#I didn't post it originally just cause I didn't think anyone would care much whether I did or didn't so ty for asking 🫶🫶

[numbuh424]

was debating on whether I should post this or not but I spent so much time on it...🍎 I've been studying the death note art style, and for me studying an art style just means drawing myself as practice 💀

#this was made to be my new pfp but I got too attached to my near pfp so I just made it my header instead lol #I was very pleasantly surprised to find some people asking about it!! thank you fr!! #I didn't post it originally just cause I didn't think anyone would care much whether I did or didn't so ty for asking 🫶🫶 #what do I put in the tags HAHAHA #death note #death note manga #death note art #fanart #anime #self insert #oc #original character #<<< technically lol #elle draws #this is basically just a redraw btw of that one official art of light except I changed the scythe to a notebook because I am lazy #I actually really like how the hands are rendered in DN it was one of the pleasant discoveries I made that I'll be absorbing into my style #I have an anime artstyle one too but I haven't finished that yet #there are some parts where I sort of gave up on following the style tbh like hair in DN is so stringy you see every single strand #alas I am lazy (2)

[decepti-thots]

as we're talking about how tarantulas views prowl re: his behaviour towards others, this is going a little off on a tangent so i'll put it in its own post, but i was thinking the other day about the positive reinforcement prison and what it tells us about mesothulas and prowl in terms of what they were doing together.

mesothulas got told to make a perfect prison. so he created a perfect prison. the positive reinforcement prison is clearly a fucking fantastic way to ensure you reduce the likelihood of escape to near-zero. it completely disincentivizes any resistance. it keeps a threat pretty close to perfectly contained. it's clearly horribly immoral, for a start it LITERALLY brainwashes people- but prowl asked for a perfect prison and he got a perfect prison, courtesy of mesothulas.

prowl's objection to the prison is notably not like his objection to the noisemaze; it's not one of ethics. no, mesothulas mentions offhandedly that prowl felt that it was an issue because it didn't punish the prisoners enough. it rendered them completely harmless and secure, but that wasn't what prowl wanted, apparently. what's the point of punishing prisoners who are at no risk of escaping and therefore need no dissuading? well… prowl presumably just feels they 'ought' to, because they 'deserve it'. his sense of morality is one where you punish people who 'deserve it' regardless of whether it serves any actual purpose.

mesothulas has absolutely no moral compass. but the thing is, that really is no moral compass. he will do what he wants to do and it does not matter if it hurts other people doing it; but he doesn't have any active desire to hurt other people either. they're just irrelevant. he'll torture roadbuster if it gets him what he wants, but he doesn't tell himself roadbuster 'deserves it', even just in the sense of 'he's beneath me' or whatever. he just sees it as a way to get from point a to point b. hence the positive reinforcement prison: it's not that he wants to spare anyone suffering, he just wants to find the most efficient solution to the problem.

prowl has a moral compass, unlike mesothulas. he thinks that evil exists and must be defeated, he thinks harm to others is bad in the abstract, he thinks he has a righteous cause, all that. this pretty much universally results in him doing much more harm than mesothulas overall, because no moral compass is bad, but a sense of morality and therefore drive which is turned to bad ends in the name of 'justice' is often worse. mesothulas doesn't care about the war and never gave a shit about making weapons to fight it. prowl, in his desire to end the war at any cost, gets him to make a bomb and nukes a refugee city. mesothulas didn't care about that, but it never would have occurred to him to do that if prowl hadn't incentivized it. mesothulas doesn't care about 'bad guys' getting what they 'deserve', so he's happy to make a perfect prison that doesn't punish anyone if that's not a required part of making it work. prowl, who needs the 'bad guys' to be punished to satisfy his sense of morality, insists upon shelving it in favour of something less inadvertently merciful. (spark extraction doesn't seem to be torture, but it's clearly not actively pleasant.)

and mesothulas makes stuff! he doesn't do it for altruistic reasons. but he makes things; he makes a whole person, in fact, just to do the making part. he makes ostaros! and sure, his original motivation there was almost certainly pure fascination… but that doesn't change that fact that he is capable of creating something wonderful just because he wants to do so.

meanwhile, prowl tosses mesothulas in the noisemaze because his sense of moral injury gets too great… and then that sense of guilt doesn't stop him from trying incredibly fucking hard to kill ostaros, the absolute most innocent person it's possible to be. he KNOWS he shouldn't, and so he tries to get around his own inability to do so by sending impactor. it's not a. subtle difference between them.

it makes me think of that bit in OP #25, the epilogue issue post-Unicron... where prowl talks to shockwave about how he understands now that it's not what you think that matters ('our hopes'), but what you do. prowl thinks of himself as inherently more moral than mesothulas no matter what he does because he has the ability to feel the way you're 'supposed' to about things. sure, he only ever destroyed, whereas mesothulas could make things. but mesothulas is selfish, and prowl cares about other people. sure, prowl did terrible things that killed people, and mesothulas in large part only helped because prowl enabled him to. but prowl feels bad about nuking that city, and mesothulas only wouldn't have done it on his own because he doesn't care. sure, mesothulas also, you know. wouldn't have done it. but prowl thinks that an important part of being Good is following a certain set of moral rules as dictated by society, and he sees himself as achieving that where mesothulas fails, so he must be better in a moral sense. that's why he thinks getting rid of mesothulas will fix what he's done, stop him doing bad stuff. he thinks mesothulas is just fundamentally a worse person because there's something wrong with him, and prowl is fundamentally a good person because he has what mesothulas lacks, and when it turns out to be more complicated than that he has no idea how to fix it. and he cannot conceive of the idea that he made mesothulas more dangerous at least as much as the reverse is true, because he can't imagine anything being worse than not having a sense of morality.

#this is very disorganized sorry #i just think it's really interesting to look at characters as being worse because they have these traits #how they're not inherently redemptive the way they're often assumed to be #similarly: the idea love is not an inherently good thing which is always 'worth it' #meta #tarantulas #prowl #taraprowl

[aseriesofunfortunatejan]

The issue remains that TERFs are hijacking feminism. When I wrote that one essay in the past, my point was to demonstrate - and I was validated by the evidence I found - that the acronym "TERF" wasn't even synonymous with radical feminism, let alone feminism. The acronym was specifically created to differentiate the transphobic types of radical feminists from the non-transphobic types. The alleged originator of the acronym even suggested using TES, for "trans exclusionary separatists", instead soon thereafter, when they pointed out that the transphobic bunch they were describing couldn't really be said to actually be radical feminists, but it didn't catch on.

With the knowledge that I have and with my relationship to feminism, I will sometimes talk or write about feminism, or even mention radical feminism, although I am admittedly not well-informed of whether radical feminism still exists proactively today. Despite being against TERFs and the amount of time I have spent fighting for my life [...] to defend anyone who needs feminism from TERFs, even despite my strong wording against TERFs, it is not uncommon that someone who has grown afraid of TERFs will dismiss (or, in an online space, block, which impacts me less) me on sight.

If my disabilities ever allow it, I would like to spend more time physically interacting with feminist associations and groups in the future. As it stands, my limited interaction with political associations - not by choice, as I have unfortunately talked about the ableism and classism that prevent people like me from getting fully involved before - causes an unfortunate amount of my activism to be done from a distance and/or online. And I'll say it - reactionary tumblr posts are just not representative of reality. I think a lot of us know that to some degree, but few realise the extent of it. Because of the culture around conversation on tumblr, we all fall victim to it to some degree.

But I'm in an awkward position - to the many "casual" cishet feminists who don't even know about the queer movement, my detailed knowledge of the wrongs caused by TERFism makes me incomprehensible. To those negatively impacted by TERFs, my feminism and/or my interest in talking about the history of radical feminism makes them wary of me. It can't really be helped. I will never be hurt as much by being accidentally misconstrued for a TERF from time to time than a trans person will be by TERFs. And to come full circle - as a fellow cis feminist, I am in a position to understand that the ignorant cishet feminists aren't ignorant out of malice - that's not how ignorance works.

By all means, I'm not yet in a good place to perfectly communicate what I mean and support the movements I care about. Inclusive feminism is important to me, but too many groups are only inclusive on paper - and I'm just excluded enough not to be able to have the impact I'd like, but not enough that someone would be able to see it on my face and hold my hand. I've mentioned before that I suffer from the inaccessibility of protests in my city, and when I do attend, I feel frustrated by the limitations that I know I'd have the knowledge and experience to do something about if only I could metaphorically fit through the doorway. By being stuck online, which I know insufficient, I also worry about accidentally scaring and hurting the people I want to help, largely because I don't have the spaces and tools to learn how to better communicate and, possibly, to learn more that I do not yet know and that could be limiting what I say.

#personal #i guess...??? #cw: transphobia mention #long post

[marinerainbow]

Alright, I need to make a post that isn't Disney... So let's talk about horror! Specifically one of my favorite genres:

Two Sentence Horror Stories.

Writing a story, any story, is exceedingly difficult for many ways. But to make a whole story with just two sentences? A story that enraptured the reader and makes them shake but also want to know more? Now that is talent. And I never get tired of reading them.

So, even though nobody asked, here is my top 10 favorite two sentence horror stories and why I like them so much.

TW: Horror and creepy gifs, along with very unsettling topics. You have been warned. All credit goes to the original authors.

Number 10:

I never go to sleep.

But I always wake up.

It doesn't seem like much honestly. But when you really think about it, that's when it starts to get more creepy. Why is this person constantly awake? Why do they keep waking up? What do they awaken to?

But at the same time, to me, this feels like one of those horror stories where it's more unsettling with imagery rather than on its own. I first heard it in an animated top 10 list and the imagery with it is definitely freaky, but when you take that away I don't feel so scared anymore. Chilled yes, but not scared.

Number 9:

"Now be careful, that line of rock salt is the only thing keeping them out," the man said, welcoming my group into his refuge.

"Sea salt," I clarified, "sea salt keeps us out."

I do believe in the supernatural. I'm not the kind of person who will cover my whole house in salt cause I'm so paranoid about evil spirits, but I do believe that there are some creatures out there.

I am also anxious about the thought that if I ever do encounter a dangerous spirit or creature, I will not be prepared to face it or have the wrong information, just like the poor man in this story.

Number 8:

A girl heard her mother call her by name, and started to head downstairs.

Just before she did, her mother pulled her into her room and said, "I heard it too."

If you're a fan of two sentence horror stories, you've no doubt heard this one, or a variation of it.

Like the one above, it's probably been heard a dozen times. Though it's still one of my favorites. It didn't quite help that the video I first heard this story used the name Sarah for the girl, which just so happens to be my own name. So it kinda spooked me on a personal level too.

Number 7:

I always thought my cat had a staring problem, since she always seemed to be transfixed on my face.

I never realized until now, that she was always staring right behind me.

I've lived with cats for nearly my whole life. Literally. And I believe that animals can sense things that we can't, whether it be supernatural or otherwise.

So this story makes me shiver to think about, imagining this scenario with me and my own cat. And with my own fear, the thought of anything- or anyone- being behind me without my knowledge, it just makes it even worse for me.

Number 6:

I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, "Daddy, check for monsters under my bed."

I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me, quivering and whispering, "Daddy, there's somebody on my bed."

Every child's worst fear comes to life in the most terrifying way possible. Now the father has to make the decision, which one is his real son? And if he makes the wrong choice, or doesn't act fast enough, who knows what the consequences will be?

Number 5:

I told her there was no monster in her closet as I picked her up, and told her she could sleep with us tonight.

I figured that was the safest way off getting her out of the house without him realizing I saw him.

One of the many fears a parent would have. This is just so bone-chilling to read, I can only imagine how the narrator must have felt seeing a stranger in his daughter's closet.

Not to mention that, from the looks of things, it was a normal human intruder, nothing supernatural. To me, that just makes it even scarier. If it was a ghost or a demon, that would have been easier to deduce that the daughter is simply haunted. But a more real horror? Why was the man hiding in the girl's closet? What was he planning?

It's questions like that that are best left remained unanswered.

Number 4:

You get home, tired after a long days work and ready for a relaxing night alone.

You reach for the light switch, but another hand is already there.

I grew up in a household where at least one person was awake no matter what. And it wasn't like they had different schedules, my parents expressly told me and my siblings that it was to make sure that no one broke into the house or anything.

They relaxed on that over the years, I think, but it still stuck with me. I'm genuinely terrified of the thought of living alone now, and this story is one of the ways that perfectly captures my fear. I know someday I'll have to live by myself for some time until I start a family of my own. And this story always comes to mind when I think that.

Number 3:

The last thing I saw was my alarm clock flashing 12:07 before she pushed her long, rotting finger nails through my chest, her other hand muffling my screams.

I sat bolt upright, relieved it was only a dream, but as my clock read 12:06, I could hear my closet door creaking open.

I have lost count of how many times I've woken up in the middle of the night and thought I saw something creeping toward me. But then I would turn on the light, and nothing was there. I even have a memory from my childhood that I'm 65% sure is a genuine sleep paralysis story. Not to mention the kind of crazy or fucked up dreams I'll sometimes get before I wake up.

So when I read this story, it got to me on a personal level as well. Let me just say I'm grateful that my closet has no doors or else I'd probably try to barricade the doors every night just to reassure my subconscious.

Yeah, any supernatural creature in there may easily break through it, but at least I'll be able to get a few more minutes of peaceful sleep before I die.

Number 2:

When the kidnapper made me guess where he kept my daughter, I pointed to the basement and he said, "Correct!" And allowed me to see her.

But when I found her severed head in there, I realized every other choice would have been correct too.

Holy shit, do I even need to explain this one? A parent who was clinging onto the hope that they finally found their child, and their hope is squashed in the worst way imaginable.

It's mental, emotional, and in a way physical torture. And you can practically feel the sick, twisted smile on the kidnapper's face as you read this horror story.

And the worst part? This isn't even number one on this list.

Number 1:

After working a hard day I came home to see my girlfriend cradling our child.

I didn't know which was more frightening; seeing my dead girlfriend and stillborn child, or knowing that someone broke into my apartment to place them there.

This... Holy shit I actually had to reread this a couple of times when I first found it.

Someone breaks into my girlfriend and child's graves, takes them all the way from their burial sites to my home, breaks into my home, proceeds to purposefully place them in such a way that would have looked heartwarming if they were alive, and then (supposedly) leaves for me to find the scene all on my own with no explanation. It's like #2 but on steroids.

This isn't just a simple hatred for the victim. It's an obsession. Whether it be a love for this twisted game, or a crazy ex-lover who decides to torture their victim for leaving them, this is an obsession with mentally breaking the narrator of this story.

And that's my list. Do you guys agree? What would you pick for your own list?

#i did this before going to sleep im so brave #horror #two sentence horror stories #list #top 10 list #tw death #tw gore #my own post #tw child death #tw eye contact

[stillsundazed]

Hi! I really liked your analysis on the shootout scene, and I was wondering whether you could do an analysis on chishiya's character? how his mentality changed throughout the borderlands, the significance of the k diamonds and why he decided to sacrifice himself for usagi. I feel like the live action didn't do a very good job of explaining all this so I was wondering if you could. thank you in advance!

Hi! I actually was gonna post a Chishiya analysis but didn’t think anyone would want to see it bc of how long I make these lmao so thanks for the ask! And sorry for taking so long to respond!

~~~

There are three main things going for Chishiya’s character: Apathy, selfishness, and luck. Of course, he has other important traits like resourcefulness and intelligence, but I think these three are the ones that really define him and his development.

His apathy and selfishness go hand-in-hand, so we’ll begin with those. Growing up, Chishiya was neglected. As stated in my shootout analysis, the lack of attention from his parents and the absence of any friends caused him to never really learn what love and affection felt like. At the same time, nobody ever outright wronged him, so he had no reason to hate or want revenge from anyone. This led to an apathetic viewpoint towards a world that never explicitly gave to or took from him, leading him to do the same. The manga has a side story (Six of Diamonds) about his first game in the borderlands that delves further into his apathy – his nature isn’t due to “self confidence, courage, or even a poker face… he just has absolutely no interest in the concept of life.” This explains why he is so readily able to use other people, but also why he’s always so calm in the games. The only reason he plays them is for mental stimulation. He doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, because life is meaningless to him.

But show Chishiya is an entirely different character from manga Chishiya. His backstory in the show made it clear that he wasn’t always this way. He used to feel empathy towards others, but the nature of his occupation stomped those feelings away, turning him into an emptier man. He likely either puts up a mask of apathy to keep himself from feeling too much, or truly did stop caring due to heavy exposure to corruption at work. I like to think it’s the former, because we see cracks in his mask all the time in his personal relationships – his friendship with Kuina (actually trusting her, keeping her at his side, and making her a bomb), and his alliance with the other beach members (telling them to floor it/ leave him behind after the King of Spades attack). Unlike manga Chishiya, who has no regard for anyone but himself, show Chishiya does care at least a little bit about the people he respects. He just doesn’t care for his own life, or most of the lives around him that he looks down on.

Chishiya not caring about living or dying leads to his third important trait: luck. In several of his games, he either nonchalantly gambles with his life or puts it in the hands of another, yet always emerges victorious. In the Six of Diamonds, he suggests and barely wins a 50/50 after turning over a randomly dealt hand in the final minutes. In the Five of Spades, he relies on Arisu and Usagi to clear the game. In the Jack of Hearts, he relies on Ippei to make it through every round but the final one, where he once again wins a 50/50 guess of his suit. In the King of Diamonds, he leaves his life in Kuzuryuu’s hands three separate times, plus he wins two gambles: first, a supposedly ½ chance of guessing Daimon’s number (which, in the manga, was revealed to actually be a ⅓ chance because she didn’t recognize 76 lubricants), and second, another 50/50 against Kuzuryuu which was cut out of the show – in the final round, Kuzuryuu originally hit both 0 and 1 at the same time, leaving both his and Chishiya’s survival up to fate.

How do these three traits come together and push him to change? It was a mixture of things stemming from his interactions with the people he met in the borderlands, but his tipping point is during the king of diamonds, when he realizes that Kuzuryuu is the complete opposite of him – empathetic, selfless, and unlucky. Kuzuryuu has too much empathy towards others due to his profound interest in preserving human life. He is selfless because he places his own life equal to others despite holding so much authority. And unlike Chishiya, who always wins the luck of the draw whenever he gambles with his life, Kuzuryuu loses immediately. It’s this loss paired with his final words (“I was finally able to decide how to live my life thanks to you”) that push Chishiya over the edge. Kuzuryuu dies at peace, true to his ideals, leaving Chishiya still searching for a reason to live, and now also a reason why fate keeps him alive at the cost of so many good people dying in his place.

Chishiya declares that this is unfair – even though he survived, it feels like Kuzuryuu ran away with the true victory. This is why Chishiya says he’s envious of him: Kuzuryuu has all of the traits that he lacks, but most importantly, an interest in human life. Show Chishiya would be particularly envious that Kuzuryuu was still able to maintain his goodness despite the corruption at his workplace, because working in the hospital beat Chishiya’s goodness out of him rather quickly.

After the game, there is a very short scene in the manga where Chishiya is sitting in the rain contemplating how to move forward. Rain symbolizes rebirth. It’s no coincidence that this happens after his meeting with Kuzuryuu. He is beginning to change, and he only needs someone to push him in the right direction.

Then, the shootout happens. This is a whole other can of worms you can read in my other analysis here, but basically, Arisu and Niragi act as two opposing catalysts pushing Chishiya in different moral directions. He can either take the plunge and follow Niragi to truly become irredeemable, or he can begin his path to change like Arisu. He chooses Arisu after seeing how determined he is to become a better person. I think he also realized that taking this path would make him live more similarly to Kuzuryuu, so he wouldn’t have to be envious of him anymore.

This is why Chishiya takes the bullet for Usagi – to be uncharacteristic. For the first time, he considers another life over his own – something that Arisu and Kuzuryuu do constantly, which he is jealous of them for. Afterward, he confesses that he envies people who have the goodness that he lacks, which is why he is so apathetic and selfish. “It was like I existed just to show how empty a human can be… I just wanted someone to understand me.” At these words, Arisu says that he understands him, finally leaving Chishiya at peace and closing the chapter of his old life so he can start anew. Only then does it stop raining, symbolizing the end of his rebirth.

TL;DR: Chishiya is apathetic, selfish, and lucky. Kuzuryuu is empathetic, selfless, and unlucky. Them being opposites in this way + Kuzuryuu's ideals made Chishiya realize he envies good people like him. He saves Usagi to become uncharacteristic/be more like Arisu and Kuzuryuu so he can stop envying them. He lived his entire life trying to be understood, and finally turns over a new leaf once Arisu says he understands him.

~~~

I mostly went with manga content for this since it has more of Chishiya's direct thoughts, making it easier to understand him. I do think there are some things the show does better with him, like more parallelism in his and Kuzuryuu’s backstories, and him being softer in general. I always end up writing too much so I omitted a lot of things, like comparing his manga + show characterizations, his relationships w/ people other than Kuzuryuu, and the Mona Lisa, so I might make a part 2 of this analysis to focus on those. But my main goal was just to write an overview of his development, which I think I’ve accomplished well enough without those things. Thanks for reading!

#alice in borderland #aib #chishiya #aib chishiya #chishiya shuntaro #imawa no kuni no arisu #i am sorry for writing so much i physically cant help it #what being an english major does to an mf

[umuulan-na]

i miss using tumblr the way i should have been all this time

i had no idea tumblrinas were making "welcome posts" to twitterians until my sis (@hiraya-sa-dilim) showed them to me. speaking of her, she's been using tumblr for the past two years and would you believe? her most viral post is that "*sighs dreamily* what is wrong with him" and the only reason she's come that far was because she didn't try hard to make the "perfect post" that everyone should flock over. she just post about whatever comes to mind even if it barely gain notes just for the heck of it.

i used to do the exact same thing back on 2015 with my old blog. from original chats to headcanons to random rambles. it's a surprise, really, how some people liked it enough to reblog even if the context needed to understand them is too hyperspecific. even then i just kept making more. since i'm already here, might as well use the post feature, right?

i don't remember when exactly i stopped making those, but i think what came along with my eventual insecurity of my unrefined drawing skills was the constant thought of making a post that may "flop". if it doesn't reach more than even 10 likes, i'd consider it worthless. i even internalized this stupid mindset for the longest of times: what's the point of posting something on the internet when people won't even pay attention to it?

this was why i resort to silently reblog and just put my takes in the tags for the next few years. i held myself back from making memes cause the thought of it being less appreciated already made me feel humiliated when i didn't even take the chance.

fast forward. when i saw my sister, who just made a blog then, posting away without a care in the world, i was punched back to the good old days. i remembered how stupidly carefree i had been of putting my ideas out there. i suddenly longed for the feeling of blissful ignorance once more whether people knew what the hell i was talking about.

so i tried making my own posts again, just not as much as i used to. i was still being careful of crafting the "perfect post" that people will flock over. it worked sometimes, sometimes not. unwanted results still bummed me, but not as much as it used to. i didn't have the same drive as back then, but it's a start.

then some twitter users considered migrating to tumblr that made me write this whole thing in the first place. with all the "welcome" posts about this website being weird and cringe... it made me realize that this is the home of the stupidest thoughts anyone can ever share on. it's where all my hot takes should be written and memes to be passed around and laughed at...

this realization made it all the more impactful cause i recently use twitter myself (since i was craving more content from a fandom that's barely alive here). my art there may have gained more attention, but even if i had enough following for them to be interested of what i have to say, i almost never EVER made a single hot take there. we all know why. it's a shame i can't connect with my mutuals more just to survive, it feels somewhat suffocating.

here meanwhile, i can fucking say death death death kill kill kill murder assassination kill meow instead of...

what THE HELL IS """"UNALIVE"""" SUPPOSED TO BE??? LIKE THE RANGE OF THE THINGS I CAN SAY HERE AND ON THAT GODLESS BIRD APP IS INFINITE HOW HAVE I NOT REALIZED THAT SOON, WHAT THE HELL!?!?!?

so yeah. my point being is... even if i (miraculously) found a comfy space on twitter, tumblr will always be my home on the internet. twitter's the city where i'm able to reach out to more people who may be interested of what i make, but here is the small town i grew up on where we all share the same language and a connection as deep as a tight family or a friend circle.

i can put my feet on the table here and no one will complain. i miss being vocally unhinged over dead fandoms. i'm bringing that feeling back soon.

so thanks elon musk and to all my fellow tumblrinas for reigniting my love for this hellsite and for basically reminding me that in here i can be both cringe and free. love you guys. <3

#it's stupid #really #to think that every blogger's post can be as viral as the next #that's not realistic at all LMAO #also a note: i won't be as active as i used to be since i've gotten busier than all those 7 years ago #thank you tumblr #cant believe i spent 3 hours writing this shit #but i have to. i want to let it all out AHA #rambles #long posts #mine

[druigswhores]

what died didn’t stay dead

(originally posted by vormirjumper)

dedicated to @starsvck and @artipotter hope u enjoy this <333

summary: the last thing you remember was fainting in wakanda thinking you saw your own fingertips turn to dust only to wake up in a world where natasha romanoff no longer existed. inspired by marjorie by taylor swift

content warning: natasha romanoff x fem!reader, set after endgame, angst, mentions of death, trauma, their relationship ending on a bad note, trust issues & previous steve x nat, (WANDAVISION SPOILERS AT THE END)

‘моя любовь’ = ‘my love’ in russian <3

REQUESTS ARE OPEN! (please lmk if anyone written something similar to this! & if you want more nat content lmk!)

masterlist

PART TWO

You forced your eyes open.

Pulling yourself up from the ground you glanced at your arms in confusion. You swore you saw your own hands turn to dust before fainting. You glanced around to take in your surroundings eyes widening in shock as you saw the hundreds of Wakandan's you fought beside minutes ago appearing out of dust. You stared speechless as you watched people materialise out of thin air, the dust forming into fingers, then a whole hand and eventually becoming a person who's mirroring your exact reaction.

You felt guilty about the first thought that came across your mind.

'Is Nat okay?' You panicked while rushing to look around, ignoring how you spent the last few years loathing her to hide your heartbreak.

You were an avenger since the beginning. The two of you were on the same team during the airport fight which wasn't surprising due to your history together. Despite the slight age difference between the two of you, your personalities worked well together which is why you got along well, so well in fact that those platonic feelings you thought you had for her developed into something more and somehow you found yourself in her bed many times in her arms with your bodies pressed against one another's, struggling to catch your breath, bliss written all over your face. Your legs were intertwined with hers as you embraced the warmth radiating off her. You refused to acknowledge the unspoken tension in the atmosphere due to the fear of speaking out about your feelings and end up ruining what you had. You couldn't help but let the insecurities build up as you gently caressed her cheek, her eyes met yours back in adoration, full of what could've been love.

But you knew she once looked at him in the same way.

"I love holding you in my arms моя любовь." She muttered, as she stroked your hair gently, you hummed in response, not trusting your own voice. What you both had felt right, you didn't want to ruin it, you didn't want to label what you had together due to the job you both have. Being an avenger doesn't exactly mean stability, anything could happen.

You remember the panic you felt when Ultron took her, the chance of losing her filled you with dread, but you also had faith. You knew how strong Natasha was. Your faith gave you strength and it kept you alive, Nat admired that about you.

The two of you fit together well, whether it was on the field or outside of the field. You could predict each other's moves and although telepathy isn't either of your powers, you know what the other was thinking. You made her better. You helped her wipe out the red in her ledger and when everyone's files was exposed to the globe you were right there by her side comforting her as she feared the reaction from everyone. You were there for her when nobody was and you stood by her side no matter what. Those feelings were reciprocated, you knew Natasha would've done anything for you.

She would even sacrifice herself for the possibility of you coming back.

Then the Accords happened and Nat betrayed the Accords, ending up on the run with Steve, Sam, Wanda and Vision. You were left alone at the compound with an injured Rhodey.

"How could you do this?" You spat out, voice full of hatred as you watched Natasha let Steve and Bucky get away. Your pistol shook in the palm of your hands, pointed directly at Natasha who lowered her own onto the ground, allowing herself to be defenceless.

"It's not that easy моя любовь, you out of all people should understand that." She explained, and you scoffed in response. The pet-name which once caused a flutter in your stomach now fuelling the fire that's building up. All the insecurities you felt during your relationship suddenly turned to hatred. You should've expected this, you should've expected that after all this time she would've chosen Steve over you.

"I guess you'll never change." You responded flatly, admitting defeat. You silently walked passed her and climbed out of the rubble that was created, allowing a wall to be in between the two of you not knowing you tore a piece of her heart as you did so.

That was two years ago.

You thought you'd never have to see her for a long time. You hoped you wouldn't have to see her. Clearly things never go the way you wanted it to go as you found yourself staring back at the person who once owned your heart.

"Well, you guys look like crap." Rhodey teased, wrapping the fellow avengers in his arms as you stood to the side, awkwardly watching the scene in front of you while fidgeting with your fingers. The atmosphere in the compound was comforting, it's been a long time since you've heard so much laughter in one room despite the war that's brewing.

Natasha, who was now blonde but as gorgeous as ever, hesitantly approached you. The two of you stared at each other, waiting for the other to make the next move.

"Romanoff." You nodded, greeting her before moving away to greet the other Avengers, missing the way she muttered the now bittersweet name she specifically picked you.

"моя любовь..."

Did she really love you? Or was it just for revenge? You believed that love blinded you, you managed to convince yourself that your love wasn't enough for her and that's why she left you. Your relationship with her died. It was over. You thought you buried it all, all your feelings. But you were wrong, when your eyes met her green eyes all those feelings came back to life, flowing through your veins.

After all this time you still loved her.

But your feelings for her weren't the only thing you couldn't bury.

Within an hour of reuniting with the Avengers, the team found themselves on the quinjet travelling to Wakanda. You wouldn't have said this out loud but you had faith that everything would be okay, Nat was finally by your side after all these years.

You felt as though nothing could go wrong.

That was a couple hours ago you estimated, you glance at Wanda who appeared a couple feet away from you the tears were evident on her face.

"Where is he?" Wanda cries out, clenching her fists, you saw the scarlet red energy glowing around her. You knew she must've been talking about Vsision who should've been on the ground next to her. "Wha- why does everything look different?" You realised, noticing the damages caused by the battle has disappeared. The grass was greener as ever. The corpses of the creatures you fought were no longer on the ground.

It looked as though the battle never took place.

You ran over to Wanda, helping her up from the ground when you hear someone call your name out. "That sounds like Sam." Wanda points out as the two of you held each other up.

"Wanda!" Sam called out.

"Come on, we gotta go! They need us! The fights not over yet!" He shouts from a distance, the two of you made your way to the direction you heard his voice come from, you saw all the superheroes surrounding him and a man in a red cloak. "What about Nat? Or Rhodey?" You questioned, looking for them in the crowd. You missed the sympathetic glance the man shot you before waving his hands up in the air, creating a yellow ring in the air that transformed into a portal.

"We're going to fight beside them right now." Sam confirms before flying through the portal.

The compound was completely destroyed. Your home was crumbling apart. Thor looked completely different, Tony had grey hair and Natasha was nowhere to be seen.

You wanted to finally tell her, tell her that you loved her with all of your heart.

You fought beside hundreds of Avengers that day, but you couldn't help searching for one specific Avenger. You ran over to Clint who was on the ground struggling to fight off a bunch of creatures, saving him within moments.

"Thanks kid." He pant, out of breath from all of the fighting. You smiled at him in response, reaching your hand out for him to take which he gratefully took, lifting himself up. "Have you bumped into Nat on the battlefield yet?" You asked, hopeful. There were hundreds of people fighting so you didn't expect to find her easily. The smile on Clint's face fell.

In that moment he relieved everything that happened moments ago. Flying to Vormir with Natasha, climbing the cliff with her, reminiscing about Budapest. And the way he witnessed her body hit the ground, the crack echoing so loudly he managed to hear it more than just once. He glanced down the cliff and saw her lifeless body faced towards his.

His closest friend. The person he trusted with his entire life. The person he named his son after. The Godmother of his kids.

Gone.

Just like that.

"I need to do this for her Clint, she's моя любовь." Nat whispered to him before smiling back at the oldest friend she had, pushing away from the cliff and inevitably falling to her death.

You found out what happened to Natasha, hours after.

The Avengers won, but at the cost of the lives of the people you cared the most about, the person you'd do anything for and the person who owned your heart the minute you met them. Clint broke the news to you, he felt as though you deserved to hear it from him.

"She loved you till the very end." He finished after explaining what happened on Vormir. You felt as though you couldn't breathe, like your soul was crushed and pulled away from you.

Natasha Romanoff was dead and there was nothing you could do about it.

She never got to hear that you felt the same towards her.

"I didn't think the ending to be so soon." You struggled to hold back a sob, holding the letter Clint gave you tightly in your arms. Scott somehow found a letter on the ground while trying to save Clint, it was slightly damp and covered in mud. But it was written for you in Natasha's handwriting.

You couldn't bring yourself to read the letter even nine days after the blip. You had to live in a world without her, a world where people drag her name through the mud even though she is the reason they're still standing. You adjust to a world without Natasha Romanoff and reading a letter she wrote for you months ago wouldn't help.

You regretted everything. You regret spending those last few years in anger, you should've stayed with her, you could've told her how much she meant to you. You could've told her you loved her, you could've held her in your arms once more. You would do anything to have her in your arms once again.

Sometimes it felt as though she was still there, laughing at something she saw on the TV. You always felt her presence around you after she passed away, it felt as though she never died. It felt as though a part of her lives through you.

You sat in the passenger seat of Wanda's car, staring at the Sword logo plastered on the side of the building, you could feel the letter in your back pocket, dying to be read. Wanda made her way back to the car, face flared in anger, tears threatening to spill.

"Wanda?" You called out as she got into the car, turning on the ignition but not pulling out of the car park. She sniffled quietly, wiping her eyes before glancing back to you. "I saw him." She responded, her eyes glancing to the folded paper on the backseat of the car, she could see the faint colour of red that was in the shape of a heart. "But they're not letting him have a funeral." You realised, looking back at your friend, heartbroken. "I figured at least one of them deserved a funeral, it's not fair. It's not fair that the world can just go on like nothing happened and we don't get to mourn the people we lost." Wanda rants, pulling out of the parking lot and beginning to drive.

"They both deserve a funeral." You agreed solemnly, remembering the fact that Natasha's body is at the bottom of a cliff in space in 2014.

"Where are we going now?" You asked, wanting to distract yourself from that thought. You felt as though you and Wanda were left to mourn your loved ones alone as the rest of the avengers scattered across the country.

"To the only thing I have left of him."

The two of you sat in silence as Wanda drove, you stared at the shrubbery outside the window before closing your eyes and resting your head on the window, allowing yourself to drift off.

It felt like it was only seconds later when you felt the car turn harshly, you opened your eyes and glanced around in confusion when you saw that you pulled into a quaint town, you had only just missed the town sign plastered with the words "West View." You watched the pedestrians walking by, noticing how some of them sat on their own with no one to comfort them similarly to you and Wanda.

The two of you pulled up to a plot of land with the foundation of a house on the ground, it looked at though the house never had the chance to get completed.

"Stay in the car, I won't take long." Wanda reassured you before reaching towards the back of the car to grab the folded up sheet of paper and getting out of the car. You nodded, staring at the built house next to the plot of land.

Your mind wanders as you stare at the home. You think about Natasha. You think about the future you could've had with her, living together in a quaint home like the one in front of you. No stress about being an avenger, just the two of you and your family. You softly smile as you imagine Natasha's reaction to wanting to adopt 5 cats, knowing she was more of cat person. You imagine holding her hand while walking down the street and watching movies with her in your shared bed. You wanting to stay in for the day and watch movies to ignore the real world outside and her letting you.

You think about what could've been.

A heart wrenching scream snaps you out of your thoughts, you rush out of the car and look for Wanda but is blinded by a scarlet red light that knocks you unconscious.

Your eyes open on command.

The room you stood in was black and white. It was a nicely decorated living room with a dining room connected to it, you couldn't pinpoint which decade the interior was from, too preoccupied by the woman standing in front of you.

Although the lack of colour in them, you could recognise those eyes from anywhere, that smile that you've wished to see was right in front of you. The dress she wore matched the decade and decor of the room, her hair curled up neatly. Natasha stood in front of you, reaching her hand out towards you waiting for you to take it.

You hesitantly reach out towards her, happiness flooding your emotions. She pulls you closer to her, welcoming you into a hug. The palm of her hands are warm as they rested on your back, you could feel her heartbeat as you laid your head on her chest, melting in her arms.

"Welcome home моя любовь."

#natasha romanoff #black widow #marvel #avengers #mcu #marvel fanfiction #avengers x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff imagine #black widow x reader #black widow imagine #marvel imagine #natasha romanoff angst #wlw fic #natasha romanov x reader #black widow x female reader #black widow x you #natasha romanoff x you #avengers endgame #wanda maximoff #wandavision #Wanda maximoff #wandavision spoilers #wandavision episode 8 #Wanda vision #Wanda vision spoilers #scarlett witch #vision #tony stark #westview

[vcat55]

Heavy part 1

Part 2-

She hasn't moved in a full 18 hours now.

her entire reason for even moving that 18 hours ago anyway wasn't because she even wanted to ,but if her therapist asked she would count it because it's not like she actually had to answer the door for the man and she truly wished she had just left her stalker to worry when she had first had to drag her depressed ass to the door getting dizzy from lack of food.

“God hawks” she had said when he barged his way into her apartment that evening clearly just getting off patrol

“You haven't left? sorry I thought you might be in trouble or somebody was bothering you, what happened babybird? Come on tell me? Are you hungry? Is there something I could do? Need a birdbath babe?”he started to joke and she just walked to the kitchen only really catching on to the food part of his questions

She bent down to look into her fridge wondering how she ever even got a stalker anyways because she never actually left the small apartment that her manager gave her ,since she pumped out so many books a year they had made a deal that if she just kept doing that he would take care of everything but her groceries which considering she wasn't that popular,it wasn't a bad deal but at moments like this she debated on whether or not that was really a healthy thing to agree to for herself.

Then again she had also agreed to be hawk's girlfriend knowing fully of his delusions and behaviors that would normally scare off others.

But it felt nice to just have somebody look at her for once. And that's what he did , even if the self he made her in his head wasn't exactly accurate .It was just the way he looked at her like for once her attempts at just being ok was enough for now. For once it was good enough that she just opened the door. It didn't matter that she hadn't been ready when he said his patrol was over, it didn't matter that she hadn't even noticed the time pass, or that she wasn't at her best mental self.

He just kept looking with those golden eyes of his perfectly happy with their progress and she was grateful, so grateful that he didn't mind washing her as she cling to his strong arms and brushing her hair so she was presentable to the public. And although she was irritated at the time, now that it had been 18 hours since they had gotten back from their impromptu dinner date , she was grateful that he made her go out and get dinner and groceries and she was grateful that she knew he would be back. Soon to give her that look she longed for her entire life, the look that said she wasn't a burden and it was ok that she didn't have a different job besides writing her novels.

A knock sounded at her door once again but she didn't hear it this time, no she was too far into her own head ,at least until the knocks got louder and started to snake the apartment and her neighbors started to yell.

She got up quickly and got to the door knowing her neighbors wouldn't hesitate to call the cops about a disturbance.

When she financially got the door open hawks almost tackled her to the floor a panicked look on his face ,but as he realized she was fine kisses soon found her but not much could faze her anymore so she only smiled a little already feeling her mood even out because that was his affect on her. Not quite happiness but an evenness in her mood that the obsession with her brought on and she was addicted to it, not just the need in his eyes but the want.

“ where were you ? why didn't you answer?” ahhh yes another entourage of questions brought on by his worry over her as her smile got a little less fake.

“Are you hungry?”

He blinked at her question because she almost never asked first and most certainly never offered the small smile on her face currently and he was truly mesmerized with it because

He never thought he would see something so small but so beautiful and certainly never thought his love for her would or could grow more

Or more importantly that she would offer it in such a true way

“I…… Sure baby... what about you?are you hungry?” hawks forced himself to say because he had just been staring at her(not that she minded)

“What's your favorite food?I think you mentioned a chicken place once. Do you want to go there?

He was flabbergasted and couldn't seem to move as she made her was to the bedroom only for her to look back at him still kinda mumbling to herself about chicken and how he'd probably have to order for her, but what shocked hm even more was that she made her way over to him and took his hand, it was the first time she had made the first move to interact with him besides opening the door.

“Shower? You always seem to want to shower after patrol?”she mumbled

All he could do was nod as she pulled him to her bedroom and turn on the water

“Babybird? Are you feeling alright? You don't have to do this I know you haven't been feeling well lately…..” hawks said kinda numbly

But she never actually answered him, just decided to shock him again as she made her way over and wrapped her small arms around him.

He responded immediately but would never forget the moment because yet again it was the first time she had done something like that but as she tried to move away because she had already started the water and it was already warm, he found it difficult to let go of her ,so yet again she decided shocking him was the best option and started undressing him herself. Her eyes held little emotion but he watched anyway now holding her face as she strippped him of his patrol costume and started on her own clothes.

It was a tender moment that he absorbed and memorized because he didn't want it to stop. He had never actually done anything but bathe her and quickly rinse off himself so the change was startling but very welcome and he felt his happiness grow because it's not like he wasn't concerned and worried about her since before he even said hello. When he watched her he constantly was angry at her loneliness, where were your friends?, where was your family??? Why did your manager let you do this??? But he soon realized that he could help even just as keigo ,he could help.

But the debate continued and it wasn't until you caught him taking a picture of you, not until you showed that you truly couldn't care less about your problems that he realized that he should just go to that door but the joy didn't last long because he was angry again. Why didn't you seem to care about anything? Why didn't you shower?? or why didn't you eat??? Or even care that he followed you without permission?? I mean most people would call him a creep and call the police but you just kept quiet and let him attempt to explain himself and he was angry because he realized that it could have been anyone… you just didn't care about anything.. Just slave to your own brian chemistry and nothing could or would break you out of that. But he was glad that there wouldn't be a window between you anymore because you always let him in now… a true close up view now. So he watched you now and you looked back now sometimes with amusement but mostly with nothing.. At Least until he looked close and saw the light blush and an emotion he couldn't place until he realized his own admiring look on his own face and he realized that the hidden emotion in your eyes was gratitude so he kept that look non hidden, unlike what he originally planned because he didn't want you to see him as a creep.

But today you had a different look on your face and he felt panicked because you were doing thing differently, not doing your emotionless facade and prompted touch, so as he stood in front of the shower watching you climb into the water stream and look at him, he debated what could have caused this and decided to just be grateful you were giving him the attention that he normally gave without thought and silently prayed that you'd never stop.

When you were both done washing off and getting dressed he decided after dinner he would call off work tomorrow because the change was startling to him and he felt the need to ensure you were actually fine. Because you'd never done anything like this so he just decided to enjoy the silent gratitude in your eyes he didn't understand but finally understood.

#hawks x reader #yandere tamaki amajiki x reader #delusional yandere x reader #yandere hawks #yandere hawks x reader #mha x reader angst #hawks x reader angst #depression

[i-like-plan-m]

If you're accepting prompts, how about one where people either can't lie to LWJ or he can tell when they're lying, and he inadvertently discovers a whole bunch of stuff WWX would rather he didn't (could be either WWX's low self worth, or his intense LWJ-based thirst!)

such a good prompt omg thank you [Posted to Ao3]

It was a curse, some said. A gift, according to others. The sect debated for years on the technicalities and argued their differing opinions over Lan Zhan’s head until Lan Qiren insisted the sect leave his nephew alone.

No one ever asked Lan Zhan what he thought.

He considered it neither a gift nor a curse. It was simply a part of him, the same as his golden core.

Except while a golden core was perfectly normal, Lan Zhan’s ability to detect any lie— spoken or unspoken— was less so. He heard falsehoods like music; words were notes, conversations were harmonies, and lies were the jarring wrong note that scraped harshly across his ears.

The hardest part was learning the reasons for a lie. Lan Zhan did not understand people the way his brother did, could only hear their lies and quietly disapprove. But Lan Xichen spent hours upon hours with him, testing the bounds of the skill and gently pointing out the different types of lies, and why the distinctions were important.

Sometimes, he’d said, people lie to protect themselves or others. Sometimes a lie is kinder than the truth. They were not all born of malicious intent, and he’d taught Lan Zhan how to distinguish between them. How to identify the dangerous lies, the harmful ones, and those that were best left unacknowledged out of kindness or respect.

Lan Xichen had been eternally patient, remarkably encouraging, and quietly concerned about the effect this curse would have on his little brother. Lan Zhan had seen it in his face, the nonverbal lie reading to him like a whisper every time Lan Xichen smiled to hide his worry.

His brother had never asked about the source of the curse or gift or whatever the sect considered it; Lan Zhan suspected he had his own theories, and Lan Xichen’s guesses would most certainly be better than the elders’.

But only Lan Zhan knew its origins for sure.

His mother had been lied to, once, and as a result had spent the rest of her days a prisoner in a small, lonely house. His clearest memory of his mother was her holding him close, tucking him into her lap and wrapping her arms around him in a loving, protective cocoon. It was the safest he had ever felt.

He’d been too young to recognize his mother’s sorrow for what it was at the time, the way she’d clearly known her death was approaching. But he remembered the quiet words she’d whispered to him, words of love and fear and protectiveness. The way her golden core had enveloped him, warm and steady, as she made sure her youngest son would not live in a house of lies and silence like her.

It was her greatest gift to him, and her last.

~*~

Lan Zhan knew the sound of a lie. So when a particularly irritating disciple arrived and immediately began causing trouble, Lan Zhan expected any number of lies from the boy. He was eager, even, for vindication for his own prejudice against such a disrespectful nuisance.

But Wei Ying had a way of talking that sounded like slurred notes to Lan Zhan’s highly trained ear. He was all chaos and deflection, and Lan Zhan experienced something uncomfortably like whiplash trying to keep up with the words in Wei Ying’s never-ending chatter.

It could not have been deliberate— no one outside of the Lan Sect’s elders and his own family knew of Lan Zhan’s particular skill— but nonetheless Wei Ying avoided giving straight answers, topics sliding sideways and off course with a joke, a question of his own, or some wildly inappropriate comment that made Lan Zhan too furious to focus.  

He was infuriating.

He was beautiful.

Somehow that was worse.

Lan Zhan did not bother to look over as Wei Ying bickered with his sect brother, not in any mood to deal with him or his own feelings about the biggest troublemaker he’d ever met in his life.

Wei Ying’s laugh rang over the courtyard, bright and happy as he slung an arm over Jiang Wanyin’s shoulders, ignoring the sect heir’s incensed protests. “Don’t lie, shidi, I know you love me!”

The lie sounded like a gong in Lan Zhan’s head, startling him so badly that he stumbled to an awkward stop and snapped his head around to stare at Wei Ying, who was for once paying him no attention.

His ever-present smile was in place, nothing false or fixed about it. Wei Ying wore happiness and humor like armor, and Lan Zhan wondered if anyone had ever seen past it. He hadn’t… until now.

Lies were interesting things. Sometimes entire speeches were a lie (for instance, everything that came out of Jin Guangshan’s mouth). Sometimes gestures held the lie, such as Nie Huaisang’s amiable nod of agreement whenever his older brother ordered him to go train with his saber. And sometimes the lie was only a single word.

I know you love me. The low, booming signal of Wei Ying’s lie was significant for two reasons: the timing, and the strength of the sound. The greater the lie, the louder the noise, and this one had left a painful echo in Lan Zhan’s ears from the force of it. And the timing… the lie had been marked on a single word: love.

I know you love me. But Wei Ying did not believe this, not even a little.

Lan Zhan… did not know what to do with this revelation.

By the end of class that day, during which Wei Ying had been bellowed at by Lan Qiren and handed off to Lan Zhan for yet another punishment, he still had not figured out what to do about it. He would have gone to his brother for advice, because Xichen always helped him find the right thing to do, but lately his brother had a terrible light of laughter in his eyes every time Lan Zhan mentioned Wei Ying, and he was not about to willingly subject himself to that indignity.

So he was left to his own devices. Lan Zhan stared down at his scroll, not reading a single word of it because of to Wei Ying’s indecent sprawl across a nearby desk. He was humming innocently, like Lan Zhan couldn’t see him urging a tiny paper man on a march towards Lan Zhan’s pot of ink.

“Focus on your work,” Lan Zhan said sternly, capturing the figure just before it dipped its little arms in the bowl and went on a rampage.

“Ugh, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whined, flopping over the desk. “This is so boring, how can you stand it? Not even Madam Yu would make me do all this!”

Lan Zhan studied the paper man in the cage of his fingers. This was a chance to learn more, he thought, about Wei Wuxian’s life in Yunmeng. Maybe even about why he did not believe his own brother loved him.

Why do you care? This does not concern you. Lan Zhan mutinously banished the thought and set the paper man free to explore the stack of books on his desk.

Hesitantly, he asked, “Do you like Lotus Pier?”

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying laughed. “What kind of question is that?”

Lan Zhan felt the familiar surge of frustration at the deflection; he could never get a straight answer out of Wei Ying, and it was a source of much aggravation.

“You mention punishments at Lotus Pier frequently,” he said instead of pinning Wei Ying to the floor until he got a truthful answer. The image sent a flash of heat through him, and he held himself very, very still until he had control over himself again.

“Eh.” Wei Ying waved a dismissive hand. “I get in trouble everywhere, Lan Zhan, whether I mean to or not.”

Truth.

“Are you punished in similar ways?” Lan Zhan asked, looking pointedly at Wei Ying’s abandoned paper of half-copied rules.

“No one gives punishments like the Lans. Don’t worry, your sect’s reputation is still the most feared of all!”

Not true, because anyone with half a brain knew to be wary of Wen Ruohan. This lie was like a slipped finger on the string of a qin, a short, wavering note that was discordant and vaguely unsettling. An untruth, technically, but said as a joke, as a sort-of truth because both of them knew the statement wasn’t genuine and that they other knew it as well.

Lan Zhan had a headache.

He tried a different track. “You were adopted by Sect Leader Jiang?”

Wei Ying sat up, propping his elbows on his desk and studying him for a moment before grinning. “So many questions, Lan Zhan! If I didn’t know better, I’d think you want to be friends.”

It was said teasingly, and the lie was held in the latter part of the sentence— Wei Ying did not believe Lan Zhan wanted to be friends. That, combined with the frustration of yet another question avoided, made Lan Zhan say, “It seems you do not know better.”

Embarrassingly, his heart was pounding at the admission. Lan Zhan had never had a friend before, other than his brother, and he certainly did not know how to make them. But he knew that he wanted to spend time with Wei Ying more and more often, even though part of him rebelled at the thought.

It was oddly silent in the library. Lan Zhan knew his ears were flushed red with embarrassment and uncertainty, and he waited with bated breath for Wei Ying to tease him again, to deflect with another laugh or joke that kindly disguised the fact that he did not want to be Lan Zhan’s friend, that Lan Zhan was too stiff and weird and boring to be anyone’s friend.

A little nauseated, Lan Zhan lifted his eyes from his paper and gathered his courage to look at the other boy.

Wei Ying was gaping at him like a fish.

“Friends?” He finally managed. Lan Zhan dropped his eyes back to the desk and said nothing, couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat. “You don’t want to be my friend!”

His gaze flickered back towards Wei Ying. The statement was untrue, obviously, but it was a lie that Wei Ying believed to be true, so it sounded like a half-missed note on a flute. Easily corrected, quickly covered, but there nonetheless.

“Says who?” Lan Zhan asked, wondering… hoping…

Wei Ying blinked at him for a moment, visibly stumped. Ridiculously, it made Lan Zhan feel as though he’d won something. Triumph over being the one to shock Wei Ying into uncharacteristic silence for once.

As expected, it didn’t last long.

Traitorous fondness glowed in his chest as Wei Ying planted his hands on the desk and raised himself onto his knees with an indignant expression. His hair fell in disarray around his face, a half-tied red ribbon spilling over his shoulder and against rumpled robes.

“You did!” Wei Ying said, outraged. “I said we should be friends on the first night!”

He’d said a lot of things that first night, Lan Zhan thought with reluctant amusement. Lan Zhan had forgotten most of it thanks to the veil of rage that had overtaken him as he chased a beautiful boy under the moonlight.

“Hm,” Lan Zhan said, dismissive, mostly just to watch Wei Ying’s expression contort into disbelief. “Did you ask?”

Wei Ying spluttered. “Of course I asked!” He said too loudly, and then cocked his head like he’d heard the ring of the lie, too. “Oh. Huh, I guess I didn’t ask, now that I think about it.”

He looked at Lan Zhan with a gleam in his eye. Lan Zhan had only a second to think, uh oh, and then Wei Ying had vaulted over his desk to land on his knees across from him.

“Lan Zhan,” he whispered, leaning in like they were sharing secrets. Lan Zhan’s hear thundered in his ears as Wei Ying grinned conspiratorially at him and leaned in close enough that Lan Zhan could smell the floral scent of his hair oil, the tinge of chili oil that he’d smuggled into the Cloud Recesses and then at some point spilled on his sleeve. “I want to be your friend. Do you want to be friends?”

Lan Zhan savored the silence around his words— I want to be your friend, he’d said, with no single hint of a lie— and tried not to let the mischievous glint in Wei Ying’s eye distract him.

It was too late, though. The seed of mischief had taken root in Lan Zhan, which was why he said with a perfectly straight face, “Hm. I will have to think about it.”

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying squawked with indignation, and then must have caught the tiny curl of Lan Zhan’s mouth because he exploded into laughter a second later. “Were you teasing me just now? Lan Zhan, I can’t believe this.”  

Quietly pleased with himself, Lan Zhan watched as Wei Ying laughed until he ran out of air, falling onto his back with his usual exuberant expressiveness. The laughter was a joyous sound, bright and honest, and hearing it in one of his favorite places made Lan Zhan’s chest feel warm and tight.

His mother would have liked him, Lan Zhan thought wistfully. For his humor, his irrepressible love of life, his fearlessness. His heart felt too big for his chest as he listened to Wei Ying laugh, unrestrained emotion where only disciplined constraint had ever been permitted.

He would investigate Wei Ying’s beliefs about his own worth later, he decided. They were friends now, so this was allowed.

For now, though, he let the clear, ringing music of Wei Ying’s laughter fill the room. Basked in the warmth he hadn’t felt since his mother had been alive, and softened enough to smile back at Wei Ying.

#y'all have sent me some fantastic prompts #this one was fun #the untamed #wangxian #lan zhan #lan wangji #wei ying #wei wuxian #mdzs #asks #anon #prompts #my writing #my fics

[olderthannetfic]

Hey, sorry to ask this, but a few days ago I saw a post/discussion about the history of original work on ao3 (i.e. how and when it was allowed). I thought it was in my likes, but it's not, and I thought you had reblogged it recently, but I didn't find it. I was wondering if you have seen this discussion around? Or where I can find more about it? This specific post talked abt how who defended original work on ao3 were not the BNFs, if that helps.

That was me running my mouth in the reblogs of something or other. It’s just the one comment.

But what’s that you say? Some tl;dr about a pet topic? Don’t mind if I do! ;) (To be honest, most of this debate happened years ago, and a lot of the long meta was by me back then too, so…)

Okay, so, the situation with Original Works is actually super interesting and a microcosm of early years OTW wank.

This is going to be even more tl;dr than my usual. To try to summarize very briefly:

There were two big cultural factions. One thought “original” was the opposite of “fan”. That one was in charge of OTW. It was hard to get voices from the other side into the debate because they already felt excluded from OTW.

This divide broke down more or less into Ye Olde Slash Fandom on the “it’s the opposite” side and anime fandom on the “WTF?” side. Americans on one side and a lot of non-US, non-English language fandom on the other.

I. Media Fandom, Anime Fandom, and Early OTW

I went to that first fundraising party that astolat threw in New York City back in… god… 2007? 2008? I wasn’t on the Board or any official position until the committees got started later, but I was around right from the very beginning.

Whether you’re looking at volunteers or at people who commented on astolat’s original post, there were always a variety of fans from a variety of fannish backgrounds. People aren’t absolutely in one camp or another, and fannish interests change over time. If you go dig through Dreamwidth posts to find who was actually participating in this debate at the time, half of them are probably in the other camp now.

If you think like that sounds like a preamble to me making a bunch of offensively sweeping generalizations and divvying fans up into little groups, you’d be right! Haha.

I.a. Ye Olde Media Fandom

There are a lot of camps of people who like fanfic. One of the biggest divisions has been Ye Olde Media Fandom vs. anime fandom. Astolat’s social circle–my LJ social circle–was filled with people with decades of fannish experience and a deep knowledge of the Media Fandom side of things.

Those fandom history treatises that start with K/S zines in Star Trek fandom in the 70s and move on through the mainstream buddy cops like Starsky & Hutch to the more niche, sff buddy cops like Fraser and Ray or Jim and Blair are talking about Media Fandom. I try to always capitalize it because the name is lulzy and bizarre to me unless it’s a proper noun for a specific historical thing. It was coined as a rude term for “mass media” fandom aka dumb people who like, ughhhh, Star Trek, ughhh, instead of books. This is a very ancient slapfight from the type of fandom you find at Worldcon, often called “SF fandom” or plain “fandom”.

(Yes, this leads to mega confusion on the part of some old dudes when they find Fanlore and fail to understand that “fandom” there refers to what these people would call “Media Fandom”. They think only they get the unmarked form. But I digress…)

Media Fandom is a specific flavor of fandom. It’s where the slash zines were. It’s where the fans of live action US TV shows were. It’s the history that acafans have laid out well and that tends to get used to defend the idea of a female subculture writing transgressive and transformative fanfic. On the video side, Media Fandom is where Kandy Fong invented vidding by making Star Trek slideshows.

(Kandy’s still around, BTW. She’s usually at Escapade in L.A. Ask her to tell you about the dancing penises sketch in person. She’s hilarious.)

Astolat and friends had been going to slash cons for years. They founded Vividcon. And Yuletide. That meant that when astolat said “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” we all jumped to help. This is a lady who gets things done.

From a Worldcon perspective, or even from an older Media Fandom perspective, this group was comparatively young, hip, and welcoming. Their fandom interests were comparatively broad. Just look at Yuletide!

In fact, yes, let us look at Yuletide… [ominous music]

I.b. Yuletide sucks at anime

From the very first year (2003), Yuletide mods have asked for help with anime fandoms, been confused about anime fandoms, or made bad judgment calls about anime fandoms. They’ve fucked up on Superhero comics and plenty of other things over the years, but anime has been the most consistent (well, and JRPGs, but there’s so much overlap in those fic fandoms).

There was already bad feeling about this. There were years of bad feeling about this.

I.c. Where are the historians?

Academic study of fanficcy things pretty much got started with Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women. Other acafans who are well known to LJ and later Tumblr are people like Francesca Coppa who wrote a very nice summary of the history of Media Fandom. These are not the only academics who exist, these academics themselves have written about many other things, and by now, OTW’s own journal has covered a lot of other territory, but to this day I see complaints on Tumblr that “acafans” only care about K/S and oldschool slash fandom.

There were years of bad feeling about this as well.

I.d. What kind of fan was I?

Now, by the time OTW got started, I’d moseyed over to not only a lot of live action US TV but a lot of old-as-fuck US TV that is squarely in the Media Fandom camp. But once upon a time, I was a weeaboo hanging out with my weeaboo friends in college. I learned Japanese (sort of). I moved to Japan. Livin’ the weeaboo dream!

More importantly, I used to be a member of a lot of anime mailing lists back in the Yahoo Groups days. I didn’t realize what a cultural gap that would cause until the original works issue came up on AO3.

I.e. Anime Fandom, German-language Fandom, Original M/M

Once upon a time–namely in that Yahoo Groups era–there was an archive called Boys in Chains. It was where you found The Good Stuff™. Heavy kink and power exchange galore! It was extremely well known in the parts of fandom I was in, even if you weren’t on the associated mailing list. It contained lots of fic, but it also had lots of original work.

Around that same era, I was on a critique list called Crimson Ink, which was mixed fic and original. The “original slash” and “original yaoi” crowds mixed freely and were in fanfic spaces. Remember, this is like 2003. You’re never going to get your gay fantasy novel published in English in the US. A couple of fangirl presses started around then, but they died an ignominious death after their first print run.

Fanfiction.net used to allow original work before it spun that off into FictionPress. We forget this today, but if you were an early FFN person, the separation wasn’t so great either.

Meanwhile, German-language fandom was hanging out on sites like Animexx.de, a big-ass fic archive that prominently mentions also including original work. I have the impression that Spanish-language fandom was similar too.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang was founded in 2005. It was a webzine for original m/m, but it was entirely populated by fanfic fandom types.

In all of those kinds of spaces, there was a lot of “original” work that was kind of slash or BL-ish and seen as fannish if it was posted in the fannish space. These weren’t anime-only spaces. They were multifandom spaces where it was seen as obvious and normal that a couple of huge fandoms like Harry Potter would dominate but that everything else big would naturally be anime.

While fans from every background are everywhere, I found that the concentration of EFL fans living in Continental Europe, South America, and Asia was much higher in this kind of space, even the exclusively English language part of it, than in my US TV fandoms.

II. AO3 Early Adopters

AO3 went into closed beta in 2009. In 2010, it was open to the general public (albeit with the invitation queue it still has). But not everyone was interested yet. Just like fandom is loath to leave the dying, shambling mess of Tumblr, fandom was loath to leave dwindling LJ/DW circles or was happy enough on Fanfiction.net. I used to see a lot of posts like “Why are you guys trying to STEAL fanfic from the original! FFN is enough!”

I literally could not give away the invitations I had. No one wanted them.

So who was on AO3? Obviously enough, it was all of us who built it and our friends. So that means a bunch of oldschool Livejournal slashers coming from fandoms like Due South or Stargate Atlantis.

The queue was open. Anyone could make an account. Everyone was welcome. In theory…

But more and more, there started to be these posts about how “AO3 Hates Anime Fandom” and “FFN is for anime. AO3 is for Western fandoms.” and “If you guys actually wanted anime fandom on there, you’d invite us better and make us more welcome.”

At the time, I found these posts obnoxious. People aren’t purely in one sort of fandom or the other. No one was stopping anime fandom from making accounts. No one was banning anime fandom. If there wasn’t much from old fandoms, that was because old fandoms seldom move.

Things began to change. Trolls on FFN forced the Twilight porn writers out, creating enough fuss and brouhaha to mobilize people who would rather have stayed put. AO3 got big enough that randos found it by accident. Original work started to pop up, posted by people who’d never looked at the rules and had no idea it was not allowed.

III. History of AO3’s Policy

I had argued for allowing “original work” during the initial discussions about the ToS. On one side of this issue was me. On the other, everyone else on the committee.

I was overruled.

Open Door started importing old archives to save them. Boys in Chains was hugely important to fandom history from my point of view. It was slated to be imported… maybe. Except that Boys in Chains is half original. AO3 was happy to grandfather in those stories, but the final archive owner felt, quite rightly, that it would be unfair to tell half of the authors they were welcome in the new space while spitting on the other half.

I was pissed. I had been pissed since being overruled the first time. To me, the fact that it should be allowed was so blatantly obvious that it was hard to even explain why.

(To be honest, this difficulty in explaining why and the even greater difficulty in figuring out the source of that difficulty is what held the discussion back for so long. When every assumption on either side is completely opposite, it’s hard to communicate.)

I felt betrayed. It would be like if you helped build something, and everyone was suddenly like “Well, obviously, we can’t allow m/m. It’s not normal fanfic.”

So we discussed it again and, again, it was me vs. literally everyone else. And still the “AO3 is only for Western slash fandom” bitching rose in volume and more and more people complained of feeling excluded from the new fandom hub. Finally, the committee agreed to open the issue up for public comment and get some more input. I was a fool and neither wrote nor proofread the post. It went out phrasing the question as allowing “non fannish” work or something of that sort.

I was furious. The entire point of the whole debate was that I saw some original work, the original work that belongs on AO3, as inherently fannish. And now this had been presented to the AO3 audience as something completely different. Think pieces were popping up in the journals of everyone I knew about diluting AO3’s mission and how we needed to save AO3 from encroachment. Public opinion was very negative. That’s both because of how the post was phrased and because OTW die hards at the time were mostly from the same fannish background. This tidal wave of negativity meant that there was virtually no chance of changing this poisonous rule. And if the rule didn’t change, the people who wanted the rule change were never going to show up to explain why it mattered.

If you’ve been reading my tumblr, I think you can guess what happened next.

I posted a long post to my Dreamwidth. It was a masterwork of passive aggression. In it, I wrung my hands about how simply tragic it would be if AO3 had to delete all of the original work… like anthropomorfic.

Now, I think anthropomorfic counts as fanfic as much as anything else, but I also knew that it fails most rigorous “based on a canon” type definitions of fic and, more importantly, it’s a favorite Yuletide fandom of many of the people on the side that wanted to ban original work.

That’s a nice fandom of yours. It would be a pity if something happened to it. 

Yup. Passive aggressive blackmail. Go me. Suddenly, there was a lot of awkward backtracking and confused running in circles in various journals. The committee agreed to table the idea for a while but not rule out the idea of allowing original works in the future. We agreed to halt all deletions of original work. If a fan posted it, the Abuse Committee (which I was also head of at the time) would not delete that work even though it was technically against the rules.

Time passed. The people on the negative side got tired. I wanted off that committee and had wanted off for ages, but I was damned if I was going to leave before ramming through this piece of policy. Grudgematch till I die! (Look, I never said I wasn’t a wanker.)

After a while, some other fans came forward with more types of “original work” as evidence that it should be allowed. These were from parts of fandom none of us on the committee knew a damn thing about.

This new evidence combined with the gradual accretion of original stuff on AO3 without the sky falling eventually led us to quietly rule Original Work a valid fandom. There was never even a big announcement post. I slipped a word to the Boys in Chains mod myself.

IV. What Were They So Afraid Of Anyway?

So why were people so resistant? Seems like a dick move, right?

Not exactly.

I mean, I was enraged and waged a one-woman war to change the rules, but the other side wasn’t nuts. The objections were usually the following:

I just don’t get why it would be allowed. It never was in my fannish spaces.

Most of our members don’t want this.

Most of the examples of things that ought to be included are m/m. We are privileging m/m if we allow it, and AO3 already has a m/m-centric reputation that can feel exclusionary to some fans.

AO3 is a young, shaky platform that can barely handle the load and content we already have. If we open to original work, we’ll be opening the floodgates. The volume of posting will be so high, it will drown out the fic we’re actually here to protect.

Protecting stuff that doesn’t need protection because it’s not an IP issue would dilute OTW’s mission.

If we allow it, idiots will try to turn AO3 into advertising space, posting only the first chapter and a link to where you can pay to read the rest.

If we add another category of text before we add fan art, that’s a slap in the face of the fan artists we are already failing.

These arguments all make perfect sense in context.

Obvously, the issue with the first two is that different fannish communities have different norms. I knew that a very large community disagreed with the then current AO3 policy, but since so few of them were around to comment, it seemed like a tiny fringe minority.

The m/m thing is… complex. M/M content with zero IP issues is at risk. It is always at risk in a way that even f/f is not (though f/f is also always at risk). Asking for m/m to be exactly equivalent to f/f or m/f in numbers, tropes, whatever is ignoring the historical realities. In our current moment of queer activism in the West, we treat all types of queerness as part of one community with one set of goals, but once you get to culture and art or even more specific activism, this forced homogenization is neither useful nor healthy.

OTOH, AO3 really did have PR problems related to the perception that we gave m/m fandom the kid glove treatment. That objection wasn’t coming from nowhere.

AO3 was shaky. It was tiny when I first brought up this argument. Hell, it wasn’t even in closed beta the first time we discussed this. Part of what made the quiet rules change possible was AO3 organically getting much bigger and OTW having to buy many more servers for unrelated reasons.

The “floodgates” thing was put to rest by tacitly allowing original work before the rules change. We had a period to study how fans actually behaved, and as I predicted, only a small amount of original work got posted. It was indeed mostly things like original BL-ish stories or original work that had been part of a mixed original/fic fest, exchange, zine, etc. Currently, the “Original Work” fandom on AO3 only has 76,348 works. That’s pretty big compared to individual fandoms but tiny compared to AO3’s current size.

The commercial argument was spurious because commercial spam had been against the rules from the very beginning. OH THE IRONY that nowadays AO3 has all these idiots trying to post the first chapter of their fanfic and then direct you to where you can buy the rest.

AO3 has plenty of fanfic of public domain works. One of the problems with gatekeeping original work is that any way you try to distinguish it (not based on a specific canon, not an IP issue, etc.) will apply to some set of obviously allowable fandoms.

As for fan art… OTW has failed fan artists. They needed protection as much as or even more than fic writers. Just look at Tumblr! If we had succeeded at making DeviantArt but allowing boners, fan art fandom could have been safe all these years. Or when Tumblr inevitably shat the bed, we could have scooped up all those people instead of them scattering to twitter and god knows where.

OTW has failed vidders too, at least in terms of preservation. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. Other major people from like the first Board and shit have discussed this with me offline. Doing some kind of vidding project, possibly outside of OTW is on a lot of our to-do lists. But at least one of OTW’s biggest victories has been that copyright exemption. OTW has demonstrably done really positive things for vidders that other organizations and sites have not. As a vidder, I never expected to see good hosting for the actual video files, and I’m quite content.

But fan artists… yeah. That argument makes sense at least from a place of frustration.

BTW, for the love of god, if you’re a n00b to OTW stuff, please do not reblog this post excitedly telling me that hosting fan art is on OTW’s road map, so yay, good news. Someone always does that, and it’s so irritating. I haven’t been involved in OTW in years, but I used to be, and I know what is on the roadmap. The couple of you who do heavy lifting on sysadmin and coding and policy things are welcome to weigh in as usual. I know none of us like that we can’t host fan art. It’s not what we intended.

Nonetheless, I found this argument to be the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can save more text now without losing much of anything, we should do it. The fact that we’re fucking up on the fan art front is not a reason to spread the misery around.

V. Is “Original” the Opposite of “Fanfic”?

Okay, so that tl;dr above is why “BNFs” were on one side and “nobodies” were on the other. BNFs from one cultural background founded OTW. BNFs from the other cultural background weren’t even aware that the debate was going on.

But what was the underlying philosophical problem in even having the conversation?

It took me a long time, but I finally worked it out: We had two completely different ways of categorizing writing, and they were so baked into how we phrased questions that everything ended up being unanswerable to the other side. Here is what I came up with:

Schema 1

Fanfic - based on someone else’s IP

Original Work - the opposite

Schema 2

Non-Fannish Work - School essays, stories you are writing to try to sell to a mainstream publisher

Fannish Work Type 1 - based on other people’s characters directly (i.e. fanfic) Type 2 - based on tropes or whatever (“original slash” and the like)

Now, in the current moment when half of Tumblr just got into Chinese webnovels and the m/m ebook industry is thriving in English, original, tropey, BL-ish work is no longer different from “things I am trying to sell”. But this is how the divide was circa 2005 on fannish websites, and it’s the divide that was driving this internal OTW debate.

VI. Let’s Summarize the Camps One More Time

So, again, the debate makes perfect sense if you understand who was involved.

On the mainstream “But that’s not fanfic? I’m confused?” side:

Big US TV fandoms in English

Fandom historians of K/S–>buddy cop slash–>SGA, etc.

Americans

On the other side:

Anime fandom

“Original slash” fandom that had already been chased off of everywhere

People upset that AO3 wasn’t farther on translating the interface and supporting non-English language fandom.

People upset about US-centrism in fandom

Yes, I am very white, very American, and by now very into old buddy cop shows, but this was basically how the breakdown worked. It meant that something that looked like a minor quibble to one side was really, really not.

#fandom history #fandom meta #original work #cowboyformitski

[runela9]

Alright, folks. This is gonna be a long post and I'm rather piqued, so if you're sensitive to drama or just dgf, I'd recommend skipping this one. 

If you're curious enough to read this, here's a quick backstory. User tinybed left a rude comment on a (genuinely funny) joke about positively recovering from mental illness. @dungeons-and-dragonborns replied basically saying "hey, maybe don't shit on people's coping mechanisms?"  tinybed immediately made an ass of themselves and tried to start a fight. Which they lost. Badly.

So I come in, see what looks like a kid starting drama because they misunderstand tumblr as a concept, and try to explain somethings to tinybed.  I summarized the thread, offered some real world comparisons for context, told them what they did wrong, and suggested they look back at their behavior with a clear head and reconsider acting like that. I'll add screenshots of the original thread in the comments

Apparently tinybed did not like this suggestion.  And apparently I was incorrect in assuming that they would either take my advice or ignore me, like literally anyone else would. Nope. They tried to start shit. 

Unfortunately, I ascribe to the philosophy of "do no harm, but take no shit."  So imma spill the tea.

@tinybed I tried to talk to you like a rational adult, but apparently you have the maturity level of a sixth grade girl, so let me try a language you might be able to understand.  You wanna go?  Let's fucking go.

Essay?  Bitch, that shit was five paragraphs. 316 words.  I could have fit it in three tweets.  If you think that constitutes an essay then your lexile score is lower than I thought.

You hid my reply and then screenshoted parts of it so you could vague about me. Well, guess what bitch? I noticed.

The advice I gave in my original comment was genuine; I do hope everyone with trauma heals from it and relaxing by doing things you enjoy is a great way to clear your head and get some perspective.

I'm also being completely genuine right now, when I advise you to go fuck yourself, in the ass, with a cactus.

And I didn't go to "cycle analysis school," whatever the hell that is. But I am a psychologist, you condescending little fuck. I mainly work in elementary special education, but fortunately I have enough experience with kindergarteners to know a tantrum throwing brat when I see one.

As for your cutesy hashing, you're right.  I'm not "completely normal."  I have a laundry list of neurodivergencies and mental illnesses. But at least I don't have Terminal Brain Rot or Insufferable Asshole Syndrome, like you apparently do.  But, whatever. Congratulations on cyberbullying an autistic woman on tumblr.

...or trying to, at least. Cause you couldn't even do that right.  Those little "memes" you made of me were so bad I actually felt sorry for you. For a second, before I remembered what a massive tool you are.  Honestly, it might have been less pathetic if you'd used a goddamn minion meme ripped from Facebook.

And a couple of shitty gifs with the same sentence on top?

These are deeply terrible, and you know it. That, or you know what a massive shitheel you're being. Why else would you disable the comments?  You knew you'd get criticism and your fragile little ego couldn't take it because you're a fucking coward and afraid of the consequences of your own stupid-ass behavior.

I physically couldn't give less shits about whether or not you want to shave your head.  That's a perfectly valid hairstyle and lots of people look great with no hair, regardless of gender.

No, I was actually referring to the bits where you said "...one of the most insane times of my life where i was least secure in myself" and where you compared people who call themselves sexy to "a chimpanzee begging for its life" immediately after calling yourself sexy.

Generally, functional people don't respond to innocuous comments with that level of vitriol unless they have some kind of personal trauma associated with it. So between your incomprehensible rage, irrational behavior, and that chimpanzee post, I just figured you had some issues with self image.

But I shouldn't have assumed, and I apologize for that. Clearly, you don't have any trauma, you're just a seething pustule of hatred, poorly masquerading as a human being.

Careful, that superiority complex you're using as a crutch won't support the weight of your immense self-esteem issues for much longer. Eventually you'll have to face yourself in the mirror, whether you broke it or not, and you're going to see a depressed chimpanzee looking back.

#rant #rant post #drama #long post #callout post #i guess? #the girls are fighting #i prefer to take the highroad #but seriously fuck this person

[sanstropfremir]

I absolutely LOVED reading your kingdom review. You gave me such an insight in things I never even considered, especially since our rankings are so different from each other. The Boyz was my favorite, the narrative was about RTK. How they felt bad for having to compete against their friends but eventually the groups only lifted each other up and it helped TBZ grow into the group they are now through the hardships and mental dilemma, falling into the next challenge right after they reached the top. It should have been more obvious though, I agree, it wasn't really visible for anyone who didn't know. I was wondering how you felt about the dancing in general? my reason for not ranking BTOB high was lack of choreo (and Peniel's verse), same goes for SF9. Mostly because I don't feel the hype when watching, it doesn't keep my focus on the stage. As a baby-performer myself, my goal is to make the viewer curious about what's next. is that the wrong way to look at it? that's what I've always been told, building the tension up and down to create focus. would love to hear your feedback on that! thank you so much for sharing, we need more reviews of people who actually know what they're talking about.

i'm glad that you got some insight from it! like i answered in the previous ask im here to hopefully bring some more depth and understanding for people that care and are curious!

you unintentionally proved my point about tbz’s performance: that is way too complicated! even the most talented solo dancers i can think of would have trouble distilling that down to something readable in 100 seconds, much less a group of like, a dozen people! the introductory stages are meant to show us the character of the group and their abilities in the most concise way possible, it's not the stage to do deep philosophical and emotional introspection. for a full stage? absolutely, go hog wild! but for this stage it was too ambitious and ultimately was ineffective to anyone that isn't a fan of them specifically. 

by dancing in general do you mean like, every group? i put most of my opinions on the dancing where i had them in each of the individual rankings but honestly? unless there is something that really stands out positively or negatively, a lot of ‘average’ kpop dance looks the same to me. i know it’s not, obviously, and if pressed i probably could do a more serious breakdown, but dance is only one element of performance. it has equal weight with all the others in my mind, and therefore i notice when it is either 

very good

does something unique

very bad, or

interferes with another element

which is the same as how i evaluate every element, if that makes sense. 

hmmmm. i thought about this a lot in the shower and turns out i had more opinions that i expected so i'll put them under a cut.

firstly, i don't think lack of choreo should be penalized or considered an ‘incomplete’ performance. at the end of the day, these are bands, and a part of their brand/product they sell is the music. complex choreo does not need to be attached to that to make it a successful performance. also, btob did have choreo. any movement on stage is technically choreography. but this terminology can cause confusion so usually non-dance choreo is referred to as ‘blocking.’ but they also did include the song’s original point choreo at 1.41. the blocking in their performance was well thought out and suited the arrangement, by placing spatial emphasis on each part of the song that needed it. obviously it comes down to personal taste if the performance is ultimately ‘successful,’ because all art is subjective, but just because something isn't as visually complex as something else doesn’t mean it doesn't have the same level of thought. think of it like this: one is a super clean-lined post-post-modern grey/white living room, and the other is a kitsch goth basement. both share interior design principles and have obvious care put into the space, but they are vastly different styles that appeal to different tastes.

part of the job of production designer/AD is to decide what gets emphasis. a question you're always asking yourself is ‘is this important to the story that we’re trying to tell?’ and btob/their AD made a very smart choice with their introductory stage because it says a lot about them and their abilities in a short amount of time. that stage said ‘our foundation is strong, we have the training and experience and confidence to be up here and not rely on visual tricks.’ because they know they physically cannot do the things the 4th gen groups can; they're a decade older and they only have four members, it's just not feasible. something you learn with experience is the power that specific and pointed emphasis holds, which segues into my answer to your last question. i don't necessarily think that ‘building hype’ is the wrong way to perform something, but i do think it is a flawed way to approach creating a performance.

i think that ‘hype’ is flawed concept at its core, and one that focuses on the idea that there’s always being something more, something next, beyond the work itself. now there’s nothing wrong with playing with tension within the internal structure of a piece, that's exactly how constructing a narrative happens. however, the flaws come once we extrapolate beyond the boundaries of that individual work. the idea of ‘whats next’ implies that you have to constantly be promoting, have a sequel coming, building hype etc so people will keep engaged with your work. which is deeply capitalistic in nature and operates on the assumption that art exists purely as a product to be sold. and in order to keep selling you need to keep making a bigger and better and more spectacular product. and this is not the case at all. marketability is not the essence of art, it merely a factor of creating it under this insufferable system. kpop in particular suffers from this because the industry is specifically fabricated to produce capitol. we can have discussions all day about idols and their artistic integrity but at the end of that day, they are all cogs working with a system that was specifically made up by essentially one person to be culturally exported and to just print buckets of money. so in following that train of thought, there is a constant attitude of bigger and better because shock value (whether positive or negative) gets social media attention and therefore it sells. and it has become exponentially easier (and also seemingly required) to make things that are bigger and better than ever before. i remember being blown away by the projection floor at the sochi 2014 olympics because something of that scale and complexity would never have been possible without literally having the funding of the olympics. now that technology is easily accessible to anyone with an amazon account and the time to learn how isadora works. in comparison, it took 2400 YEARS for just the job of a ‘theatre designer’ to be even become a job at all.

because of kpop’s fan culture it is especially prone to ‘hype’ behaviour. in general with the accessibility of the internet and social media, everything has turned into a competition, and who can generate the most buzz ‘wins’. but ultimately that has taken away the general public’s ability to recognize that you can enjoy something quietly and you can enjoy something slowly. that the enjoyment of something doesn’t need to be all exclamation marks and keysmashes and trending hashtags on twitter. there is value in a work engaging in an emotion within you that is not just excitement. most of the artists and companies that i consume the work of i don’t do so because their work makes me excited, i do so because i liked the experience of engaging with that work. several years ago i saw the eternal tides by legend lin dance theatre, which you can watch a really short clip of here. that is not slow motion, that is actually how slow the dancers are moving. and 90% of the show is performed like that. and its two hours long. and it was one of the most incredible performances i've ever seen. if i ever get the chance I will go see another one of their shows again, not because i care about how they can top that experience i had, but because i know they can produce that experience, and that is enough to make me want to seek them out again. the speed of the internet has also loosened the general public’s understanding of just exactly how long creating a performance work can take. the lead dancer in the eternal tides was with the company for eight years before she and the piece were ready enough to be performed. large scale operas, musicals, and plays often have a year or more of pre-production before they even get to rehearsal. smaller theatre companies workshop new pieces for years at a time. performance is hard and it takes time. you can eliminate some of that with sheer amounts of money and people, which is what the kpop industry has done, but it speeds up the cycle of consumption to a degree that is not sustainable, especially for companies and creators who do not have that kind of access. performers and performance makers often don't put enough trust in their audiences. if they like what they see, they will come back. they dont need to be constantly bombarded with content at all times.

now that i’ve said a bit about why i think hype is a flawed concept, let's bring it back to kingdom. sf9 did something very interesting with their stage in that they actively chose to limit their dance time. and this plays very well off the performance film stage that taeyang did a couple of weeks ago. taeyang is talented and confident (for good reason), and his solo was incredible. but when it came to the intro stage, instead of trying to one-up the solo stage, the group instead said ‘well people are going to be looking at us because taeyang is insanely talented, so let's show them that we ALL have the confidence and the attitude to be up here.’ no need for flashy theatrics, they had the foresight to do something that would make them stand out from the rest of the groups. even if i was just casually watching the stages without doing any analysis on them (like i did for rtk), i would still be able to distinguish them because they had the stones to stand around for half their stage time. now i recognize them and would like to see what else they can do. same principle as what btob and also what ikon did. there is a fine line between anticipation and hype that gets equated in media consumption nowadays, but the two are not the same.

i think the tldr on this is that you dont need to ‘build hype’ or ‘go all out’ to make an interesting work. just focus on telling the narrative that you want to tell, and the people that recognize that will come. i could have a lot more things to say about peoples shrinking attention spans and the constant stream of information that we consume on a daily basis that devalues the labour done by artists in the eyes of the public and promotes hustle culture that is burning out and damaging creators at a rate that is both exponential and frightening, but that’s probably for another time, because this is SO LONG

#kingdom #kpop questions #this was a very interesting ask thank you anon! #the consumption and production of art is fascinating and also as an artist it gives me a fucking headache #many thoughts head too full #i hope this provided you with some more insight anon #none of your opinions are wrong i just have different ones and thats ok! i love discussions like this #Anonymous #kpop analysis #text #general design questions #kingdom review responses #answers #kingdom asks

[blackasmidnightcats]

Book 1 Nostalgia

WARNING: This post will have spoilers to the SGE series

The first book in any series will always hold a special place in anyone's heart I think. There is just something beautiful, whether the writing was phenomenal or lacking, about the introduction to a new world and the characters that you're going to know. After reading further into the series, sometimes you just wanna go back to the start, where everything was a lot simpler.

SGE kinda falls into this feeling for me.

I don't think I'm ever going to get over the interactions between the characters (and we haven't even explored most of them) because, personally, Soman is incredibly good with how he does character intercations but the story and plot have a lot to improve on.

And now comparing TSY with TCY it's very glaring.

Soman really has a problem with his plot so much so than with his storyline. It's very repetitive and the storyline suffers from it.

After Book 1, every plot seemed to be the same case; Sophie is an important piece to the main villain, Agatha tries to fix everything, Tedros is getting more crap than needed, annoyingly unhealthy romantic relationships are explored, and the other characters do things.

The last of these examples are really the only things that varies. Everything else is almost always the same in one way or another.

The first book doesn't really follow that pattern. It's a introductory book and I wish Soman did the same vibe as it in QfG.

Though Book 1 wasn't perfect. My biggest main problem with it was how Soman handled Agatha's development from thinking herself a freak and realizing that she was just a beautiful as anyone else (and Tagatha, of course. They had a very unconvincing start) compared to the detailed and precise handling of Sophie's decent and eventual acceptance her wickedness.

I said it once and I'll say it again: I miss vengeful, spited Sophie. Who made the School for Good suffer because Tedros didn't keep his promise and her very impressive Talent to summon Evil creatures at will to do her bidding.

This was the Sophie that I expected more from in the later books but might never get again. With the way that the OTK cover portrays her as the Lion, whether that would be a thing or not, it's clear that Soman wants the readers to look at Sophie in a better light and not as the anti-hero that she is but I could be wrong.

In Book 1, Sophie was incredibly selfish to the point that she wouldn't do anything for others even those that she should care about (i.e. Tedros in the Trial) and in the end, she had to pay for the selfishness by seeing just how Evil she could become and be seen as the witch that she was. Her development from Pink Princess to Witch of Woods Beyond was believable; her ambitiousness combined with her selfishness was what made her gain everything through manipulation and wickedness but it couldn't be hidden for long. Once everyone, including herself, saw what lied underneath her exterior, she lost everything and because of the things that she chooses to do, she naturally hurt and attacked the people that wronged her just as Evil does.

It was caused by a failed romantic pursuit, yes, but unlike the other later romantic relations that she had, the one in Book 1 focused more on the outcome for her character development than in the relationship itself. Honestly her relationships with Rafal, and Rhian, and maybe now Japeth, idk, make absolutely no sense with the importance that the story puts on it because these relationships didn't help further Sophie's character development. It stunted her really.

Now compare this to Agatha.

I think everyone and their cats agree that we all miss witchy Agatha in book 1 and I hope we write more of her in our fanfics like that since Soman won't do it. The thing is, with Agatha, unlike Sophie, whether she is written as a straight-up hero or as a sort of anti-villain with her portrayal as the Snake in the OTK cover, it won't be that far fetched. I don't know if Soman intended this or not but it's pretty frickin impressive with how he managed to make Agatha a pretty versatile character.

Book 1 did not to good with how she went from Graveyard Girl to Fairy Tale Princess. At most, we saw her heroic characteristics but Soman didn't put much effort with making it believable and we were left to our own imaginations with how she could have believably developed and grown into herself. It should have taken more than one chapter to make us believe that Agatha suddenly grew confident with herself and her own brand of beauty and how her relationship with Tedros should have started.

But because of the fact that she's now comfortable as both being a little different and unique in her own way but is still guided by the values of Good and holds it dear to her soul as well as her loyalty to those she loves, she can do great with the best of both worlds.

Agatha hasn't stopped growing since book 1 and I think that reason for that is because Soman knows that he has to square up whenever he writes her. Whether she's developing on her own or with others, she's always learning new values and finding ways to express them in the way that she's comfortable with.

Soman does express that he loves writing in Sophie's POV the most, but it can be a double edged sword if not careful. And I think Soman hasn't been careful.

Now back to the glory of Book 1.

Book one had the most simplest plot and most fluent storyline than in any other book. Even TLEA.

I think I could recall a lot more events in Book 1 than in the more recent ones because there was a lot more events and chapters that were actually necessary to the plot.

So, to go by statistics;

TLEA has the most recorded chapters in the series as of current before the release of OTK with 35 chapters and 3 parts to divide it.

It's followed by Book 1 with 30 chapters.

Then QfG is next with 28 chapters divided into 2 parts.

And aCoT follows with 27 chapters and 2 parts as well.

Last is AWWP with 24 chapters divided into 2 parts as well.

If going by this then OTK should either have a chapter or two more or less than TLEA but not less so than Book 1 because it's going to now be the official last book of the the series.

But that is besides the point. My main problem with the books' storytelling after Book 1 is how disoriented it has become.

Let me make an example with QfG and aCoT. These books are more or less very similar with each other in the number of chapters with only one being the difference while the start of the the "Part 2" portion was a bit different with QfG's starting at chapter 21 while aCoT's started with chapter 17.

But the reception and the fluency of these two books could not be more different from each other.

To say that QfG completely destroyed the fandom is an understatement. I can't tell of aCoT managed to regain the series's former glory for long enough to not let OTK flop but let's be hopeful.

Anyways, the fluency of the storytelling with TCY was wack and QfG and aCoT completely show that.

WARNING: Spoilers about QfG and aCoT will be discussed in this section.

I could not remember almost 70% of QfG because of how much I hated the plot and looking back at the chapters, I honestly could not believe that the asshat Rhian was only introduced on Chapter 21. Everything after Chaddick's POV chapter seemed to be a blur and Rhian's b*tch ass seemed to have corrupted the whole experience.

8 chapters. He was only in QfG for 8 chapters and yet it feels almost like he's been in it for more than half. Frick. He is traumatizing.

Basically, the middle part of the book, namely chapters 7 to 20, was all about the main cast trying to frickin understand wtf was happening. Agatha and Sophie were trying to figure out the Lion and the Snake thing while Tedros was back in Camelot doing (or failing or being sabotaged with) politics and also trying to understand why tf was Excalibur having a tantrum.

Then Rhian entered and I don't know why or how Nottingham and Robin Hood got involved but he did.

And then more figuring out stuff and sabotaging Tedros and then Rhian and Excalibur and then cliffhanger.

It was all very abrupt and confusing. More confusion was added all because there were more questions asked than actual answers and a sense of depression was felt in the end because nothing was really achieved.

Imma compare this with Book 1 later but first Book 5 comparison.

Now aCoT. It was just the storyline that we needed to get back to the hype that the series had. Was it a satisfying read? Yes but was it able to heal the pain that QfG inflicted? No.

The fandom did not come back the same again.

But anyways, aCoT, personally, had a lot more scenes and events that I remembered than in any other book besides book 1 but that there was the problem with this book.

Too many things happened with this book. So much so that the fluency of the story was sacrificed to tell it.

Look at it this way, several shifts in the book happened.

This all happened in Part 1 only;

Rhian became King and his regime was sort of explained.

Agatha was introduced to the First Years and got her Army.

Sophie was in some sort of GOT-esque knock off experience as Rhian's Captive Queen.

Agatha manages to save some of her friends.

The concept of OTK was explained.

Tedros's execution was on way.

Nevermind, Agatha and her army just straight-up hijacked it.

Prof. Dovey died as a sacrifice.

Okay, now to Part 2;

Reaper is a Gnome King.

The Crystal of Time was finally explained.

They finally find out about Rhian and Japeth's origins.

The Gnomes were ambushed and I feel sorry for them.

Sophie tipped Rhian off with the location because she believed that she would end it all.

We kinda get background with why Rhian wants to be OTK????

Rhian DIES?!?!?! and now Japeth's King ☠

They sort of manage to know about wtf happened with the Lady and Japeth

Tedros and Arthur have a heart to heart and he gets the Ring of Power.

Cliffhanger

It's a lot to take in and I don't really think that Soman should have cramped it all in one book.

Some of the plot points should have been in QfG so that it wouldn't be as depressing.

The whole of Part one was a book in itself and Part 2 was one as well.

At some points of the book, I sometimes got the feeling that it was gonna be the end but it just kept going and going and now I don't really know what's left with OTK. It can be both a good thing or a horrible thing.

Let's see wtf happens. I expect more action than drama Soman.

So again with Book 1.

Book 1 was a classic and the ideas easily hooked anyone interested.

It had the same unaswered questions with QfG but why did it suceed when QfG didn't.

First, is that Book 1 had its atmosphere clear from the start of the book. It was clear that the main thing that needed to happen was that Sophie and Agatha needed to realize the actual nature of their souls. There were more technical questions that needed to be answered but the main point that needed to be addressed was addressed by the end of the book.

And also the ending was also a cliffhanger but it a much lighter note.

Sophie and Agatha realized their capabilities and understood themselves but they still chose each other in the end and that sort of gave way to a much hopeful future for the two of them. (At that time, at least)

All the while, QfG was one depressing ball of events that led to one horrible moment to the other.

It was just sad.

And so I kinda go back to Book 1 from time to time to refresh myself with why I started this series to begin with and I'm always reminded with the possibilities and the explorations about good and evil and the complex duality of differences and parallels that so many things that Sophie and Agatha sort of beautifully personify.

I love reading the very first chapter of Book 1 because it so beautifully captured Sophie and Agatha and their complex relationship that I've always wanted to read in other books.

I always loved reading Sophie's amusing thought process and the reason why she does everything that she does; she does it because she believes that she deserves more and she'll everything to get it.

I also loved how Agatha was such a character that I've always wanted to read about. She's spunky and shy and lonely and reflective and despite everyone shunning her, she could still see the good and find it in herself to help them. She was simply wonderful.

I'm thankful that I found this series and I hope that a lot more books can talk about the philosophies and concepts that this book has managed to introduce. And despite all of its set-backs and nonsense, I would still recommend this as a read but to that they should also think about what they've read and maybe talk about what they've found interesting with it.

#sge #sfgae #tsfgae #the school for good and evil #school for good and evil #soman chainani #agatha of woods beyond #agatha of camelot #sophie of woods beyond

[loveart248]

KIRIBAKU SHIP DEVELOPMENT

I love many BNHA ships but Kiribaku holds a special place in my heart since it has so much positive canon material and I am always a sucker for the "Best friends who fall in love" trope since I enjoy slow burn with character growth. However, even taking the romantic possibility out of the equation, I just love that their relationship is so well developed in the story with subtle changes in their behavior all throughout as they go from 1. strangers who don't think much of each other to 2. reluctant allies who need to work together to complete certain tasks to 3. sort of friends with Kirishima pushing for a friendship to 4. best friends with an equal balance of respect and appreciation for each other. Below I tried to break down their relationship as it develops throughout the manga so...

WARNING: This is a long post and MAY contain spoilers for non-manga readers and anyone who has not seen the BNHA movie (not by much though).

Back at the beginning of the series, Kirishima used to think that Bakugou was a terrible person just like the rest of class 1-a, especially due to how he would treat Izuku. He was all like "That Bakugou is crazy and fights dirty" while Bakugou didn't even care about his existence yet. The only thing on Bakugou's mind at the time was beating Izuku and proving his superiority over everyone else. Thus, Bakugou was definitely not looking for friends as the only people he was used to having around him were "followers" as shown during his middle school times.

Then during the USJ arc, they automatically started working together to fight the villains as they were right next to each other during the initial attack. This right away showed how synchronized they were as a team due to their personalities and compatible quirks. So from the get go, they just seemed to flow well together.

Afterwards, they were sent off in the portal together giving them more time to fight villains side by side alone to get a feel of each others' personalities. During that time, you can slowly see Kirishima change his perspective of Bakugou from "This guy is crazy" to "Huh. This guy may not be that bad. He seems pretty cool right now".

This scene may seem minute but it is the moment that ignites Kirishima's interest in getting to know more about Bakugou. Kirishima basically starts to become more interested in Bakugou as a person as he starts to recognize his positive qualities despite his original assessment of Bakugou's personality.

Kirishima can't help but start to find Bakugou "manly" even after he tells off the other classes at the beginning of the Sports Festival arc. Even despite Kaminari's warning of "Don't let him play you" lol And this is just great because it shows that Kirishima was still somewhat hesitant about liking Bakugou as a person but was willing to give him a chance.

Kirishima begins to want to hang out with Bakugou and get on his good side as shown by the interactions above and some of the interactions at the beginning of the Sports Festival. Bakugou still doesn't think much of him but he let's him be for the most part. You also start to see Kirishima more impressed with Bakugou than before.

As the Sports Festival progresses, Kirishima finally gets his opportunity to prove his skill in Bakugou's eyes while also appealing to Bakugou's desire to win against Izuku. This moment shows an understanding of Bakugou's personality as he knows how to get Bakugou to agree with him despite Bakugou not thinking too much of him yet. It also shows a shift in Kirishima's preference of Izuku since now he would much prefer to be in Bakugou's team as he didn't even try to get in Izuku's team and barely tried to get into Todoroki's team based on his commentary.

THAT moment is when their friendship is truly born as Bakugou starts to acknowledge him and call him "Kirishima" afterwards as a sign of respect. During the match, you can see their dynamics in action with Kirishima trying to calm down Bakugou as Bakugou starts to lose his cool with opposing teams lol So basically the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The two are eventually paired off against each other and Bakugou wins but he STILL respects him as an opponent. He even comments on how difficult it is to get past Kirishima's defenses which is why he basically lets him reach his quirk limit to win. The fight is short but pretty funny because you can see them kind of teasing each other all throughout like good friends.

After the Sports Festival, the two are often seen around each other hanging out with Kirishima definitely feeling more comfortable around Bakugou to the point that he easily jokes around him and teases him. Slowly, through Kirishima's influence as he basically gets along with everyone in class 1-a, you can see more of the other students also feel more comfortable around Bakugou, especially the ones who were on his team at the Sports Festival.

Characters like Kaminari, Sero, Mina, etc. Sero is one that automatically attaches himself to Bakugou's group soon after the Sports Festival as he is shown comfortably teasing Bakugou for his haircut with Kirishima.

By the time the Summer Training Camp Arc happens, the audience already has some understanding of their friendship but it's still not in full display yet. It's more subtle and in the background than anything. During the summer camp though, you can finally see how much Bakugou means to Kirishima as a friend and as a fellow student after the villain attack that results in his kidnapping.

He feels guilty that he couldn't help his friend so he tries to convince the others to help him save Bakugou despite that being illegal. He only manages to convince a select few, two of which were already there when Bakugou was kidnapped and felt responsible too (Todoroki and Izuku) but the fact that he felt that much about it shows how much he cares.

In part, knowing Kirishima's character and motivations, you can tell that he wants to save Bakugou to prove to himself that he can be a true hero but you can also tell that saving Bakugou means more to him than that since Bakugou is not just "some guy" but his close friend.

During the entire rescue arc, Kirishima is all about doing his best to save Bakugou alongside the others to the point that he buys expensive night camera lenses to spy on the warehouse and chooses the disguises for the others (which were pretty funny disguises that make you wonder why Kirishima has such terrible fashion sense but can choose decent outfits for others XD).

Later on, Bakugou pays him back the money for the camera as a form of thanks for saving him. If BNHA Smash is anything to go by, Bakugou apparently did ALL kinds of odd jobs to get that money as quickly as possible (i.e. Nude modeling, dress like a bumble bee, bake cakes, etc.) 🤣

During the rescue arc, the most Kiribaku moment ever occurs in which Izuku comes up with the "Rescue Bakugou Without Confronting Villains" plan that ends up working ONLY because of how Bakugou views Kirishima as a friend and equal by that point. This is an important moment of development from Bakugou's side as it shows that he holds Kirishima in high regard and does not feel like Kirishima saving him is him looking down on Bakugou's own skill. This is significant since THIS specific detail is one of the factors that causes Bakugou to react in anger towards characters like Izuku and Todoroki most of the time: his belief that they are looking down on him and consider him inferior. So him accepting Kirishima's hand basically confirmed that their relationship is mutual as they both consider the other a friend without fear of judgment.

After this arc, there are countless other subtle moments throughout the series that show how close they are such as:

1. Bakugou tutoring him and going on study dates (a lot of that in the light novels). Also, the fact that Kirishima clearly wanted Bakugou to tutor him from the beginning since he never seeked out Momo like the others when he saw his grade.

2. The BNHA movie moments (assuming they are canon) which happened before the summer arc and add MORE development and insight into their relationship (i.e. Bakugou inviting Kirishima to i-Expo, sharing a room, Kirishima buying them suits, etc.)

3. Kirishima constantly complimenting Bakugou but also making sure he's not too rude to others (Literally them every panel in the manga nowadays lol)

4. Kirishima apparently helping Bakugou move all his stuff to his dorm and then...

5. Kirishima knowing that Bakugou went to sleep at 8 pm when showing off rooms hinting that they were hanging out prior to that

6. Bakugou's motivational speech to Kirishima that motivated him to push himself harder to create the "unbreakable" form/also basically a compliment from Bakugou to Kirishima.

7. Kirishima implying that he and Bakugou spar together sometimes (i.e. Bakugou asking to test his technique on him and Kirishima being fine with that while the others are scared lol)

And don't get me started on all the BNHA SMASH moments! Seriously, those are not canon at all but there are many. And Kirishima is extra affectionate in those 🤣 He has the power to make Bakugou do pretty much anything there.

To conclude this long post, whether as brotp or otp, the Kiribaku relationship development is undeniable. Just like the character growth they both experienced due to each other. Now, just because they help each other grow does not mean they are the only ones there for each other. Kirishima is not the ONLY one that understands Bakugou in the story nor is he his only friend or person he respects since Bakugou has many other people he respects and calls by name (i.e. All Might, Aizawa, Uraraka, etc.). Likewise, Bakugou is not the ONLY person Kirishima admires or considers a close friend (i.e. He has Kaminari, TetsuTetsu, etc.).

However, they clearly mean a lot to each other and help each other develop where they need to. Kirishima helps Bakugou open up to others more and Bakugou helps Kirishima believe in himself and his ability to be a hero. And that is enough for them. 😁

#kirishima eijirou #kirishima eijiro #red riot #bakugou katsuki #bakugo katsuki #kiribaku #bakushima #poprocks #bakukiri #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha kirishima #mha kirishima #bnha bakugou #mha bakugou #ship meta #ship development

[ixeliema]

Okay this is going to be pretty personal and potentially triggering so I'm leaving that here at the top. I'm going to be discussing depression and self harm here and I will tag accordingly. I will not be specific or speak of it in detail because a lot of people read posts like these at their lowest points and it does nothing but hurt already very troubled people to read.

These bubbles are covering an injury I inflicted upon myself at work today after my manager called me in to a meeting with him to speak about the amount of missed days of work I'd taken in the last two-three weeks.

How it happened doesn't matter. The only context you need for it is that I missed four days due to a contagious illness and one day due to a stomach bug that had me physically unable to leave the bathroom. I work long hours and in my store's home department. I work hard and never do things 80% or lower at work and it's exhausting at times.

Well...yesterday I had a panic attack that lasted for almost four hours and knew I couldn't work in this state. I had been curling into a ball, screaming, sobbing, (tw) pulling my hair.

I called in and my manager told me we'd need to talk about my missed days. Fine. I accept that. Today I dreaded the inevitable call back and when it happened he told me that two of my customers had filed complaints on me within two days last week.

One I will admit is justified. He was talking about gun issues and complaining that retail stores should sell guns, meanwhile I am from a college that was shot up and I am fucking terrified of guns. I don't mind not selling them. Especially in light of El Paso recently.

The other was a lady who noticed I was sweaty and tired after having to manually enter her discounts for about 25 apparel items because her digital coupon wasn't ringing right and it was a system issue. I had an injury between my fingers at the time and all the typing to fix the prices was pulling apart my scab and I had begun to bleed through my bandage. At the end of the transaction, she made eye contact with me and asked "I'm sorry...are you IRRITATED with me?" I don't remember exactly what I said but I said something like "no ma'am I'm bleeding". Well apparently 'no' means I'm still a bitch who needed reported to her manager.

The first...fine. I was out of line there. I shouldn't have let him goad me on. But the second pisses me off. Not happy because three strikes on my record is cause for termination due to disregard for customer satisfaction. This sucks a lot. But then my manager talks about my missed days and why they happened. I mentioned my sicknesses and cited a literal rule (if you are contagious or having issues with bodily fluids don't come in" at him. Yesterday I told him my situation. I was unable to breathe. See. Anything. I cited my mental illness and told him it was very bad yesterday. He kind of brushed me off. (Which in itself fucking infuriates me bc mental health isn't a goddamn joke!)

Then he told me to evaluate myself and whether or not this job is right for me. I also have a physical injury and I require a brace. Even with it sometimes I have sore days and pain that I can't control due to walking about four to five miles a day at work. It sucks but with the brace I can survive. I need this job to live after all, and I don't mind the coworkers or the job itself. It just sucks when I'm working 48 hours in a row with a lot of mental and physical barriers to my success.

He told me to my face that if I didn't feel I was capable of doing the job to quit. And then he told me he needed someone "more reliable" for the position because of the business' needs.

I kind of broke at that point. And I blacked out into a relapse of my self harm after the meeting was through. I pride myself on two things: my sense of humor even in dark times (comes with the territory of mental illness), and the fact that I strive to be reliable. My manager telling me to my face that I wasn't reliable broke me.

See I would be more understanding if he hadn't just told me that five of my six missed days were perfectly acceptable. But after he learned of the last one amd why he kind of shifted gears. And I hated it very much.

He's worked for x corporation nearly 20 years and no one will question his authority. He works hard and is pretty good with his workers. Honestly he's a little sexist and clearly doesn't think mental illnesses are a big deal, but he's good at what he does. So hearing an authority figure (the type of person I've learned to fear because I'm never good enough) tells me I'm not one of the qualities I fucking FIGHT for...I broke.

But this story isn't why I wanted to post it. Yeah I could rant about the rude manager and the customers and that dumb "customer is always right" mentality (which they could prove wrong if they just looked up the security footage for the rude lady!)

No I'm here because when I got home from working 2-11...bordering tears and panic all day and sweatier than anyone living in Arizona right now...I hopped in the bath for a soak and to give myself time to heal from the long arduous day.

My mind has been full of intrusive thoughts about my worth and how I broke my streak of being clean from self harm and how that makes me a coward. That kind of joyous stuff.

I sat up to get my phone to text my friend and saw that my knee (where my injury is) was covered in bubbles.

I don't know why...but that means a lot to me right now. Like...I'm taking care of myself after probably the worst day I've had since my dad died. I'm taking time to heal. I'm trying to pick up the pieces of my soul after a long and painful day. And it felt like for a moment, the universe understood that looking at my wound hurt me as much as the wound itself hurt. It wanted me to not dwell on it.

Obviously this isn't a magic "I'm no longer depressed" moment but for me, seeing the bubbles...a sign (at least to me) of trying to take care of myself masking the pain of my depression and anxiety.

Today has been a very tough day for me with a lot of manic episodes and a lot of depressive ones, and though I can wear the face that I'm okay...it cracked a lot today and I let my ugly side seep out. And seeing the bubbles covering my wound I deadass cried about it, y'all.

This tells me that even on your worst days, taking care of yourself and trying to find time to recover can help you to heal. And I wanted to post this because I think this story might help someone. Even just one person. Maybe even just myself someday when out of the blue I check my (very small) tag for original posts.

The TLDR of this is that this occurence kind of showed me that taking care of yourself...even in tiny, seemingly insignificant ways, can really help you to not dwell on pain as much.

And before someone hijacks this and says this won't apply to everyone...I know. But I hope someone sees this image of bubbles on a goddamn kneecap and thinks to themselves that they ought to take better care of themselves after a bad day. After a relapse. After feeling so defeated you considered suicide. Consider healing. Consider trying to help yourself, even just in one small way.

That's about all I have to say other than "fuck I work the next three days and I'm not stoked to go fake a smile as a cashier for 27 more hours even if I'm being paid"

#no I'm not going to fall into that mindset #suicide tw #self harm tw #depression tw #tw depression #tw self harm #tw suicide #you will be okay #i believe in you #depression #anxiety #adhd #bpd #bipolar #bipolar personality disorder #attention deficit hyperactivity disorder #attention defecit #please do not read this as bragging #do not read this as a cry for attention #do not read this as me trying to condone people glorifying mental illness on this site #I'm posting this because I want someone to come across this in a tag and think #self harm #gentle reminder you are beautiful #don't lose hope #don't hurt yourself #ixey speaks #ixey posts #please take care of yourself #take care #stay safe

[semirahrose]

Hi! I love both Sam and your blog, but! this isn't about spn. When I first saw one of your posts about NiF, I thought I'd check it out eventually. After some time, I saw another post, and decided I'd start watching it in 2019. I'm now on ep 19 of the first season, I'm loving it thoroughly, and I can't thank you enough for making me discover it. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I am in desperate need of NiF quotes (I didn't write down anything while watching, stupid me) — would you mind sharing some?

This is. This is actually. *spontaneous sobbing* I HAVE NO WORDS. THANK YOU. I’m so freaking excited that you’re watching? NiF is very good at causing Feelings, and if you ever need to yell, please feel free to yell in my direction; chances are I will also want to yell about NiF at any given moment. I could not be happier that you’re enjoying this show! 

One thing to be aware of: The first “series,” 54 episodes, is the complete show. Nirvana in Fire II is unrelated, though it takes place in the same universe, decades later. I watched a bit, but since it seemed like romance was going to be a relatively prominent theme, I didn’t continue. NiF (original flavor), with its endless, breathtakingly beautiful platonic (?)  bonds and Beautiful Suffering, is a bit more my style.

Anyway! Quotes. 

It’s really hard to choose quotes, because many of my favorites are spoiler-ish as heck and I don’t want to spoil anything for you! I have chosen some that, even though some may come from later episodes, still make sense out of context and don’t really spoil anything. I’m not sure who your favorite characters are or what themes you’d like quotes on, so I picked a random selection of quotes (and not-quotes) I found fun/painful/very in-character. 

Mei Changsu (to Lin Chen): Having you is better than having ten doctors. Jingyan, out-of-favor warrior prince, No Chill, Will Fight Everyone:  The Crown Prince or Prince Yu, which will you choose to support?Mei Changsu, calm as a cucumber: I wish to choose you, Prince Jing.Jingyan: …  Also Jingyan: [hysterical laughter]

Mei Changsu (to Prince Jing): Jingyan, Don’t be afraid. (Me: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

Consort Jing: Just because I am quiet doesn’t mean I can be trampled on. (Hell yeah she can’t. This woman owns my soul.)

These faces right here need no words (gif by forceemajeuree):

You haven’t gotten there yet, but the “Because a person’s heart… will become harder and harder” scene is RUINOUS. It destroyed me, at least. In that context, with that music, and with Fei Liu watching on, sympathetic and trusting but truly not understanding, HOLY FRICK. I will say no more.

Meng Zhi (accidental shipper?) very pleased that he has located a house for MCS where the back gates are parallel to Prince Jing’s: Listen to me; get someone who knows about geology to create a secret tunnel to Prince Jing’s place. Even if Prince Jing doesn’t meet you in the daytime, he can use the tunnel to meet you for a secret rendezvous.MCS/Lin Shu: Can you use different terminology?!

Literally everything and anything my sweet, monosyllabic warrior son Fei Liu ever says or does.

Xiao Jingyan: I feel I must begin to fight for the crown. But, Mother…Consort Jing, Baddest of Badasses and Coolest of Moms: Do not be held back by me. Whether you succeed or fail, as long as we share the burden, what is there to fear?

Mei Changsu/Lin Shu, the Worst Patient ever: Are you here to see me off or stop me?Lin Chen, 1000% done: …Can I stop you?(These two trolls deserve each other; I love them.)

Every time MCS/Lin Shu calmly eats oranges while Shit is Going Down.

Mu Nihuang: Sir Su has done so much for you. I hope you will fight for him as well.Xiao Jingyan, who will Fight Everyone: [DEADPAN AF] Princess, is this the first time you’ve met me?

Honestly almost every time Meng Zhi is on screen.

Mei Changsu: As soon as [Prince Jing] realizes that Mei Changsu is Lin Shu, he will try to protect me, before he does anything else. […] Prince Jing’s determination to take the crown is still strong. No matter what I say, he’ll still listen. Even though some plans go against his nature, he hasn’t refused. Do you know why? Because he has no distractions. He only has to consider whether the things I say are beneficial to his goal. As for how these things will affect Mei Changsu, he does not have to care. […] The fight for the crown will be dangerous. If we are emotional, then we will make mistakes. When that happens, do you know how many people will die?

This face Jingyan makes when he thinks MCS is in danger (gif by weebits):

And Many More.

If anyone else sees this and knows of relatively non-spoilery favorite quotes, feel free to share!

#nirvana in fire #lang ya bang #琅琊榜 #nif quotes #*nif #my stuff #pengwings are cool #semirah replies #nif discussion