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#Also who do you think called to her?
emmaspolaroid · 9 months
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“Hey, Emma!”
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egophiliac · 11 months
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redesigning my headcanon for Sebek's parents, based on important new information (SCALES)
(you can't see it but they're both wearing crocs)
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inkskinned · 1 year
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she says he won't let her get a dog, which is fine, because they're in an apartment, and that's the kind of thing people say about their partners. he won't let me get a dog. and you're at a dinner party and you tilt your head a little to the side just like that dog he won't let her get, because is this the thing that's going to upset you? you don't know every corner of their relationship, she could be joking, they could have had so many healthy conversations about the dog, right, and maybe she's not letting herself get the dog because of money and time and whatever. but, like, she did say let
and she wants to move away from his hometown and he wants to stay and then he tells you with a wink and a conspiratorial stage whisper don't worry i'll convince her and she laughs about it - so clearly this is something they laugh about. but you do just stand there and stare at him like what the fuck, man. you can't say what you want to say which is why do you get the final say on everything because they're both obviously aware of the other person's stance on this and have obviously had private conversations about it and what are you going to do about it except make a scene and then he'll be mad at you and call you one of those bitches behind your back and she'll cut you off, which is a loss that doesn't feel worth it just because he makes you a little skeeved out every 3rd comment
and they both agree he just isn't the type to get flowers which is fine because everyone shows love differently, and are you really gonna judge someone based on their sense of individual relationship responsibility? maybe he's constantly cleaning her car and writing her poems and making her furniture or something. maybe she doesn't even like flowers and this is perfect, actually. and no you couldn't date him, obviously, ew; but like, she tells you she's happy. you almost send her a tiktok that says don't be 25 and the cool girl that doesn't need anything, you'll hate not getting flowers at 30, but that's like, starting drama & you shouldn't start drama needlessly.
and you're a little older than her but not so much older you can pull the whole trust me on this one babe thing and besides that wouldn't have worked anyway (when does it ever) and besides you have trauma so you and your therapist both agree that you're always looking for a problem even when there isn't one. and you tell yourself that just because you see them for 15 minutes every month does not mean you can identify every single red flag based on a single shitty half-joking(?) comment
and besides, what are you going to do? she says i actually wanted another stand mixer but thankfully he stops me when i'm about to spend too much money and you're standing there like are you okay? is this normal? is this just something people say? and again - what are you going to do?
to your therapist you try to language it - it's not, like, any of my business. but sometimes, doesn't it feel like - you should do something. there's got to be something, right? you've tried dropping little hints but they sail right through and you've tried having a single serious conversation and she got upset because why does it matter to you, yes it's different but we're happy, it doesn't need to make sense to you and you're like. really unwilling to push a boundary about it anymore; because the truth is that you know logically it shouldn't matter to you, as long as both parties are happy.
and besides, you've been wrong before. it's just... like, every time you see them both, something else happens, some kind of shiver down your spine like do you even hear each other when you talk. it's their strange, bickering orbit. just the way he's on his phone through dinner or watching sports instead of helping in the kitchen or, fuck, another one of these little throwaway comments he makes about we'll see about that, babe. she laughs when he calls her passions stupid shit and meanwhile she gets him tickets to see the knicks and he tells you well at least she's smart about something and still! it's none of your business.
you say get the dog anyway and she laughs. like, this is is you being funny. and not you saying - no really. get the dog. get the dog and get out of here. pack up and start running.
#this btw is not including toxic friendships this is legit just something ive experienced MANY times now#writeblr#you ever have a friend in one of those relationships where ur like#u don't HATE their partner explicitly#but ur like. what the fuck y'all#like the weird part of being an adult is that you can't be like . CERTAIN their relationship is toxic#and also if u move too fast or push too hard u can hurt someone who is already in a scary situation so you just are like#frozen there. laughing awkwardly. saying ''haha..... yeah..... couldn't be me....''#and like u can't tell - is this banter or does he actually think like. he's better than her.#all you can do is be there for your friend and hope they wake up to it#or ... that it really IS good#and it's just odd to you#tbh btw id rather have my friends feel safe coming to me if they have a concern about my relationship#like yes it's not ur business but it also IS bc im making u hang out with them and also ur my friend#it's a weird thing to experience as an adult bc it is such a blurry line and when u spend time#around couples that aren't like ACTUALLY ur friends but instead ''extended friend circle'' ur like#.... i don't know y'all well enough and he just called you a cow. and ur okay with that . and i don't know how to respond.#so ur like :) okay. um. go to couple's counselling i think#but also you are NOT supposed to pass judgement so it's like.... this weird limbo of feeling like you SHOULD say something#but knowing you CANNOT#idk that there's a way to resolve it!!!!!!!! it's probably a different approach person to person#edited my tags bc tumblr's new system fucked em up#PS EDIT: btw i should have said:#the pronouns in this can work in any and every direction. every gender and every sexuality and every#type of relationship tbh. even non-romantic relationships where ur like ''what do u mean ur bff calls u stupid''
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svartalfhild · 6 months
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Unsurprisingly, people are already being fucking weird about Mizu's gender.
Headcanons are all well and good, but maybe we shouldn't be so eager to apply modern Western gender politics and terms to a character whose identity is so tied to the time, place, and circumstances in which she exists.
Please remember that Mizu was forced to present as male for her own safety and agency. Please remember that allowing others to see her as a man and call her he/him is not a choice; it's protection; it's a means to an end. Until we see Mizu talk about her gender in further detail, that's all the context we have.
Don't project what you want to see onto her and then treat it as fact.
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mandyfem · 9 days
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A reblog made her feel unsafe.
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comradekatara · 19 days
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sokka, katara, and the paradox of “the gifted child”
something i’ve noticed is a tendency to (mis)characterize sokka as someone who is dismissed due to being a nonbender, when that’s only partially true. sokka is certainly dismissed by some for not being a bender (namely, by benders), but i think there’s a key difference between being dismissed and not being valued in one specific way. katara was valued by her tribe for being a waterbender for the very crucial reason that she was the last one left. had she been a dime a dozen in her tribe, which would have been the case were it not for the systemic extermination of her people, she would not be valued as highly for possessing this skill. that said, while sokka clearly does hold some resentment over his lack of bending ability, calling himself “the guy in the group who’s regular,” i think it’s folly to assume that this means that sokka was dismissed and discarded as “average” while katara was put on a pedestal for being special. because while katara obviously was considered special, sokka is also clearly considered special by his family, merely in different ways. and if anything, sokka embodies the archetypal struggle of the so-called "gifted child” far more than katara does.
while sokka clearly believes himself to be disposable and intrinsically worthless, i don’t think that he was actively neglected by his family. even if katara was clearly marked by her bending as embodying the last hope of their tribe, that doesn’t mean that she was seen as more gifted than he was or was designated as her family’s obvious favorite. for example, the way hakoda talks about sokka (saying he trusted him with leading and protecting the tribe when he was thirteen, calling him a genius, and other such insanely high praises to heap on a child) shows that he clearly views his son as particularly exceptional and has never been shy about showing that. sokka is distinctly insecure around his father for assumptions he makes regarding hakoda's faith in his abilities and his insecurities when it comes to his perceived failure in not measuring up as a man, but from the second we meet hakoda, it's evident that these insecurities are entirely internal and completely unfounded, at least in terms of his father's perception of him. hakoda is nothing but incredibly proud of sokka, constantly emphasizing just how capable and brilliant he believes him to be. whether or not sokka is capable of internalizing it is another story, but it's clear that hakoda is not stingy in his praise and affection, not even a little bit.
moreover, while katara is clearly kanna’s favorite on an emotional level, she nonetheless affords sokka far more respect. she admonishes katara and tells her to do her chores, and notably, she also impresses the importance of “listening to her brother,” and backs up sokka’s decision to banish aang from the village. you can claim that sexism plays a factor in how sokka views his own supposed position of authority, but kanna is a woman who traveled the entire globe as a teenager because she wanted to escape patriarchal impositions dictating her life. she’s simply far too smart to treat sokka as any sort of authority within their village if she did not fully entrust him with that responsibility. she treats sokka almost like a peer, as if she is legitimately co-running the village with a fifteen year old boy.
katara is only a couple years younger than sokka at most, but her dynamic with kanna is very different. on one hand, kanna clearly sees more of herself in katara, can identify with her sense of adventure and rebellious spirit, but on the other hand, it means that she views katara as a child to be taken care of, who needs to be reminded to do her chores and bailed out when she gets herself into trouble. sokka doesn't want to be viewed as a child, and so he does everything in his power to position himself as kanna's equal rather than her grandson. he takes his duties and responsibilities very seriously, and is obedient to a fault whenever he is submitting to any authority he actually respects, especially his father and grandmother. to be honest, a lot of what katara considers coddling is probably just sokka never being bossed around by their grandmother because she never actually has to tell him to do his chores. because despite katara's claim that he simply faffs about "playing soldier," sokka's problem is actually that he takes himself too seriously for her liking. and with the exception of kanna saying "be nice to your sister," which is the kind of teasing a parent says to their child, she clearly respects sokka's position in the village. when katara tries to run away with aang, kanna takes sokka's side and forbids her from acting impulsively, but when sokka is the one who packs supplies and plans to save aang, kanna gives them both her blessing.
katara is the only person who takes umbrage with the notion of sokka running the village and telling her what to do all day. and those frustrations have likely accumulated up from a lifetime of being told to “do as her brother says” and “why can’t she be smarter and more responsible and levelheaded blah blah blah.” she clearly thinks that she’s punching up when she yells at or mocks him, which may seem crazy to anyone who understands that sokka’s entire identity and existence revolves around being katara’s protector, but katara doesn’t actually know this. in her mind sokka is merely the perfect child who has always represented this impossible standard of “genius.” and what's more, he's absolutely insufferable about it.
and to be clear, this isn’t to say that katara herself isn’t highly intelligent, capable, competent, and skilled. she’s not only an incredibly talented waterbender, but also clever, quick, witty, creative, resourceful, practical, mature, and thoughtful in other ways. at one point, toph calls her a genius (“a stinky, sweaty genius”). and she is, indeed, an extremely powerful and innovative waterbender, both due to her hard work, but also because she is genuinely brilliant. that said, she’s smart in the realistic way that a kid is smart; she works hard to be good at what she cares about (and she has an existentially devastating reason to care about being a good waterbender, mind you), and she’s also good at thinking on the fly when she needs to. however, unlike sokka, or even toph, her intellect may be impressive, but it isn’t astonishing. sokka’s mind functions completely anomalously. i wouldn't say he's unrealistically intelligent, because i do know some people in real life who are similarly adept at processing all kinds of different information with the ability to deftly apply it near-immediately, but it is certainly abnormal, both for real world standards and within his universe.
i normally bristle at this term and its applications (for multiple reasons), but since it is explicitly stated multiple times across the show, it is important to acknowledge that sokka is referred to as a genius multiple times, including by his father. katara is referred to as being a genius by toph for using her own sweat to waterbend (which, as hama points out an episode later, isn't even that clever because you can literally bend water from the air around you); conversely, sokka is referred to as a genius for helping to invent hot air balloons and for figuring out multiple escape routes from the world's most secure prison in less than a day. we don't know the exact timeframe under which katara trained with pakku and earned the title of master, but she clearly worked incredibly hard to earn that title, not only as a master, but as the greatest waterbender in the entire world. i assume it was any time between a few weeks and a little over a month in which zhao would organize a fleet to arrive at the north pole, which is, of course, extremely impressive in itself and a testament to her passion and determination. however, on the other hand, piandao claims that sokka has basically mastered the sword and is ready to make his own within less than a day. it's important to remember that katara is also brilliant in her own way, and possesses great skills that sokka lacks: not only bending, but also midwifery, and an ability to locate her own emotions and allow herself to be vulnerable with others, two skills which should never be looked down upon for their association with womanhood and femininity, and are also particularly impressive considering just how young katara is. she is brilliant in her own right, and in any other family, katara would easily have been "the smart one." and yet, sokka is simply in a league of his own.
so, yeah, he can stand to get thrown around and yelled at; everyone her entire childhood just kept on impressing how special and perfect and brilliant he is, he can handle it. she has no idea that he is depressed, depersonalizes, loathes himself, and thinks he’ll never be good enough, because he never actually communicates any of that to her. the closest he ever comes is admitting that he’s jealous due to not having bending abilities, and even that shocks katara, even though it’s such a small and obvious admission in the scheme of things. she has no idea what’s going on with him psychologically, how he views himself in relation to others, and specifically in relation to her, so she kind of just assumes he’s entitled because surely he must know how special he is and thus feels owed accolades by the world at every turn. he deserves to be humbled, and she is in fact righteous for humbling him.
when she makes fun of him for being stupid or miserable or paranoid or cynical, she thinks she’s owning him the way a righteous underdog fights against an oppressor. it's similar to how zuko wants to "put azula in her place." in katara and zuko's minds, they are both the valiant underdog siblings who had to fight and struggle against the siblings for whom everything came so easily. and in katara’s mind especially, she is always punching up, and she always has a moral justification in lashing out at anyone she pleases. so she couldn’t fathom that the reason sokka puts up with her antagonism without complaint isn’t because he’s so above her that he can simply ignore her taunts and gibes without a care (if that were the case, he wouldn't bother to taunt and gibe in return), but rather that he feels so detached from his own personhood that he would never think to actually explain his feelings to the person whom he has defined himself through since childhood. and if he did ever, somehow, communicate that to her, she’d have to reevaluate their whole entire lives and dynamic. but he never will communicate that to her, so she’ll never actually have to do that.
moreover, even though katara often does tease sokka and cast doubt upon his competence and abilities in low-stakes situations constantly, whenever they are actually facing a real problem that requires an immediate solution, katara seems to forget that sokka is supposedly an unhelpful, lazy, immature idiot because she immediately turns to him to fix all their issues. and then once that issue is resolved, katara goes back to finding his existence bothersome. sokka, on the other hand, falls into this role of problem solver instinctually, with the one exception that when they actually name him as the idea guy, he jokingly complains that it’s a lot of pressure to be one who is always expected to come up with solutions. and while he is joking during that conversation in “the drill,” he’s being honest to an extent, because his perfectionism and fear of failure is truly dire.
when katara is faced with failure, whether as the consequences for her own actions or otherwise, she simply gets back up and tries again. she can’t be knocked down, she can’t be deterred from achieving her goals. she has a very healthy approach to making mistakes, and while she doesn’t always learn from them in the longterm, she does always try her best to fix them and amend the situation as immediately as possible. katara is someone who is incredibly resilient and is constantly demonstrating the sheer magnitude of her inner strength, especially in particularly difficult moments. she has the ability to fail as many times as it takes without letting that failure affect her own self-esteem or desire to keep striving for what she believes in.
sokka, on the other hand, is very physically resilient (he gets beat up a lot), but his emotional resilience is actually quite pathetic. he has no tools for coping with failure. from even the slightest mistake, like not actually being able to open the doors at the fire temple with his makeshift explosives, to a catastrophic one, like his failed invasion, sokka immediately retreats inward. in “the boiling rock,” sokka demonstrates how his first ever real failure that rests squarely on his own shoulders is so devastating to him that he becomes totally irrational and suicidal in an attempt to “rectify” the situation. he does not know how to cope with failure, because he expects himself to be perfect at all times. and it’s not because sokka is overly proud, but rather that his guilt complex is so profound that he blames himself for every single thing that goes awry at all times, even when it isn’t actually his fault whatsoever. so that guilt and shame is magnified a thousand fold when sokka is actually culpable for those losses.
one of many ways in which it is evident that sokka is the older sibling is that he clearly lives with the mentality that if katara messes up or gets herself in danger due to her own impulsive inclinations, it’s always actually sokka’s fault for not being a better, more attentive brother. when she sets off the booby trap in the banned ship, sokka banishes aang from the village so as to protect katara from herself. when katara experiences the consequences of heedlessly blowing up a factory, sokka gets mad at her for her recklessness, but also immediately finds a way to help her fix this situation, because that’s his job, and in fact, his primary purpose on this earth. this is a dynamic sokka has probably internalized even before he was assigned the role of her sworn protector, because that’s just how being the eldest is.
sokka’s tendency to take responsibility for everyone else’s mistakes and his desire to shoulder everyone else’s pain at all times, coupled with his implicit belief that he, uniquely, cannot afford to mess up ever (if other people make mistakes it’s fine and he can help them fix it, but if he makes mistakes he no longer has a purpose on this planet, goodbye cruel world), definitely indicates that he was held to an incredibly high standard all his life. he expects himself to be able to handle a lot of responsibility with perfect ease because he always has. he isn’t used to making mistakes of any kind. if he puts his mind into learning a new skill, he always masters it within a couple of days, whatever that skill happens to be. unlike katara, sokka is used to things coming easily to him, and what he isn’t used to is failure.
katara and sokka are both exceptional, of course, but in very different ways, and for very different reasons. katara grew up with a lot of external pressure to excel as a waterbender, because she needs to embody her cultural legacy and prove that her mother’s sacrifice was not in vain. it’s an unfathomable burden to place on a child, and the rate at which she improves her waterbending once she is actually given the resources to hone her skills is a testament to her perseverance and untiring dedication. katara becomes the greatest waterbender in the world not because she is a natural prodigy (which is something she bristles at when aang does display prodigious skill), but because she is incredibly determined and no one can outmatch the strength of her heart and unshakable commitment when she is pursuing a goal. as pakku even says, raw talent isn’t everything, and katara’s abilities prove that despite not being “naturally gifted,” hard work and determination is far more important when it comes to excelling in any given domain.
however, if katara’s motivation to be excellent is externally imposed by the tragic circumstances of her life, sokka’s motivations are, at the very least, internally maintained. as aforementioned, i have no doubt that he received a lot of external validation and praise from the adults in his life as a child with a dazzling, brilliant mind. as has been established, sokka is constantly displaying an ability to synthesize new information at a staggering rate, which likely means that before katara had even discovered her ability to waterbend, sokka was probably being fawned over for the impressive rate at which he was picking up new skills as a baby. since pretty much everything (cerebral, at least) comes easily to sokka, i can only imagine that hakoda, who never hesitates to express to his children how proud he is of them, would constantly affirm sokka’s intellect. and by boasting that sokka takes after himself (hakoda also refers to himself as a genius, completely sincerely), he unwittingly plants the first seeds in fostering sokka’s belief that he must be exactly like his father in every way, and that any deviation from hakoda’s image would prove him unworthy. but he will never be the spitting image of hakoda the way that katara is "the spitting image of kanna" because sokka is already the spitting image of kya, if not – perish the thought – his own person entirely.
unlike katara, who spent her whole childhood trying to waterbend by herself with little success (beyond, of course, isolated instances demonstrating her sheer raw power when her bending was being influenced by her incredibly strong and passionate emotions), sokka always felt like he could handle the amount of responsibility he was given, because everything came easily to him. until the day that his life changed forever, and suddenly the stakes were no longer abstract, but tangible and personally devastating. sokka had never learned that it was okay to fail as a child because he never had a reason to, and then suddenly, he could not afford to fail under any circumstances. failure of any kind went from being a (purely hypothetical) blow to the ego, to being something that could directly endanger the lives of his loved ones. and so sokka decides that the only way to not be culpable for his potential failures is to be a martyr.
of course, there are instances in which sokka is proven to be inept, such as on kyoshi island or with piandao, wherein his humility and open-mindedness are put on display and sokka puts aside his own standards of perfection to learn from a master, but i don't think these instances qualify as failures. for one thing, sokka happens to master the forms he is being taught in less than a day, at an unprecedented rate, and thus these initially humiliating blindspots in his knowledge become victories as sokka absorbs new knowledge. sokka is always eager to learn, and willing to acknowledge his lack of expertise in area, humbling himself to learn from others any chance he gets. no, what i mean by "failure" as it relates to sokka's self-perception and ego is not a lack of knowledge, but an inability to protect another. to sokka, his existence is defined by his ability to provide and protect, and thus, a failure is, specifically, when someone gets hurt under his watch. that is what it means to not be able to afford to fail. he is not overly proud (if anything he is overly insecure), but he also understands that the stakes of failure – real failure – are tangible.
so when it comes to failure that carries grave consequences, he would rather be dead than fallible (or, responsible for not adequately protecting his loved ones), one million times over. and so every time someone makes a sacrifice for him, he feels as if he has failed on a fundamental level, because simply being exceptional is not enough, he must also bear the entire world’s suffering alone – as (in his mind) hakoda instructed him to when he left him behind to protect and provide for the village. otherwise he has failed in his promise to be needed, which is his raison d’être. sokka’s complex is very obviously not informed solely by his upbringing as a “gifted kid,” and in fact largely informed by the dehumanizing logic of war as it necessitates sacrifice, but his inability to accept his own fallibility as a product of his self-dehumanization is, at the very least, compounded by his debilitating perfectionism.
thus, katara and sokka's dynamic within their family isn’t “gifted kid and neglected kid,” but rather “two gifted kids who are gifted in different ways, one of those ways being valued more on a cultural level due to its scarcity as a byproduct of genocide.” while katara was put on a pedestal her entire life due to her ability to waterbend, it doesn’t mean that sokka wasn’t put on a pedestal in other ways. if anything, the reason hakoda entrusted a child with the burdens he did was specifically because he put his son on a pedestal. sokka assumes that hakoda didn't think he was capable enough to join his army, but that couldn't be further from the truth. hakoda trusted his thirteen year old son so much that he genuinely thought it best to leave him alone with this duty to defend his village and protect katara at all costs. he didn't leave a single man behind, not even the other teenage boys, because that's how much faith he had in a child to take his responsibilities seriously and perform them competently. and if that decision gave sokka one million different complexes and fucked him up for life, it wasn’t because he wasn’t valued for his abilities, it’s because he was overvalued and given too much responsibility at too young an age.
both he and katara struggled to live up to the expectations placed on them, forced to fulfill the roles of their parents instead of being allowed to exist as children. but crucially, katara sees the injustice in that, and clings to her childhood even as she strives for greatness, and sokka simply doesn't. he's long accepted that injustice, and in fact feels guilty that he cannot better live up to the impossible portrait of an idolized father, an idealized masculinity, an illusory model of the infallible, unshakeable warrior. despite all his achievements and natural giftedness, he nonetheless feels totally inadequate, deeply flawed, and ontologically worthless. perhaps, in a world beyond the pressures of war and its dehumanizing logic, sokka would have internalized the praise he was constantly receiving his whole life for his gifts. but since he was only ever a prodigy in ways that didn’t matter (within that colonized paradigm), he doesn’t actually care about how clever and brilliant and creative and talented and unique and special he is, because that would first require him to see himself as fully human, and he can’t even do that.
#analysis#sokka#katara#katara&sokka#hakoda#kanna#kya#hakoda&sokka#kanna&sokka#kya&sokka#kanna&katara#whew...! 20+ paragraphs about sokka and katara’s childhood. it’s more likely than u think (highly likely at all times)#see but this is why sokka is so clearly a mirror to azula to me#like not just in terms of crippling perfectionism and devastating fear of failure and being a child prodigy who is put on a pedestal#but simultaneously dehumanized etc etc#but also the fact that like. zuko treats her the same way katara treats sokka#he clearly thinks his immediate hostility and aggression towards her is like. him nobly fighting the battle against his tormentor#when that is literally his little sister and she is struggling so much and desperate for support from LITERALLY ANYONE#katara and zuko are like ‘let’s put azula in her place’ and high five#and that’s just so fucking apt because they truly do believe that it’s their duty to put their perfect prodigy siblings ‘in their place’#but those are truly two of the most miserable people on the planet#so to any outside observers it’s just like………. why are you being mean to them they’re literally suicidal and shaking like a leaf#but also everyone already knows that azula is the prodigious gifted sibling bc zuko says it like one million times#so there’s rly no need to argue that#whereas katara loves calling sokka an idiot so i do believe that some clarification is in order#but like. yeah there’s no way sokka was dismissed or neglected as a child#he’s dismissed and neglected by the world at large#but within his tribe he’s like a mini celebrity . he’s their young sheldon (sorry)#anyway im running out of room to write tags but um. perfectionism is a disease get well soon xoxo bye
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quietwingsinthesky · 14 days
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i really do think the desire to paint ten as unambiguously The Worst™️ when it comes to his relationship with martha is out of this desire to uncomplicate their relationship. to decouple them as friends and people who profoundly impacted each other’s lives. it’s just an easier narrative to swallow: that ten was Awful to her and then martha kicked him to the curb when she realized she was too good for him. easier, maybe, then dealing with the troubles of unrequited affection don’t have to be anyone’s fault, or that ten shut martha out in a lot of ways but let her in in others that he wouldn’t let any other companion near, or that they were still friends, they still wanted to see each other and be around each other, even though it was messy and sometimes hurt. you know?
#sometimes the doctor is shitty. this is not news we know this. this is part of the package. its what makes their relationships with their#companions so interesting so important.#like. how do i put this. i see posts sometimes about how ten was ‘leading martha on’ implying that he was taking advantage of her feelings#to keep her around. and. okay. so. putting aside how that’s a weird thing to say about anyone period.#its also just. from my viewing experience. not true?#the doctor is just sort of Like That. he’s too intense he’s too quick to grasp for emotional intimacy he’s too messy.#but he’s not leading her on. he really is just Like That.#like i feel by getting caught up in the fact that martha is hurt by being compared to rose and is hurt by the fact that the doctor can’t or#won’t return her feelings. and like. yeah. of course that hurts.#but in being caught up in that. i think what im saying is that it feels like people sometimes forget that he’s. not required to do that.#like just because she has feelings for him doesn’t mean he needs to get over himself and return them or else he’s using her. that’s. that’s#not how relationships work. people can have romantic feelings and still be friends and not have anything come of it and that’s not a#terrible outcome. thats just how friendships are sometimes.#thats the core of it to me. they’re friends. the way people post about ten & martha sometimes i wonder if everyone’s forgotten that they#are friends. that they last parted as friends. that martha doesn’t hate him or secretely resent him for how he treated her.#like. she’s got complicated feelings about the whole thing. but they didn’t stop being friends.#i tell you what: if the doctor was in trouble and called for help. you could be damn certain that martha jones would be one of the first#people to answer. that’s what i know.#doctor who#the doctor#tenth doctor#martha jones
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lexosaurus · 1 year
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this girl, for reference
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If nothing else Koenma is a Kuwabara stan and I'm right there with him o7 (I need to write the kuwameshi fic that goes with this fr)
#maybe one day i'll write that au i have sitting in my head#ever since the comment he made about making kuwa spirit detective instead ive been thinking about it#like...what if yusuke is still recruited same as canon but like#kuwa was already spirit detective? doing assignments for the guys upstairs and all#and they made yusuke help him after his resurrection instead of going solo#and it's hilarious because they still have the ''rivalry'' set in place so it's like#now i gotta be coworkers with this guy i was in a fist fight with last week?#yusuke is like you can't be serious you want me to fight DEMONS with the guy who cant even beat ME? lmaooo okay#kuwa would be more in tune with his powers atp in this au and super offended like hello#why would i use my reiki on a FELLOW HUMAN CHILD you DICK i can hold my own on my assignments just fine#but he's actually really excited to be able to spend time with yusuke doing something besides getting his ass handed to him#they're both genkai's students (she's endlessly annoyed but they grow on her)#i just think it'd be fun cos like#it'd be harder to exclude kazuma from shit if he's literally been involved in this shit before he even met#kurama and hiei#kuwabara isn't really told about yusuke's resurrection so things go mostly the same up til he's brought back#they're both called to koenma's office and it's the spiderman pointing meme 💀#it's koenma's first time seeing kuwa in person as he usually just sends assignments with botan#yusuke has already seen him cos of the resurrection arc#and koenma is SUCH a fanboy ''kuwabara it's such a pleasure. you know you're my best worker 🥺''#''um urameshi am i seeing things or is that a fuckin baby'' yusuke will NOT stop laughing#it fucks koenma up so bad he makes sure he's in his adult form when he's around kuwa next#cos he wants to be the respected boss but also guy that you can chill with!! he's so cringe#okay yeah i need to write this it's such a fun concept#kuwameshi#yu yu hakusho#kuwabara kazuma#yusuke urameshi#koenma
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aroaessidhe · 8 months
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2023 reads
The Spider And Her Demons
YA Australian urban fantasy/horror
about a Malaysian-Chinese girl who’s half spider-demon, just trying to keep her head down and survive high school
when she accidentally kills and eats a man in front of the most popular girl at school, they strike up a strange friendship and she starts to learn more about herself and the supernatural world
aroacespec/sapphic ish
#The Spider And Her Demons#Sydney Khoo#loveozya#aroaessidhe 2023 reads#you give me a teenage girl with giant hair spider legs who scuttles across her bedroom wall on page 3#and then eats a man and i am already sold.#also aus books are always so familiar compared to US books :)#and yes sexuality stuff is ambiguous but basically: a bunch of discussion on relationship hierachies (ie friendship equally/more important)#themes of feeling unlovable bc you're different and different forms of love#multiple times the MC says she has no interest in dating or relationships and also is touch (and maybe sex) repulsed#- but of course that Also has to do with the whole Being A Monster thing#and it definitely shows some kind of attraction to dior - ie looking at her lips/bare skin; blushing; etc#and ends on sort of hand kiss / 'is this something??' vibes#I asked the author and they said they see them as QPR / platonic soulmates but are not at the point where they would know what to call it#which makes total sense to me!#the part of me who wants more obvious aroace YA wishes it was a little more specific#but also I DO love ambiguity and I think it wouldn't be true to the characters#who are clearly not even ready to start figuring that stuff out.#and also. aroacespec sapphics is like. also something i want#also like. I think it's reductive to assume just because 'looks at lips' is a common allo attraction trope....doesn't necessarily mean#it has to be that. yknow.#anyway. i loved it a lot.#gross spidergirl (affectionate)......#also dior is such an interesting and complex character. like another book could have made her nicer or less fucked up
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spywhitney · 23 days
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How I sleep knowing I'll never trust anyone that hates Sydney but worships Richie:
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#the bear#the bear fx#sydney adamu#carmen berzatto#richie jerimovich#jk kind of#well on days I don't see or think about Sydney haters#under every damn comment section in this fandom is someone saying Sydney didn't take accountability#like I know we all have our biases but yall are really shameless about it#Sydney scored A LOT of Ws for The Beef AND The Bear#but one time she makes a mistake and justifiably walks away from a toxic work environment she's the devil#Richie worked at The Beef for years and Sydney did more for it in what less than four months than he did#on top of being a prick to Sydney in particular because she was changing things he wanted to keep the same#to the detriment of the restaurant but also everyone#and overall being unpleasant to Carmy#Nat and anyone that didn't find him funny or interesting or like his bs#pre-Forks Richie reminds me of those types of people that only listen to people that like them#and I love that because it's realistic to some ppl#I do like Richie#it just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth knowing there are people that hate Sydney#ignore her accomplishments only to raise up Richie#in the same breath when the actual show is showing you what's up#like you'd think there were different versions of the show with how these two are perceived#I get this weird need to defend Sydney when people shit on her because I wonder how often said people treat the Sydneys of the world#but that aside#In Fishes Richie mentions something about wasting potential at the beef#In Ceres it's implied he called the popo on the dealers after Sydney deescalated a situation Richie previously dealt with#in an unorthodox manner#he recognised he needed to change but still was an arsehole to the one person who was facilitating that change effectively Sydney#this show is great but people denying what they're seeing on their own screens is crazy
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journey-to-the-attic · 10 months
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au where this was how ik and diavolo met for the first time when she was like seven
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what would megumi’s life have been if he was actually raised by the zenin from day one? like either gojo lost the custody battle or they were able to scoop him up before gojo ever reached them. i doubt they would want to keep tsumiki with them so she’s not there for little baby megs.
i think it would be really cool to see a zenin raised megumi interacting with his fellow classmates when he attends the school, not to mention the contrast between him and gojo. like on paper they both should have gotten the same treatment-being pampered and spoiled rotten but we also know that the zenin think that hurting little kids makes them stronger so it would be super interesting to see megumi realise that the stuff that happened to him wasn’t normal and for gojo to have a guilt trip bc he wasn’t able to help megumi when he needed someone to help him the most.
So I have a fanfic that I’ve half written (no idea if I’ll ever finish it—I’d love to, it’s just hard to find the time) about EXACTLY THAT that I talked about in this post for an ask game.
That being said, that entire thing happens from Tsumiki’s perspective, and I agree with you—I don’t think the Zenin would have ever actually taken her too. They don’t want her. She’s not Zenin. She’s not a sorcerer. They only bought Megumi. For the most part, Megumi is absent from that post, and you asked about Megumi. So this is what I think would happen on Megumi's side of that post I linked.
It comes down to two things:
1. He is never, ever happy with the Zenin.
2. He never lets go of his sister.
Megumi’s old enough to remember Tsumiki when the Zenin take him away. He's old enough to love her. And I think that Megumi loves very quietly, but he also loves very violently. He wouldn't let his sister hold his hand on the walk to school, but he would sacrifice himself for her future.
I think the Zenin took him from his sister, and I think he kicked and screamed and wasn't strong enough. I think they thought he would forget her eventually.
And then I think he bit most of the Zenin Clan.
At the end of the day, what Megumi wanted was the one thing the Zenin were not willing to give him. They were never like the Gojo clan, they were never going to pamper him, but there are a great many things in this world that they would give the Ten Shadows finally returned to them. But they would not give him a non-sorcerer, non-Zenin sister who would only be a weakness to him. They refused to let him have any contact with his sister, and that was the source of a lot of what soured.
Any Megumi that was taken in by the Zenin would have been taken in to Naobito's household directly. He would be announced as the one who finally inherited their most cherished technique, and he would be declared heir, and the Zenin would call him beloved for it.
They would keep him in a room that was large and empty and almost always dark, and he wouldn't be allowed to decide when he slept or woke, and the door would always be locked from the outside. They would give him a wardrobe of expensive clothes that he hated, and he would never get to pick which of them he wore.
Megumi would hate them. He would hate all of them.
He's just not the type to be comfortable with or enjoy the adoration of others--especially when it's not backed up by genuine love. Megumi is someone who very much values sincerity and depth to emotion--it's one of the reasons why he seems to respect Yuuji so much. Yuuji is a good person who follows through with what he says. He's not just going to talk about wanting to save people--he's there making the sacrifices as he does it.
The Zenin do not actually love him. And he knows it. He's experienced love before, and this isn't it.
They love the idea of him. The fantasy of him that lives in their heads. He has no interest in being their little god prince to contend with the Gojo's own. He knows who he is, and it's not this. He wants to go home. He wants to find his sister again. He doesn't want to do this anymore.
And I think that's a feeling Megumi never escape: he just didn't want to do this anymore.
Megumi would feel like a bug pinned beneath glass in the Zenin compound. He would constantly have people managing him--when he ate, what he ate, what he wore, when he slept, when he woke, when he trained, what he did. Having to become a jujutsu sorcerer signified an inherent loss of control, but it's nothing compared to the sheer objectification that he goes through when the Zenin have exclusive control over him.
He has no power of what clothes he wears. How his hair is styled. His schedule, his diet, the people he speaks too--he's suffocating and the Zenin are just increasing pressure on him.
I don't think Gojo ever thought that would be Megumi's life.
We’re gonna just have this imagining exist in the same world as the Tsumiki centric fic described in the linked post, and in that, the reason why Gojo never took him in was because he didn’t know Megumi had a sister. He showed up, saw the divine dogs, realized Megumi had the Ten Shadows, and decided he couldn’t do this. He was a mess. He was grieving Suguru and Haibara. Megumi looked just like the man who killed Riko, and apparently inherited the fucking Ten Shadows of all the goddamn things. The Zenin would lose their shit, and Gojo didn’t have the energy to fight and told himself he didn’t need to, because if Megumi was the Ten Shadows he’d be cared for like a prince with the Zenin. He turned around and left and spent the rest of his life with Megumi in the back of his mind, always nagging him with whether he made the right decision. It wasn’t until Maki got there and made a few worrisome references to Megumi's standard of living that he started to really worry that he had made the wrong one, and it wasn't until he found out about Tsumiki that he knew it was the wrong decision.
It's like this: The Zenin hurt Megumi in every world.
It would be bad no matter what, but it really gets bad because Megumi refuses to stop trying to get back to Tsumiki. She's his sister. They didn't have anyone or anything in this world, but they had each other, and he couldn't let these people just take her away. He’s feral about it. He refuses to fit the mold they keep trying to cram him in. He’s trying to scale the walls to escape. He’s increasingly desperate and angry and the Zenin are getting more and more frustrated the longer he fights them. He’s the heir to the clan, and he can’t stop trying to leave it to get back to some random girl who isn’t his real sister and isn’t someone they’ll ever allow him to have.
It gets bad.
They put him under increasingly strict levels of control. He’s constantly being trained, which means he's constantly being hurt. He’s not allowed to speak to anyone without the clan head’s approval. He is under absolutely constant guard after he manages to get over the wall and halfway to his old neighborhood before they catch him again. Tsumiki’s name is not allowed to be said aloud, or his old name. He forgets his name used to be Fushiguro, but he doesn’t forget Tsumiki. He doesn’t let himself.
I think it escalates until it hits a breaking point. Megumi becomes increasingly self-destructive and non-responsive to everything they try. They push him to extremes that start risking permanent damage.
I think Megumi would try to hurt himself, eventually.
He wouldn't be in his right mind. He's in the most shit situation possible. He's undergoing pretty severe abuse. He'd be at the end of his rope from the lack of control over his own life, and he'd be spiteful as hell towards the Zenin. And the only thing he has to hurt them with is himself.
As a character, Megumi has always considered his own sacrifice as an acceptable means to the end of getting back at someone. Mahoraga, intrinsically, requires him killing himself as a way of killing someone else. He'd hurt himself if it was the only way he had of hurting them.
Naobito would cover it up. He'd never, ever want the rest of the clan to find out that it happened. It was already bad enough that Megumi openly hated them--he couldn't have the Zenin seeing any vulnerability in what was meant to be their most powerful member. He'd put Megumi in total lockdown until he could make it all go away.
Then they'd make a deal.
A binding vow. Megumi could never purposefully hurt himself again. He could never again try to leverage his own safety against the clan.
And in exchange, Tsumiki would be taken care of.
The last time Megumi saw his sister, she was on a sinking ship. They were running out of food, money, options--he doesn't know if she even has food anymore. He doesn't know if she lost the apartment or if there's still running water.
They're not letting him see her. But they are letting him take care of her. He can sacrifice another piece of control over himself, and she'll never have to worry about money again. They'll pay for her housing, her food, her education, for her every desire for as long as she lives. The trust the Zenin set up for her will be a generous one, and it will be managed meticulously by a trustee who can make sure she'll be provided for until she's old and grey. And Naobito will vow to never hurt her or send someone else to hurt her. She'll be safe. She'll be taken care of.
Megumi makes the deal.
In the end, the deal's what sort of breaks him.
Because he doesn't promise to stop looking for her, but the Zenin manage to make it a part of the terms anyway. When they approach Tsumiki's mother with the offer to be her family's beneficiary, they include a requirement that Tsumiki be moved to another city entirely with no forwarding address given. She needs to be somewhere that Megumi can never find her again.
The Zenin keep the old apartment. They pay the rent every month. And the next time Megumi manages to make it off compound, they let him make it all the way there before dragging him home. They let him see the empty apartment with all its empty rooms.
Naobito wants him to know that Tsumiki's gone. He wants him to know that he'll never find her again.
He tries to run a few more times after that, but he never makes it very far. He doesn't have anywhere to go.
In the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki, just once. She's on a class trip. He's on one of his very few and far between allowed excursions off the compound grounds, and he sees her in the crowd and recognizes her, and he ducks away from his escort before anyone can stop him.
She remembers him. He didn't think she would do that.
She tries to save him. He didn't think she would do that either.
She still loves him. And he was always too afraid to hope she would do that.
It goes the same way it did the first time. There's a car, and the Zenin shove him in it. She's on the outside, and he's trapped within, and he wishes she didn't scream so loudly when it happens. The sound never seems to leave his dreams.
His sister still loves him. Naoya hits him in the back of the head. He wakes up, and it was like she was never there at all.
But they hit him harder, after. Like they're trying to beat the memory of her out of him. He has even less freedom, when he already had next to none at all.
But he still has a sister. He has a place to go that isn't here. He just has to figure out where that is.
He wouldn't really have anyone in the Zenin clan. Most people are just... weird about him. Naoya's violently abusive. Naobito's weird and violently abusive. Everyone wants him to be someone he's not.
Maki would be his favorite.
He doesn't care about whether she's got cursed energy--his sister didn't have any. And she's obviously strong. She doesn't treat him like a divine blessing or try to force him to act a certain way. I think they would have genuinely liked each other, but kept each other at a distance. They're both trapped in an abusive situation and keep themselves safe by keeping everyone else at arm's length.
He would have been happy to see her get out, though. He would have told her that she could have his spot as heir or head or whatever when she came back if she wanted it. She would have told him that if he ever got out... well, fuck it. They could be something then. Family. Whatever the fuck they weren't allowed to be here.
She would have told him she's sorry, and she would have meant it. The only one she she regretted more than Megumi was Maki. He would have told her not to be, that if she dared to be sorry for getting out that he would never forgive her, and he would have meant that too.
I think his relationship with his own techinque would be very different in a world where the Zenin raised him. In canon, his issue is that he doesn't view himself as someone who could be powerful or win in the long run, but in this world, all he ever hears is how powerful he is. Pride of the fucking Zenin. The most powerful of them in centuries. Meant to rival Gojo fucking Satoru himself.
I think his real issue would be controlling it.
His technique would be a source of negative associations for him. It's the reason why the Zenin took him away. Most of his interactions with it have involved getting beaten and hurt by either his family or a high-level curse they shoved him in front of. I think he'd have a lot more firepower under his belt than at the start of canon, but he'd have less of a fine tuned control over it.
He lost control over his own life because of his shadows. It think that would manifest in struggling to control his own shikigami at times. he's not as in-sync with them as he is in canon.
Eventually, he'd go to Jujutsu High. He would be the only one in the first year class at the beginning, just like in canon. And he'd finally meet Gojo Satoru, the man he's supposed to topple.
He looks at Megumi really goddamn weird.
He's... enthusiastic. About. Teaching. He guesses. And constantly asking prying questions about the Zenin, but not in the sort of way he'd expect from a rival. In the sort of way he'd expect from someone concerned about him. Which is stupid. And annoying. And weird. He keeps a distance from everyone. They've all heard about the Zenin clan heir, and he has no interest in having to fit or break whatever mold they've already cast him in. He's better off on his own.
Maki's there. She's cordial where other people can see it, and in private, she takes care of him in a way that's terrifyingly close to familial. He's not sure if he likes it. He's not Mai, and she's not Tsumiki, and they both want someone they can't have.
She isn't sorry she left. She is sorry she left him. He can hate her for it all he goddamn pleases.
Of course, if this is in the same world as the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki again. He finds her in Sendai.
He gets to keep her, this time.
Gojo Satoru, of all the goddamn people, intervenes and becomes his sister's benefactor. It's super fucking weird. He won't stop looking at Megumi strangely. He won't stop insisting that he didn't know he had a sister, like that matters.
That would sort of be the first time in a long time that life actually gets better for Megumi.
I think he would ask to go by Fushiguro again, once he asks Tsumiki what his name used to be. He'd ask her if she minded it, him taking the name again, and he'd ask the rest of the school to call him Fushiguro instead of Zenin.
Predictably enough, Naobito loses his shit when he finds out, but it's not nearly as big of a pain in the ass as he thinks it is? Because Gojo intervenes.
Gojo keeps intervening.
It drives Megumi nuts, because if anyone was supposed to hate him, it was this guy. If anyone was supposed to be against him, it was this guy. This is the guy he was supposed to rival. This is the guy who killed his shitheel bio dad.
Gojo's just... good to him. He keeps him safe. He keeps him safe from his own goddamn family, and that's--no one's ever done that. No one's ever protected him from the Zenin.
The Zenin try to remove him from the Tokyo campus and move him to Kyoto the second they find out Tsumiki's there, and Gojo just... says no. It causes an uproar, and he doesn't fucking budge. It's treading dangerously close to him kidnapping the Zenin clan heir, his refusal to let them remove him from the Tokyo campus, and he doesn't care about whatever problems it causes him.
Megumi's his student. He doesn't want to leave. So Gojo won't let them take him.
He personally goes to Kyoto and collects him, the one time the Zenin force him into a car and move him when Gojo's off on a mission. He tells the higher ups to get fucked. He changes Megumi's student I.D. to read Fushiguro, and he causes problems for Yaga and the assistants until they start calling him Fushiguro as well.
Megumi's different with the other students once his sister is there.
He's more connected with them. He becomes best friends with Kugisaki and Itadori. He gets closer with the second years. He's visibly happier, and it sort of casts in sharp contrast how unhappy he was before this.
And Gojo? Gojo's so goddamn sorry. He didn't know megumi had a sister.
The thing is that now that both Tsumiki and Megumi are on campus, it sort of haunts Gojo with what could have been. They're both fantastic kids--funny, smart, resourceful. And it's painful watching them try to rebuild what was taken from them. And it could have just. never happened. Because he could have saved them both. He could have been their family.
It's sort of painfully obvious the Zenin abused Megumi, and it fucking haunts him. He doesn't even have to read into Megumi's behavior--he sees it happen, right in front of him, with how they try to control him and push him around. He wants to kill them for it. He wants to hate himself for it. He could have saved Megumi and he just. He didn't.
He wishes he did.
#jjk#fushiguro megumi#fushiguro tsumiki#gojo satoru#zenin clan#zenin maki#also featuring in this au: itadori absolutely torn because his best friend's long lost brother is extremely pretty and he HAS to be in#violation of some kind of bro code. the boy is in crisis. there he is. enrolled in fucking wizard school. his best friend tsumiki finally#found her long lost brother. said long lost brother proceeds to give him his gay awakening. he's fucking sweating. kugisaki stop laughing#gojos latent desire for fatherhood has been violently awakened in this and no one is safe. he's everyone's dad now. no one wants this.#yuuta in africa: sensei it's three am why are you calling is everyone oka--what do you mean what color do I want you to paint my room. what#room. what are you talking about.#yuuta keeps getting the weirdest goddamn updates from japan and he thinks he's having a stroke. what do you mean zenin-kun is fushiguro-kun#and he has a fucking long lost sister and gojos possibly going to gently kidnap him. is it kidnapping if he wants it too but the people who#has custody of him doesn't. what do you mean he needs to come back and help maki kill her entire family. maki explain your words explain#yes word of god megumi is also yuutas boy in this one i decide this for no other reasons than i want this#it's not the same way as in sea glass gardens. Maki just said some worrying things when yuuta first met him and he decided to keep an eye#out for him. he didn't seem all that happy. and he seemed alone. yuuta didn't want him to be.#megumi's sort of blindsided because he went from being raised in a clan where he was barely a person to having a bunch of medically insane#people decide that his wellbeing was their personal crusade. like. no one ever cared about /him/ before this. they just wanted their idea#but not who he really was. he felt like he was screaming and no one could hear it. then suddenly these people he barely knows are like#okay so we're going to punch your shitty bio uncle and also set his car on fire. yes we will call you by the name that makes you most#comfortable. yes we will help you get a new wardrobe full of clothes you're actually comfortable in.#he hadn't heard his own name in years. he's just been the ten shadows. never fushiguro. only rarely megumi.#everyone calls him fushgiuro at the school. his sister calls him megumi. he sort of wants to cry about it but he doesn't.#his shitty uncle shows up and makes a big stink about him being called zenin and inumaki and panda keyed his car. is this what love is.#is it a keyed car.#Low key he does NOT know what's going to happen the first time the school goes on break because gojo keeps making comments about how#megumi's not going back to the zenin compound and he says it like a joke but. he may not be joking. is he not joking. is. is megumi being#kidnapped. again. this is getting statistically improbable. did gojo just. decide. to keep him. when did that happen.
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crimsongrimoire · 8 months
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i need 4.1 to be here faster so i can be insane accurately
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marimbles · 7 months
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at the risk of sounding like really entitled….
does anyone else have a fic that is their most popular, but you don’t want it to be, because you don’t think it deserves it, and you have better stuff, and while ofc you are grateful that people like something you wrote, it’s almost annoying that for some reason That one is the most popular. lmao
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quietwingsinthesky · 2 months
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i think river and amy try to do some sort of mother-daughter bonding exercise or trip or something exactly one time, and it goes horribly. it's the most uncomfortable thing they've both ever done, and that's saying a lot. they never try to do it again.
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