#also re: the actual text of the post; I feel like it’s more of a poser move to dress up emo just for the concert if I never do normally than | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ms-demeanor · 3 months

Note

Hello,Do you have any tips for recovering from internet brain rot? It's like my patience has dried up and if there's a huge amount of text (even about topics I'm very interested in) that I have to read, I get annoyed and just don't interact with the material at all.

I have multiple tips!

TL;DR (Because of course I generated a wall of text): Take a break from the internet, create a schedule for getting yourself used to reading longer texts, take breaks while reading, and perhaps reconsider how you interact with The Internet and the world in general.

Here are the basic "to reduce the brain rot just don't interact" tips:

Take a break. Give yourself time off from The Internet (for these purposes The Internet is the social media industrial complex; clickbait news, recommended videos, social media sites, etc. You don't have to totally check out of email or your local news site, just get away from the huge time sucks). I'd say to take at least one day a week where you're online for less than an hour a day, and to maybe work up to doing a week-long break from whatever the main agents of rot are.

Once you've identified the main agents of rot, give yourself a time limit or set up rules for yourself. I don't let myself look at social media in bed, for instance; no staying up late on my phone, no scrolling before I get up and start my day. I don't give myself a strict time limit anymore, but for a while there I was very firm about "you only get to go online 4 hours a day" with myself.

Don't comment (or at least only share the things you really want to share). If you feel the need to argue, or if you feel pressured into sharing something, don't. Step back, maybe even open the post in a new tab or send it to yourself, and come back later. If you've been thinking about it and have decided it IS something you care enough to talk about, share it. If you look at the tab and feel stressed out or still feel reactive, close the tab and walk away.

Go out and interact with the real world in a non-work capacity for a few hours a week; take walks or go shopping or go out and take pictures of insects. Touch grass so that The Internet is not the only thing you're doing with your downtime.

Here are the "work on reading longer texts specifically" tips:

Set a reading goal for yourself. Maybe you want to read one New Yorker article a week, maybe you want to read all the way through news articles, maybe you want to read novels like you used to in high school. Figure out what your actual goal is and articulate that goal to yourself.

Set up a practice schedule and gradually increase the amount of time you're reading. Don't go from short tumblr posts to a novella, go from short tumblr posts to slightly longer news articles, then to slightly longer essays, then to a novella. You can do this in literal paragraphs if you want to - maybe your goal for your first day is to read five paragraphs in a row, and the second day is seven, and the third day is ten, etc, until you are comfortably reading for longer amounts of time without counting paragraphs. (Try this with books from gutenberg.org; read a classic you haven't read a few paragraphs at a time and if you find yourself going over your paragraph count, let yourself run with it. If you finish a book, good for you, find another one and start again.)

Set up a maintenance schedule. If your goal is to read longer news pieces, try to read a longer piece every week and try to read to the end of every news article you open. If your goal is to read novels or longer nonfiction, try to read a book a month (maybe setting aside dedicated time each week to read, maybe Thursday evenings are book time now). If you find yourself falling back into old habits, take a break from The Internet and do some more rigorous practice for a while.

If you find yourself getting frustrated while you are reading you can also take a break! Read until you get frustrated and then *instead of switching to a different page or closing the article* close your eyes or look out the window or away from the screen for thirty seconds (count 'em! count out the time in your head) and then continue reading. You can also take a longer pause and sit and think about why you're getting frustrated. Is it the subject matter? Is it just looking at this text for longer than a couple minutes (if you are experiencing FOMO because you're reading for another few minutes instead of scrolling, the harder tips at the bottom are going to be important to you)? Are you comfortable? Are you reading this text to procrastinate from something and the procrastination is making you nervous? Are you trying to read to the bottom of your dash and reading a long post is taking up more time than you want while scrolling? Are you bored? Genuinely and very seriously: are your eyes straining and does your head hurt (if this is the case when is the last time you had your eyes checked or your glasses prescription updated)?

Here are the much harder "examine yourself and reassess your reactions to things" tips:

Work on re-training your attention span.

Identify something that you enjoy and find deeply engaging, and schedule some dedicated time for that thing. Set a literal timer (it can be a short amount of time at first) and sit down and do the thing without switching to a different website or opening up an app on your phone. This can be re-reading or watching a couple episodes of a show you like or listening to your favorite album while you sit down and draw. What's important is to spend a longer time focusing on doing something you DO like before attempting to spend a longer time focusing on something you DON'T like.

When you're starting on things you DON'T like, start with things you mildly don't like, or that feel tedious but aren't actually unpleasant. One way I do this is by transcribing poetry; I look up poems that I connect to and I transcribe them into a notebook that I have for that purpose. I enjoy having the finished product, but I don't enjoy the process, so it takes some effort to stick with it. Maybe there is a boring book you have been trying to get through, maybe you need to detail your car, maybe you've been trying to take up embroidery - these are good things to make yourself pay attention to (having music or a podcast on can help, but avoid watching videos or opening social apps)

When you're okay at that kind of thing (doing something not actively unpleasant) work on your attention span for things you ACTIVELY don't like. I don't think you should be a masochist about this, but you should work on being okay with doing unpleasant things for a sustained period of time. All of us have to do unpleasant stuff sometimes, and it's better to be able to pay attention to it for an hour at a time than it is to put it off forever.

This leads into the next Big Tip which is:

Work on being less reactive

Find something that you dislike; I'm going to use conservative talk radio as my example.

Expose yourself to the disliked thing for short periods of time (under ten minutes, maybe under five minutes).

Work on moderating your emotions during the time spent exposed to the disliked thing. If it makes you angry, work on intellectualizing the anger without becoming agitated by it. If it makes you sad, work on accepting that sadness without letting it drag down your mood. This isn't precisely about becoming numb to stimuli, but it is about being more in control of how your emotional reactions impact you.

Analyze the disliked thing. Why does it make you angry? Is that on purpose by the creator of the thing? Would it make someone else angry in the same way? How would you explain the anger to a neutral third party?

Consider responding instead of reacting. Let's say you're seeing a lot of very sad and upsetting things online and it's making you sad and upsetting you. You re-share these things because you don't feel like there's anything else you can do or you get angry when you see people sharing incorrect information, perhaps you argue with people about this. Now try looking at the upsetting things through the lens of point number four. This has upset you; how has it upset you? And once you've thought about how it upset you and have articulated that to yourself, find out what you can DO. I cannot make conservative talk radio go off the air, but I can support the groups harmed by conservative talk radio; thus there is no point in me getting upset and angry about conservative talk radio when I could be helping the people they target instead.

And that gets us to the last big tip which is:

Ask yourself if you are spending your time in a way that is enjoyable and edifying.

We all have limited time in our days and limited time in our lives. If you are finding yourself frequently frustrated online, it's a good time to consider whether you want to be spending so much time online.

If you feel like The Internet has become a rat race in which you can't read more than a few paragraphs without getting frustrated, there's a good chance that not only are you spending too much time on The Internet, but you're also spending it on doing things that you don't particularly like.

A realization like yours, Anon, that you are getting frustrated with any longer texts, can actually be really helpful because it provides a good opportunity to look at what you're engaging with and consider the questions:

Is this something I enjoy?

Do I feel good when I do this thing?

And that's a great way to figure out how to get rid of things that are leading to your background frustration. Maybe that looks like paring down the list of blogs you follow, maybe that looks like unsubscribing from some youtubers and podcasts, maybe that looks like uninstalling apps, maybe that looks like blocking a whole bunch of people and terms on your socials.

I don't think that everything we do has to help us grow as a person or expand our consciousness or anything like that, but I do think it's important to prioritize doing things that you like and doing things that you feel good about.

Like, I'm not doing something *wrong* if I spend an afternoon on Youtube watching drama channels every once in a while, but if I come out of a few afternoons of watching youtube drama channels feeling restless and anxious and like I wasted my time - even if I enjoyed myself while I was watching - it's probably a good idea for me to take a break from drama channels and see if there's something I can do instead that will make me feel better.

ALSO, A NOTE:

You are an animal that requires significant enrichment in your enclosure.

Think about tigers. Tigers in captivity are going to be excited to get high-value treats for any reason. They will eat and enjoy the treats. But if a tiger in captivity is only given the treats and never given any other form of activity to engage with, it is not going to be a happy tiger. If you start putting their treats in a pumpkin or a puzzle feeder or giving them toys to play with, that is going to be a much happier tiger.

Please give your brain things to play with that are more than just treats (though it does need some treats!). Make yourself a happy tiger. Your brain need a puzzle feeder, not a treat button.

2K notes · View notes

charredpages · 15 days

Text

[Alt text] ten screenshots of text posts by the user themme_fatale on Instagram. The text reads:

(1/10)

Do you remember the exact moment that anti-masking stopped being a far-right talking point

And became advice you were willing to follow?

(2/10)

I try to make the ways I communicate about COVID as compassionate and non-judgemental as possible because I understand that we have all been failed in this and my primary anger is always upwards.

BUT

I also need you to understand - if you are not taking precautions, you are aligning yourself with eugenicists.

The person who actively says “fuck disabled people they deserve to 💀” and never masks, and the person who never masks because “It’s annoying and besides-no one else is” are BOTH devaluing people’s lives.

(3/10)

And that might feel confronting for some of you, and I know the knee-jerk reaction is probably going to be to deflect by accusing me of “shaming people” or whatever.

I’m not shaming anyone though - it’s just uncomfortable to sit with because if you’re the kind of person who follows me chances are you don’t actually want to be engaging in eugenics.

And re-engaging with the idea that COVID is not only still around, but still actively dangerous is asking a lot of you when the alternative is the comfort of denial.

Especially when so many of the tools to keep ourselves and each other safe have been taken away from us. But the thing is none of that is actually a reason not to act.

(4/10)

There are people IN YOUR COMMUNITY relying on you to take precautions so that they don’t d1e.

(5/10)

With love, and compassion for the fact that this shit is hard - ignorance is running out as an excuse. It’s time to do better, and help your mates do better too.

People in your community shouldn’t have to constantly remind you not to put their lives in danger. Surely you can see that’s a pretty fucked up dynamic, right?

(6/10)

We shouldn’t have to push so hard on “it’s good for you to protect yourself too!” Like it still absolutely is, but saving the lives of people in your community should actually be enough to motivate you to act.

It’s genuinely fucked up to be ok with a whole proportion of the population being either being locked in their homes indefinitely or at risk of 💀 on the daily.

(7/10)

It should be considered more socially awkward to engage in eugenics by k1lling and isolating disabled people in your own community than it is to put on a mask

The fact that it’s not should embarrass all of us until we change it.

(8/10)

It should be considered more selfish to put people’s lives at risk than to ask to be kept safe

Your choices can change or reinforce that culture.

(9/10)

Government inaction puts a weapon in your hand

Pretending it’s not there puts us all in danger

(10/10)

Why do you require a mandate to care about other people?

#it makes me nervous posting this #but the friends I have on here are some of the people I trust the most #like OP says #this is coming from a place of compassion #and as much as I want to be #we’re not don’t with covid yet #covid #covid 19 #long covid #covid conscious #covid is airborne #covid isn't over

624 notes · View notes

trashogram · 3 months

Text

He Chose You (Pt. 6)

Lucifer/Reader: Lucifer wants you to be the Mother of his child. Rated E bc Explicit.

((This one fought me so hard, I just wanna get it out there and I’ll proof-read it later I’m sorry.))

The first time didn’t take, as you’d come to learn 3 days post-coitus with the Devil. It had left you bereft, not exactly disappointed but also not certain if you should go out and buy 150% proof alcohol to mark the occasion.

You settled for enough wine to dull your senses before sending a text with your Hellphone. The fact that inter-dimensional phone lines were possible was simply added to the list of not-even-gonna-think-about-it of things that came with your new reality.

A blood-curdling shriek from your pocket made you curse as you dove for it.

“Hey.”

“Hey-yy!” Lucifer responded cheerfully before clearing his throat. “So it um… it didn’t work?”

“Unless being pregnant with hellspawn looks and feels exactly like my time of the month, no. It didn’t.” You said.

He sighed on the other end, air blowing through the receiver and fucking up already poor reception. “Okay. Shit. Well, maybe we can work something else out—”

“I’ll just text you when it’s over and we can try again.” You replied as you leaned back against your headboard.

“You-you wanna try again?” Lucifer’s surprise made your eyes roll.

“Yeah, just give me a couple days.” You’d felt a wave of fatigue crashing over you.

Suddenly you were boneless, barely able to even hold the phone up to your ear. Lucifer’s hesitant delight barely registered yet you could imagine him behind closed eyelids, smiling crookedly with those ivory fangs.

“Y-I-uh, ok great! That works for me if it works for you!” He practically shouted. “Do you need anything in the meantime?”

“‘Mmmmffh, a nap.” Lucidity snapped back for a moment as you eyed the phone in your peripheral. “Also please don’t call or text me. I’m gonna throw this thing out the window if I have to hear someone screaming bloody murder one more time.”

—

Lucifer being startled by the ringing of his Hellphone wasn’t at all peculiar.

However —

The sound of a love song, though tinny and compartmentalized to the King of Hell’s coat pocket, made Asmodeus perk up.

He glanced down to see his diminutive brother rush for the device like his life depended on it. It was easy to feign polite indifference as Lucifer excused himself from the cafe table for a moment, but by the time the King had returned, Asmodeus was leaning forward expectantly.

“That’s new.” He said.

Lucifer looked up wildly, as if he’d been caught snatching aphrodisiacs from Ozzie’s own stores.

“Huh, wha? What’s new?” He laughed off the embarrassment, re-taking his seat.

Asmodeous sipped from his teacup, clocking the many idiosyncrasies Lucifer displayed.

He was flustered, still gripping the phone between his claws, and had perched on the edge of his seat so that he could bounce a leg against the ground.

“Love songs aren’t your usual style, babe.” The Prince spoke casually, but his eyes were bright.

It was delightful to see Lucifer stiffen as soon as he realized what his companion referred to. One of the best about the short King was how easy he was to tease, if you asked the Embodiment of Lust himself.

“Didn’t know you were finally getting out there, Louie.” Ozzie teased. “Were you gonna keep it a secret? Even from me?”

“Oh n— out there? Me?! Ha! No!” Lucifer shook his hand fiercely. “I’m not — it’s not like that! We’re not dating! I mean, some might see it like that but a lot of others wouldn’t! She wouldn’t… probably! It’s, ya see, actually — I — ahem, ah…”

His embarrassment grew into something stranger, more conflicted and melancholy. The teasing smirk on Asmodeus’s face flattened.

“It’s complicated.” He finished, looking down at his phone as if it were the sole reason for his sudden misery.

Ozzie wasn't soft on many (in fact he’d argue that being hard was his speciality) but his brother was one of the few.

The much larger Sin rested a hand against Lucifer’s back. “You wanna talk about it?”

—

The days that followed blurred together, monotony of aches and pains broken only by an insatiable libido. It was as if the promise of sex after this, however unfulfilling it might be, was the only thing keeping you alive.

Lucifer’s bizarre consideration held up over that time, surprising you enough that when it was time to give him a ring, you weren’t as dread-filled as you could’ve been.

He did, however, arrive in your home via furnace suspiciously quickly upon making contact with you again. His normally pristine suit and and impeccably coiffed hair were ruffled and singed, like he’d made a mad dash to get to you.

“Hell-Oh!” Lucifer had practically squeaked as you dragged him out by the lapels.

You’re so pent up that it’s hardly a surprise when you find yourself sitting on his lap, having manhandled the short King onto your couch.

His cold, smooth skin was still alien, but you powered through the initial aversion to chase after that zing that came with kissing him. It was addictive, even with the fear of being cut by his sharp teeth in the back of your mind.

Despite yourself, you took a second to break away and breathe.

Beneath you, Lucifer was positively flushed. His shiny, wet lips were parted in wordless awe, and eyes glazed over in his daze.

“Fuck.” He croaked.

You smirked, gripping onto the blond hair that had already been mussed and abused by overeager hands. Pointedly, you slid back and forth on his trembling lap. There was no way to ignore the hardness at his inner thigh.

—

The first drag of his cock against your walls made you shudder, arching as your head fell back.

Lucifer whined in his seat, claws digging into the plush of your thighs. The pain heightened the feeling of being stabbed twice, making your lower belly tremble.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fffffff —” His cries were so good, you couldn’t stop from grinding down onto him. “You feel so good. So. Good. You’re gonna kill me, sweetheart. I can't.”

“That’s ok.” You slurred, hands coming up to wrap loosely around his neck. “We can work on that.”

Lucifer opened his mouth, but you were already planting kisses against the corner of lips mouth, his cherry-spotted cheeks, the line of his jaw and the pulse beneath his ear.

—

Your hands were focused on exploring the planes of Lucifer’s chest and shoulders. He wasn’t muscular — or tall, obviously, but the lithe body intertwined with yours was more than easy on the eyes.

“You can touch.” It was hardly fair that yours were the only hands busy. The ruler of Hell was flat beneath you, artificial light from your bedroom lamp casting shadows on his marble chest.

Lucifer’s mulberry-dappled lids remained low, highlighting the yellow glow of his eyes. His claws slid up your hips, reverently tracing your frame as you bounced lightly.

“If you insist, princess.”

He was more coy after the first few rounds, an easier grin sliding across his face. The trembling touches against your breasts spoke of the still-nervous creature you’d first been introduced to.

—

Daylight was waning again when you found knelt, back pressed against Lucifer’s chest. He fucked into you wildly, teeth pressed into your bare shoulder.

The thought of him biting into you didn’t sound so frightful anymore. In fact the image set butterflies off in your stomach.

That and the way he held you close, wrapped vice-like around you like a boa constrictor.

“No baby, don’t go yet!” When you squirmed, Lucifer nuzzled into the side of your neck, breathing heavy. “Just like this. Please, baby.”

He pleaded into your neck, grip tightening to where you couldn’t breathe.

—

“Here.” You guided his hand, settling it between your legs.

Lucifer’s thrusts had grown shallow and uneven, but hadn’t quite stopped. He seemed entranced, watching as you positioned his thumb over the bundle of nerves just above where you two were joined.

“Gently. Watch your claws.” You murmured along with your hands-on teaching.

When you felt he’d gotten the message, you sighed and concentrated on the circular motion against your clit. Lucifer remained attentive, moving clockwise as the pace he’d started before picked up again.

In moments you tensed, pleasure sparking along your pubic bone. It built up as your eyes closed, head tipped back as you let yourself enjoy the pressure both inside and out. Your hips jerked upward of their own accord, core trembling and cunt spasming.

Your partner whimpered at the new intensity, which only egged you on. Before you knew it, you two were rocking into a chaotic rhythm.

With slit eyes, you saw Lucifer looking down at you, flustered yet rapt over your every little response.

“Yeah?” He asked breathlessly.

You nodded. “Mm-hm.”

It was difficult. You could feel the tension in your belly contracting, the heat and pressure building against your clit. The feeling was mounting to where you couldn’t help your keens, your moans, your whimpers.

It ended with a choked sigh. You arched from the bed, head falling back as you let your legs tremble and shake around him. The convulsions pulled the Devil in deeper, and the feel of him was enough to make your eyes roll back in your skull beneath fluttering eyelids. Another gush came at the thought of being so full you could feel it in your stomach.

Lucifer watched. His face was nearly as red as the apple that adorned his hat, knocked off of your bedside table. He had the expression of someone seeing a falling star for the first time. Stunned, eyes gleaming, unable to comprehend something despite how beautiful it was.

The former Angel lowered himself to capture your mouth with his own. He pressed luxuriant kisses to your lips, all while his hips stuttered between your thighs until he was humping into you, refusing to separate skin from skin.

His release was coupled with a heated groan, muffled by the slide of your tongue against his. You were glowing inside out, warmth blooming in your core as you held onto Lucifer tightly.

—

The woman had invited you up into her tree. It was a different tree from the last, not bearing any fruit but lush with green needles and strong boughs that wouldn’t break.

She looks over her shoulder at you cheekily. “Aren’t you glad you decided to join me?”

You playfully scoff and roll your eyes. “You don’t need to be so smug about it.”

“Oh I think I do.” The blonde tilted in your direction, arms coming to wrap around you. “I won.”

You stay that way, watching the nettles shake in the passing breeze.

“Everyone loves a winner.” She says at your side.

You frown. “I love you no matter what.”

The woman sighs.

“You might not always.”

—

Light humming woke you from your doze, along with the repeated motion of something against your cheek.

It wasn’t until you’d opened your eyes that you realized it was Lucifer humming and caressing your cheek tenderly. He was nose(less) to nose with you, seemingly admiring your face slackened with sleep.

“What’s that from?” You rasped.

“Hmm?” The King stroked an errant hair behind your ear.

“It’s a movie.” You continued, repeating the notes in your head. “Right? It’s from a musical…”

“You like musicals?” Lucifer asked, seemingly surprised. Fangs poked out of his close-lipped smile, and he looked goofier than ever before.

You copied him, helpless to how silly he made everything. “What’s not to like?”

The lightbulb went off. “Oh! Cabaret. That’s where it’s from.”

“Yeah!” Lucifer moved even closer, the flat of his face pressing against your nose as he nuzzled you for guessing the right answer. “It’s kinda old, isn’t it? How’d you guess?”

“Psh, you think my threshold for pop culture is only as long as the last ten years?” You teased, arm skating down his side so that you could pinch his behind.

“Hey!”

***

Tag List: @crescent-z, @for-hearthand-home, @undertale-is-sansational, @loslox, @navierkalani, @yaimlight, @ivoryviness, @crystalplays28, @flowerempress, @wally-darling-hyperfixation, @altruisticradiodemon, @moonlight-readings, @halparkebitch, @charliecharlie65, @sockgoblin, @cocomollo, @caniseethefourthsword, @squeegeeclean, @crow-twink, @an-emovision, @marydragneell, @lafy-taffy, @fandom-imagines1, @loquacious-libra, @glowymxxn, @avadakadabra93, @froggybich, @hamthepan,

Please let me know I missed tagging you!

#hazbin hotel lucifer #hazbin hotel x reader #lucifer x reader #lucifer morningstar

575 notes · View notes

puppy-steve · 6 months

Text

i keep thinking about that one bachelor au post so here's my take on it (i've never watched the bachelor or bachelorette so bear with me)

the bachelor au where steve's the bachelor and eddie is a contestant, but not because he actually wants to be, he's just in it for the paycheck. robin is also a contestant but only because her parents sent in her application without her knowing and she isn't out to them yet.

they both think that steve is overrated and definitely over hyped. typical rich kid with enough money to buy people's love, yada yada.

until they both start going on dates with him and then realize that it isn't exactly true. yes, he's rich, but he's also kind and funny and actually genuine once you get past the mask he puts on for everybody. eventually, eddie and robin find themselves looking forward to their dates.

only robin doesn't want to date him. he's slowly moving his way up the ranks to becoming her best friend, sure, but this is still tv. she's still expected to kiss him and confess her feelings for him. and when the time comes for her to do that, she can't.

they're in venice. steve is leaning in and robin is very aware of the cameras filming them. the back of her neck goes cold and her stomach churns and suddenly she's running in the opposite direction. her italian is passable so she ends up getting a taxi back to the hotel production put them in.

she locks herself in her en suite and presses her forehead against the cold porcelain. she doesn't know how long she sits there until her phone buzzes and she checks the notification. the nausea rises up her throat again. she forgot she gave steve her number.

there's a knock on her room door and another text.

r u ok? can i come in?

robin debates it but figures she owes him and explanation. she lets him in and they sit on the bathroom floor. robin tells him why she's on the show in the first place, about how she didn't know her parents signed her up until she got the phone call from the casting director. tells him that even if she gets kicked off, she can still use the money for her student loans.

she stares at the water in the toilet bowl when she comes out to him.

steve is quiet, processing, before he laughs. he's not laughing at her, he promises, but "robin. you're on a show with more than a handful of other queers, you know that, right? i'm bisexual."

and yeah, robin knew that, but it's different when you're not into the guy you're supposed to be romancing at all.

steve reassures her that it's okay, and that he still hopes they can be friends and keep in touch after the show ends.

robin would like that.

she apologizes to the production crew the next day and they're understanding and steve and robin get a re-do of their date. it's much more genuine this time, filled with laughs and digs as they eat gelato along the river and people watch and gossip.

it's the best robin's ever been on.

eddie, on the other hand. he's absolutely head over heels for steve, which is surprising even for him. he's trailer park trash, he's got absolutely nothing on steve harrington. not the name, not the money.

hell, the very first day, he insulted the guy's food choices right to his face without knowing it.

eddie wants the earth to give way underneath him and swallow him whole.

he plays it up on their first date, all fake niceties and empty smiles, until steve tells him point blank, "the guy that said the buffet was shit that first night? i want to get to know him."

eddie's flabbergasted.

steve opens up about all the fake people in his life, the ones who just take advantage of them and use him for their own gains. the ones who don't even bother to get to know the real him. the one that likes to play guitar and hang out with the gaggle of teenagers that follow him around all the time for some unknown reason.

he tells eddie about what he wants to do with his life, not what someone else has planned for him and eddie falls deeper and deeper.

this time, when steve leans in for a kiss, eddie doesn't shy away. their lips press together and it's the best goddamn kiss either one of them have ever had.

the show has a deadline, of course, and steve can't just spend all his time with eddie and robin. there are other contestants. robin knows her rose is strictly platonic and steve has already called her multiple times freaking out about his growing crush on eddie. she knows eddie has this in the bag.

the final night comes and the contestants have dwindled. there's only a small group of them left: eddie, robin, and another guy and girl they didn't bother learning the names of.

when steve chooses eddie after a moment of dramatic silence that kind of puts his own dm dramatics to shame, eddie doesn't hesitate to jump in steve's arms, wrap his legs around his waist, and plant a sloppy one on him right in front of the cameras.

#cj talks #something something steve goes on a tv show to find romance and ends up finding his romantic and platonic soulmates #steddie #steddie fic #cj writes #i liked being your schmuck #platonic stobin #the three muskequeers

899 notes · View notes

apollodeath · 6 months

Text

Come over.

Summary: you and König have been FWB for a while and he’s back from a 6 month deployment and he wants you over. Now.

A/N: I made this in 2 hours and did not re-read… so, there’s probably mess ups. I apologize. I just wanted to post/write something smut filled. I can’t get König off my mind. So I wanted to just cave and write a one shot of him. Also written to the song “inside friend” by Leon Bridges ft. John Mayer.

MDNI 18+

Warnings/content warnings: size kink, unprotected sex, dirty talk, mentions of wounds/scars from battle. Reader is referred to as You, love and Maus but mentions of pussy and breasts. If I forgot anything I’m so sorry.

Reader = purple

König = green

— ⋆ ⋆ ¤⋆ ⋆—

You sat at work bored scrolling on your phone. Since it was so cold out your shop didn’t get many customers. A text pops up and your eyes flicker to it then back taking a double take.

Your notification reads:

[König 💦]

A text from him surprised you cause last time you heard from him was 6 months ago. When he went on deployment. He was predictable and persistent which is why you liked being his… friend with benefits. His inside friend.

You feel your body heat up when you read his text.

[König 💦]

— hey. you think you could come over?

— I’m back.

You smirk at your phone texting back with the feeling of eagerness building. You hate to admit after König left you kinda just stuck to yourself not really interested in a partner or hooking up. Your hands could satisfy you, not as great as König but they worked.

[König 💦]

— hey. you think you could come over?

— I’m back.

— Hey yeah I can. Same time as before?

You placed your phone away once customers came in.

Time passed slowly now that you had König on your mind. The last time you saw him he was was slow and patient, taking his time to engulf you in his body, to devour slowly, he was moving so slow then, it felt like it took days for him to actually push into you.

You sit on your chair behind the counter feeling your pussy pulse to the thought.

He was fresh out of the shower and he started by simply kissing you. You went home around 5am that day and he went to the airport around the same time. You remember thinking you’d really miss him if he didn’t come back.

A buzz on your phone makes you check and knock your memories away.

[König 💦]

— I’m back.

— Hey yeah I can. Same time as before?

— of course. 7pm.

You go to text back when another text comes in.

[König 💦]

— Hey yeah I can. Same time as before?

— of course. 7pm.

— if you can come more soon faster. that would be best. I need you.

His texts were sometimes out of place. He didn’t know English well enough to text but in person he knows enough. Still his words ‘I need you.’ Literally made you a puddle in your seat.

You look at the time and it reads [3:37pm] you begin to think:

If no one shows up and it hits 4pm you were closing the shop and heading over.the perks of being your own boss. For the first time since opening your own shop you beg the world at this moment that no one comes in.

The world grants your wish and you rush to close up once your clock shows the correct time. You grab your jacket rushing home to shower.

Once you get back on the road to König’s apartment you feel your nervous energy turning to desire and hotness.

You text him:

[König 💦]

— of course. 7pm.

— if you can come more soon faster. that would be best. I need you.

— Omw. I need you too.

You flirt back and smile hearing your phone go off seconds after hitting send.

[König 💦]

— if you can come more soon faster. that would be best. I need you.

— Omw. I need you too.

— god. I’m already getting hard.

You smirk and text back while you’re stopped at a red light.

[König 💦]

best. I need you.

— Omw. I need you too.

—god. I’m already getting hard.

— Aww. I wanted you to get hard in my mouth.

You teased and started driving once again hearing your phone buzz a few times as you pulled up outside the apartment building.

[König 💦]

— god. I’m already getting hard.

— Aww. I wanted you to get hard in my mouth.

— Scheiße

— fuck*

You bit your bottom lip knowing he craved you the way you craved him. You get out of the car and go up to his apartment on the 5th floor. You breath in and out before knocking. You’re surprised at how fast he was to swing open the door. It’s like he was waiting by it. You laugh a little.

“Come in mein süßer Freund” he’s wearing some of his gear-like clothes. His sniper hood on, of course. It’s what peaked your interest when you fist met König in a library one day.

You walk in while König closes the door behind you, slowly looking around you see unpacked luggage by the couch.

“I hope it’s not to warm in here.” His voice makes you turn to look at him, you can tell he’s a little nervous like he used to be when you first met him; his eyes trace you like a feral dogs just smelt another dog in heat.

“It’s been awhile…” you spoke softly trying to break the tension.

“Can we skip that part?” he spoke just as gentle but more his bedroom voice. You knew the difference all too well. You nod in agreement stripping your sweater off exposing your chest to him.

“Welcome home?” You say with a soft blush spreading over your cheeks and chest. König’s apartment was heated perfectly for the winter outside but yet your body still had chills making your nipples rise.

He takes no time walking up to you lifting his hood over his lips locking his with yours, quickly grabbing your chest in both his hands kneading them placing your nipples between his fingers knuckles every knead slightly pitching them.

He was so sloppy and needy with his kisses, his hand movements were almost painful with how needy he is. You didn’t realise your own neediness until now. He made you whimper from these touches. He then wrapped his hands around your waist, pulling you against his hips; through your leggings/sweater you felt his hard cock pressing against your tummy. His height was so dramatic his cock was above your waist it made you smirk and let a little giggle out.

König stopped the kissing to look at you.

“What meine liebe?” He asked slowly unzipping his pants.

“I think I forgot how tall you were.” You giggle a little again. König chuckles.

“I think I forgot how small you were, Maus”

You blush looking away then glancing at his bedroom down the hallway.

“I’ll take you there.” He reached over grabbing you and picking you up over his shoulder like a cave man had just gotten a fresh kill. It made you laugh.

“I think I also forgot how strong you are” you added as a joke. Saying all these ‘I think I forgot’s made him laugh. König placed you on your back on the tall, large bed. When you first came over to his apartment you realized that his bed came off the ground higher than most beds, when you sat on the edge your feet didn’t touch the ground. König looked at you from his standing position at the edge, he stripped his pants down along with his underwear then pulling his shirt off. You laid on your back just watching him. Admiring him. His cock stood curved at attention. He had a new scar you noticed; it was healed but fresher than the others. It looked like a jagged…maybe a bullet wound? On his upper chest almost shoulder. König noticed and shook his head.

“Don’t ask.” He grabbed your ankles pulling you closer to the edge of the bed. You nodded in agreement.

König took your leggings and panties in his hands pulling them down.

“Lift.” He said softly and you lifted your hips helping him pull them off. He breathed in and out taking you in, fully nude, laying on your back with your legs bent exposing yourself to him.

You felt yourself already leaking with excitement. It was the drive that felt like foreplay. He takes his cock in one hand placing the other on your mound placing his thumb softly on your clit swiveling it. His breath is heavy already just at seeing your body’s reactions to his thumb rubbing over your sensitive clit, lifting your hips to his touch, your legs spread more ready to take him whole. He guides his cock into you pushing in just quick enough to stretch you with a slight sting, it’s instantly replaced with pleasure making your head fall back into the bed. He glides in so easy your velvety, wet, warm pussy is sucking him in.

“I think I forgot how wet you get.” He stated through gritted teeth his voice dipped in pleasure. He tried to joke but the moment was all too serious to remember to try and sound like he was joking. He felt his stress melt off his shoulders as his cock twitches in you.

König starts thrusting short, hard patterns only taking his cock out 2 inches at most leaving the leftover 5 inches as he ruts his hips against yours.

His hands grab your hips tightly and you bite your lip hard feeling immense pleasure from this, his cock’s curve is just right to rub on the inside making you moan out his name and anything else that’ll come out.

König is whimpering/grunting at each thrust. His back is curled in. His face is above yours. You take this opportunity to reach out to his face mask suddenly he stops and his hand is around your wrist tightly.

“Don’t.”

“I just wanted.. another kiss…” you try catching your breath from everything. He slightly put fear in you but you understood his own fear of his mask coming off.

He nodded understanding now, he let your wrist go and picked you up pushing you to the center of the bed and crawled on, never disconnecting you two.

König leaned down lifting his mask up placing his hot mouth on yours, kissing you deeply and slipping his tongue in guiding your own tongue around his. He began moving his hips again at a slow pace softly gaining speed. You wrapped your legs around his waist pushing him in deeper and he broke the kiss to place his head between your neck and shoulder to then wrap his arms around you and got a steady position to start jack hammering in you. The bed began to thump the wall and the sound of moans and wet, warm skin colliding over and over filled the room. König’s hot breath on your neck felt like fire in the best ways possible. You arched your back feeling yourself building your climax.

“Tell me… M-Maus did you fantasize about me.” He asked through thrusts his voice shaky from his movements.

“Yes, I did!” You answered honestly on the brink of tears from how good the pleasure felt. How much you missed this. Missed him.

“Did you fuck anyone else?” He asked biting at your neck.

“No. No I-I knew know one could… oh god, fuck me like you.” You scratched at his back holding on to reality as best as you could.

“Good girl, good Maus.” He panted into your ear.

König places his hands once more on your hips steadying you to thrust in at a better angle.

Looking down for a minute watching your two bodies connect with the wet sloshing sound. His eyes are closed as he tries holding back his own orgasm. He looks up with half lidded eyes from under the mask and you can tell he’s just drunk off the feeling. His thrusts are becoming sloppy and twitchy as his legs are trying to lock in a flexed position.

“Cum for me.” You say softly with whimpers. His eyes roll back and head tilts back but he keeps going.

“I-i-…. I..” he can’t remember what the words are in English so he just shakes his head ‘no’

“Nein, ich möchte es noch nicht. Ich will dich mehr ficken” he grunts out even tho you don’t know any German somehow you knew what he wanted.

Translation: No, I don't want it yet. I want to fuck you more

König slows his thrusts to a soft pace sitting up on his knees more. He grabs you pulling you up to sit on his lap. You hiss at the sharp new angle of his cock piercing you. He reads your expression and lift you up slightly and starts to rut his hips up into you. You throw your arms over his shoulders and pull him in as you arch your back making your chest squeeze against him. König takes his arm and latches it around your waist to help lift you up and down his length like his own personal fuck toy; taking his other hand and placing it in your hair softly tugging not to hard just something to grab.

“Just like that” he breaths out.

“I’m gonna cum” you whimper out feeling yourself leaking slowly on to his lap. König can feel your warm liquid trailing down his balls and lap.

“Cum f’me Maus bitte, bitte please cum, cum bitte” he’s begging to feel you pulse on his hard cock. His words alone are enough to make you orgasm, you cling to him as your body shakes and your walls tighten around him. König can feel every squeeze of your walls milking his hard cock, it takes strength not to cum right away but he’s losing the battle.

König grabs your hips and pushes you all the way down his length to sit at his base. Your orgasm made you make a mess on him and the bed underneath. König felt just how feral that made him as he gripped you tighter and starts filling you with his own cum. You look at him and his eyes are shut tight and his grip on you is so tight you swear you can feel both of your heart beats in your body. You whimper some more feeling him inside twitch and pour stream in you.

“That’s it… that’s it König.. cum for me” he opens his eyes catching his breath, nodding yes.

“That-that felt um, uh…” he smiles and shakes his head laughing slightly “uh great? Good? Very good.” He chuckles you nod laughing a little yourself.

He slowly helps you raise off of him and lay back feeling your legs still weak and shaky. He crawls to your side flopping on the bed still catching his breath. You let your eyes close just soaking in the feeling. You feel him roll over then back onto his back.

“It’s only seven thirty…” he whispers. You look over to him and König has his eyes set on you.

“I have all night.” You state.

“I have until next week Tuesday.” He says teasingly. You giggle at him.

“Are you saying you want to cum again?” You tease rolling to your side taking your hand and placing it on his hot chest.

“And again and again…” he adds with a smirk you can hear on his lips. He’s always been a 2 rounds kind of guy. Rarely a 3 rounder.

“Take what you want.” you whisper trailing your hand down his body König stopping you at his waist.

“You said you wanted to feel me get hard in your mouth…”

— ⋆ ⋆ ¤⋆ ⋆—

a/n: I hope it’s good. Sorry about the ending just fading out I had no idea how to end this. I loved writing about König messing up English lol I hope the text portion wasn’t to confusing. Sorry for any typos again.

922 notes · View notes

7ndipity · 4 months

Text

False Pretenses

fwb!Jungkook x Reader

Summary: Just how fair does the ‘benefits’ aspect between Friends with Benefits actually extend? Based on this meme.

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: crack to fluff, suggestive moments and ending, swearing, Jk has side by side washer/dryer units cause it’s funnier, reader’s referred to as ‘Ma’am’, not proofread

A/N: Thanks to the lovely anon who requested this! Sorry it took me soo long to get to, I hope you’ll still like it tho! (I’ll also be posting a couple more pieces with this pairing in the next couple weeks, so keep your eyes peeled if you liked this)

Masterlist

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

It was the type of text you had gotten more than used to receiving from him over the past few months, smirking down at your phone as you waited for the elevator in his building.

“Need you so bad rn. Come over?❤”

The heart was a new addition, he must be feeling particularly needy today, you thought to yourself as the elevator doors finally opened.

Since the two of you had established this new part of your friendship, it was rare for you to go more than four or five days without receiving some variation of the same short message from him.

You were still slightly surprised by his text, seeing as you had only been over the night before, but you weren’t complaining by any means. Though you may have enjoyed pretending that Jungkook was the needier one in your arrangement, if you were completely honest, you were just as affected by him, finding yourself missing him on the nights you didn’t spend together.

When he opened the door, you noticed he looked a little more disheveled than usual, his hair sticking up all over the place, as if he’d been running his hands through it, a habit you knew he did when he was stressed.

“You got here fast.” He noted, letting you into the apartment.

“Well, your text made it sound kinda urgent, didn’t want to leave you waiting too long.” You said, wandering through into the living room, slowing to a stop as you caught sight of the chaotic state of the space, cleaning supplies and laundry scattered around, furniture moved all out of place.

“What happened in here?” You asked, turning back to Jungkook, who was now avoiding your eyes. “Koo?”

“I lied, I didn’t want sex.” He said guiltily, looking up at you. “I need you to help me clean.”

“I-, what?” You blinked at him, unsure if you heard him correctly.

He slumped back against the counter, looking stressed as he ran his hand through his hair again. ”My parents decided to surprise me by announcing they’re coming to visit tomorrow, but I’ve done nothing but sleep since I got home from tour last week, so the house is a fucking mess and everything’s a disaster and I need help, please.” He pleaded, staring at you.

You immediately began pulling your coat back on, turning back towards the door. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Y/n, please!” He quickly followed after you, catching your sleeve. “I’ll do anything you want! I’ll buy you dinner, I’ll rub your back, I’ll even let you pick what we watch for a month!”

You paused, turning to look back at him with a raised brow. “Even if I want to re-watch ‘Our Beloved Summer’ for a third time?”

He bit lip, trying to fight back a pained grimace before nodding slowly. “Whatever you want.”

You stared at him for a long moment.

“Fine.” You said reluctantly, caving as you saw the genuine desperation in his eyes. You could never say no to him.

“Thank you!” He sang, catching you in a tight hug and spinning you around in a circle. “I promise I’ll make it up to you!”

“Yeah, whatever,” You grumbled as he set you back on your feet. “Where do we start?”

“Laundry room?” He offered. “It’s mostly done, I just need to vacuum behind the machines.”

Do you really think your mom’s gonna look back there?” You raised a brow, following him down the hall.

“She’s very thorough.” He said seriously.

“Fair enough.” You shrugged. “I don’t quite see why I’m necessary for this part though?”

“I was afraid if I tried to clean back there by myself, I’d slip and get stuck or die.”

“So you want me to slip and die behind your washer instead?” You shot him an accusatory look.

“No! I’ll hold onto you and keep you safe,” He smiled reassuringly. “You know, like the buddy system.”

“I thought the buddy system was for camping so you didn’t get lost or eaten by bears?”

“It’s a multi-purpose system!” He said, his earlier agitation starting to flare up again at your teasing. “Are you gonna help me or not?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it, pass me the vacuum.” You relented, boosting yourself up on top of the dryer.

He held onto your hips to keep you balanced as you cleaned, his mind beginning to wander as he stared at your ass, his fingers starting to slowly knead your flesh absent-mindedly.

“Koo.” You warned, shooting him a quick look.

“Right, sorry.” He snapped back to attention, ceasing his movements and focusing back on the task at hand.

You finished up quickly, passing the vacuum attachment back to him and letting him help you down.

“Thank you.” He said.

“You’re welcome.” You answered, looking around expectantly. “What’s next?”

The apartment wasn’t nearly as bad of a mess as he claimed it to be, but it still took both of you several hours of work to get everything back in order, finishing off with laundry and changing all the bedding.

“Why are these sticky?!” You asked, mildly horrified as you helped him strip the sheets off his bed.

“Relax, it’s just caramel sauce.” He said.

You looked up at him confused. “We didn’t use-?”

“No no, that was just me,” He explained quickly. “I had ice cream last night.”

“Without me?!” You said, clutching your chest in feign hurt, making him roll his eyes as he let out a huff of laughter.

“I’ll add that to the list of things I need to make up for, okay?” He said.

“Eh, it’s better than where my mind went.” You said, only half joking as you grabbed the fresh sheets from him and turned back to the bed. “Almost thought you were fucking around behind my back for a second there.”

Facing away from him, you missed the way his expression suddenly turned serious as he looked at you. “I would never.”

It was strange, despite the supposedly ‘casual’ nature of your arrangement, you both found yourselves making little comments like that, words and exchanges that sounded a lot more like things said between a committed couple, rather than just two friends helping each other out till you found something more serious.

“Alright, I think that’s everything.” You said, snapping him out of his thoughts. You had finished making up the bed, even turning down the covers for him.

“Thank you, y/n.” He said gratefully. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

“Probably called Hobi.” You smirked, making him snort.

“Now, you promised me food, and if you lie to me twice in the same day, I’m dumping your ass.” You said, earning another laugh from him.

“Alright, whatever you want, just like I said.” He said, leaning down to give you a quick kiss.

“Although, if you wanted, I could make up for my false pretenses from earlier in a different way?” He offered, eyes darkening slightly as his hands drifted over your hips

You lightly shoved his hands away. “Not a chance, Loverboy, I’m way too tired now. You’ll have to try and ‘make it up to me’ some other time.”

“How about tomorrow?” He said, eyes twinkling mischievously, looping his arms around your waist instead to keep you close.

“I thought your parents were coming over tomorrow?” You reminded, raising a brow at him.

“You could come over after.” He suggested. “Hell, you could even come to dinner with us, my parents like getting to meet my friends.”

“Friends?” You looked up at him skeptically.

“Yeah, what?” He laughed, squeezing you lightly.

“Do you let your other friends suck your di-?”

“They don’t need to know the details of our relationship!” He said quickly, his face flushing slightly, making you snicker. “You’re still my friend, one of my best friends actually.” He added, in a soft tone.

The way he said it made your heart twist in a weird way, though you didn’t quite understand why.

“So?” He asked, staring down at you hopefully. “Will you come?”

You chewed your lip, considering. It felt like a really big commitment to meet his family, regardless of what your relationship was, but you tell it would mean a lot to him if you said yes.

“I’ll think about it.” You said finally.

He beamed.

“Thank you!” He said, leaning in to kiss you again, his lips lingering longer this time, tracing over yours lightly, making you shiver.

You pressed closer to him, hooking your arms around his neck as you tilted your head to deepen the kiss, letting your tongue delve into his mouth as his hands grip on your waist tightened.

When you pulled back for air, his pupils were blown wide, eyes almost black as he stared down at you, breathing heavily.

“Take your shirt off.” You ordered, your breaths equally unsteady.

“But I thought you said-?”

“I changed my mind.” You cut him off, tugging at the fabric impatiently. “Shirt off, now.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Taglist: @sopebubbles-replies @btsw1fe @this-must-be-my-tardis @whitefoxgirl @bethanysnow @coffeedepressionsoup @main-bangtansmauyeondan @feminympho @a-gayish-unicorn

#jungkook imagine #jungkook scenarios #jungkook smut #jungkook oneshot #jungkook x y/n #jungkook x reader #jungkook drabble #jungkook fluff #fwb!jungkook #bts drabble #bts one shot #bts x y/n #bts x reader #bts scenarios #bts fluff #bts requests #7ndipity

361 notes · View notes

samwinchesterism · 2 months

Text

in re: “cas knows dean better than sam”

“cas sees dean as a whole person and sam just sees dean’s façade as his big brother slash parent” but like how and where. outside of your fanfiction. season and episode. scene and line. if it’s so obvious and apparent you should have at least 3-5 concrete examples right? “sam doesn’t know dean carried him out of the burning house” yeah but did cas? outside of a footnote in the angelic manila folder they gave him between seasons 3 and 4 so he could better manipulate him and sam into doing heaven’s bidding? like if you’re going to say “cas knows dean better than sam” than you need to show how cas succeeds where you perceive sam to be failing at the very least. but even your perceptions of how sam doesn’t measure up are so warped, blinkered, and moronic that it wouldn’t even be worth much if you could provide the textual evidence, but at least you’d have a semblance of a point. like say anything without going “as an eldest daughter…” “well my relationship with my sibling isn’t…” please say anything without fucking projecting your own self-pitying crybaby bullshit onto your little woobie dean and using the actual canon text of the show. I’m literally begging you.

like the thing of it all is and always has been that you’re so hell-bent on twisting the sam and dean relationship to fit into this narrow and almost entirely inaccurate mold which is the basis upon which you build the entire Destiel Mythos that you literally lose all sense of media literacy. you don’t even miss the forest for the trees, you miss the trees for like, the pretend invisible things you’re seeing in between the trees, the forest is a whole long way away from your current level of perception. because the Destiel Mythos is based entirely on the fact that dean is Not Seen and Not Appreciated and Not Loved and Cannot Be Himself until cas comes along, and that Family (read: sam) Is Only A Burden on Him That He Must Be Freed From In Order to Flourish, so you keep trying to warp the sam relationship into something that is only one dimension of it – and keep ignoring the ways in which dean is seen, loved and understood within it, because you need to keep lying to yourselves that there is a narrative need to emancipate dean from something that he has never wanted emancipation from because it is ultimately a net good for dean in the particular circumstances of their lives. it’s also profoundly unhealthy, codependent, evil and toxic etc. (a lot more dean’s fault than sam’s but I will nawt be getting into all that right now) but that doesn’t change the fact that sam and dean both know and understand and feel deeply that they are each other’s person – that they know the best and love the most in the world. but that – which IS true canon fact – is incompatible with the Destiel Mythos so it must be ignored and all good sense must be thrown out the window in order to do it.

anyway i digress there are two main categories of Bad Thinking that i will be addressing below

childhood/ “parent/child” / blah blah blah

every single thing people are saying in favour of the deeply stupid thesis in the title of this post is proof positive of the very silly form of ‘analysis’ I just described. a few things:

“wah sam didn’t know that dean carried him out of the burning house :( this means that dean withholds things from sam to protect him because he is a PARENT and sam can only know things about him in the context of him being a PARENT to him” – what the fuck are you on about genuinely. first of all reducing the sam/dean relationship exclusively to parent/child is in itself foolishness for so many reasons that I don’t have time for right now. but also, it’s clear that this is just something that happened when sam was a baby that just never came up. in the scene (1.09) where this is brought up, dean is mildly surprised that he or john never mentioned that detail and then states that sam knows the rest of the story (i.e. the actual traumatic stuff) just as well as dean does – which is true, demonstrably whenever they talk about it.

obviously there are some things that happened to dean in their childhood that sam doesn’t know about (or didn’t know about, until told in whatever episode they come up in). equally, there are things dean doesn’t know about sam’s childhood, e.g. the fact that he was so lonely he needed a zanna (11.08). or how dean didn’t remember that sam was friends with barry cook until he mentions it when they go back to their old school (4.13). or about the nature of sam’s relationship with amy pond (7.03). these don’t mean that ‘sam withheld these things to protect dean out of parental love’ lol, it’s just that there are details and events in each of their lives that the other happens to not have been told about.

similarly “sam didn’t even know dean wanted to be a firefighter L” girl did dean know sam wanted to be a lawyer? in 1.01 he’s pretty surprised that sam has a law school interview. the point here isn’t “neither sam nor dean know each other well,” these are minutiae that aren’t relevant to how well you know someone as a whole, and very poorly demonstrate the bad and inaccurate point that dean withholds things from sam the way a parent does a child (on a constant or regular basis). obviously the way they were raised, sam was deemed too young to know about certain things until he got older and dean had to keep that secret, but as shown in 3.08 flashbacks, most if not all of this is eventually revealed throughout their childhood when sam is still fairly young.

or possibly the dumbest one is that “wah sam doesn’t even know that dean reads books L” whenever that was he was also obviously joking because in more serious moments (e.g. 8.14) he admits that dean is smart/a better researcher than he is, literally remembers dean reading to him as a kid (8.21) so like. clam down

one of the extra annoying variants of this type of ‘proof’ covers things that are very clearly novel pieces of information about dean that dean, sam, and the audience are learning about dean in real time. like if you’re actually watching the show to comprehend it as it was intended to be comprehended, instead of funnelling everything through the Destiel Machine until it’s unrecognizable slop that fits neatly into your pre-ordained molds that Make Destiel Necessary In the Narrative (when it actually isn’t, at all) it’s abundantly clear. the top two worst offenders:

“sam didn’t even know that dean is good with kids :( he doesn’t even realize that dean raised him :(” first of all you people need to understand that parentification does not literally create a parent-child dynamic between siblings but I digress – this doesn’t make any sense bro. in 1.03 dean admits he doesn’t know any kids as an adult. dean being good with his own kid brother when they were both kids is to any reasonable person not necessarily linked with him being good with other random kids when he’s an adult. in 1.03 it’s clear that dean himself is a bit surprised that he’s able to connect w/ lucas so well because he’s clearly not dealt with a lot of kids since sam grew up. the whole point of this is that dean, sam, and the audience are all sort of seeing a new side of dean. who again is just 26. after this very early episode, there’s no question from sam that dean is able to connect w kids. sam being a bit surprised by this also has absolutely zero connection with him not understanding or realizing that dean looked out for him when they were both kids – sam is standing there at 22 years of age talking about adult dean and children – of fucking course he doesn’t mean himself are you stupid.

from the very first season, sam is very clearly aware of everything dean ~did for him~ when they were kids, see e.g. 1.21: “Dean...ah...I wanna thank you. […] For everything. You've always had my back you know? Even when I couldn't count on anyone I could always count on you. And I don't know, I just wanted to let you know, just in case.”

and 1.06: DEAN: Well, I’m a freak, too. I’m right there with ya, all the way. (SAM laughs.) SAM: Yeah, I know you are.

and then possibly even more stupidly, the one where it’s like “wah sam doesn’t even know dean can cook :( he doesn’t even know that DEAN was the one making him food as a babe in arms :(” – when sam is surprised that dean made something fairly gourmet and from scratch literally the first time they have ever had a permanent living space with a functional kitchen. in this VERY scene (8.14), dean himself points out that they haven’t had a kitchen before and when sam remarks on the irregularity of him doing serious cooking, he says “I’m nesting”, clearly showing that this is a novel development because they now have a kitchen, and that it’s irregular relative to past behaviour – both of them acknowledge this. because real proper in-depth cooking and making box mac and cheese for sam until he was like 11 and old enough to be left alone are two different things, which sam understands because he’s smart, unlike whoever chooses to make this point. dean never showed significant signs of liking to cook before this, which is what the exchange is about, but he did have to prepare food for them both when sam was too young – of course sam knows he had to, there are childhood memories referred to (e.g. 14.11) where sam is mentioned to literally help dean do the cooking as kids lol (and yes, genius, sam says ‘I didn’t know you knew what a kitchen was’ or something to that effect, but if you think he’s being 100% literal there I have an oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you)

again, obviously there are pieces that sam doesn’t know about dean, e.g. when he’s talking about his response to mary dying in 1.03. but again, Sam is 22, dean is 26, the last time they were in regular contact was when sam was 18-20, these are things that happen when people grow up, they’re able to reflect and share on childhood experiences if they’re close with their siblings as adults. it’s clearly not something that 26 y/o dean wanted to hide from 22 y/o sam. yes sam didn’t know everything about how dean felt when they were young, but that’s equally true in the other direction, and it’s such an irrelevant point in this discussion when, crucially, sam does learn these things about dean mostly fairly early on in the series (i.e. when they’re really not that deep into adulthood yet). cas was also not magically blessed w/ knowledge about dean, he also had to learn whatever it is that he knows, but somehow sam has to know everything about dean from age 7 or it doesn’t count when it’s sam lol.

“sam doesn’t know the One True Dean / doesn’t see through his facades”

the next branch of defending this flawed thesis is invariably that sam has little idea of the fronts and facades that dean puts up and is content to just believe them, whereas cas digs deep and sees the One True Dean that stupid sam always misses. there is nothing in the text that demonstrates this is true. multiple times, we see sam being very knowing of the fact that dean puts up fronts and facades. sam is also knowledgeable of the way dean perceives himself, and – demonstrated in multiple episodes before such sam lines were very poorly recycled and regurgitated into cas’s dialogue in 15.18, but keep acting like that was the first time anyone ever showed that they knew the One True Dean.

Obviously there are times where sam teases dean when he’s being more touchy-feely than usual, but 9.99 times out of 10 (as a conservative estimate in case there's something i'm forgetting otherwise i would say every time) that’s very clearly coming from a place of knowing the real dean vs. the façade he puts up because that’s the whole joke. and it’s allowed to be a joke because they’re siblings and that’s what siblings do lol. esp since sam and dean have touchy feely moments at the end of like every episode.

examples of all of the above off the top of my head (there are more than these, but these are the ones I can think of):

2.02 (about John’s death)

Sam: “I mean this ‘strong silent’ thing of yours, it's crap. […] I'm over it. This isn't just anyone we're talking about, this is Dad. I know how you felt about the man.”

Dean: “You know what, back off, all right? Just because I'm not caring and sharing like you want me to.”

Sam: “No, no, no, that's not what this is about, Dean. I don't care how you deal with this. But you have to deal with it, man. Listen, I'm your brother, all right? I just want to make sure you're okay.”

2.03 (Sam to Dean, also about John’s death): “You know, you slap on this big fake smile but I can see right through it. Because I know how you feel, Dean. Dad's dead. And he left a hole, and it hurts so bad you can't take it, but you can't just fill up that hole with whoever you want to. It's an insult to his memory.”

Note that Dean essentially admits that Sam is right in these two instances in 2.04 bc I know yall have stupid shit to say about john too that has nothing to do with how anyone actually felt about him in canon

3.07 (about Dean’s demon deal – also proven true in later episodes)

SAM: Dude, drop the attitude, Dean. Quit turning everything into a punch line. And you know something else? Stop trying to act like you're not afraid.

DEAN: I'm not!

SAM: You're lying. And you may as well drop it 'cause I can see right through you.

DEAN: You got no idea what you're talking about.

SAM: Yeah, I do. You're scared, Dean. You're scared because your year is running out, and you're still going to Hell, and you're freaked.

DEAN: And how do you know that?

SAM: Because I know you! […] Yeah, I've been following you around my entire life! I mean, I've been looking up to you since I was four, Dean. Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother. So yeah, I know you. Better than anyone else in the entire world. And this is exactly how you act when you're terrified. And, I mean, I can't blame you. It's just […] I wish you would drop the show and be my brother again. 'Cause... (can't find words; tears in his eyes) just 'cause.

5.18 [Sam figures out what Dean is doing re: his plan to let Michael possess him, tracks him down, and eventually is the catalyst for Dean ‘making the right call’, which he predicts] – e.g.:

SAM: No, you won’t. When push shoves, you’ll make the right call

DEAN: You know, if tables were turned…I’d let you rot in here. Hell, I have let you rot in here.

SAM: Yeah, well…I guess I’m not that smart.

DEAN: I—I don’t get it. Sam, why are you doing this?

SAM: Because… you’re still my big brother.

8.14 (basically the o.g. version of whatever went on in 15.18 + sam intrinsically understanding the trials are a death wish for dean): “I'm closing the gates. It's a suicide mission for you. I want to slam hell shut, too, okay? But I want to survive it. I want to live, and so should you. You have friends up here, family. I mean, hell, you even got your own room now. You were right, okay? I see light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm sorry you don't – I am. But it's there. And if you come with me, I can take you to it. […] I AM smart, and so are you. You're not a grunt, Dean. You're a genius – when it comes to lore, to – you're the best damn hunter I have ever seen – better than me, better than dad. I believe in you, Dean. So, please – please believe in me, too.”

10.22 (understanding how much dean has ~done for him~)

SAM: I'm saving my brother.

CASTIEL: You told Dean—

SAM: —I know what I told Dean. Cas, look. I've been the one out there, messed up and scared. And alone. And Dean—

CASTIEL: He did whatever he could to save you.

SAM: Yes. I mean, it's become his thing. I owe him this. I owe him everything.

10.23 (basically the o.g. version of whatever went on in 15.18, x2 – from Sam to Dean): “You were also willing to summon death to make sure you could never do any more harm. You summoned me because you knew I would do anything to protect you. That's not evil, Dean. That's not an evil man. That is a good man crying to be heard, searching for... some other way. […] You will never, ever hear me say that you -- the real you -- is anything but good.”

11.13 (Sam understanding exactly how Dean feels about Amara being his ‘deepest desire’, and confirming that it doesn’t make him a bad person)

Dean: Why? Because if she is that means that I’m…

Sam: Means you’re what? Complicit? Weak? Evil?

Dean: For starters, yeah.

Sam: Dean. Do you honestly think you ever had a choice in the matter? She’s the sister of God, and for some reason she picked you and that sucks, but if you think I’m gonna blame you or judge you…I’m not.

Dean: You know that I want her ass dead.

Sam: Yes. Of course. And I know you’ve also probably beaten yourself up a hundred times over it, but where has that gotten us? (Long silence) Just how bad is it?

13.02 (Sam perfectly explaining Dean’s psyche to Jack)

JACK: Is that why Dean hates me?

SAM: Dean doesn’t hate you. It… Look, sometimes the wires in Dean’s head get crossed and—and he gets frustrated, and then he mixes frustration with anger, and—and fear.

JACK: Why would he be afraid?

SAM: Because Dean feels like it’s his job to protect everyone. And right now, we need to protect you. But we may also need to protect people from you.

14.03 [Sam assesses Dean’s psychological/emotional response to the Michael possession; end of episode, Dean confirms that Sam’s assessment was fully accurate]

14.10 [Sam is the only one able to snap Dean out of his weird Michael mind loop by using their code word]

14.11 [Sam figuring out that something is troubling Dean just based on the fact that Dean hugs him]

15.17 (self explanatory at this point)

DEAN: Chuck has to die. He has to! Otherwise he'll keep us tap dancing forever, and I can't live like that, man! I can't live like that! I won't!

SAM: I know you feel like that right now, okay. I know you do. But you gotta trust me. My entire life, you've protected me— from Dad, from Lucifer, from everything. I didn't always like it, you know, but... it's the one thing in the whole world that I could always count on. It's the only thing I've ever known that was true. So please... put the gun away. Just put it away, and we'll figure it out, Dean, we'll find another way, you and me. We always do.

like maybe there are some cas moments w dean along these lines too. i don't know, i don't remember what the guy says or does anymore it's been too many years and he is not memorable. but the point is where and in what capacity and based on what metric other than the amount of bad fanfic you've read does cas exceed sam in these respects.

so basically just. genuinely, what are you people literally ever talking about. go watch the show instead of saying stupid wrong stuff about sam on the hellsites all day. or watch another show (please for the love of god watch any other show this one is absolutely lost on you and it’s such a stupid one too i'm embarrassed for you)

#sorry i wasnt gonna be able to sleep otherwise my blood pressure got too high #sam winchester meta #sam winchester #anti destiel #sam and dean #whatever else my tags are #haven't done this in a minute #i'm sorry for being a cunty sam stan (tm) in this but have you considered we'd be nicer if you ppl were less dumb #this is not proofread it's not real meta

371 notes · View notes

melbatron5000 · 3 months

Text

Reality is . . . off

Here's me, screaming into the void. I've got no theory, only Clues.

Reality seems to be acting strangely in Season 2 of Good Omens. Mostly around Aziraphale. My examples:

This season seems to be from Aziraphale's point of view, and all the colors and lighting seem to be very bright and vibrant.

The note from Maggie -- another post on Tumblr (damned if I can find it now) pointed out that she puts her phone down right as Aziraphale comes into her shop for the first time. She seems to be texting him, but the text message arrives to his door as a note in the mail slot because that's how he expects to receive correspondences.

Changing the Bentley into Our Car -- and in the flashback to 1941 that happens after the trip to Edinburgh in the show, the Bently is still a four-door. He changed it and then made it so it always was that way. (There's a line in the book about someone being powerful enough to change something and then make it so it always was that way -- something that's repeated about the Book of Life, too. Hmm . . .) No wonder Crowley just opens up the back door to put his plants in, it's always had a back door at that point! And please don't @ me with the Bently is not a Clue -- the change happens right in scene, on screen. That was not a "they hoped no one would notice" moment. And yes, I know they weren't able to use Mary for the second season. They got a reasonable look-alike, and then changed that car into a four-door. For why??

The Bentley following him when he parks it. People have said, "Oh, yes, the Bentley is sentient, of course!" But it hasn't done anything to show that until after Aziraphale drives it. And don't @ me with the Queen -- the gag in the book says that any album left in a car for more than a fortnight transmogrifies into The Best of Queen. It's not the Bentley doing that, it's just a fact of Queen. (Can confirm.)

Aziraphale is terrible at magic. But somehow, when he really needs to make a trick work, he does it. Oh, yeah, babe? You just put that photo right up your sleeve slick as that? Hm.

That 25 Lazarii miracle. Neither of them expected that. Yet there it was.

The whole ball. He wasn't casting miracles, reality was just -- conforming itself to what he wanted.

Now my point is . . . I don't know. My observation is that reality seems to be following Aziraphale's wishes, and I don't think he even realizes that it shouldn't be. Not entirely. Or is it that he knows reality is re-shaping itself around him, and he's enjoying it?

Reality is not warping around Crowley in the same way, and Crowley seems to be able to feel something's wrong. Coming in waves, like a hangover.

Now, I have heard it said that Neil has also pointed out that our angel and demon warp reality just by existing. Okay, actually makes sense. How could an occult and celestial being not mess with reality without even realizing they're doing it?

Am I chewing on a nothing burger?

Is Aziraphale turned up somehow?

What is going on.

#good omens meta #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens fan theory #a half-baked idea #help I've fallen into a good omens theory and I can't get out

249 notes · View notes

jovial-thunder · 3 months

Text

Lancer Tactics devlog

I'm gonna try out posting my ~monthly devlog roundup here as well. These suckers are glorified changelogs with anecdotes and gifs galore. Let me know if this is something you like seeing show up on your dash?

Map Editor

Got units able to be placed/deleted/moved in the mission editor

Can paint/remove command zones in the editor

Can paint minecraft-like terrain blocks in the editor

Can paint/rotate multi-tile props in the editor

Can edit unit character sheets and portrait via the editor

3D maps

Did a bunch of art tests with 3D mech models, provided by GeneralChaos, which we ended up deciding not to go with to keep things simple.

To avoid the can of worms that is animation, we'd have to lean into a static "tabletop minatures" aesthetic which we decided is not a style we want to be stuck with. By sticking with 2D sprites, we avoid falling into a sort of uncanny valley; it's easier to get away with not animating a 2D sprite than it is for a 3D model.

We also experimented with 3D terrain. We decided to make a rule that the visual style for a piece of terrain should match its mechanical effect: obstructing terrain that you can't move through, such as rocks or buildings, will be in 3D, while non-obstructing terrain like trees will stick with 2D sprites.

Hooking up the 3D camera to follow events like movement and attacks did a LOT for making it starting to feel like it's cohering into an Actual Game™

Implemented cover! And an attack preview! Cover works by aiming a ray from the target to the originator (technically to and from each voxel of each, respectively, to handle size 2s shooting above size 1 cover) and tracking all the terrain blocks it hits (how we'll handle non-terrain hard cover TBD). I think I have it working according to Perijove's cover rules manual, but I'm sure there'll be edge cases to work out. This is a case where things are significantly simplified by working in squares instead of hexes; hexes have a lot more possible weird angles you have to deal with.

Re-added what I'm stubbornly calling Combat Popcorn; little bits of text that pop out when you use abilities and attacks.

UI & game screens

Added ability for the engine to show UI that's anchored to the game world via a little word bubble line but also stay on screen as the camera moves around.

Got word bubbles working; you can now write dialogue in the mission editor, hit playtest, and see it work in a mission! (it does actually translate correctly now; this gif is just from a bug I thought was funny)

Got ability effects mostly behaving appropriately again, including muzzle flashes. The easiest way to handle them ended up being NOT billboarding them so they always face the camera (like all other 2D sprites in the game); instead, I put them on a plane parallel with the ground and just spin them around the unit to point at wherever their target is.

Did some work ironing out our tooltip system. The standard in CRPGs these days is this kind of nested labyrinth of tooltops that you see in Baldur's Gate 3:

I Did Not Want to try and figure out how to wrangle that much UI, so we're instead opting to cap the nested tooltips at the second layer. You can lock a general tooltip for e.g. an action and then mouseover various items within that tooltip to get glossary definitions...

...and then instead of having those glossary tips be lockable/mouse-overable themselves, I collect all related terms to that glossary definition and let you tab through them.

Added skin overlay functionality to the portrait maker, enabling textures like scars, tattoos, stubble, and vitiligo to be applied to just the skin and not extend off into space.

Midway through writing this update, Carpenter sent me this gif of the randomization button working! There's a still a bunch of skintones/assets missing and a few are a bit janky, but it was exciting to start seeing the range of these lil freaks (affectionate) that this editor can create.

Mourning cloak license!

This is the one I'm probably most excited about: I did a bit of a content dive and implemented a basic character sheet + all Mourning Cloak traits and equipment. They don't have fancy graphics yet, but the weapons and systems can be added via the character sheet and used in-game.

It took a little under a day, including adding soon-to-be common mechanisms like bonus damage. This is great news in that it means the engine we've been building for so long in the abstract seems to do a great job in handling comprehensive actual game content, and that it looks like we've set ourselves up for success when it comes time to buckle down on churning that out.

I'm sure other licenses will come with unique difficulties (I fear the day it comes time to do the Mule Harness // Goblin CP) but I'm feeling good about it!

Vertical slice?

Taking a step back, the pressing question on my mind has been "when will we have a playable early access build?"

I was originally hoping for Feb/March, but what we've internally been referring to as the "3D cataclysm" has pushed everything back by at least three months, so the target for the first alpha build is now in May. So, ah, thanks for your patience! Seeing things come together, I've become more and more convinced that moving to 3D was the right call.

#lancer tactics #made with godot #godot 4 #indie game dev #game dev #lancer rpg #tactics rpg #indie dev #godot engine

279 notes · View notes

linkspooky · 3 months

Text

The Death of Kenjaku

So I was planning to write this meta the week that Kenjaku died, but decided to delay until we got full confirmation of his death. Something I didn't believe in even after Kenjaku passed the merger onto Sukuna. However, watching this video about death in Jujutsu Kaisen inspired me to finish this post. Not because I disagree with anything the YouTuber is saying, but because they can speculate on the meaning of so many deaths in Jujutsu Kaisen but can't find the meaning in Kenjaku's sudden death. This has led me to speculate why Gege made the choice to kill Kenjaku in the way that he did. What meaning is there in Kenjaku's abrupt and unsatisfying death?

Who is Kenjaku?

The first step in understanding Kenjaku's death is of course understanding how he lived. We actually know incredibly little about Kenjaku's character by design. Despite the fact he's literally in Geto's body, he's not meant to have sympathetic or human motivations to his actions (though hold onto that "human motivation" in your head for a moment). No flashback sequence shows the audience why this guy is the way he is, no single event seems to have driven him to do what he did.

This is what we know about Kenjaku in brief. He is a sorcerer who is over a thousand years old who was around in Sukuna's day. He once had a friendship with Tengen, but found her original self boring and unambitious. He also contrasts heavily with Tengen, who lives outside of humanity, because he has lived among humanity for 1,000 years. One of those lifetimes was Noritoshi Kamo who violated a woman and conducted heinous experiments. He produced ten children in his one thousand years, the nine death painting siblings and Yuji Itadori. He considers the first children boring, because human and curse hybrids turned out too normal.

He also partially blames himself for how boring they are, because he can't create anything that will exceed his expectations, the only thing that can exceed his expectations is born in chaos. He spent a thousand years organizing the culling games, and wants to use the games to create a merger, because he thinks creating a merger between Tengen and Humanity will create something entirely new and interesting. He also believes the way towards the future lies in further optimizing cursed energy, not in breaking away from it the way Yuki Tsukumo tried to do and Maki has.

The only people whose word we have on Kenjaku's motivations are Kenjaku himself, and Tengen's word and Tengen themselves who claims to not know what goes on in the human heart.

From all of the above Kenjaku seems to be a shallow character who's motivations can be summed up as "because I can" and "I want to see what happens." This shallowness is intentional however, as Gege who once praised the minimalist storytelling of Nasu and Evangelion likes to pick and choose what crumbs of backstory he gives out for his characters. We've never gotten any exposition on the Gojo clan, but we have an entire chapter about Takaba's failed career as a stand-up comic. This isn't a judgement of good or bad writing, this is just how Gege writes as minimalist as possible. This is in line with how Gege writes the ancient sorcerers as well, they are all much more shallow driven by instinct or Freudian Id (I desire) rather than the higher reasoning of modern-day sorcerers. Takaba uses comedy as a means of communication and bridging the gaps between people, Higuruma's backstory is the critique of the modern day justice system. Ishigori apparently lived a satisfying life where he was succesful and had good women, but that wasn't enough so he wants to get into a fight with Yuta to satisfy his hunger and feel like he's eaten desert.

It sounds shallow when I summarize it in text, but in the context of the fight with Yuta, it's a challenge for Yuta who for the most part only cares about his loved ones and sees the world through his love goggles to be more selfish and fight for his own desires. It's also reflective of a more basic and instinctual kind of thinking, as opposed to the higher reasoning and logic that modern-day sorcerers apply.

I'm keeping most of this first part to text for this reason, like go back and read the fight with Ishigori and Yuta. If I summarize Ishigori's character reasoning out of context it sounds stupid, but read the fight and it works because it's ID (I Desire) vs. Yuta's superego in not only having to collect points to help rescue Tsumiki, find a way to protect all the innocent people in the Culling Games, and also collect enough points to take on Kenjaku himself so Gojo won't have to. Meanwhile Ishigori's just fighting to get some of that sweet desert, the shallow works in contrast to the more layered motivations of our heroes.

Kenjaku is a shallow archetype fighting to satisfy his baser impulses (in his case curiosity) in comparison to the main characters who are fighting for more complicated reasons and often people besides themselves.

The question then becomes what archetype is Kenjaku. In that case answering who Kenjaku is is quite simple.

Kenjaku is a clown.

It might be more accurate to say that Kenjaku embodies what's commonly known as the "trickster archetype" but I'mma go with clown.

The most obvious example of a clown villain is what most consider the joker to be, that is a silly little clown man who challenges the straight faced and grim batman and sews chaos where Batman attempts to establish law and order in Gotham and make the city into a better place.

From the book Batman and Psychology:

More than any other villains, the Joker and Two-face reflect Batman himself as funhouse distortions, converses of who and what he is. The laughing, jesting, brightly colored Joker contrasts with grim, dark Batman. The Joker is the Joker. No alter ego. The film's opening bank robbery shows him wearing a clown mask over clown makeup, Under the surface there's only more Joker. He gives no history except inconsistent lies. When he finally considers the impact of his demand Batman unmask, he retracts the threat and demands that Batman's identity remain undisclosed. He wants a batman who has no other self, a Dark Knight whose only deeper layer is further darkness.

Is there a better descriptor for Kenjaku then these words?

Kenjaku is Kenjaku. No alter ego. A clown mask over clown makeup., Under the surface there's only more Kenjaku.

In other words, what you see is what you get.

Kenjaku even mirrors Joker's opinion of Batman, he thinks people should be more like him, not the other way around. He's not the outlier, he's being true to humanity's basic impulses of curiousity and discovery.

A more apt comparison as a clown though would probably be Loki, one of the most classic examples of clowning in the shared mythology of humanity. The character who challenges the common wisdom of gods like Odin who suspended themselves from the world tree for eleven days in order to gain wisdom. Loki, who through his trickery manages to bring about the events of Ragnarok for no deeper reason than because he can. Everyone swore not to harm Balder and Loki goes to find something that can harm him because BET.

Mythological Loki doesn't need a deeper motivation because what he represents in the mythology is someone who challenges authority and brings about a change, because in Norse Mythology nothing lasts forever and no era is permanent. Jujutsu Kaisen is also a story about how things should not in fact stay the same and tradition is bad sometimes.

When Kenjaku finds Tengen's true body he's curled up in a tree root in the fetal position, and he killed what is basically the all-knowing, all-seeing supposedly immortal sorcerer that maintains the status quo of japan, it's not exactly subtle.

Kenjaku is a clown, and clown's gotta clown. We don't need any more explanation that, it's more about what he does for the story. However, what he represents, the deep intellectual curiosity, and also a drive to disrupt the status quo in an attempt to see something more interesting can also be analyzed more deeply because they are human emotions that motivate us as well. The same way that Mahito is an inhuman monster, but he's created and motivated by the fear of other humans, something all of us have. '

Before moving onto his death though, I wanna hammer in how Kenjaku really is just motivated by these two things, a desire to see something interesting, and intellectual curiosity by comparing him to other characters.

The Clown in Fiction

I've already compared Kenjaku to Loki and the Joker, but when it comes to someone who wants to disrupt the entire order of the world simply because they're bored we've got to go to the original girlboss.

So there are plenty of villains who go "I'm evil because I'm bored" but they usually tend to be pretty shallow, either shallowly written for the lulz evil characters who just exist for shock value or just kinda dull. No one has ever done it as good as Junko Enoshima and no one ever will again.

For those who need context DanganRonpa is a death game series where the main villain basically has caused the apocalypse, wiped out most of humanity, and then induces survivors in a bunker to kill each other in a death game, where if someone commits a succesful murder they can escape the bunker, but if they're caught in a trial they're executed. Also, if they're not convicted in the trial everyone else is killed, motivating the jury to find and execute the guilty murderer.

Junko Enoshima the main villain and orchestrator of this death game ended the world because despair. She wants to inflict despair on everyone because despair. Because hope sucks and despair is where it's at.

It sounds shallow and it is and Kodaka has said in interview he wrote Junko to be a villain character with zero redeeming character traits, and no sympathetic backstory to describe why she is the way she is, but there is still something motivating her.

If you go a bit deeper into the lore and read Dangan Ronpa Zero, there is an entire book which explains the lengths which Junko goes to feel normal human emotions. The thing is much like Kenjaku Junko is too smart for her own good, everything is predictable and therefore everything bores her. Once in an attempt to live normally, she literally lobotomizes herself, makes it so that she can't remember anything and has continual amnesia constantly forgetting what just happened to her, because that's the only way she can live without knowing everything that's going to happen and constantly predicting everyone's actions.

Junko has whatever her universe's version of the six-eyes is, but instead of lording it over other people like Gojo and basking in her superiority she wants to feel normal, and connected to the world. If she can't have that she tries to make the world as unpredictable place as possible so she can experience it the same way that everyone else does.

Hope is harmony. A just heart, moving toward the light. That is all. Despair is hope's polar opposite. It is messy and confusing. It swallows up love, hatred, and everything else. Because not knowing where you will end up is despair. Despair is even what you cannot predict. Only despair's unpredictability can save you from a boring future.

I'm still not describing it properly because I don't want to go into a Danganronpa essay in this post about Jujutsu Kaisen, but one example I always use is two characters from American Dragon Jake Long. They're a pair of twins who see the future, one always sees happy things, and one always sees sad things. The one who has happy visions is a goth who's very depressed and the one who sees disaster is an incredibly peppy girl.

Jake is so confused as to why the twin who always sees good visions is so depressed, and she basically tells him to imagine having every good thing, every small little surprise, every pleasure taken out of life.

Kara: When you only see good things, nothing's special anymore. All the pleasant surprises are taken out of life. Sara: But, when you only see bad stuff, even the smallest bit of good news makes you happy!

All of this to say what Junko feels isn't just boredom, or a desire to commit evil for evil's sake, but also a full on existential crisis where she's simply too smart so she doesn't feel any connection to other people or the world around her. In order to feel that connection, that connection that everyone else has, to feel like she is actually a participant in her life not an observer she's willing to go to extremes to make the world a more interesting place, to therefore make her own life feel satisfying.

Kenjaku vs. The World (Kenjaku Pilgrim's sad little life)

To connect all this back to Kenjaku imagine the profound existential despair of a person who's lived for a thousand years, and felt bored all that time. Sukuna is at least a hedonist, he gets his fun by getting into fights, humans might be bugs to him but they're tasty bugs.

Kenjaku goes to similiar motivations and has similiar extremes, he's uninvested in the world around him, he's lived a thousand years but has no attachment to the world, to life, to the people around him. I said that Junko wants to be a participant in life not an all seeing observer and that was purposeful language because to bring back an old post. I rambled on this post about Gojo that part of Gojo's problem is that he only experiences observer-to-object relationships or I to it.

Ich and Du, translated as I and Thou is a book by philosopher Martin Buber. His two main porositions is that we may address existence in two ways:

The attitude of the “I” towards “it” towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience.

The attitude of “I” towards “Thou” in a relationship in which the other is not separated by discrete bounds.

In Buber's terms, those who only experience the first type of relationships are only observing the world around them not relating to them. Kenjaku doesn't relate to other human beings because they are objects, he only experiences subject -> object relationships and never subject -> subject.

Buber also goes on to theorize that meaning in our lives comes from subject -> subject relationships we form with other people.

Kenjaku jokingly says that to be his friend you have to never bore him and be his equal, but there's no one considers his equal because he's the subject and everyone else are just objects.

He regrets he can't sit down and talk theories with Tsukumo Yuki because she's one of the few people who think like him.

Kenjaku is a paradox of an incredibly brilliant man who is also shallow as a puddle that you can stand in and not get your socks wet. However, he tragically can't really form a more complex identity because our identities are formed by our relationships to other people and Kenjaku doesn't relate to anybody.

That's basically the theme of the whole Choso and Kenjaku fight, Choso is a weird aborted fetus of a curse who still has a strong identity and is able to feel unconditional love for Yuji because of the connection of family and the ideas of brotherhood that binds the two. Kenjaku is a bad father who abandoned Choso because they were "boring" but also never really gave them a chance to grow up or be interesting, he just dismissed them offhand and moved on to the next weird science project.

However, his reason for dismissing Choso isn't Choso's fault but rather a case of Psychological projection. It's not Choso who is boring, but rather Kenjaku himself, he said so earlier.

"What I can create, does not exceed the bounds of my own potential. The answer is always flickering darkly in chaos."

Kenjaku cannot look within to find anything satisfying abput his life because there's nothing inside of him. He doesn't have a fully formed identiy he's just ID, and because he tramples all over other people to form his desires he also cannot ever form a full ego. Just like Sukuna and most of the ancient sorcerers he's a paradox of being all ego, and yet having an underdeveloped ego with shallow motivators.

Kenjaku cannot look within because he's a boring person, and he cannot look for other people to find worth in his life because they're just objects, so instead he looks into the void, he tries to change the world around him by spreading more chaos hoping that it will make something unpredictable happen in front of his eyes - and that will give him the meaning and investment in his life he's deprived himself of because he refuses to form relationships with other people.

It's the Gojo problem. It's the Kashimo problem. It's not the Sukuna problem, because Sukuna admits he doesn't care about and rejects things like love and meaning.

If Kenjaku makes the world around him a more interesting place, he will be able to live in it. It's the same as Gojo trying to raise people up to his level by creating stronger students.

So after going to great length to demonstrate how powerful and all-consuming Kenjaku's boredom is, and how cut off he is from his own humanity, here's the part where I sort of defend his death.

Wouldn't it be funny if the joke character killed the main villain?

Let's be honest it was Takaba's kill here, Yuta just camped and killstole. I think part of the problem with people not understanding the meaning behind Kenjaku's sudden and unexpected death is attributing the death to Yuta cutting his head off out of nowhere, and not Takaba's thematic victory over Kenjaku.

Takaba represents a blindspot for Kenjaku which is why the main characters use him as a weapon against him, and he also calls out in a fashion Kenjaku's hypocrisy. First and foremost, Kenjaku presents himself as an agent of change, but he actually has no interest in many of the modern sorcerers and holds a bias towards the heian era as the peak of sorcery. He even says that he's going to bring back the Heian Golden Age to Sukuna at the end of Shibuya arc.

Because that's what Chaos is Kenjaku, things being the same as they were 1,000 years ago. Kenjaku is an agent of change and chaos and somehow his definition of change is... resetting things back to the past because the sorcerers of the past were so much better than today.

Kenjaku goes out of his way to awaken hundreds of modern day sorcerers, and then dismisses literally off of them except for Hiromi because they don't have enough potential for him compared to ancient sorcerers. He essentially did the same with the Death Painting Bros, he went through all of the trouble to create them, then dismissed them as not having enough potential BEFORE THEY EVEN GOT THE CHANCE TO GROW UP.

Kenjaku has a habit of just going BORED NOW and leaving before he even gives things the time to impress him. He does the same with the Culling Game, he set up the death game to push sorcerers to fight each other and bring out their powers, but he never actually intended to watch the sorcerers evolve. He just wanted to slaughter everyone inside to start the merger.

He goes through a lot of potential to set up these situations and then abandons them before they have the chance to even evolve, because they do not have enough "potential" in his opinion, but like his opinion is often shown to be wrong. Takaba represents that blindspot because he was one of the modern sorcerers that Kenjaku underestimated and dismissed offhand as boring without giving him a chance to shine.

That is the joke that Takaba introduces himself with "Wouldn't it be funny if a random comic relief side character suddenly defeated the big bad?"

He's immediately pointing out a blindspot, because Kenjaku automatically believes himself to be an important character, he underestimates Takaba because he's a side character, one of the people Kenjaku has dismissed as boring and uninteresting (before they even had a chance to evolve into something else). Like that's the other thing Kenjaku wants things to evolve but he doesn't... let them. He abandoned Choso and the rest before they even grew up, they were literally fetuses and he threw them away. Kenjaku is the protagonist of reality, and Takaba is a side character, and therefore Takaba couldn't possibly harm him because Kenjaku and his boundless curiosity are the center of the world.

It's not just about subverting the audience's expectations to have the main villain die in such an anti-climactic way before the final act even starts, but it's pointing out how narrow Kenjaku's viewpoints really were all along. He wants everything to be surprised but he never lets anything surprise him, because either he gets bored right away, or he looks down on others before giving them the chance to evolve, or the third thing he just straight up has to control everything. He can't let the culling game evolve naturally he's going to slaughter all the players by hand so he can move onto the next part.

It's the contradiction between a schemer who needs to control everything and everyone to bring about his intended result and everything needs to be a part of his big plans, to someone who wants to be surprised by others and have things go off the rails. You can't have both of these things at once, Kenjaku cannot have things surprise him if he rigs everything to go his way with his overly elaborate schemes and his tight-fisted control of everyone in the story.

Like, in comparison to Kenjaku the joker just blows things up and sprays people with laughing gas. They're both playing the same game but the joker is having fun and Kenjaku isn't.

Kenjaku wants an unexpected future, but he doesn't care about any of the modern sorcerers and has a bias towards the heiean era that he considers the height and wants to reset things to bring back the heian era. He wants to be surprised but won't give up control.

Kenjaku's boast is that unlike Tengen he's spent a thousand years living on the ground instead of lording up on them from above like some deity, but is that true? Has Kenjaku lived? Has he engaged with the world? Formed relationships with people? Or does he just sit in the corner rubbing his hands together menacingly and scheming his schemes.

Takaba unironically gives Kenjaku what he wants, something he's never seen before in a thousand years, and it's from a place Kenjaku never expected. Some random guy, who he dismissed as one of the boring modern sorcerers with no potential like Higuruma.

Takaba not only exists in Kenjaku's blindspot, he almost immediately points out Kenjaku's second hypocrisy. If he's willing to resort to mass murder just to feel entertained, then if he found something else to entertain him there'd be no reason to get violent and scheme his schemes.

In other words Kenjaku hasn't really gone looking for other places to try to find what makes life worth living, or at least enertaining, he hasn't really tried any alternatives to finding joy in life because Jujutsu is all he cares about. Takaba says that if he found something else even more entertaining than the merger there'd be no need to go through with the merger, and he turns out to be right. Kenjaku could have found meaning and entertainment with the world someplace else, he was just too narrow minded and never looked anywhere else.

As I said from the beginning Kenjaku's existential crisis comes from his inability to relate to other people and viewing them all as objects, but in Kenjaku's mind of course he can't relate to others they're too boring, so therefore it's the world's fault, and the fault of others and not himself.

However, right away one of those boring people starts relating to Kenjaku.

I joked about how we know nothing about the Gojo clan but Takaba gets an entire backstory chapter about his failed comedy career, but this chapter is plot important because jokes are the way that Takaba relates to and forms relationships with other people. Takaba makes jokes to relate to others but has a fallout with a comedy partner and has never been able to form a lasting relationship with a comedic partner because comedy doesn't mean the same to them as it does to him - because to Takaba comedy is about forming relationships with people. Which is why he thinks he's failed if he's failed to make everyone in the audience laugh because he wants to make comedy that will make other people relate to him and understand him.

However, he almost gives up on comedy because he's afraid that he might fail on that endeavor. He gives up on striving to make everybody in the audience laugh, because of self-affirmation and a desire to protect himself. He didn't want to fail so he started distancing himself from the audience under the excuse "Well, I can't make everyone laugh so it's okay if not everyone understands me."

Takaba at some point gave up on trying to use comedy as a means of understanding and relating to others, because of his fear of failure and at that point he nearly lost - but he rallies himself by saying that he won't give up on making someone like Kenjaku laugh. If his comedy is about connecting to others, about understanding others and having others understand him then he can't just give up on Kenjaku and say it's Kenjaku's fault that Kenjaku can't relate to his sense of humor. He's got to try even harder to make Kenjaku laugh.

This is also pretty much the opposite of Kenjaku's point of view. For Kenjaku it's everyone else's fault for being so boring that's why he can't relate to them. Wheras, Takaba takes personal responsibility, he wasn't funny enough, he has to try harder, he's the one who's going to make Kenjaku laugh by improving himself. Takaba looks inward, and Kenjaku looks outwards because there's nothing inside Kenjaku.

This is a parallel to this.

The difference however, is that Sukuna did not betray his ideology. Sukuna lives for the kicks that battle provides him and wants to face strong opponents so he can eventually devoured them and be momentarily entertained.

Like Sukuna is not bored the way Kenjaku is. The world is his playground. He may refer to living as just killing time until you die, but he also says that there's an infinite variety of humans to entertain yourself with. The world is Sukuna's toybox and he's satisfied with just that. In fact he doesn't even care about the merger, until his frustration with Yuji makes him think a little deeper about himself.

Kenjaku is not the Sukuna in this scene, he's the Gojo. He believed he was above others, only to be reminded suddenly that he was just the same as everyone else and brought back down to humanity. I mean, they even die off panel the same anticlimactic way. Gojo's infinity meant nothing in the face of one surprise attack a world-cleaving slash Gojo didn't see coming. All of Kenjaku's backup plans meant nothing in the face of Yuta camping and kill-stealing.

Kenjaku didn't lose because Yuta's plan of camping and killstealing was simply too brilliant for him to prepare for however, we're given the exact reason kenjaku lost - because he was having too much fun with Takaba.

Which meant what Takaba said earlier was true, if Kenjaku found something funnier, something other than the merger that could make him laugh there'd be no need to go through with the merger to begin with.

Kenjaku loses because all along he could have related to people, formed meaningful relationships with others, looked for meaning in life outside of Jujutsu but just chose not to. Which is also a parallel to this.

Sukuna says that Kashimo and Gojo both lost because they were greedy. They already received love in a way, they had the love of everyone who regarded them as the strongest, they had people who earnestly wanted to challenge them and respected them - which Sukuna sees as a form of love, and yet they still wanted more.

They were the ones who put themselves up on that pedestal and decided to stand above all of humanity, they don't get to whine about being lonely on top of that.

To add my interpretation to Sukuna's speech, what he's outlining is a general conflict in Jujutsu Kaisen, you can choose to be all ego to put personal development above everything else but it comes at the cost of not being able to form relationships. Maki's as powerful as Toji now, but the sister she always wanted to protect is dead and basically committed suicide. Meanwhile Noritoshi Kamo didn't participate in the final battle, but he reconnected with his mother and half-brother.

There are plenty of characters who die and suffer in jujutsu kaisen because they chose to value other people above themselves, because Jujutsu Kaisen rewards selfishness and punishes selflessness / having an underdeveloped sense of self.

I'll pick Mechamaru as my biggest example, he lived to protect Miwa, and not only does he die an unsatisfying death, he also breaks her heart.

However, at least Mechamaru experienced love. His desire to protect Miwa is granted, because Miwa is also out of the final conflict. Mechamaru is one of the most miserable characters in the manga, and yet he experienced love in his life for someone else that made his brief life meaningful. The characters who choose love, and other people over strength tend to get stepped on, but they at least had that love in their life to begin with.

It's a having your cake and eating it too situation. Kashimo chose strength over love, and he got to be so strong he was unbeatable and lived to old age, but not only is he unfulfilled but he whines about being unable to relate to the people around him - you're the one who chose to step on everyone like bugs.

Characters in Jujutsu Kaisen don't just experience death when they try to be selfless however, like yeah there's a disproportionate amont of selfless minor characters who die, but like Yuji is the most selfless character in the manga and he's continually punished for it and yet he's the one referred to as a person with an unbreakable will.

Rather instead of Jujutsu Kiasen preferring the selfish side on the scale of selfishness / selflessness, the kind of messy, deaths that get handed out to people like Mechamaru happen when you betray the ideals you were living for. Whether they were selfish or selfless.

It goes back to Toji's internal monologue. You lose when you lose sight of yourself - like there's some deaths that don't fit the mould but for the most part, Gojo, Kashimo, Toji's and then Kenjaku's deaths all follow this pattern. By coincidence they also all take place offscreen for the most part (I suppose we see Yuta cut off Kenjaku's head but it's quick and unsatisfying compared to all the rest).

Kenjaku died because he betrayed what he was living for and he temporarily lost sight of himself. As I said Kenjaku's airtight principles were that everyone was boring and people weren't worth relating too so the only way to find enertainment in life is to cause chaos - but he found himself relating to some nobody he wrote off as a minor character Takaba and having fun with him. Which meant the belief he was false, he could have tried relating to other people all along he just didn't.

He warped his sense of self to reaffirm his identity. Takaba almost did that too, he tried to blame other people for not finding him funny to protect himself, but he moved past that and redoubled his efforts to make Kenjaku laugh.

There's also the added layer of irony that Kenjaku's sudden death brings about, the person who spent a thousand years trying to make the merger happen doesn't get to see it.

However, here's my assertion on why Kenjaku's death before the merger always had to happen.

Because, even if Kenjaku had seen the merger he still would have been bored.

Literally everything about Kenjaku's character and previous actions shows that even if he made his big scheme come true, he would have gone "meh" and moved onto the next scheme because that's how he always reacts.

He got bored of the death painting siblings, he presumably got bored of Yuji, he got bored of all the ancient sorcerers and new sorcerers he made for the culling game, he worked with the disaster curses and got bored of them and dismissed them as inferior primitive curses, he goes out of the way to engineer these chaotic situations and then never feels any satisfaction from them so why would the Merger be any different?

Not only did Kenjaku die before he saw the merger, he was basically doomed to never see the merger, because it would not have fixed whatever is wrong inside of him.

Because it's not the world that's boring, it's Kenjaku himself.

He gets a brief glimpse of what he could have done in life, that he could have tried to forge connections with the people around him and related to them on a personal level - and then he dies the way he lived, in a kind of boring and unsatisfying way.

It's the narrative punishing him in a way, the same way it punished Gojo, and Kashimo, by not letting him see the big explosion after he went to all the trouble rigging the bombs. It's punishing him for the same reason too - by deviating from his true self and showing what he thought were his reasons were shallow all along. Gojo could have always related to people he just chose to stand on his pedestal alone, and Kenjaku could have always found the world to be more enertaining he was the one dismissing other people as boring without giving them a chance to grow.

Takaba confronted his beliefs and then stayed true to his ideology of making everyone, 100% of the people in the crowd laugh. Kenjaku didn't confront his beliefs, he strayed from them because he didn't have the strength of character to evaluate himself the way Takaba did.

Hence, he's finished off by one of those boring people who used their power in a way he never expected. The main villain is defeated by the comic relief character and it's hilarious.

#jjk meta #kenjaku #fumihiko takaba #ryomen sukuna #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen theory #jujutsu kaisen analysis #jjk spoiler #jujutsu kaisne spoiler #big spoiler actually

236 notes · View notes

cerise-on-top · 4 months

Note

Ooh, what if Price/Ghost/Gaz/Laswell came across their childhood best friend? Reuniting with reader who was there for them through thick and thin, until they joined the military and lost contact 🙏

I've been reading/re-reading some of your works!! They're so good! Also, I'm sorry those teenagers were pricks to you, hope you have some better days soon!

Hello! I have to say, I'm genuinely surprised anyone reads my rambles in the tags, I didn't think anyone would, but thank you! You don't know how much I appreciate it! Today was already a much better day, which is why I decided to write and post two requests today! This is a lovely request, very nice! Love me some platonic stuff as well! Sometimes all you need is a good friend by your side!

Price, Gaz, Ghost and Laswell Come Across their Childhood Best Friend

Price: He actually thinks about you from time to time, more often than he’d like to admit. You were a good person in his eyes, always there for him no matter what he went through, which is something he could appreciate. His childhood wasn’t particularly bad, but he had some days where he would have loved to simply throw in the towel, which is normal, though. Price was a rowdy guy when he was young, so you likely either went along with some of his ideas or were kind enough to talk him out of them. Either way, he appreciated having you around, so seeing you again would be quite the surprise, he didn’t think he ever would again. If he’s on a mission, then the talk will be kept short, but afterwards he’ll make sure to seek you out again, catch up a bit and ask you how you’ve been. Price didn’t expect to have missed you this much, but he only realized that once he saw you. You’ll either be going to one of the cafes you used to visit nearby, or maybe sit down on a park bench and maybe eat some sandwiches together, just like you used to during the good old times. Since you’d likely be around his age, so roughly 37-38, you’d have a lot to tell. Roughly 22 years you need to catch up on. He’s willing to talk to you, tell you about his career, how he's been doing, about the people he’s met and how he’s feeling. Considering this much time has passed, there’s a good chance you’ve both mellowed out quite a bit, but it isn’t unpleasant, you’re both mature people now. He likes hearing about everything you’ve accomplished, it’s like you became a new person during all those years. It’s so lovely to him, he sort of can’t believe it. Whether it’s a coincidence, or maybe you sought him out, it doesn’t matter, spending time with you again brings back all those memories he thought he had since forgotten about. He laughs, he smiles, he frowns. He’s a bit more expressive with you, but really wants to reminisce about the good old times. Even so, he hopes to be able to see you again more often, so you’ll likely exchange numbers. This time he tries to make sure to not lose contact with you and will text you every once in a while.

Gaz: When he was a child, Gaz was a lot calmer than he is today, a very quiet kid. He had always been a good boy, a gift in the eyes of many, but he wasn’t as active a child as one would imagine. Ergo he didn’t have very many friends until he became older either, but he was loyal to the few he did have. You were one of them. As you slowly started to grow apart, he started to miss you, but didn’t want to bother you either, as much as he would have loved to do so. So I’m sure you can imagine the surprise on his face when he found you at the mall the two of you would hang out in during rainy days. Gaz has become more confident, so he’d immediately walk up to you once he recognises you and start talking. Like Price, he’d be pleasantly surprised to just see you in such a mundane place, but won’t question it. Or complain about it either. In fact, if you’re not carrying anything heavy, he’d be the one to suggest going out to eat or drink something. Again, either a small and quiet cafe or a small restaurant. Maybe you’d go to a place you liked when you were kids, if it’s still open. Regardless, it’d be hard to get him to shut up with how excited he is to have you around. It’s a calm kind of excitement, but he’s happy, and that’s what’s important. It’s very likely that he’ll pay for your food, even if you insist he shouldn’t, but it’s not like he has any other use for his money. Chatting with him about the good old times is very sweet, he likes to bring up all the good things. But eventually, he’ll thank you for everything you’ve done for him and how happy he was to have you as a friend. Considering there were very few people who tried to get to know him, he was quite lonely, but you fixed that. You made everything better. From the pain on his knee when he fell as you gave him a band-aid, to the pain in his heart when the other children ridiculed him. Like Price, he’ll ask you if you want his number so you could continue to keep in contact with each other. He knows it’ll likely never be the same again, but he can pretend everything is as good as it used to be back when he was young. He’d love to spend time with you again.

Ghost: This man has had one of the worst childhoods imaginable. He was abused by his father, and the only friends he had aside from you were his mother and his brother. Barely anyone was kind towards him or accepted him considering he had always been the weird kid. No one but you wanted to spend time with him. Needless to say, Ghost had taken a liking to you when he was younger. You spent your time with him, you even defended him when some of the other kids ridiculed him. And now, 12 years later, he finds you running after a coin you accidentally dropped on the ground, bumping into him as you did so. He’d be wide eyed at first, a bit quiet as well. Once you left he never would have thought he’d ever find someone like you again, but here you were, just as quiet and surprised to see him. Ghost would pick up the coin for you and ask you how you’ve been. It had been a while. Although he’s not usually one to smile, especially not in public, you could see him faintly do so. He’s become a quiet man, so he won’t be talking too much about everything, especially not everything that happened after he joined the military, but he’s more than willing to talk to you about other matters. His life has become better over the past few years, but that doesn’t mean he isn't scarred still. He’ll offer you a walk to just about anywhere, really, even if the final destination will always end up being one of the places you used to hang out in as children. An abandoned house, a park, a mall. Manchester is a fairly large city, so there’s much to see. It would be a bit rough to catch up with him entirely, but he loves to hear about everything you’ve accomplished. You’ve become such a mature person, it warms his heart to see how far you’ve come in life. Back then, when everything was so bleak, when neither of you thought you’d see your 28th birthdays, everything was different. But now, you’re smiling at him as you’re drinking your milkshake. You seem to be better off, and so is he. It makes him nostalgic to see all of this, but he’s happy. Ghost will offer you to come to his home if you want. Even now, he still loves you dearly as a friend and couldn’t be happier about the fact he’s found you again by chance.

Laswell: When she was young she was a healthy mix of rowdy and good. While she never caused much trouble, she did stand up for herself when she needed to. However, this alone was enough to get the attention of some awful people. People either liked her or hated her, there usually was no inbetween for them. Some people did try to bully her, but it never ended well since she would fight for herself, plus she had some good friends who would do the same for her. However, none of them could compare to you, as you were her best friend. All her joys she would celebrate with you, and all of her sadness she would share with you. Back then, things were simpler, something small meant the end of the world, but you always had each other’s backs. Laswell tries to not think about you too much since you slowly drifting apart is quite painful to her. As she grew older, she learned to live with the pain and it didn’t bother her as much. Still, she was very happy when you were sending her a message after all this time. She may have been at work, but responded to you immediately, having missed you just as much as you missed her. Once you meet up it’s evident you’ve both grown a lot older. Laswell has been working for the CIA since her twenties, so it’s been almost thirty years. You have a lot to catch up on, but you take your time, eating at a fancy restaurant and spending hours there, laughing at everything that’s happened. Laswell would show you photos of all the places she’s visited during her downtime. She’s seen almost the entire world, some of it with her wife, some of it without her. Although she doesn’t usually tell people she’s married, to another woman too, she knows you’re a safe person, you’ve always accepted her as she was. Considering how happy you looked when you saw her wife, she continued to tell you about the world. But you get your chance to tell her about everything that’s happened to you as well. If the conversation goes especially well, Laswell might invite you to a few outings every once in a while, after you’ve met up a few more times. Plus you get to meet her wife eventually as well, which is a real privilege. Considering how much she loves her and wants to protect her, not many know about her. It’ll be fun either way since you get to make more memories together again.

#cod #cod x reader #john price #john price x reader #price x reader #kyle gaz garrick #kyle gaz garrick x reader #gaz x reader #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x reader #kate laswell #kate laswell x reader #seeing that someone read my rambles actually really cheered me up yesterdy so thank you for that!#this request was really sweet. I have a friend who I miss so dearly even now #I still dream of her from time to time. she was my best friend but I never was hers #Sometimes I wish I had the guts to text her but I'm awkward and can't hold a conversation to save my life so I'll have to live like that #oh well! it happens unfortunately! wish it didn't though!#anyway as much as I love to romance the lads and the lasses there's something so wholesome about friendship too!#especially a really good one where you can goof around and have fun and give each other sweet gifts!#Love friendship! friendships are fun! I'm glad I get to write platonic stuff every once in a while as well!#I'm not a romantic person at all irl but I can appreciate a good friendship!#thank you for this request it was very cool and epic!

159 notes · View notes