyebrow up with an unpleasant smirk.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that someone was afraid of Jiraiya's summons," he commented archly.

'You traitorous bastard,' Aiko thought furiously, pinning him with a glare that said one more word would be the reason she snapped and stabbed him with the straw from her juice box. He was silenced.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to cow the other two. They were sharing a crooked smile that rather unpleasantly reminded Aiko that they were both tricksters.

"Don't be dumb," she bluffed, turning her face away as if bored. Her hand clenched around her juice box just a little too tightly to truly be casual. "Who on earth would be bothered by toads?"

'Toads the size of cats, that smell strange and moldy and they're slimy and eughhh'.

"So this doesn't bother you at all?" those two rotten bastards asked in unison, each suddenly holding a toad out at arm's length into her general vicinity. Aiko gave an unwilling jolt and an 'eep' sound, and sucked in a steadying breath.

"Of course not."

The lie might have been more convincing if she wasn't carefully leaning away from actual contact with the confused looking amphibian in Naruto's hands. Jiraiya chuckled unpleasantly.

Kakashi closed his eye experimentally and tried again to see if the scene would change. Nope. Aiko was still shrieking and running away from her brother, who appeared to be doing his level best to stuff a toad down her shirt. He couldn't catch her, but that wasn't stopping him from trying.

"Isn't he a little old to be doing this?" he asked Jiraiya, uncertainty plain in his voice.

The toad sannin just shrugged. He was holding two obnoxiously oversized stuffed toads, which Kakashi decided not to ask about. "Never too old for that," Jiraiya deflected. Then he dumped one of the stuffed toads in Kakashi's arms and shared an amused look with Sasuke. Strange, that they were getting alon-

Too late, he realized the toad was not, in fact, stuffed at all. Manfully, he dropped the indignant amphibian and jumped backwards, giving both of them a glare.

"Naruto, that's enough," he barked out, taking what little control of the situation he could. It was impossible to scold Jiraiya, so he didn't even try. "Leave your sister alone." To the sniffling redhead who was murmuring something incoherent about ickiness in between shudders, he added with a sigh, "Aiko, use your words." After a moment's contemplation, he added, "or your kunai."

He wasn't completely unsympathetic to her plight, after all. Toads were rather unpleasant.

After a moment of staring glumly down at his hands which were now far too filthy to touch his precious book, the sole female seemed to take his words to heart, irritation taking over now that the immediate danger of toad slime on her skin had fled. "You," Aiko growled, whirling on her brother with an unusually flushed cheeks and wide eyes. Naruto recoiled. A moment later, so did Sasuke when she turned her glare on him.

Kakashi purposefully shuffled to the side, out of her direct line of sight.

"You..." she struggled for words, before bursting out, "I just want you to know every time you laugh at the pervert sannin for peeking at half-naked women, that's going to be you forty years from now." Jiraiya was beginning to whine about not being that old, but Aiko cut him off mercilessly. "Because you do immature gross things like that around girls, you're going to have to resort to spying because no woman is ever going to touch you down there." With one last bit of drama, she gave a Vanna White-esque sweeping motion at Jiraiya, who seemed unpleasantly surprised to be the center of her demonstration. "Behold, the future," she all but hissed. Then she flipped her hair over her shoulder and stomped out.

Kakashi watched it all happen, and wondered if she'd forgotten they'd agreed to a group workout. Jiraiya-sama was an artist, and a connoisseur of romance, but she had something of a point.

The boys looked stricken.

'Time to get some payback,' Kakashi thought, remembering that there was mucus on his sleeve and not feeling particularly charitable.

He heaved a sigh and put his hands in his pockets, slumping casually. "You know," he mused, "As your sister, Aiko is ideally placed to ruin any relationship you ever have, Naruto." As the blond flinched, Kakashi turned to Sasuke. "And how is re-building your clan going, Sasuke? Do you actually know any women under thirty other than Aiko? Maybe you should be nicer too."

It wasn't entirely a stretch. Sasuke spent time with Tsunade, Shizune, Keiko the secretary, annnd no other females as far as he'd ever seen. If he wasn't planning on splitting in thirds to form generation 2.0 of the Uchiha clan, he'd have to either sweet-talk Aiko or make at least one female friend. With his lovely social demeanor… Well, he was lucky one woman his approximate age tolerated him, Kakashi thought rather hypocritically.

Sasuke blanched at the jab. One eye began twitching uncontrollably.

'Perhaps he just short-circuited,' he thought with amusement. 'Quick, someone teach the robot to love.'

Kakashi turned to Jiraiya, who seemed to be warily waiting for his scolding as well. He merely shook his head pityingly and turned away as if there was just no hope there. Jiraiya looked torn between outrage and insecurity.

The boys were unavoidable casualties. It was tragic all around, but they were necessary sacrifices in order to really strike a killing blow at the heart of the man who had dumped a toad on his hands.

"Kakashi has no room to talk. It's not like he gets any gets any dates," he heard Sasuke mutter sullenly as he took off.

'And that one is going to be running laps with Gai tomorrow,' Kakashi decided, irritated. 'At four in the morning. No, three.'

#vapors #uzumaki aiko #electrasev5n #ninja daily #fanfiction #naruto fanfiction

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eldritchgray · 9 months

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Okay, about Midnight Mass and why I love it so much.

This show is such a beautifully done piece of media, and Idk if I'm fully equipped to express just how impactful it is for me, but I wanna give it an effort. Specifically about the ending, because the ending is my favorite part.

Warning: This got long (also spoilers)

The beginning of the final episode is chaotic. It shows the worst aspects of religion, blind faith, and the church. The blatant hypocrisy of those who see themselves as righteous. The dangers of cherry-picking isolated pieces of scripture to justify every action, even the ones that cause others harm. Especially the ones that cause others harm. It's full of violence, gore, and fear.

The protagonists are the people who have been ostracized by the church for one reason or another. The gay woman, the Muslim man, the adulteress. They're the ones who saw how fucked up the actions of their church were first. They're the ones who realize the goal is to spread vampirism (it's never actually called that in the show, but that's what it is) from their isolated island community to the mainland, and they're the ones who choose to stay and stop this instead of fleeing to safety.

All three of them die in the process. But they win. They win against the rest of the town that was against them.

On the other side, is the culmination of every Christian self-righteous, judgemental asshole. She's the one who has justified every terrible decision with scripture. She's the one who looks down on everyone else in the whole goddamn town. I know several people like her from the church I used to attend.

In one scene she reprimands a man for saving someone who had never set foot in church, and says there's no room in the rec center (one of the two buildings left standing at this point) for him. The man who saved him says, "But I saved him. He was always nice to me." She doesn't care. In here eyes, since he'd never gone to mass, he wasn't redeemable.

It's around this time we see the people starting to realize just how horrible all this is. How terrible their actions have been. That they never should have started down this path, but they have and now they have to recon with the aftermath.

When the main three burn down the last two remaining buildings, the town's reaction compared to the self-righteous woman's is very telling. They remain calmly resigned, while she panics. They've already come to terms with the horror of their actions and their upcoming fate, and she is still firmly clinging to the belief that this was all God's will.

We get to see everyone in their final moments, and specifically we get to hear the inner thoughts the woman the town condemned as promiscuous. The whole monologue is beautifully written and acted, but it's this one line that really gets to me,

"There is no time. There is no death. Life is a dream. It's a wish. Made again and again and again and again and again and again and on into eternity. And I am all of it. I am everything. I am all. I am that I am."

When I tell you this made me sob it is not an exaggeration.

Everyone in the town spends their final moments coming together and singing or praying facing the sunrise. Everyone except the self-righteous woman. She spends her final moments scrambling for survival. The one person who could never come to terms with the fact that she was in the wrong.

The final episode begins with chaos, but it ends with an almost haunting quiet, as everyone looks into the sunrise.

This show does such a good job of criticizing the hypocrisy in the church and in having blind faith. It shows that going to church every week does not make you a good person. But it balances this with showing that having faith and having religion can bring people peace and joy, and that is beautiful and lovely. With showing that not going to church does not make you a bad person. In the end, we are all just people.

#fuck this got long lmao #sorry about that #midnight mass #midnight mass spoilers #mike flanagan #essay #i feel like im justified in tagging that #long post #my thoughts #my writing

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twin-books · 1 year

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What would you think if an evilized villain(maybe a wishmaker-like villain or maybe even a villain that's unrelated to the butterfly miraculous) caused Chloe and Zoe to switch bodies somehow, and nobody fully understands what's going on, so Zoe(in Chloe's body) is taken by Audrey back to London, despite Zoe desperately trying to explain things. But Chloe enters a fugue state(heavily due to trauma caused by the neglect of her parents) and genuinely thinks she's Zoe, and is even able to recall some of the things Zoe did due to being in Zoe's body. The class thinks "Zoe's" change in behavior is due to the psychological effects of method acting, since "Zoe" is playing Chloe in Astruc's new movie, but they gradually convince "Zoe" to let them help her relearn how to be "herself" again. Meanwhile, in London, Zoe is trying to get back to Paris.

Very fun idea. It does sound like I might get a little lost though, but I'm sure in writing format that would be a bit easier to convey. Body swaps are a fun thing to do. It makes me feel horribly bad for Zoe though, and I don't really care for Zoe much if... at all. Mostly because she's stuck with Audrey. I do love the idea of a villain unrelated to akuma and the miraculous in general. Hence why I wrote a story with an antagonist unrelated to that and more of it's own thing. I think in the world of miraculous where we have seen that apparently monsters used to exist... it would be more fun if we had different magical antagonist than just miraculous holders or beings created by the miraculous. The annoying thing about this is how the show has kind of made a lot of this idea next to impossible purely because... with akuma they've done almost everything. In fact, they've had to repeat several powers over and over again just because they used pretty much every idea. It's hard to make a secondary antagonist that wouldn't just feel cheap or stale especially because you know the peacock and butterfly could just make that same thing in seconds. But I do adore the idea of a different kind of villain. One that just likes to mess stuff up on purpose, maybe only because it's fun. Literally anything else than akuma, miraculous holders, and senti-monsters. XD It also sounds like the class would be a bit better than in canon, in my personal opinion. In canon it seems like if the class finds you to be a morally horrible person that they turn on you like a dime. And you can't really challenge their idea of people because they'll just think your crazy or jealous or obsessive or something. I'm not trying to be mean to the class here but I find them to be rather unintentionally manipulative and easy to fall victim to mob mentality. That's just my personal opinion of them. And it's not exactly something I stand by. I much prefer the idea of them at least trying to help "Zoe" and the idea of them telling her she's out of line, because friends need to be told that sometimes. The thing that falls a bit flat for me but I think is accurate to canon, is them trying to convince her she's acting terrible and convincing her to let them help her change back to who she was. It seems rather insensitive to try and change somebody purely because you don't like the way they act. For all they know this wasn't actually method acting and this is just how she feels most comfortable being herself. I don't mean to ruin your idea that's just not something that sits well with me. I would rather people slowly leave her behind because they just can't stand her attitude anymore, maybe a few even explaining to her that her new attitude is not something they want to put up with anymore and why. Then "Zoe" has to come to the conclusion on her own that perhaps Zoe isn't just liked because she's Zoe but rather because she has a different attitude and outlook on life. And then she comes to Zoe's friends to apologize and ask for help on how she can do better. The best part about your idea is how it's unique to Miraculous to have a body swap episode and it sounds very fun. It's an idea I'm honestly surprised Miraculous hasn't done yet, at least in some form.

I think you have a very fun idea here, though. An idea I could be possibly misinterpreting or misreading perhaps. This was a very brief descriptor with a lot packed into it. Keep coming at me with the fun ideas, I like hearing them. I hope you are having a wonderful day, afternoon, evening, night, or whatever time it is where you are! <3

#anon ask #ask me anything #zoe lee #chloe bourgeois #miraculous ladybug #fun ideas #slight ml class salt I guess #TB's opinion #my opinion #opinion #body swap

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tim-hoe-wan · 2 years

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Thank you for answering and I agree so much with your take! I do think the whole twitter cancelling needs more nuance and context. I also agree these days stans are just using it for their own selfish reason and that's why people tend to not take it seriously, even though the allegations do show these celebs are problematic.

I was conflicted cause I follow plenty of pop culture and stan blogs. I'm 20 years old and when these things come out I usually see older stan accounts mock the whole thing even if what's been revealed show a certain person has done a lot of pretty terrible shit. I get that it's probably because stans are just trying to dig to justify their hate, but at the same time, that doesn't mean the person is ok or in the clear just because the stans are just as awful you know? But of course I try to look for wisdom in the older bloggers but I can't get myself to agree? They always end up giving out a non sequitur argument or call out that our generation is too butthurt or we're just childish. Yeah maybe the stans who digged that whole shit were childish, but that doesn't mean I can't call out the celeb for things they've done as ADULTS. But it's like instead of listening to my side, they just think I'm an immature kid. And ok yeah I am talking about Olivia and I don't even care if she's dating Harry. But I am allowed to be uncomfortable with how performative she is and her Weinstein connections. I've never had an issue with Harry dating anyone before, even Kendall and Taylor. In fact if they're real, I could care less about Harry dating her. I care more about the fact that people are hyping up a pretty horrible person and mostly because she's dating a man they view through rose tinted glasses.

Maybe I'm just lucky my parents never shamed us and in fact encouraged my siblings and I to call out and improve from the mistakes of their generation.

I actually don't get why a lot of the older generation shame gen z for calling out problematic celebrities or in general societal behavior. I know it can look childish at times, but it's not like they were blind on how our generation was shaped. Again I understand all this twitter research is used as a stan war and that makes everyone hypocritical, but I'm also talking about adults who shame the kids for calling out those legendary rockstars being pedophiles, romanticizing hollywood couples like June and Johnny, calling out cultural appropriation etc. Like ok you like their art, but what's wrong with pointing out these are very real toxic behavior and should be called out so as not to be mimicked or emulated.

Just to share in one of my economic history class, my professor talked about the rise of bitcoin and how it shaped our generation. Bitcoin's creation and subsequent popularity was fueled by the 2008 financial crisis and the mistrust of the public towards the government and financial institutions in place. Studying why crypto, however controversial, became so popular is actually a good analysis into why our generation is this way.

We were basically shaped by the aftermath of 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, we barely remember what it's like without internet and social media, we don't remember a time when climate change wasn't a big deal etc. Basically, the major events that shape our life would make it understandable why we're cautious and don't trust the government or authority in general. Most of us never had the privilege of never having our mistakes possibly exposed on social media and we have to live through that, it's the normal that we know of. We basically came into an already globalized world and our childhood was filled with fighting for social justice, so of course it's understandable why our generation is much less intolerant of problematic behavior. I mean yeah we need more empathy and nuance with the topic, but it would be great if the older generation would actually meet us in between and see we're just trying to learn from the f*ck ups of their generation.

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differentkettleoffishalltogether · 3 years

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I’m On Fire [Chapter 1]

Summary: With her sister’s wedding fast approaching and her Mom hounding her about finding a date, Y/N makes a terrible decision that lands her and her least favorite genius in a confusing situation.

A/N: This is the first part in a series, I’ve written the first few chapters already so I’m hoping to update pretty regularly! I hope you guys enjoy, and any feedback is always appreciated! ❤️

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem Reader

Category: Fake Dating, Enemies to Lovers, (Eventual) Smut, Fluff, Angst, it’s a Slow Burn Baby

Warnings: None really for this chapter, cursing? Mean-ish Spencer

Word Count: 6.5k

Next Chapter

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

I wasn’t at the BAU long before it started to feel like home. The team became my family, pure and simple.

Having been recruited by Hotch at only 22 I'd sort of fallen into the roll of the little sister to the team without really meaning to. It's not that I was naive, or particularly sheltered even. I know I'm good at my job, and I'd want to be, given how my life's revolved around it almost entirely. But the team seemed to adopt a protective mindset over me right off the bat.

When I first joined the FBI everything was terrifying. I worked so hard for my PhD, trying to get into the unit, but there's almost nothing that can actually prepare you for the real thing. Being out in action in the field, working the cases out in real time. Sometimes they had a smooth, easy conclusion followed by loud obnoxious drinks together. Then there were the others, the ones that kept me up for days after and felt as though they owned little pieces of my heart still.

It was JJ that helped the most on those horrible flights back on the jet. Noticing my anxious ticks and uneasy disposition after that first case that had ended badly. JJ had been through it all before, taking too many cases home with her. Seeing her son's little faces in the kids that we couldn't help. If I was the baby of the team JJ was the big sister, looking out for everyone.

Morgan on the other hand was the outrageously cool older brother, the one you just wanted to be. Early on he'd helped my weak self with the ruthless fitness regimen the FBI required, he offered to pull some strings and get the test written off. But I couldn't accept that, there was something in me that just wanted to impress Morgan, and honestly still does. Like somehow if he thought you were cool, then it became true. So I passed the exam, but getting up a flight of stairs was near impossible for a week after.

Emily was probably the fun aunt. The one that would sneak you booze at the family gathering, or take you to your first concert. Emily was actually the one who'd found me, digging around colleges for potential recruits she'd had me picked out for a while I later found out. Insisting that Hotch give me a shot. It was reassuring to know I had someone who would stick up for me from day one.

I was an tech analyst, among other things, sort of a counterpart for Garcia in the field. So it was no surprise to anyone when the two of us hit it off as though we'd known each other forever. We weren't the same by any means though. Penelope was bold, and bright, and confident beyond measure, where I've typically felt like more of a blend into the background type. I've always thought of myself that way, despite my achievements. I'd also always believed I was fairly inoffensive, no one I'd met had ever had a huge problem with me, 'till I got to the BAU that is.

Every rose has its thorn I suppose.

That thorn in my side was Dr. Spencer Reid.

It wasn't that Dr. Reid was a bad agent, or even a bad person. I hadn't actually met him before that first day in the conference room, but I'd known who he was for a long time. Before I came along he'd held the mantle of 'youngest ever recruit' in the unit, while I was studying I'd read any of his work I could get my hands on because of that fact.

I figured it must've been some sort of hazing when he looked me up and down that first day I was introduced, and then proceeded to blank me entirely for a full week. Up until I'd wrapped my first case.

The whole team went straight from the jet to the bar. Proceeding to get far too drunk. Spencer joined, which the rest of the team found unusual, and I probably should've taken as a sign of things to come.

That case went well, and everyone was in high spirits but Reid had a sour disposition, at least it seemed that way every time he looked at me. After a few too many drinks I went outside in an attempt to sober up in the cold air, unfortunately Reid must've snuck outside not long before.

"Ugh" was all he said when he first caught my silhouette approaching him. The night was unusually cold so it had been deserted outside the bar that evening. I wasn't really sure why it made me nervous to be alone with him like this, the two of us leaning back against the same small area of brick wall, looking out at the cold night.

"Nice to see you too doctor" was all I could muster, I was drunk enough that I let my sarcastic tone leap out, "you can relax, I'm just trying to get some fresh air, it's too stuffy in there, and loud. I'm not here to talk to you or anything."

"Well aren't you a sensitive thing" he responds in kind, at that point I wasn't really sure if it was a coincidence or if he'd been genuinely avoiding me, but things were starting to clear up.

"I'm sensitive, that's a fun take on things" I joke, taking a long sip of cold water from my glass.

"And what's that supposed to mean, newbie?" his emphasis on the last word all but confirms my suspicions.

"Fuck man, what's your problem with me? Is it because I'm new, or because I beat your stupid record?" I quip. hoping that at the very least it might coax him out of his shell. Dr. Spencer Reid getting angry at me could honestly be better than the nothing I'd been experiencing from him until now.

"What stupid record?" he sounds genuinely confused

"I'm the youngest BAU recruit now?" I didn't know why else he could be so sour. He'd never met me before last week, and since he'd ignored me that first day I'd done all I could not to step on his toes. So if he had a reason to hate me this much, it wasn't something I'd done on purpose.

He takes a few moments to respond, raising his eyebrows and considering the information. He chuckles. He fucking chuckles.

"That's funny." he says, his voice leveling out, "I didn't peg you as funny newbie" that word sets something off in me again. Something about it is dismissive, or belittling. Before I could fight back he starts to move, maneuvering around me and heading back inside. A little too tipsy to think of anything constructive to say, I just mutter "Fuck you Spencer."

He swings open the door, as he walks inside he just says "See you Monday, Newbie" without even looking at me.

And that was only the beginning.

----

"You know I'm just trying to make sure you get enough rest sweetheart. There's no need to get so defensive!" it was far too early in the morning to be dealing with this call. Since joining the BAU a few years ago this was a standard call from my Mom. Equal parts well meaning and over-bearing, and generally asking far too many questions.

"I'm not getting defensive Mom, I get plenty of rest, my job is just very important to me and you know that." I knew she was right to be at least a little worried, this job was consuming, and in all honesty I wasn't sure how people like JJ were married and still here. It seemed like an impossible feat.

"Fine sweetie, how are your co-workers doing then? How's Penelope? Give her my love" she loved Penelope, I think she thought that Penelope tethered me to the normal world, and in a way she was right. She kept me sane, and fun, and made me eat pizza and do face masks once a week at least. Even when I didn't think I wanted to.

"Pen's great Mom, everyone's good. Well, the usual ones get on my nerves, but I'm fine." As I say it I glance across at Dr. Reid, the only person who's also in as early as I am most days. I'm not sure if he can hear me but he's tapping his pen so loud on his desk that it takes all of my energy not to walk across the bullpen and stab him with it.

"Y'know what Mom, I'm actually just after getting to work and it's a busy day so can I call you back later?" I chance, getting her off the phone is always an ordeal.

"Fine, fine, I'll let you go. But wait one last thing!"

I knew what was coming. It was always coming.

"Are you seeing anyone, Margot's been wondering too, just thought I'd check in?"

Pinching the bridge of my nose and trying not to scream down the line, I just sigh out the frustration instead.

"No Mom, believe it or not, I've made no progress on that front since you asked me all of 3 days ago."

"See you are being defensive!" she snaps

"I gotta go, bye Mom. Love you!" I say, hanging up quickly before dropping my head down into my arms on my desk, resting like that for a few moments in silence.

Hearing Garica chuckle behind my ear I perk up and spin around. She's holding a small paper cup of coffee and hands it to me. I look at it confused, "Sorry about the paper, I couldn't find your mug in the cabinet" she apologizes, looking over at Dr. Reid and rolling her eyes. Now I know he can hear me from his seat, he takes that moment to sip from my mug and place it gently back on his desk.

It hadn't taken long for him to start toying with me. It was always stupid childish things. Things I couldn't get genuinely annoyed at, that would give him far too much satisfaction, knowing he was getting to me in any real way. This was one trick he liked to play if he got into the office before me, he'd take my mug and make his coffee in it, just to spite me I guess.

"Why does he even do that, it's so stale" she said, just a little louder than normal to make sure he could hear. Garcia and Reid were still good friends and team-mates but she liked to stand up for me when she could. He liked to avoid me as much as possible so he'd usually go to Garcia before me if he needed help with something. Even when the two of us were out in the field together. Which was obnoxious but it was just another thing I'd gotten used to over time. And as long as it didn’t interfere with the case I just forced myself to let it go.

"I know it's such low grade bullying isn't it?" I shot back with a chuckle.

"So I'll take it that was Mommy dearest" Penelope gestures to my phone. She knew my Mom, and she knew about her general overbearing energy. I let out a groan thinking about the call again, and the calls that were to come.

"Isn't it always Mommy dearest?" I joke

"So she's still on your ass about the wedding then?" I'm sure Penelope was almost as sick of hearing about it as I was,

"Margot's getting married in like 4 months now, and every time Mom calls there’s just some new hometown loser she wants to set me up with Pen. It's fucking exhausting" I take a sip of the coffee she made me, savoring the bitter taste. She sits down on my desk for a moment, leaning in.

"Honey, did you ever think that if you got out there and found someone, she wouldn't be on your ass at all?" I don't want to think about that, about how she's completely right. All I can do is let out another small groan and lean back down onto my desk.

"Too early Pen" I say, it's muffled by the desk but she gets the message. Hopping up and heading to her own office as some more people start to arrive for the morning.

Leaving me alone to make a start on my paperwork that had built up throughout the week. Fridays were usually slow like this, giving me a little too much time to think. I couldn't shake the thought that my Mom and Penelope were actually right. Maybe I was a bit too invested in the job, and maybe that was a pretty big factor in why my last relationship imploded but I wasn't about to admit that to anyone.

----

After that the day crawls by, thankfully no cases pop up so the weekend might actually be free. Trying to make sure I clear up all of my paperwork takes a little longer than I'd hoped and leaves me alone in the bullpen. It seems like everyone's gone home by the time I've packed up and I'm ready to leave. Which wasn't as out of the ordinary as I'd like it to be really. Everyone else seemed to have somewhere to be on a Friday night.

Waiting for the elevator to arrive my phone started to ring, I could see my Mom's caller ID on the screen. If I just let it go I know she'll call back later, may as well get it out of the way. I take a deep breath in anticipation before I answer.

"Hey what's up?" I answer, stepping inside the elevator as the doors ping open.

"Hi sweetie, I've got good news! Do you remember David? That lovely boy, he helped out your Father that summer in high school?" I know what's coming and rub my temple, trying to stifle the headache I know is coming. As I answer a hand slides between the elevator doors, popping them open again.

Dr. Fucking Reid walks in, and he looks about as happy to see me as I am to see him. I make eye contact and look away just as fast, willing him away with my mind. "Yes Mom, I remember him, why are you telling me this?" I already know the answer but I'm fed up, she still sounds excited when she responds.

"Well you won't believe it! I ran into him at the market this morning and I thought you'd like it if I passed on your phone number to him, maybe for the weddi-" it took all I had not to shout into the receiver, and maybe I would've had the elevator been empty.

"Mom! Jesus!" I have to reign myself in, but I have a bad idea, "You know what, I'm actually sorted. I've got a date lined up now" I'm not sure why I said it with no real plan in place. She sounds even more excited than I've ever heard her.

"Oh my, that's amazing sweetie! That was fast, I can't believe you found one since this morning, it's someone from work so?" she assumes, and I'm just not thinking fast enough to correct her.

"Mmhmm, yeah" I'll figure out the logistics later I rationalize.

"Oh! Is it that boy you're always on about, the one who teases you?" she asks, and her voice is full of joy, and it makes me feel horrible that I'm lying already, and that I'm going to let her down.

"Yup, that's the one, look Mom I gotta go, I'll talk to you later! Night" I blurt out so fast it has to be obvious I'm nervous.

I can hear a stifled chuckle behind me. Fuck. How loud is my phone speaker. Could he hear that. Surely not. But this elevator was completely silent. The doors open and I have to stop myself from running to my car at top speed. Instead I walk out just a little faster than normal, turning around to shoot him a small wave goodbye. And he's got this devious smirk on his face that makes my stomach turn.

Sitting into my car I pull out my phone to text Garcia immediately.

I'm on my way to yours right now. It's urgent.

——

Traffic's light so it takes maybe 10 minutes before I arrive at Garcia's place. My mind's racing and my body takes me there on autopilot. Why did I say any of that, why did I even answer the damn phone. Why did I wave goodbye to Spencer, I never usually did that. Maybe that's why he had that look on his face. Maybe he was just thinking of something funny that happened earlier and it had nothing to do with me at all. That was something he'd do to mess with me for sure.

How was I going to walk this back with my Mom, she was just gonna have more questions that I couldn't answer. Fuck.

Garcia buzzed me up and her door was open for me by the time I got up the stairs. This little purple apartment had become my second home. It was where I spent most of my evenings off, laughing on the same sofa I was collapsing face first into right now. Garcia nestles in beside me and runs her hand over my hair, "Hey sweet pea, what's happening? I don't want to sound too concerned but you're not giving me much to go off? Are you dying, is there drama? You're going to have to tell me what's so urgent before I burst a blood vessel?"

I let out a muffled, "is drahmuh" into the pillow, Garcia shakes my shoulders.

"Sit up babe, damn!" I have to heave myself out of the pillows, sitting upright on the sofa beside her, clutching one of the pillows in my arms.

"It's drama" I repeat,

"Well, out with it then, you know I'll take all the drama I can get! Spill, spill" she rushes me along. I'm already apprehensive, Reid's her coworker too, but if anyone would understand why this was such an issue it was gonna be her.

"Okay, I'm after doing something stupid and I think I really need your advice" I cringe already, thinking back to the elevator, throwing out my words faster, I continue the story, mostly trying to get it over with, "my Mom called again when I was on the way out tonight and she was trying to set me up with this guy, and Reid was there, and I got all flustered, and I told her I had a date already" I throw my head down into the pillow again.

"Wait why was Reid there?" she looks like she's trying to fit puzzle pieces together and she's getting nowhere, "And what's the drama?"

"Shit Garcia, it was in the elevator and it was all quiet, and maybe he heard the call, maybe he didn't but he had this fuckin' look on his stupid face" I can't shake the smug little smirk, it's burned inside my eyelids. Garcia's face falls in what looks like disappointment.

"Ugh Y/N! That's nothing chill out, why does it matter if he heard your call? I know you guys are all weird but none of that is any of his business anyway!" she shoo's her hand in the air, dismissing the whole situation.

"No Garcia, it is his business now" I have to close my eyes when I say it, I can't look at her "I told my Mom that he was my date, well, I didn't say his name or anything, she assumed it was someone from work and so I just agreed, and then she suggested that it was him and then I fucking panicked Pen, I fucked up so bad. What do I do?"

I finally opened my eyes to look up at Garcia. She was sitting in pure silence, pursing her lips in what seemed like contemplation. The puzzle pieces finally slotting together. It's as though a light bulb goes off behind her eyes and she bursts out in fits of laughter. Doubling over on herself before finally taking a few breaths to calm herself down. I'm honestly not sure why she finds the whole thing so funny, she know's how needlessly annoying he's made my life, she's seen it first hand and heard me talk about it over and over again in this very apartment over pizza.

"Garcia, this is not fucking funny! This is serious!" I try to calm her down, I need advice not whatever this is.

"I'm so sorry Y/N, I love you dearly. But this isn't funny, this is hilarious. It's like you're Sandra Bullock in some mid-90's rom com. I love it" I don't love it, in fact I hate it. I nearly snap at her but pull myself back.

"Pen, come on, help me out. What do I do with this, how do I fix it?" I plead.

She stops laughing and pulls out her phone, "Okay, I'm sorry. I'm going to order us a pizza, and we're gonna sort this thing out together, sound good?" I just nod and collapse back into the sofa. I think I feel better now that I've gotten it out in the open.

----

Penelope makes us tea while we wait for the pizza, she keeps lemon & ginger in her cabinet for me, just like I keep mint for her. The warm mug and the steam calm me down. After a few minutes alone to think about it I start to figure it out a little better. I figure I can just lie to my Mom for a while, it might suck but I can pretend for a bit and then make up some excuse as to why he can't come closer to the time. Then I can just bring Garcia instead and everyone's happy. I'm about to float my plan to her there's a knock on her door. I was so caught up that I hadn't really noticed quite how starving I'd gotten. Leaping up of the sofa to grab the door.

I swing it open but it's not the pizza guy. Somehow it's the opposite of the pizza guy, my worst nightmare is on the other side of the door. He must notice my eyes blow completely wide. "Y/N!" he says, more of a statement than a question really, like he's telling himself that he's actually seeing me in the doorway. I'm not as gentle.

"What the fuck are you doing here Reid?!" I can't even disguise my anger. He seems a little flustered, like he's got absolutely no idea how to proceed.

"Um, uh, is Garcia here? I can, um, I can just come back later?" he swallows hard and shakes his head, before I can agree and tell him to get lost Penelope races to the door, pulling it wide open.

"Nope, that won't be necessary Doctor! Come on in, you're right on time sweetheart" she waves him in and he walks past me, his demeanor changing almost instantly. He's smug, like he's won whatever battle this was. And I hate it. Though he's still as confused as me despite the newfound attitude. Reid sits down on the sofa, right where I had been sitting. I bite my tongue and sit on the opposite end.

"Are you okay Garcia?" he asks with a genuine concern, "What's going on, what was the emergency?". He's not stupid, he knows she's not in danger now that he's here. But he wants answers. I don't know that I've ever seen him this confrontational with anyone, well anyone but me. The entire time I’m staring her down as she sits in the armchair opposite the two of us. My keys are in my pocket and my car's right outside. I could just jump up and make a break for it. Escape.

"You know what Doc, you won't believe it but I'm not actually the one with the emergency" she takes a beat, and I'm starting to think that I might understand why people murder other people after all these years, "Y/N has something urgent she needs to talk to you about" she's silent for another moment, and she almost looks giddy, "Actually Spencer, you might already know a little something about the matter already, now that I think about it" she smirks, and it's pure joy.

My keys are in my hand ready to bolt when the doorbell chimes again. "Oh, that'll actually be the pizza this time, if you two will excuse me" she hops up out of the armchair and races to the door, leaving the two of us alone in a horrible silence. The tension is almost too much, I want to speak but I really have no idea what to say, or how to even start saying it. But he starts.

"Y/N what's going on, I feel like I'm out of the loop here? What am I missing?" he asks, and there's something uncharacteristically genuine about the way he says it, but he can't turn to look at me as he speaks. I almost want to let my guard down and just have a conversation but I can’t force myself to do it. "Shut up Reid." is all I mutter, folding my arms across my chest.

He turns sharply on the sofa to face me. "Hey Y/N. Believe it or not I'm about as happy as you with whatever kind of Parent Trap situation Garcia's got going on here. But from what I'm picking up on you've got a problem and I'm supposed to be able to help with it. So do you want to tell me what's going on or not? I can just go?" I can see that there's an anger bubbling right below the surface, threatening to burst. I know I shouldn't but I let him stew in silence for a little too long and he jumps up off the sofa.

"Y'know what, typical" he mutters, rolling his eyes as he says it, "this is all about you." he throws his bag over his shoulders and begins to walk towards the door. Something in me just snaps.

"All about me?! Are you fucking kidding? I've been tip-toeing around you for years, ever since I joined this damn unit!" I shout as Garcia comes back into the room, pizza box and plates in her hands.

"So, who's hungry?" Garcia asks, trying to break the tension, or pretending there's no tension at all. Reid shakes his head in disbelief and rubs his temple before he speaks again, "Actually I was just gonna head out" he gestures to the door, "I'm clearly not wanted here so I'm gonna leave you guys to it." Spencer makes a move to leave but Garcia grabs the strap of his shoulder bag, yanking him back ever so slightly before he really has the chance to escape.

"You are going absolutely nowhere kid" She points back to the sofa, "get back there" she glances to me, staring with far too much intensity. "You too, sit." Her voice is more stern than I've ever heard it, even while we were on a case. I can't help but obey her command and I sit back down on the sofa in silence. Followed by Reid, clearly processing the same uneasy feeling of a serious Penelope.

She sits opposite the two of us again. "Y/N, Spencer, I love the two of you with all of my heart, albeit separately, and I would die for either one of you. But you've got to chill the hell out!" she says it like she's had it bottled up forever. The tension that releases from her as she says it looks euphoric.

She opens up the pizza box and lays it on the coffee table and takes out a slice for herself. Taking a bite she leaves the two of us in stunned silence. Once she finishes the mouthful she turns to me specifically, "Y/N you tell him, or I will." dead serious. And the feeling in my belly is like I've just fallen down an elevator shaft.

My stomach is in knots as I turn to Spencer on the sofa next to me. His face is puzzled and I think I might be able to make out pure terror in his expression. I don't know that I've ever been looked at like this before and my stomach screws up tighter. I have to take a deep breath and I can't believe I'm about to say it. "Fuck it" I have to take another breath almost immediately so I just have to force the rest out, "I don't know if you heard the call I was on while we were in the elevator earlier?" I look up to gauge his reaction and I can see his face relax, and worse than that, one corner of his mouth lifts into a sort of smile. It's a look of pure smug satisfaction and I think I might scream. I have to close my eyes because I really don't think I can look at that face as I say the next part.

"My sister is getting married in a few months and my Mom's been on my ass to find a date for the wedding and she keeps trying to set me up with these losers, so I fucking panicked, and I told her you were my date." by the time the sentence is out my eyes have screwed up so tight it feels like I have to pry them open.

He sits in silence for too long. Thinking, maybe?

"So I'm the boy who teases you then?" he grins. So he did hear. And he did laugh. He looks far too self satisfied. Now he knows he's right. He knows I've talked to my Mom about him, that he's gotten in my head. I can tell from his smile that he's savoring the moment. Mostly because I can't slap the smug smile off his face I drop my head into my hands. In an effort to disappear I guess.

"So," he says, taking a moment, "is that all you wanted to say then?" he asks, lighthearted and obnoxious, back to his usual self. I snap back to reality, shooting my head back up.

"What do you mean is that all?" I throw back genuinely shocked,

"Is that all you had to say Y/N? Can I go now? It's a long bus ride home y'know" he smirks but makes no effort to move. He can't possibly be making me do this.

"Well no, obviously!" I stutter, "I mean, are you, will you, uh?" I can't bring myself to say it out loud. He leans in on the sofa looking directly at me, refusing to break eye contact.

"Did you have something you wanted to ask me Y/N?" I just want to smack that fucking look off his face,

"Fuck you Spencer Reid" I almost whisper under my breath, but Garcia snaps me back to reality.

"Hey!" she looks at me, stern again, "Ask him." it's not a question, or a suggestion, it's a command.

"Fine okay" I scrunch my eyes up again, "Will you come to my sisters wedding with me as my fake boyfriend?" I curl up into myself as I say it, I can almost feel the bile rising up from my stomach. Like I'm having a biological reaction to the whole thing.

Reid crosses his arms and sinks back on the sofa, like he's performing the act of thinking. He's considering my offer to make me squirm.

When he finally speaks he says "Well I would Y/N, but I really fail to see what's in it for me" he's after getting cocky now.

Garcia pipes up, excited, "Oh, Oh! I know! I have an idea!" she interjects, "Spencer remember how a while ago, back after your apartment flooded you were all all worried about your antique books and prints and stuff?" he nods, "Well Y/N could digitize the collection for you as a back up? I know you're a technophobe? C'mon Y/N, you know you could do that no sweat, and it would take you a lifetime alone Spencer?" I really don't want to admit it but she's right. Even I knew Reid was adverse to any technology that wasn't vital, but it was your specialty. And maybe that was a good trade off, a job like that would be near impossible for him to pull off without help. I take a glance over at Reid and he seems to have had the same train of thought as me. He lets out an exaggerated sigh and relaxes his posture.

"Fine, I guess that's a fair trade. I'm in." he resigns and I almost can't believe it. I'm barely processing the whole conversation as he sticks his hand out to me, I'm confused for a second before I grab it and shake it firmly. Condemning myself to whatever's about to happen. And it's not the time to be thinking about it but maybe this is the first time Spencer and I have ever touched? But I shove that thought away.

Garcia's positively beaming and she's not even trying to hide it. "Now it's like you're both in a Sandra Bullock movie, oh, but you're Hugh Grant maybe?" she points to Reid.

"Don't push it" I shoot in her direction, taking a slice of pizza, now that my anxiety stomach has sort of passed.

Once the pizza's been eaten in near completely awkward silence Spencer stands up off the sofa. His unsure demeanor has returned and he looks nervous. "I actually should get going this time" he says but Garcia pipes up to protest,

"No, it's not even late!"

"It takes me a while to get back home, thank you though Pen. For... this?" he gestures to the whole living room, "Night" he waves. He's almost made it to the door before I stand up out of my seat. I'm not really sure what comes over me, maybe it's gratitude, maybe it's guilt, or maybe I'm just exhausted.

"Wait Spencer. Let me give you a ride home?" I ask and it's like it's not even me saying it .

"Thanks, but I think I can make it home just fine" he dismisses, and there’s an antagonizing tone in his voice that snaps me right back to our usual rapport.

"I'm trying to do a nice thing here, fuck! Just let me do something nice!" I snap, and he throws his arms up in surrender.

"Fine alright, if it'll make you feel better"

"Fuck you Reid" I mutter under my breath and I sort of hope that he does hear me really. If he's gonna be hostile about this I can be too. I give Garcia a hug goodbye but I'm going to scold her for this whole thing later.

----

I lead the way outside and climb into my car, Spencer hops into the passenger seat and it feels as strange as always to be alone with him. Especially because it's not an accident, and it's not in work. Maybe this was a horrible idea. He seems like he's unwilling to break the silence, so I just get it over with.

"Where the hell do you live man? I'm gonna need directions." I say, as deadpan as I can muster, which probably isn't all that intimidating.

"Sorry, yeah, so you're gonna want to turn on the ignition" he teases. I definitely wasn't intimidating enough.

"Don't push it" I say, turning to give him a cruel stare, he just reacts with a smirk, that same one from the elevator earlier.

"Oh, I'm pushing it?" he asks, feigning disbelief

"I'll kick you out of this damn car" is all I can think to say. He barely responds, he just lets out a soft chuckle. I want to ask 'what's so funny' but he speaks before I can get the words out.

"I can't believe you talk to your Mom about me" he continues to laugh. That's enough.

"You know what Reid, of course I have! I work with actual murderers on a daily basis and somehow you've been the only real source of friction in my life since I joined the BAU!" He stops giggling a little, but not entirely, he looks like he's making an effort to contain himself.

"I'm sorry. I guess I just never knew I got to you like that" he still finds the whole thing amusing, but I sure as hell don't.

"Directions, now" I demand, looking straight out the front windshield.

"Fine, keep going straight on this road for a while and I'll tell you when to turn" he says, finally playing nice.

The two of us drive silently for most of the journey, the radio playing softly in the background. Eventually we arrive outside his building, and it's nicer than I thought it would be. But I have no idea what I was really basing that on. For some reason it hadn't occurred to me that Dr. Reid lived in an actual home, I had pictured him sleeping upside down in a cave maybe, or in a cryogenic chamber with all the other life-like genius robots.

"So," he says, breaking the silence, "When is this wedding?"

"4 months from now, in and around" I respond, matter of factly. Spencer nods, taking it in.

"Alright, so I've got 4 months, in and around, to learn enough to convincingly pass as your loving boyfriend. Doesn't sound so difficult." he jokes, his tone harsh and sarcastic.

"Look Spencer, I know this is insane and honestly kind of stupid. But in all seriousness, you can back out right now if you're not on board with whatever this is. I'm telling you this is the last exit ramp." I try to say it with sincerity, giving him a genuine out if he's not comfortable with the weird set-up that Penelope pulled on us both. He thinks on it for a moment and shakes his head.

"So how are we gonna do this?" he asks, and I really thought he was going to back out. So I don't have an actual answer.

"Well, I uh, I haven't really given a plan much thought. How about I come over and start working on some of the stuff you want digitized like Garcia mentioned and I can use the time to give you the footnotes on my life?" I suggest, at least that would make it easier to knock things out all at once. Rather than having to spend even more of my free time with Reid than necessary. He looks content with the improvised plan.

"Alright, sounds good." he undoes his seatbelt and opens the door to hop out of the car before turning back to me, "Are you coming inside or what?"

— —

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