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thehopelessexception · 2 months

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save me lord(e) please save me

i struggle with the concept of religion because i've never quite understood the belief on an omnipresent something watching over you and giving you a path or whatever that's supposed to mean.

i went to church probably 15 times in my life when i was younger and i was bored all the time. i took the first communion when i was 10 because my parents made me do it. (i just wanted to taste wine and receive money from my family tho) but i remember that by that time i already rejected the concept of it. maybe because i was deppressed from the very age of 8 years old and i wanted to kms since then (im over it rn fyi), so the whole god thing it wasnt much enough to make me have faith in anything because i already thought i suffered more than jesus.

i've never been much close to my family, im a single child too. not to blame them really, but my parents did the bare minimum so i had to create my own moral codes from way too young. i teached myself, and educated myself on everything i know of since i was a kid. i took the responsibility of being the emotional support of adults as a child because they didnt know how to be parents nor communicate their feelings with each other (or me, for that matter). i hided my own. and when i was on my breaking point i took care of myself at 13/14 i think? and made myself go to therapy because i knew if i didn't i wouldnt be here today —i had to convince my mom, changing the reason i needed to go and i made her lie to my dad because he "doesnt believe in that" and so on—. my parents were clueless all the time 'till i grew up and told them my story on a crisis i had in the pandemic. they are still not the best parents you can find but i moved on from being resentful and made somehow peace.

i remember i was quite interested in the whole lucifer arc and the apocalypse stuff. when my catechist was explaining the 7(i think?) days of creation or etc i was reading the very end, fascinated as a kid reading the hunger games. probably my father's fault since he loved to watch the conspiracy shows in history channel about nostradamus and so on in the living room's tv. and also maybe because i loved chaos and i never fitted in anywhere so naturally i didnt even try.

i hyperfixated on greek gods if that helps.

at 13 i met the 1975, my favourite band (if it wasnt obvious at this point). and the first songs i listened to were girls, me, and antichrist. and i know it's very likely that you think im exaggerating but antichrist is doubtless the purest most real song i heard in my life. and i think about it a lot. the whole journey the band, and matty especially, made about religion made me think a lot through the years. i agree with him tho, but i made that entire journey when i was 9, as they said men do drugs once and discover the same things girls have discovered alone in their bedrooms at 13 years old. and today religion is a thing so foreign, and distant to me; sometimes i wonder if im missing something by not being part of that feeling.

i can't wrap my head around it, i cannot process faith because i don't find it logical. however when im lost i sometimes find myself asking for signs to "the universe", so it's complicated. i also think it's better for people that feel lost to find a communion of some kind than ending up being addicts or worse, liberals. and i also think some religions are waiting for people to have misery to sign them up on their cult.

what is religion really? what is god? is there one? or two? or millions? but what about science? the big bang? evolution? capitalism? media? how can all of that make some kind of sense altogether? i said already i am skeptical over probably everything, but the truth is that science is also a common agreement of stuff and "hard" evidence, but we don't have the certainty that things work like that in the whole universe, so technically it's not an absolute truth, it's just what works. but what is the whole universe? i trust science over anything ofc that's not what im trying to say, the thing is i lose my mind every now and then when i dig that up. because you end up thinking you are so tiny and irrelevant to the whole universe, the whole thing we live into. are we even alive at this point? is this reality real? and i know it's stupid deep thought thinking you have when you are a kid but i wrote something about this years ago in my diary and im going to quote it:

(i wrote it in my native language so the translation may suck a bit)

"(...) the human being is perfect, nature is perfect. the society is a mess but synchronously is perfectly designed to still work. what's the goal of humanity? some people believe in god, not me tho. i sometimes think people are simplistic and conformist with the unknown. weak deniers of the search of the truth. the systematization almost automatic that is used on people as individuals of each culture, each society; with the vague idea of making them believe on free will, and the freedom of choice. when there's something existing over us that influences us, dominates us, and drives us like cattle. but what is this really? (...) the different "types of control" influence all of us so we achieve an end to society. nobody question said unknown end, because they believe, they have faith; on themselves and their meritocracy, the destiny god prepared for them. to the reach of a post-civilization with all the answers, from the firm and fair science that at the same time is clinging to nothing, to the not knowing blindness. the problem with humanity is believing but not fighting for the answers. the problem with humanity is trusting in "what exists and what doesnt exist" as a concept; when you can find somehow the solution on untrusting and not believing on absolute truths, because all of those are influenced by human subjectivity. civilizations are built with absolute truths, "civilization or barbarism". the barbarism never was that much stupidified. do we live in a simulated civilization? i dont know, all i know is that i know nothing."

lately i've been thinking about religion as a support group for people, but the institution makes me yikes. i've been thinking a lot about lots of things.

and i find myself in the context where everything i know of is taking another meaning now. maybe religion is what conveys the society altogether, maybe it's something else. i don't know. the world was always at war because of religion, and the preponderance of one over another. noone can convince me that religion has nothing to do with the world war we're living rn.

i consider music as a support group, i have my own friends and we like the same things (i dont like people who i dont think somehow alike). and i like my music as a representation of my personality too. i believe one is what one consumes. i grew up here, on tumblr, and i know what i write now will probably resonate with you too.

what i know most of is possibly reading patterns on people. and what i am wondering right now is if we, as a whole, and our generation specifically, walked away too much from the "love your neighbor" premise. i may not believe in religion, but i believe in collectivism as a way to live, as a gear that sets society in motion. and me, personally, i am a hater of everything and everyone. but i can deal with it, i dont think society will. we can't make the bad people disappear, and we can't kill them all (sadly). so lately i tend to believe i have the knowledge and the wisdom to be the adult and choose to make peace with the evil, to stop fighting for making people change, and go build community, the safe space, the home, with the people who are predisposed to listen. because individualism will kill us all. and we cannot save ourselves alone.

lorde said explicitly "if you're looking for a saviour well thats not me". but here we are.

happy easter to those who celebrate.

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fayoftheforest · 1 year

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hey hey!! random question but what do you think kyle's kids are like? or even cartman's kids. i've just been sitting in my little corner with my own little characterizations so i figured might as well break out of my shell a little and ask other ppl what their interpretations are, and ur rlly fun!! :D

Thank you so much for the ask!! I love all your art of Kyle and Cartmans' children very much, it's fantastic :D I thought long and hard, and have come up with these wildly unfounded headcanons for Kyle’s children, partially influenced by kidfics I have read by authors such as Hollycomb and Sekrit (credit to the latter for being the first to name Kyle’s kid Benji!)

Benjamin Bartholemew Broflovski: I’ve always headcanoned Kyle’s middle name as Benjamin. Likewise, I hc Bartholomew is a family name on Gerald’s side, so Kyle wanted to honour that too. Plus, he's a big fan of alliteration :D

Benji is an overachieving, do-no-wrong golden child. He plays a lot of soccer in his youth (watched over by Soccer Mom Kyle) but switches to basketball in high school after a generous growth spurt. He’s also academically gifted, getting great grades in all of his classes. His favourite subject is history, specifically early civilisation. Would you like to know how the ancient Egyptians mummified the dead? Or the process of constructing an ancient Roman road? Well, he’s going to tell you anyway, and the lecture will last no less than two hours, and no, you don’t get a break. The only time that Benji does not exude confidence is when it comes to dating when he's older, wherein he’s a flustered and stuttering mess. He’s got the Bitchless Broflovski curse, I’m afraid 😔

Despite his radiant childhood, he goes through a rebellious phase in his early teen years. He starts to worry that people see him as boring or stuck-up, and so acts out. I doubt he’d go full goth, but maybe he’d get busted for drinking on school property or something, camped out behind the bleachers with some of the Bad Kids. Kyle gets SO MAD that the full name is cracked out: "Benjamin Bartholemew Broflovski!" but Benji figures if it’s pissing his dad off, then he must be doing something right. This behaviour spirals out of control until he has a bit of a scare (someone gets hurt, but not seriously), and after Kyle comes to his rescue, the two have a good ol’ heart to heart and all is well once more :)

During the brief moment we see him in Post Covid, Benji is shown wearing a kippah, which could indicate that he’s an orthodox Jew. However, Kyle’s lifestyle does not seem to adhere to orthodoxy on the show, and I imagine he’d raise Benji as a reform/liberal Jew, just like I think Kyle is. The kippah could be because they’re at a Denny’s Applebees Max, and some Jews choose to cover their heads when eating, but I believe that, like Gerald, he simply wears his all of the time. As the post-covid conclusion is a utopian vision, Benji has been raised without the same antisemitic bullying that his father experienced, and so has no shame or self-loathing about being Jewish. He’s proud and he’s passionate about his faith!

Ada-May Sheila Broflovski: Kyle strikes me as the kind of guy to name his daughter after a famous feminist figure. Ada is after Ada Lovelace, who’s widely considered to be the first computer programmer! The ‘May’ is a family name, double barreled because he likes the ring to it. Sheila is of course after his mother, who he may have his gripes with, but still loves very dearly.

Ada is a quiet child. Raised in her older brother’s shadow, she’s not as naturally gifted at sports, and despite her namesake struggles quite a lot with math. Kyle loves both his children equally of course, but sometimes he doesn’t know what to make of her, because she’s not very expressive and quite emotionally closed off at times. She really enjoys reading, particularly nonfiction, so Kyle finds ways to connect with her by talking to her about the books she enjoys, and reading her favourites with her.

Ada doesn’t have too many friends whilst growing up, which Kyle stresses over to no end, but she doesn’t mind too much, happy in her own little world. In high school she makes friends with Moisha, Cartman’s son, and they start the school paper together. This kickstarts her passion for photography, as she follows Moisha around with a camera whist he asks people invasive and leading questions. The pair get into a lot of trouble together, and many hijinks ensue. Kyle blames it on Moisha's upbringing by his inept father and secretly misses the days when Ada didn’t have so many friends.

Tzedakah (charity work) is one of the most important commandments that Jews are obligated to observe, and I can see Ada really connecting with this mitzvah. She loves helping people in need, and works on many, many charity drives and events throughout her youth. She inherits a strong sense of justice from her father, and I love the idea of them bonding over this! They volunteer every Wednesday night at a soup kitchen together, and Benji sometimes comes too, making it a family affair :D

So, those are my main headcanons for Benji and Ada at the moment! I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts if they’d like to share theirs as well. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to ramble!!

#south park #kyle broflovski #kyle's kids #moisha cartman #headcanons

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green-cargaytions · 2 years

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TRIPLETS??? wow u rlly live like this? whats that like?

It’s pretty cool actually! teachers have fewer expectations of me because they never had my older sibling, and I never have to babysit little sibs. we get on each other’s nerves in a different way than other age combos, but we’re also going through a lot of the same stuff at the same time.

One of the funnier things is that we all look totally different, have different friends, and share almost no interests!

My sister loves creative writing, acting, and is a total nose-to-the-grindstone perfectionist. She’s a straight-A student. She reads EXCESSIVELY and loves audiobooks. she’s in a wheelchair which gives her a unique perspective, though she tends to be kind of closed off around her personal feelings and opinions in fear of offending someone

my sibling is into STEM, D&D, MTG, and current events. she reads about quantum physics for fun (and in order to sound smart lol) they’re a little more conservative, like our dad. they play school like a game- also straight A’s but because she knows the system lol

i play soccer and I’m pretty social. I play violin (classical and fiddle) piano (classical and jazz) and marimba (marching band) and I always always have my earbuds in skfkfdk. i get good grades but am objectively terrible at studying and homework. I’m in fandom, I draw, and I read lots of Neil Gaiman

our parents met doing work overseas — they both know a language that’s pretty obscure for people of our nationality to know and they speak in it whenever they don’t want us to hear something 💀 my dad’s generally conservative but one of the most open-minded people I’ve ever met. he’s exceptional at ignoring confirmation bias. my mom is more liberal, and volunteers for a few organizations. their families are both devoutly religious but they decided to raise us non-practicing- I guess both of them became more secular as adults.

so- yeah! that’s us. we all get along pretty well, tbh. my sister and I have a Deep (trademark) connection but don’t talk casually that much beyond fandom stuff. my sibling and I generally get along and make each other laugh, and though we disagree on some political things we’ve both gotten better at remaining respectful because of debates with the other. my sibling and my sister connect fine but they sometimes push each other’s buttons.

we’re really lucky to have the kind of family we have, and I’m grateful to have them :))

#oversharing jafkskfjw #rambles #family stuff #triplets

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aizenat · 7 months

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One thing I will say too about this tik tok trend is that it really speaks to the misinformation and lack of information given to Americans about 9/11, al Qaeda, bin Laden, and the entire wars we enacted in the Middle East during the 2000s.

I tell my friend at least once a month how I learned at 19, almost a decade after 9/11, just what was going on in the Middle East during the Gulf War from Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns instead of any adult or news on the topic. I wasn’t even born/was an infant during that conflict, and all I would hear growing up even referencing it was adults saying on the 2000s conflict “George W just wanted a reason to go into Afghanistan and Iraq to ‘finish what his father started’.” AND NOTHING ELSE. No elaboration, no explanation! Just that!

And I’m a fucking millennial! So I imagine that for a generation who, just as I was barely born during the gulf war, were barely born during the 2000s wars in the middle east, they’re going to be surprised to learn WHY, at least from the man who planned it, we were singled out and attacked. That was the biggest question I had as a child about 9/11: why? Why did these ppl hate us so much to do something like that? Why?

And no adults could give an answer other than “they hate democracy/hate that we’re mostly Christian/hate that ‘we’re a free and wealthy nation’/etc.” But no history on WHAT we did specifically to make them do that, because even as a child I knew it was weird to attack an entire nation if you just hate the things they stand for. I hate a lot of what South Korea stands for, but I wouldn’t plan and execute a fucking suicide mission to bomb them! Like that’s extreme.

But one fiction book about the lives of two women living during and in the aftermath of the gulf war (and the rise of the Taliban) made it all click.

My point is that sometimes ppl from other countries, even Americans ourselves, don’t understand how in the dark we were put in regarding the Middle East and the impact of America’s involvement there. We never talked about the gulf war growing up, and we were actively lied to about the 2000s wars by Bush’s administration. And only us “un-American libs” dared to show any sympathy for those suffering in the middle east during our time there.

So I’m not surprised a bunch of kids who grew up hearing people talk about 9/11 and having to do memorials every year for it since they can remember reading bin Laden’s letter and thinking “hmm, he’s got a point.”

Ask those same ppl if they know about the Vietnam war, or the US involvement in the Korea War of the 50s. I bet they don’t know shit about it. And I’m not blaming them; I can’t tell you how many times in history we went over the Revolutionary War or even the world wars, but we stop there in history. Apparently we liberated Europe and parts of Asia from the Axis powers and then nothing happened again until 9/11. That’s literally how history is taught here.

I remember asking my mom as a child if we had any wars since wwii, because my history classes made it seem like that was the case. SHE’s the one who mentioned Vietnam, and when I asked if America won she gave a vague “not really/no one really won that war” (which is hilarious for her to say that knowing what I know now). I remembered following up saying “well, we haven’t been at war since I was born right?” And my mom paused going “well, there was the gulf war, but were you born yet? If so you would have been a baby.”

And I really need to emphasize, especially because I took an honors world history and APUSH in hs, so I technically got a more “neutral” (lol) history than the average American student who wasn’t a college bound nerd like me, NOT A SINGLE CLASS I HAD MENTIONED THE GULF WAR.

I lived in NJ, a blue state with abortions for all, boasting being one of the most diverse states in the country, and has a mostly good school curriculum that allows students to compete at spots for really good colleges, including the Ivys. And yet even I didn’t get a proper education on that war (or the Vietnam war or the Korean wars). If it wasn’t for other avenues or independent research I did after hs, I still wouldn’t know at my big 30+ age. And despite us asking our APUSH teachers often to explain the wars in the Middle East day the time, we STILL never got a decent breakdown in what was going on and why.

I don’t have kids but I’m SURE these gen z kids learning that America fucked over middle eastern countries that had devastating effects on the people there, encouraging them to join terrorist organizations as a result is a new concept for them. I’m not surprised they read a terrorist’s manifesto and went “omg this actually makes sense.”

No offense, but this is what happens when you don’t educate your people properly. They go looking for answers and find them in the worst places.

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cc-tinslebee · 3 years

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Okay, so, about a month ago, my brain just conjured up probably the most random au possible: Legally Blonde Adam Banks/banksway au.

Believe me, it's as chaotic as it sounds, but lowkey, I'm kind of in love with it.

Adam never joins the Ducks because there aren't any Ducks to join. Bombay never had to do community service with District Five so there was no one to realise that Adam was on the wrong team all along. He continues to play for the Hawks and, eventually, the Eden Hall Warriors, never getting the chance to become the well-rounded individual we know him as because he's never known anything other than his rich privilege and the "win at all costs" mentality. He ends up going to college on a hockey scholarship and not straight to the NHL or the AHL (shocking, I know). While he's unsure of his major and where his life is heading, he finds solace in the fraternity he joins, which, by some sheer twist of fate, Jesse and Guy have also miraculously joined.

And his life is perfect for a while. He's the star player on yet another school's hockey team, all of his fraternity brothers adore him (though, it took a bit for Jesse to warm up to him), and his secret, not-really-official thing with his former teammate is going swimmingly. (Not to slander my boy, but I was picturing Larson for the role of Warner, purely because the alternative seems to be Rick Riley and that's kind of an unsettling image-- though, maybe that's the point?)

But then his secret boyfriend breaks up with him because, with his high aspirations in life, he needs to be "more serious." And dating Adam Banks, a guy in a stereotypical fraternity who only really knows hockey, in 2001 isn't exactly the white-picket-fence life he's looking for if he's going to be a politician.

And since this non-Duck Adam clearly doesn't have the braincells that canon Adam does, in his devastation, he decides it's a brilliant idea to prove that he is serious by applying to Harvard Law. His parents try to talk him out of it, since they want him to pursue his dreams of hockey, but being a lawyer is a respectable career so they can't exactly argue with him.

He gets accepted thanks to Jesse, Guy, and the rest of his fraternity helping him study for the LSAT and keeping him on track. He's trying his darndest when he gets to Harvard, but (despite his struggle not being as significant as Elle Woods'), not a lot of people take him seriously as an aspiring lawyer, considering him a meathead jock who only got in because of daddy's money.

And that's about the time he meets Linda, who he vaguely remembers from his time at Eden Hall. What he doesn't remember is her being so competitive, because she's deliberately beating him at every turn, just trying (and kind of succeeding) at making him look like a fool. To make matters worse, all of the sudden, she's engaged to his ex-boyfriend, who is very adamant about never telling anyone that he and Adam were more than friends (because, you know, early 2000s homophobia and such).

But things get a little brighter for Adam when he meets Charlie, an undergrad teacher's assistant who gives him all sorts of advice about surviving the school. He introduces him to Professor Bombay, who Charlie claims is the only reason he survived his first year and quickly becomes Adam's favourite teacher, and Charlie's childhood friend Connie, who aspires to be a state senator one day. Charlie's charismatic and even if he's not the most well-liked person at Harvard, Adam feels a weight lifted off his shoulders once he becomes friends with him and Connie. Things become a little easier.

Just before he and Charlie start getting really close, Adam meets Casey at a local diner on a day he's feeling particularly upset and alone, and the two start bonding almost immediately. (He bullshits his way into scaring an ex-husband of hers with legal repercussions he has no idea about and she basically adopts him in return.) It takes him an embarrassing amount of time to realise that it's not just a coincidence that Casey and Charlie share the same last name, which results in poor Adam feeling extremely embarrassed for not connecting the dots sooner while Charlie's having the time of his life teasing him for it. Eventually, when the dust of that settles, Charlie and Adam join forces to set Casey and Bombay up, their schemes borderline ridiculous at times, but they'rere not exactly failing.

And after realising he isn't the Warriors moron she thought he was for going on five years, Linda starts warming up to Adam, which is surprisingly nice? She figures out on her own that there used to be something between him and her fiancé, and is more understanding of Adam than she is mad. Linda actually spills to him the lengths Adam's ex had to go through to actually get into Harvard, aligning more with the rumours about Adam's acceptance being bought than having the aptitude for the law that Linda and Adam share. (This may be me saying Linda and Adam friendship rights, what of it-- /lh)

To make things all the better, Bombay chooses Adam, Linda, Connie, Charlie, and Adam's ex to be on his legal team for a murder case he's responsible for (and while he knows about Adam and Charlie's ploys to hook him up with Charlie's mom, they're his favourites, so he doesn't say anything).

And this is just so much better than anything he had before. After all the initial unpleasantness, Linda and Connie become some of the most genuine friends he's ever had. He misses Guy and Jesse, of course, and he'd never take them for granted, but back when he was with them at the fraternity, a part of him was still being as superficial as he had been in middle and high school. Being authentic for once in his life is liberating.

And Charlie's just about the most considerate person Adam's ever met. Adam doesn't even mind when Charlie teases him over his absurd and juvenile insults because he's just this source of light for Adam, supporting him and always pushing him to be the best version of himself. His ex hardly even exists when Charlie's around because his energy is just so contagious that Adam starts falling for him long before he even realises it. (And when Jesse and Guy come to visit, there's a moment where it all clicks and the four of them realise their history together, however brief. I strongly maintain that they'd be that Starkid meme: "Fucking Hawks? We hated you guys!" "We hated ourselves!" But it does make Adam realise how much better off he would've been if he had Charlie and his team when he was little instead of the Hawks, and it just further makes him understand that people like Larson and Rick Riley just aren't worth it.)

But there's also another revelation Adam goes through. Between helping Casey, his rigorous studies, and his position working with/for Bombay, something just clicks for Adam. He likes being able to help people, fighting for the good guys who may not have the resources they need to be properly defended. Practicing law calls to him in the same way hockey did; it's the feeling of knowing this is what he's meant to do. He still loves hockey, he always will, but it helps him finally grasp that there's a world for him outside of it; when hockey ends for him, there's something equally as rewarding that he can pursue, which was something he never thought he would have.

I haven't a single coherent thought about this au past that point except for these little inklings of an ending--

There's absolutely no SA scene like the movie had; Bombay's just Adam and Charlie's favourite teacher and those are his boys, so he's going to make sure they succeed as if his life depends on it.

With that said, Bombay believes in them both enough to let them finish the case because with their joined determination/stubbornness (and Adam's in with the defendant), Adam and Charlie are a force to be reckoned with and he knows it.

After a handful of comedic failures, they do end up succeeding at their attempts to set Casey and Bombay up, and they start living together sometime during the kids' Junior year :) (All I'm asking is for one (1) story with a Casey/Gordon endgame-- I just think they're neat--)

Linda dumps her fiancé (as she should) and goes on to live her best wlw life as a successful lawyer. (If I'm not mistaken, Linda's actress actually is a lawyer, which is a pretty cool fun fact!!)

Adam and Linda's ex gets the Warner ending because, man, screw that guy /lh (rip to Larson if this is him, I'm sure you'll get a nice endgame in some other universe, king)

Honorary mention for Connie, who was going long distance with Guy this entire time to everyone but Jesse's shock, and they get their Game Changers endgame of State Senator Connie Moreau and stay-at-home dad Guy Germaine with their seven -- sorry, three -- children :)

Adam's an absolute bundle of nerves after graduation, which definitely concerns Charlie. So, when he asks if he's okay, Adam starts nervously monologuing about their time together until he runs out of breath. He ends it by proposing to him, and Charlie smiles so surely at him when he says yes. They both become damn good public defenders and stay engaged until the point they can legally get married, but they're practically husbands long before that happens.

Also, if I did my math right (which I should’ve, it’s my entire basis for my Share Your Address series), the Ducks’ would have the same graduating class year as Elle Woods anyway (2004), which is pretty neat!

Thank you once again for listening to me ramble :)

#i just think they're neat that's all--#full disclosure: i have not listened to/seen the musical yet but I have heard very good things about it #adam banks #charlie conway #gordon bombay #linda the mighty ducks #connie moreau #banksway #charlie x adam #the mighty ducks #casey x gordon

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watevermelon · 4 years

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Patience is a Virtue | Shinsuke Kita x Reader

✧ Summary: You lost track of the days that you were in love with Kita. He was so much more than just the team mom that many outsiders dubbed him as. He was the wielder of cold-logic and held the bluntest of words at times, but he showed his own special brand of care for each member of the team. What you hadn’t expected was for him to especially care about you. ➳ Warnings: Language because twins lmao ➳ Tags: Childhood friends to lovers; mostly fluff and humor; Atsumu being a little shit; friends trying to be match-makers; mild jealousy on Kita’s part; introspection and some character development

✧ Masterlist

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As the manager of the Inarizaki volleyball club, you were no stranger to the antics of your generally loud team. And while this was usually elicited by the twins, with most of the team ahem especially Suna being no help (since many would rather film then break-up the fight), you were almost a pro at keeping them calm to the public eye.

You grew up alongside most of the members of the team, a strange connection between all of the players. From advanced classes in junior high to being literal neighbors to some of them, you were long-term classmates with many of the members - including the captain himself.

Kita was much more than the doting team mom than people gave him credit for. Yes, he was often the face of the team, the voice of reason that handled the interviews and other press coverage, but this all came from a place of stone-cold reason. He had strict routines and never cared about doing things without practical rationale. Kita had a mature way of thinking, often compartmentalizing both people and emotions, to the point that it made people his own age not relate to him.

Even the quiet Suna, the analytical little shit who loved to poke fun at said captain, had honestly admitted that he thought Kita to be on the robot-side of the emotional spectrum.

And, despite all this, Kita was the long-term object of your affections.

It was all the little things that made your crush on him grow. From his proper speech, the blunt words no matter to whom he was speaking to, or his unusual brand of care he extended toward his teammates, Kita was the foundation of Inarizaki that you fell for. And when he was named captain of the volleyball team? You almost cried alongside him, reveling in the rare fit of pure happiness that he was gracing your eyes with.

You remembered the last time you walked home together, for once not being called away on separate duties as captain and leading manager. He treated you to ice-cream and walked along you side-by-side.

“Mint chocolate-chip with two cherries.” He told the street-cart vendor confidently, knowing your favorite flavors by heart at this point.

You ordered for him in kind, receiving the treat from the vendor as Kita paid for both of your orders. Anyone else would be contesting it, but you knew that Kita would not take no for an answer. He did stuff like this all the time with you, you were better off not fighting it. This was not the hill you wanted to die on.

But you were surprised when Kita licked at your ice cream, smiling as he tasted it and maintaining your gaze head-on. The shock on your face must have been evident since the smirk on his widened. You reached for the cone in his hand, only for him to lightly slap it away.

“Should I be asking with a pretty please or something?” You asked with a playful pout.

“No.” Kita replied, before lowering it to your eye-level.

Did he want you to lick it? While he was holding it????

Wordlessly, you followed his silent command and felt the minty taste of your afternoon snack on your tongue. Kita watched the action, eyes following your tongue as he shot you a friendly smile. He pulled away before you could get that much more, before licking your ice cream again.

Was that an indirect kiss???

“My, you two make quite the couple.” The vendor commented, clasping her hands together as she watched your interaction.

“We’re not dating.” Kita answered, squashing any hope you had from that interaction.

He was just?? So confusing??

You had so many little moments like this over the years. So many that had you often questioning deep into the night what truly was your relationship with the blunt captain of Inarizaki. You fell for him so many years ago, it made you wonder when was the last time you really thought of him as just a friend. Did he truly not know about your feelings?

But Kita was smart and on just as many occasions, you wondered if he knew the truth but simply did nothing about them. If he could read the twins with little effort, there was no doubt he understood your feelings long-ago, but decided not to act.

At least, that was your reason behind not openly admitting it to him:

That Kita knew you had a crush on him. And since he did not feel the same, it was better off if he did not address them.

And so you never brought it up, stewing in silence for years.

Eight years was a long time to be in love alone.

“You should just give up on him.” Jisoo, your fellow Inarizaki manager commented one day. She was in the same class as the twins, a year your junior.

The both of you were lounging outside in the courtyard for lunch, a humidly hot day that made the two of you especially lazy this particular school-day. Only a few more hours more and you would be free of classes, liberated of any schoolwork and finally enjoying the weekend.

You were mindlessly scrolling through your phone, looking at the different posts on social media from your various friends. Atsumu had posted of his serve practice the day before, his comment section flooded with various hearts by his fan-club of all things. Osamu’s private Instabook was of food while Aran’s had posted one of the day’s blue skies.

“Why would I do that?” You asked with a sigh, already used to her trying to guide you away from him. You understood why, it was hardly a smart decision to hold onto your feelings, not that you really cared.

“Aren’t you tired of it by now?”

But was that a good enough reason at this point? You were a third-year and about to graduate. If there was one thing that was constant throughout your entire life in the farming prefecture you called a home, it was that you had feelings for the captain.

The sky was blue. Summer was hot. You liked Kita.

It was that simple sometimes. And while there were moments that hurt your heart, it was not like you had any head-space to even try to stop.

“Maybe.” You answered candidly, “Honestly, I wouldn’t even know how to. But I don’t want to either.”

“I worry about you, senpai.”

“What can I say?” You tried to joke, even with your sad smile. “Kita has my heart on lock-down.”

“We’re all going to the twins’ party this weekend, why don’t you try talking to some of the guys there?”

“Not this again.” You complained as you put your phone down on the table.

“Come on!” Jisoo pushed, “I’m sure there’ll be someone there that peaks your interest.”

You raised a brow in response, doubt evident on your face.

She teased, “It could also be on a purely physical level.”

Laughing at her statement, you said. “Like that’s any better.”

“A little smooches here and there never hurt anyone.”

“Now I’m worrying about you.”

She giggled, before continuing. “Just think about it. First guy tonight who hits on you, give him a chance.”

While you would have dismissed the thought immediately, there was something rather playful happening in the pit of your stomach. As if, for once in a long-time, you wanted to feel the puppy love of just casually flirting. Of grinning and laughing along with someone's advances and actually enjoying one these parties; rather than just sitting on the couch playing Mario Kart waiting for Kita to hopefully show.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

She sighed loudly, happy to have cracked you a little. Jisoo continued with a teasing grin on her face. “Oh right, I forgot. You’re a masochist.”

“I could’ve told ya that.” Another voice broke out, the familiar setter of two-tone hair taking the seat next to you. He picked at one of your french-fries, eating it with no preamble as Suna took the seat diagonal from you, next to Jisoo at the picnic table outside.

For someone who spoke a lot of game about not being caught up with the twins, Suna tended to hang around Atsumu quite a bit.

“I am not a masochist.” You defended from Atsumu’s words, earning an eye-roll from the other female manager.

“Why else would you agree to manage a team with the twins?” Suna quipped before taking out his phone, probably scrolling through social media as well. Atsumu shrugged in agreement, a smirk on his face.

“Also, tell that to your love life.” Jisoo countered, playfully moving her lunch out of Atsumu’s reach before the setter could commandeer some of hers.

You quietly pushed the rest of your fries in his direction, appetite long gone on this overly humid day. Doing this sort of thing was actually quite natural with the twin, sharing food and hugs were a normal thing with your friend.

“It’s not that bad.” You argued.

“Wait, have ya ever dated before?” Atsumu asked.

“Have you?” You countered back, the setter was infamous for his many… romantic encounters. But the young man had yet to ever put a serious label on any of those instances, at least not to your knowledge.

He rolled his eyes in response, turning to Jisoo instead to continue.

“Come on senpai, not even a smooch?” She pushed.

You felt your face flush at having been called out, “Well....”

Atsumu turned his body toward you in his seat, his insufferably confident smirk back on, “I could help ya with that.”

You pushed away at his shoulder, “You say it like it’s a problem.”

“Ya savin’ it till ya get married or somethin’?” He asked, genuinely curious. Even Suna turned to you, looking up from his phone in interest.

You turned to Jisoo, the conversation taking a dangerous turn. If you said yes, their curiosity would definitely be spiked. And it was not like you could lie to them and say it was some random person in your class - you knew these boys for years, but they also knew you in kind.

Yes or no?

The other manager did not even try to bail you out and your silence was already tantamount to an answer.

“Aww. How cute of ya, (L/N).” Atsumu chuckled, reaching to pat your head. You slapped it away before he got too close. For someone younger than you, he was quite the brat. Years of being friends long stripped away any formalities apparently.

“Looks like our heart-breaker manager is actually very sentimental.” Suna commented, a brow raised in your direction.

“Heart-breaker?” You questioned in genuine confusion.

“Come on, (L/N)-san.” Jisoo answered this time, “She’s had her heart set for so long, she hasn’t even seen the other boys she’s curved.”

“How is that possible when no one’s confessed to me?”

Jisoo laughed while Atsumu absently tapped his finger on the table, “Even I know that ain’t true, (L/N).”

“Whatever.” There was no reasoning with your underclassmen when they were this dead-set. No one had confessed to you before, right? At least none to your memory, they were just being instigators as usual?

“That doesn’t answer the question why ya sittin’ here single.” Atsumu stated.

“He obviously has feelings for you, but she’s too much of a wuss to confess.” Jisoo stated it plainly for you, then turned to look at Atsumu with an expectant face. “So it’s either because he hasn’t noticed, which I doubt, or he’s not looking for commitment.”

“Ah. And it’s someone we’ve known for years, huh?” Suna deduced, words come out slowly.

You straightened your back in surprise and shot warning looks toward both boys. This was getting too close, they were starting to put together pieces of a puzzle you hadn’t even willingly handed to them. And knowing these little shits, they were not going to let this go until they found out.

Atsumu inclined his head for you to continue while Suna’s eyes never left your own. Suna was smart all the time, but with being associated with the twins constantly, it was easy to forget that fact. And since the trio acted like idiots so often, you tended to forgo how truly analytical even the Atsumu was.

This was not good - so not good. It probably would not take them long to deduce the person at this rate.

“I swear to the highest volleyball gods out there,” You spit out as your turned to the other manager, “I will fucking smite you off this planet if you say another word.”

Jisoo burst out laughing immediately, almost choking on her lunch as Atsumu grinned at your warning, the exact opposite response you wanted.

“Strong words ya got there.” He commented, body still angled toward yours in interest. “Looks like we hittin’ a lil too close to home?”

“Don’t even try it.” You responded back, turning away from his inquisitive eyes and back to your phone.

Needless to say, they didn’t listen.

Suna backed up in his seat, eyes glancing between you and the setter. “No commitment, huh?”

Meanwhile, Atsumu was rapid-firing questions. “Is it a second-year? Third-year? Is he on the volleyball team? Do we know ‘em personally?”

You smiled at his now peaked curiosity, the setter almost looking like a small puppy waiting for a treat. But you refused to answer, no doubt sure that they would tell the captain the moment they found out the truth. You turned to Jisoo, who was smiling away at Atsumu, but otherwise sat thankfully quiet.

Atsumu was firing off specific names now, hoping to get any response from you.

“The bastard’s gotta be on the team.”

“Bastard?” Jisoo laughed at the nickname.

“Shut up, Atsumu.” You countered, attempting to poke harshly at his forehead to stop. But he just grabbed the hand in one of his own, holding it in his lap as he continued to spit out names.

“Is it Aran?”

“Will you stop?”

“‘Samu?”

“I will murder you in cold blood.”

“... Is it me?”

You tried your best to pull your hand away, now realizing his tightening hold on against the skin of your hand. How long had you been sitting there holding hands? You felt a natural rosiness rise to your cheeks, not really because of the recipient, but because you were doing so in public with some guy.

Instead, you poked the setter’s side roughly, earning a deep groan, but freeing your hand in the process. Packing up your belongings, you stepped out of the picnic table and stated, “Lunch is almost over, we should get to class.”

You walked away with a small wave, the boys turning to the now only female occupant of the lunch-table.

“So…”

“Nu-uh.” Jisoo cut off Atsumu, moving to leave the table before she accidentally said anything.

“Throw a man a bone here! Or at least help him bone.” Atsumu murmured that last part under his breath, “Ya don’t even have to verbally confirm it - is it me?”

Jisoo paused as she stood, books in hand already. The look she threw him was mischievous, but otherwise she left in silence.

Unfortunately for you, all you were thinking about during class was that conversation you just had. Kita sat on your right in your next few classes, the mild Ōmimi behind the both of you. The last thing you needed was to linger on their teasing words of smooches and marriage. You couldn’t confess your feelings, imagining anything else?? You could only imagine the bright blush at the simple thought of it.

And apparently, you hadn’t hidden it well.

“Something wrong?”

There were still a couple more minutes until the teacher would return. And so you were sitting in the classroom with Kita alongside you, other students milling around the room. He was so damn good at reading people and you cursed that he was using it against you now.

“Just thinking about some stuff Jisoo said at lunch.” You tried to wave off.

“You’re blushing.” Kita stated bluntly, putting his book down as he spoke to you.

He was never one to sugar-coat his words.

“Am I?” You put your palms to your cheeks, as if to feel the heat. There was no point in trying to lie to him. “She was teasing me about boys.”

“Oh. Are you dating anyone?” Kita asked.

God, this was awful.

There was nothing worse than your crush asking about your crush.

“No, not yet.” You shook your head negatively, turning towards the window on your left, at least trying to hide your expression.

“Yet? Are you looking to date soon?”

You wanted to scream.

“Um, not in the near future.” You tried to deflect, “But it could happen!”

“Of course.” He smiled, “I packed extra onigiri for lunch, but I couldn’t find you. I’m not sure if you still want it.”

“Ah, I would love to! If I’m not imposing, then yes.”

Kita shook his head, “I packed it for you.”

“You’re so sweet sometimes.” You said honestly, taking it and munching down.

“You usually either forget your lunch or eat junk.” He stated plainly, making you suddenly blanch at his cold-words. I mean, he wasn’t exactly wrong either. You thought back to the lunch you had today, literally just water and french fries that you ended up giving to Atsumu.

“Ha, well.” You trailed off before settling on, “Thanks for always taking care of me.”

Kita’s small grin widened as he looked you in the eyes, “It’s my pleasure.”

When he said things like that, it easily set your heart aflame. It was so simple, such small interactions that you would have to squint hard to find anything underlying in his words. But you wanted to. You wanted to feel needed and also give to the captain as well.

The blush you had earlier was probably nothing in comparison to how you looked now, you were sure. And, with Kita being the ever smart cookie he was, there was no doubt that he spied your inflamed reaction.

Was that conversation over? Was he expecting a response?

Maybe the volleyball god’s did have mercy on your poor soul, since your teacher walked in then and thankfully brought your conversation to a halt. You tried not to outwardly seem relieved, turning to the front and taking out your notebooks.

Your mind wandered in and out of the lecture. There were moments that your gaze just happened to meander over to the captain to your right. It was one thing to suddenly notice you were staring at him, but another thing entirely to be caught in the action. Kita would usually just smile at you kindly, before nudging his chin toward the front of the room toward the teacher.

Even later during volleyball practice, your eyes would casually dawdle over to where the captain was standing. Whether he was watching the team with careful eyes or participating himself in practicing spikes, your eyes usually just found him.

But today was not the day to let down your guard.

Atsumu and Suna were paying careful attention to you. And now it was no secret where your gaze was pointed to. Suna smirked when he realized, but Atsumu clicked his tongue and mentally filed it away for later. Jisoo once snapped playful fingers in front of your face, grabbing your attention to flip the scoreboard.

When it was finally time to clean, Kita helped you collect the left-over volleyballs and roll the hammock into the proper storage room. You did so carefully, making sure not to accidentally touch his skin lest he back off from the motion. But the kind, neutral expression he shot you went straight to your heart.

“Let’s get the scoreboard next.” He instructed, the both of you moving to opposite sides of the wheeled board.

And you would have, if Atsumu had not thrown a casual arm across the captain’s shoulders.

“Hey, do ya mind helpin’ ‘Samu over there?” He motioned with his thumb over his shoulder, pointing to his twin who was not looking at all.

Slightly suspicious, Kita did as asked anyway and went with the grey-headed twin to mop the floors.

“What was that about?” You asked as Atsumu pushed the scoreboard along with you.

It was only when you entered the storage room alone that he replied, “So Mister No Gaps Kita Shinsuke, huh?”

“What?!” You fought the inward need to slap yourself, high voice and exclamation enough to show that he was right on the money. “You asshole, how do you know that?”

“I didn’t need anyone to tell me that.” He emphasized, gesturing at your eyes with two fingers. “Ya kept starin’ at ‘em the entire practice.”

You huffed frowning, “That obvious, huh?”

“Yea, he probably knows too - especially if Suna and I figured this shit out.”

That didn’t help at all.

“Great.” You leaned against the nearby wall and put a palm to your forehead.

Atsumu crossed his arms, “So why haven’t ya confessed to ‘em yet?”

You scoffed and shot him a flat-expression, “Because he doesn’t like me back?”

“What? He said that to ya?”

“Well, no.” You hesitated, but explained. “I mean, he definitely knows I have feelings. And Shinsuke has never been one to beat around the bush. If he hasn’t addressed it, it’s probably because he doesn’t want to make it awkward… since he doesn't feel the same.”

“I think you’re a dumbass.” Atsumu stated back, sighing heavily. “Kita don’t think like that and we both know it.”

“Why else would he be waiting it out?” You asked, “This is the same Kita that told us he doesn’t understand how people feel nervous.”

“Jesus, (F/N). He was talkin’ about volleyball.” Atsumu groaned, raking one of his hands through his piss-blonde hair. “Kita’s human too. Maybe he’s not sure how ya would respond for the same reasons.”

“I don’t know if love advice from the school’s resident fuck-boy is a good idea.” You jabbed instead, a playful smile on your face.

Atsumu put a mock-offended hand on his chest, a smirk finding a way on his face before he squashed it down seriously. He took a step toward you until you were less than an arms’ length-apart, “Fine, have it your way. Stew in silence until he finds someone else.”

That struck a silent chord in you.

“Honestly, that was kind of the plan these past few years.” You admitted, turning your head toward the ground. “If he could find his true happiness with someone else, then I would be happy for him.”

Atsumu must have detected your seriousness, since he hesitated to say his next few words. “Don’ be like that. Stop bein’ an idiot - he likes you.”

“Shut up.”

“Come on, (L/N).” Atsumu levelled with you, “Ya standin’ here like ya ain’t the only girl he’s ever withstood.”

“Wow, what a feat.” You muttered as you sighed.

“Fine, if ya don’t believe that. Aren’t ya’ll best friends anyway?” Atsumu asked, “I’m sure he’d do anythin’ to keep you close.”

You hesitated, but agreed. Your relationship, no matter if he reciprocated your feelings or not, you were best friends. But if he didn’t feel the same and you said something? Would there ever be recovering from something like that?

Atsumu drew you out of your thoughts before he lost you further to your over-thinking, “You’re a real catch. Anybody would be lucky to have ya.”

“Oh?” You shot a withered smile at him.

“And I’m not just sayin’ that to put the moves on ya.” Atsumu joked, earning a light punch to his shoulder as you walked past him to leave.

“Yeah, yeah.” You said before turning back towards him, remembering to say. “None of this leaves this room. You hear that?”

“Yes ma’am.” He mock-saluted, a second later a loud ahem ringing through the room.

You tensed up and turned toward the door, seeing a blank-faced Shinsuke standing in the open doorway. Atsumu was always surprised, albeit much less worried than you were. Was your secret finally out?

“Am I interrupting something?” He asked, before you pushed shouted a loud No! and brushed past him back into the gymnasium.

Atsumu tried to casually exit the room as well, before his captain’s voice rang-out again, “Care to explain what that was about?”

The setter had two options here: either brush it off or fan the flames that he knew for a fact was there. You were the obvious party, openly staring at the captain like your eyes belonged on him. But Atsumu knew that those feelings were not as unrequited as you thought.

He remembered some club-room talk not that long ago. It was normal for the guys to discuss their preferences, something that Atsumu was rather vocal about on multiple occasions. Aran was just looking for someone he could cook while Ōmimi stated he liked girls who were generally very kind. Osamu preferred someone who was a bit meeker while Atsumu loved ‘em vocal, even bratty to the point of talking back.

“Of course, you would.” Suna commented as he dressed.

“What the fuck do ya mean by that?” The setter bit out.

“As in the fuckboy thinks he’s a girl tamer.” Suna snarkily replied.

“Well, when a girl has a mouth on her. I want to put it to good use.” Atsumu said with a smirk, earning a loose towel to the head, one that Osamu had just launched from across the room. Aran sighed and grabbed it before Atsumu could whip it back. Kita nodded toward his counterpart in quiet thanks.

Many of the others were still dressing after practice this day, it would be annoying to have to break up another fight between the twins then.

“Can ya be less of an asshole?” The grey-headed twin asked.

“Wha? I’m speakin’ the truth!” Atsumu defended, “Not every girl is like that anyway.”

“And who would the infamous Ratsumu have his eyes on?” Suna asked, genuinely curious but not missing the chance to poke at the setter.

Atsumu frowned, but continued anyway. “No one, right now. But I still got eyes, ya know. Ya can’t tell me our manager ain’t a cutie.”

“She would rather hand you a new asshole than ever date you.” Suna said, to which Akagi laughed.

“Careful, ‘Tsamu.” Osamu playfully warned, “People might think ya like (L/N)-san.”

“What can I say, she’s single and hot as fuck.” Atsumu replied off-handedly.

It was a plain statement, but you could almost physically feel the temperature change in the club-room. Aran was glancing between the captain while the rest wondered why it was suddenly dead silent.

Osamu wondered if his prayers had been heard and he would soon be an only child.

“I suggest not saying that again.” Kita stated over his shoulder as he buttoned up the rest of his shirt.

That was a clear enough warning to everyone in the room that you were off limits. Suna had remembered this instance as well, in the present day reminding Atsumu after lunch not to push any buttons. It was clear then that Kita had no tolerance to any shit he was going to pull and now the pining was mutual on both your ends. Suna reminded him again and again during class to just let you and Kita sort your feelings naturally.

Pfft.

Was Atsumu going to be a little shit and try to sew some discord?

Hell yes.

“What can I say?” Atsumu feigned being casual, even shrugging as he exited the quiet storage room. “A pretty girl and a young guy enter a closet alone together, you know the rest.”

The glare he felt on his neck could have been enough to snap it with this much pressure. But, Atsumu digressed. He was doing the both of you a favor anyway, pushing you together when you both already had feelings for one another (albeit with some mind games interspersed).

Atsumu almost laughed when Kita grabbed your hand when the two of you walked home together.

Kita knew what the setter was doing. What buttons he was trying to push, what he was trying to imply with you. The captain knew it all and he was still getting pissed off.

True to everyone’s assumptions, Kita knew about your feelings for him. The extent and duration, that he was not sure of. But he knew that you have thought about him in a romantic light for quite some time. Lingered looks and purposeful touches, on both your ends, was not something he could easily ignore.

What made Kita wonder was why you hadn’t said anything at all?

You were often pretty straight-forward as well. Not exactly in terms of romance, but you when were interested in something you tended to speak your mind. Whether it be a new show, some shounen anime you were following along with, you always shared it with him.

And for that fact he was always grateful.

Many of the others your age tended to be warded off by his way of thinking, branding him too mature or even too cold at times. To think that even the sarcastic Suna had nicknamed him as a robot, it was interesting to see that was how most people saw him.

But you didn’t.

Or at least, you saw passed his cold exterior and were just a freely-spoken with your mind. Kita’s blunt way of speaking had casualties sometimes, but you usually voiced if his blunt speech was too much. There were times that, if you were inadvertently hurt by his words, you would say it out-loud.

He remembered the last time this happened, not even a month ago. The two of you were hanging out under the shade of a tree, about to go out to a team hangout when you exited your back porch wearing a blue sundress. It flirted high above your knees and showed off the creamy legs of yours that he loved to trail his eyes over.

You looked breath-taking.

And so he said:

“Is there an occasion I’m missing today? I thought we were just going out with the team.”

The disappointed look on your face was immediate and it did not take a genius to figure those were the wrong words to say. But what he was not sure is where it went wrong. Logically, it made sense. You were going to walk at least two miles to the train and then from there a mile to the arcade. And most of that time you would all be standing. Would you even be comfortable doing all this walking in sandals?

But you didn’t get offended or draw away from him from these smaller misunderstandings.

You were always ready to knock some sense into him if need be.

“Not even a compliment on how I look? How mean.” You said with a frown, “I tried a bit more because I don’t usually get the chance to.”

“I know, but I want you to be comfortable considering the walks today.” Kita lightly grabbed your elbow as he stepped closer, “Besides, you always look beautiful no matter what you’re wearing.”

Your blush was palpable, Kita was almost sure he could fry an egg on your forehead, if the redness was any indication of temperature.

“Let’s save this dress for another occasion. Preferably where only I see these.” He glanced down to indicate your legs, to which you sputtered and allowed him to guide you back inside the house.

And instead, he picked a pair of light-colored shorts and a loose summer-blouse. Kita knew you had a pair of black-and-white sneakers that would go with it anyway. You commented how it was almost scary that Kita knew your wardrobe, but he stated it simply:

I like what you wear. And I think it looks very agreeable on you.

It was simple and he stated it thusly. And from your reaction, it seemed as if it had made your day. From the beaming smile on your face to the new skip in your step, it was clear to him that he had amended the situation properly with your guidance.

But he still had the same issue: Kita thought he was being clear as day.

There was no one else he was spending time with like this. No one else whom Kita was expressing interest in like he was with you. From sharing ice-cream to hangouts alone with just the two of you, he thought his way of flirting with you was obvious? His actions alone should have been clear that he was showing his own interest in you.

And so if Kita was being clear with his feelings, why hadn’t you said anything?

This was not something he could just say and retract, either. The last thing he wanted to do was put your entire friendship on the line just to lose you. What if you actually did not feel the same way? But from your constant blushing and obvious gaze on him, you liked him too? But why hadn’t you said anything? Were you expecting him too?

He almost groaned aloud at this line of thinking.

Nothing had him flustered quite like you. Kita was confident both in school and on the court, a sure faith that no matter where it was. It was not a baseless arrogance, but more like a calm trust that he knew what he was doing was right.

And yet…

When it came to you, that brand of confidence simply withered away. Not always a bad thing, you often caught him off-guard with your own kindness and rarely did you ever truly fight. But there were times that he sorely wished he knew what was going on in that head of yours.

Like why hadn’t you said anything to him regarding this tension?

Or better yet, why the hell were you whispering with Atsumu in the gym closet?

The setter knew all about your being off-limits. Kita made it very clear that day and it seemed even then, the message did not totally receive in the asshole's mind. Or rather, it probably did, Atsumu just decided to ignore it.

And so on your shared walk home after practice, Kita gently grabbed your hand and did not let go. You almost jumped in surprise alongside him. Not that you hadn’t held hands before, but it was usually called for in the context. Navigating one of the twin’s parties, through a crowded group, or just to guide you somewhere.

But never had he held your hand for no reason.

Kita just smiled, hoping this would send a clear enough message to both you and the meddlesome boys behind you.

Meanwhile, Atsumu had to stop himself from cackling aloud. Osamu was ready to question his brother over what the hell was that about, but Suna assured him that it was best not to get involved at this rate. Aran simply sighed, but waved goodbye and goodnight to the rest of the team.

Your smile was a mask to your inward screaming, only to be silenced to a blank void. Your mind was comparable to that picture of spilled milk - the only thing inside as if the very act was an enigma. You had no idea what to say, what to do in this situation as you both continued to walk along.

For someone who was an athlete, the skin of his hand was surprisingly soft as it encased your own. You felt your hand unconsciously squeeze his and feared that the act would have him pulling away, as if waking him up from his act. But Kita squeezed back, a fond expression reflected back at you.

The two of you walked home together whenever you had the chance, unless called for by other duties. So this was usually normal for the two of you. Conversation was just easy, ranging from school or recent events, and even if one-sided you had no issues with simply speaking to the captain. And yet today…

Kita and you were both completely silent.

You couldn’t even tell if something else was on his mind, a neutral look on his face as he looked ahead. Was this action to show that he was reciprocating your feelings? You hated being unsure like this, but there was too much vulnerability to simply lay-out what you wanted to say.

Even on the train, Kita sat next to you quietly but still held your hand over his knee. You watched the action, before trying to level your breathing as to not freak out. But Kita kept going about his day, even taking out his phone to check a few texts with the other hand.

It was meant to show this was entirely on purpose.

Only when your house popped into view during something conspiratory popped into your mind - Did one of the boys tell him?

You felt the small seed of hope grow further. Was it just a coincidence that the day Suna and Atsumu found out about your secret was the same day, after literal years, that Kita found out as well? And that maybe if he knew now, was he reciprocating in some way?

You moved to glance at him in the corner of your eye, but he was already looking at you.

The both of you stopped short of the gate, but you hesitated for a second to say anything. There was so much on your mind and stewing in silence was the exact opposite thing you wanted to do. Before you could even think of words to say, your captain made the first move again.

Kita tenderly reached for your other hand, holding both in his much larger ones. He brought them up together and shot you a gentle smile, “(F/N), your hands are so soft.”

It came out like word vomit.

“I like you, Kita!”

SHIT.

Maybe you read him wrong?? If he was going to make a move, why was he looking at you so surprised??

“And here I was, wanting to say something first.” Kita said as he chuckled lightly, his hands gliding the rest of the way up your arms. “I like you, too.”

You didn’t even have time to overthink, Kita wasting no time and pulling you towards him. Quickly raising your hands to his chest, you steadied yourself against him as he held you in the close embrace. His smile was almost blinding - not from the size, but rather the genuine feel behind it.

Your hands slid upwards, folding behind his neck as your faces drew closer together. One of his hands gently carded in your hair, lightly guiding you to him. You closed your eyes in silent anticipation, long awaited joining finally happening with only stars as your audience.

The skin of his lips slotted gently against yours and you silently relished the feel of the prolonged peck. You pulled him closer, silently nudging him to go the step further. Kita smiled in response, making you beam right back at him. It was honestly hard to deepen the kiss further, expressions pulled from your shared grins. You were two idiots smiling at one another, foreheads pressed together as you struggled to deepen your impassioned kiss.

“I’ve waited so long to hold you like this.” Kita whispered against your lips, one of his hands resting around your waist.

“Me too.” You replied in a low vice, eyes still closed as you just felt him.

He watched your cute expression, from your rosy appearance to the way you deliciously leaned your body into him. Kita felt his eyes shutter closed, savoring the feeling of you two finally joined. You moved together in tandem, softly at first, and then with a swift intensity that made you cling to him even further - as if Kita was the only solid thing in this suddenly swaying world.

The world was constantly moving, either too fast or too slow or too much at times. Until finally, in Kita’s arms, it finally felt right.

“I’ve liked you for a really long time.” You confessed.

“I know.” Kita responded simply, “Me too.”

You almost wanted to laugh, but withheld it from possibly breaking the atmosphere. “Is it really that simple?”

“Yes.” Kita said as he smiled, moving to place a light kiss on your forehead. “I was honestly… afraid to say anything in fear of your response. But now we are both aware, right?”

You grinned back and stretched on your tippy-toes to kiss his cheek, “Yes.”

“That’s it then.” Kita stated as he leaned his forehead back against yours, “You’re mine. And I’m yours.”

You whispered back, “Sounds like a deal.”

His insistent mouth parted your eager lips, sending wild tremors crawling up your spine, evoking sensations you had never known you were even capable of feeling. And as the swimming giddiness spun you round and round, you steadied yourself to kiss him back just as passionately. With a swipe of his tongue against the crease of your lips, you parted your mouth eagerly.

There was no battle, no insistent fight between your two appendages. There was only Kita, eagerly roaming around your mouth as you sensually rubbed tongues. You openly moaned at the feeling, not even noticing the noise until Kita was smiling in response.

You blushed at the realization, but Kita only complimented the sound. “Make that noise again for me.”

Your smile dropped to a more sultry smirk.

“You’ll have to earn it.”

Kita felt his eyes comically widen before dropping to a half-lid, “Oh?”

“My parents aren’t home…”

“Oh.”

Kita placed a kiss on your forehead just to lean away, one of his hands dropping to grab your own. You hurried along with his pace, suddenly breaking out into a faster walk in the direction of your home.

“Let’s make up for lost time, shall we?”

BONUS:

“No way.” Jisoo commented on the sight before her, nudging Atsumu standing next to her. The twin’s party was ravaging around them, but there was an unlikely and yet very likely couple that had just walked through the door. And while it was normal to see the two of them together, it was the first official time as an exclusive couple.

Walking in was Kita and you, hands clasped together like this was oh so natural.

Akagi greeted the both of you with a smile while Aran waved you guys over to the living, where many of the other team members were playing a game. Kita guided you through the party, joined hands proudly on display for all party goers.

Atsumu held out a hand in Jisoo direction’s, causing her to frown but nonetheless place some lost yen in his open palm.

But seeing you smile and share a kiss openly with the captain, Jisoo didn’t exactly mind losing this bet.

---xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx---

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akabane-yum · 3 years

Text

OTP Asks - All Of Them (9-16) <- Part One

For @toorumochi assass :P

For the Angst

9. Have they made each other cry?

Short answer: Yes

Long answer:

Karma knew that Gakushuu would be a difficult person to live with and that he was sensitive despite his hard exterior, but that didn’t mean he didn’t get annoyed too sometimes.

That night they were arguing about who knows what, saying things they didn’t mean, when the insults became half truths and eventually full truths that became insults. Karma said something along the lines of “Oh, and it’s not my fault your dad didn’t raise you right but it your fault that you’re becoming exactly like him, don’t ask me why I’ll need therapy more than twice a week after this.”

If it hadn’t already clicked to Gakushuu that they were fighting fighting before then, now he got the message. He ran out of the room without another word and Karma had to pace to cool down. Karma decided to sleep on the couch that night and only realized Shuu went off crying the next morning, when the air was cold and rigid and Shuu had tear stains under his eyes. Karma didn’t say anything though, he didn’t really know how to fix it. They ended up spending that whole day apart and eventually had a long talk.

———————

Gakushuu made Karma cry when he told him they’d probably end up breaking up. Karma was joking about meeting Shuu’s mom and Shuu just laughed saying he didn’t think they’d make it that far. That messed with Karma’s perception of permanence and what he thought they were. He thought they were gonna get married some day and that they were going to live together and... what? He tried to ask Gakushuu why he thought they wouldn’t make it and Shuu seemed unbothered. He said something about how they were incompatible in many ways and how they were both handfuls and how life would get harder and how Karma probably wouldn’t be able to handle all the weird changes in Gakushuu’s life because of how the businesses was booming. They said goodnight after that and Karma found himself outside at 3am taking a walk. He didn’t realize he was crying till he came home and Shuu asked him why he was crying. His first instinct was to say he was doing drugs but that would get them nowhere. Instead he said he didn’t want to talk about it, and they went to bed. He could think about permanence another day. And he did, they talked about both that and their insecurities going forward to try to salvage their relationship. (I can imagine that this is a few years into their relationship.)

10. Write a ~300 word argument scene for them.

In another post !

11. What causes them to fight?

The lighthearted answer would be: anything and everything. They fight over how many pillows they need but always laugh about it in the end.

Another answer would be: the fact that at the beginning of their relationship they were insecure about themselves. You know you really shouldn’t get into a relationship until you love yourself enough, at least in most cases. But for them I’m guessing that the mutual attraction was enough for them to get together, which isn’t always bad b u t for them they had a lot to unpack. It’s surprising and maybe even kinda toxic that they stayed together after the first part of their relationship but now they’re happy. I can imagine that they’re happier as adults at least, and that they still do fight over small things like the TV volume but those fights don’t even count as fights. It’s just a little conversation to keep them going yknow?

12. Do they have differing political opinions?

Kinda? Gakushuu is a businessman and probably took a course called “creating capitalism” so we can assume he’s pro capitalism, and on the other hand Karma joined the bureaucracy in Japan (and Japan is, if I’m not mistaken, a socialist country) so he’s probably at least pro socialism.

I just want to comment on how this is cool because Gakushuu being pro capitalism is a solo player as the CEO with the most shares of his corporation. Whereas Karma who we assume is pro socialism works as a bureaucrat for the government. Which is cool because capitalism is more about individuals climbing the corporate ladder and whatnot whereas socialism is more of a government intervention thing where the government has control and places limitations. (There’s way more to it but I tried to badly summarize.) So they’re both doing very well in their respective economies. That being said, we could go into the capitalist tendencies in Japan but we won’t! AHEM THE MAIN QUESTION WAS ABOUT POLITICS BUT I WARPED IT SORRY THEYRE PROBABLY BOTH MORE LIBERAL BUT I WONT GO INTO THAT.

Anyways to finish off explaining the “kinda” I answered with, I said kinda because I don’t think they feel strongly enough about their own (preferred) economies to argue about it. Though maybe Karma will complain about some of the disparity in wealth he sees between Gakushuu and others but honestly I don’t see them caring much, since they have the luxury of living in their own bubble of karushuu happy fun. I hope this blurb made sense.

13. Name something they would never do for the other person

Gakushuu would never give up his ambitions to be with Karma. Sounds sad but after letting go of some of those insecurities that were there at first, he’s found his self worth and won’t give up all his hard work for anyone. Is that selfish? Personally I don’t think so, because it would be selfish for someone to ask him to let go of his dreams for them. Karma would never do that anyway, so. By give up his ambitions for Karma I mean like if Karma were to ask Gakushuu to drop his work or him, he’d be dropping Karma.

Karma would never settle down entirely because Gakushuu asked him to. This is similar to the first one but I don’t think he wants to calm down and live in another tropical country and retire young just because they have enough money you know? Not like Gakushuu would ever ask him to slow down but if he did then Karma would still probably work a few jobs because of how boring life would be without something to do. This is basically like Gakushuu’s but I feel like Karma’s is less intense and he wouldn’t break up with Gakushuu right away because of this.

Take that as you will ^^

14. What would be a dealbreaker

This is the same as the last one I think. Telling the other to slow down and pick between their passions (for work lmao) or them. Since it’s the same ish for both of them I don’t think there would be that much of an issue though. Maybe if Karma killed Shuu’s cat then that would be a dealbreaker, who knows.

15. What are traits they dislike in one another?

Karma dislikes how Gakushuu is a workaholic and Gakushuu hates how Karma is taller than him :P also how quick he is at making impulsive decisions. HmMm maybe also how Karma snores- that’s not even a trait i- anywayyyyssss

16. If they broke up, what would be their opinions of each other.

Oh boy. I’ve thought about this for not karushuu things too so here’s my take on this:

Karma would consider Gakushuu as an addition to the toxic people in his life. First his parents, then some of his teachers, and now his first boyfriend. He’d remember the happy moments they had together but quickly try to replace them with the sadder memories. He’d try his best to paint Gakushuu is the worst lighting, he’d villainize (not a word but shh) him so he could go on thinking he didn’t do anything wrong and it was Gakuhsuu’s toxicness that tore them apart.

Gakushuu wouldn’t think of Karma. Not after a bit of time, not because Karma never came to mind again after the breakup, but because any thoughts of Karma would be illegal. Honestly I can see him thinking that his time with Karma was an era of weakness. He can’t go back to that weak state, not even in his memories, so he doesn’t. (Well maybe in the middle of the night some days he does but he’d never admit to that.) I hope my grammar here was bearable lmao.

I’m sorry I’m tired lmao I can’t proofread but yk :))) next part up soon!

#asano gakushuu #assassination classroom #karushuu #karma akabane #karma x gakushuu #shoe #akabane karma #otp #ask otp #angst #breakup #headcanon #otp headcanons #asks #yoit #anyways

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 3 years

Text

As you all may know, my mother is on a ventilator for covid 19. She didn’t believe in covid. I tried to tell her but she didn’t believe it. She tried to tell me some kind of Qanon bologne when I’d try to tell her. I would give anything to have more time with my mother. There is some signs of improvement in her feeling better but I am not wanting to become too hopeful. She was on the phone with one of my elder sisters for six minutes rather than two the other day. She was angry at her for letting her kids come in to her house knowing they had covid.

I’m very angry at her doctor who told her she didn’t need the covid shot, in fact just telling her she is healthy. She has a small body frame and is on the shorter side but weighs nearly three hundred pounds and struggles to get around. She’s 59 years old and works as a nurse at a nursing home and works way too hard on minimum wage, has given birth to six children, has always had asthma and is prone to bronchitis and pneumonia. She’s a prime candidate for covid, in fact she is who I thought about the day I remember reading about covid. It’s like this disease was designed to kill my mother.

They sent her to southern Idaho for a ventilator. She is lucky to get one. They’ve run out in many of these red states that didn’t take covid seriously enough. It does not bring me any joy that right wingers and people who didn’t believe in the shot are dying. I’ve had liberal friends say over simplistic things about people from red states getting what’s coming to them and so forth, and people have rejoiced at the idea of trump supporters getting sick and suffering and dying.

I am left leaning, but I never want to get so caught up in my political ego that I eradicate any notion of humanity to the people I don’t agree with or might not even like. Their pain and lives are real and legitimate as anyone else’s. Their families matter too. They are wrong, my mother is wrong. She’s been backwards about a lot of the world my whole life.

But she’s also a very kind person. She is always giving to people and has contradictory, while supporting a fucking horrible president, also put up for and fought her job because of racism she was seeing all around her. She doesn’t really think like a conservative and her way of approaching life didn’t really ever reflect a deeper conservative value or drive. I’ve noticed other conservatives never liked her.

She believed the wrong things because she was driven by religious faith and loneliness to believe the rabbit hole of alt right Facebook. She doesn’t have much of an education, was bullied and abused for most of her childhood. she went to over twenty different schools and moved a lot throughout her childhood. She got married and started having children very young. She always worked as a bartender, or as a caretaker to children with disabilities or elderly folk. She barely understood the internet. She believed in god and joined religious groups on Facebook very open and blindly without even understanding propaganda or the political climate of what is being fought for, which pretty much took her down this poisonous road. And now she’s barely able to talk in an icu all alone, as this virus that she didn’t believe in tries to kill her.

Moving to the city and always being left leaning, but being from a rural area of the inland north west, where I was outnumbered and lived amongst these folk who didn’t like me all that much but I was always having to find ways to accept and understand sometimes gives me a perspective perhaps that maybe liberal kids from middle class families from liberal cities have missed out on. I will never be able to see it as black and white. It would be easy to just say that the people in Bible Belt areas deserve this and be rid of any sadness or guilt. I was disgusted by the anti intellectualism I was surrounded by and I lived for most of my twenties in my own world to avoid it when I was growing up and lived in my home state which is fairly red. But people are the same everywhere. They really are.

Her recovery is slow and I worry something terrible is happening to her organs and lungs as she has fights for her life. I hope her body is strong enough to keep fighting. I appreciate the care and labor and sacrifice the hospitals have given to keep people alive. There is so much anguish. We have lost a mural of so many wonderful and beautiful souls to covid. It’s hard to even fathom the grief and pain it’s left in its wake. I can barely cope with my own.

I took a walk today to think. I haven’t wanted to listen to music in a long while because my mood is on my mother’s condition, but I put in John Prine. He was one of the first people to die of covid that I cared about, albeit indirectly as I only know him through his songs. I had a ticket to go see him play before covid took his life. It was going to be small and intimate outdoor concert in town. His music was always so real and down to earth. He sings about the quiet sad things of getting old and the way that love is about the daily existence with other people. How you build and cope with things.

One of his last songs on the album before he died was about how science has no business tinkering with nature. It’s so genuine. And ironic. Not everyone shares this belief, but I think that the covid flu was made in a lab and someone made a mistake and let it out into the public. I believe it was just human error in Wuhan. Nobody, no government or anything wanted this. And the Chinese government did everything they could to avoid fessing up to the mistake. So the idea of a lab grown virus being what killed John Prine kind of hurts in a way, though he also often sang about being comfortable with death and having peace with a life that was happy.

There are countless people I could blame for my mother’s disease. I could blame the dystopian Chinese government and their inability to admit fault, I could blame our government and our long-standing capitalist system that monetary prioritizes gain over human life, I could blame my mother’s cruel upbringing for not giving her the tools she needed to make wise choices about the world around her, or she herself for not taking care of her body. I could blame her mother and father and brothers.

I could blame my sisters kids for their lack of consideration of what covid would do to my mother’s health knowing she was high risk, or my eldest sister herself for being lazy and letting them go to my moms house knowingly.

I could blame some mentally unwell woman named Susan who my mother might have vaguely known for inviting her to a Facebook group of hate and conspiracy, or blame the nuns who drove religion into my mother’s head as a child. I could blame the easy to punch Ted Cruz or Tucker Carleson or any of the right wing mouth pieces for spreading lies and misinformation to the people they are supposedly speaking up for on behalf of about covid. I could blame it on our artificially based two party system that prevents real discussion from ever happening.

In the end, there is a myriad of things I could blame. So many pieces to the puzzle I could write volumes. But it doesn’t change where we are at now. And I have little control of the world around me. Or what made it that way. It’s disappointing. And in a way, John Prine has that message too. I’m just sad. I try to remember that my mom of the many people I have known was very accepting of death. Maybe it’s because she’s a person of faith, but she has a practical dark humor about her too that makes her accept it. I know she wouldn’t want me to be sad, but I am all the same.

It’s happened at this point where I am genuinely feeling my age and kind of at a crossroads in who I am as a person and what I want to do. I’ll talk about that some other time though. There is only so much a person can read.

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docholligay · 3 years

Note

Please rant/rave (well, we already know which one it will be here) about Harry Potter!

GEE I HOPE THIS WAS WORTH WAITING FOR

OH MY GOD. The level of hatred I have for Harry Fucking Goddamn Potter, the culture around Harry Fucking Potter, extending its poisonous tentacles even to the concept of young adult fiction, fantasy, and the United Kingdom as a country and people.

When you being on this, you may think, “Oh, Doc will explain that Harry Potter sucks because JKR hates trans women” and I will say, oh no, dear reader, that is a fantastic reason to hate the author, and I really suggest we all continue to hate her, and perhaps not purchase the QUEEN’S TONNES of officially licensed merchandise and movies and theme parks that give her stupid little fucking hands all that cash, but no, that is not why I hate the work. There are a number of great works done by terrible people, and the further out the lens of history gets the truer this is.

I hate Harry Potter because it fucking sucks, and mentally stifled an entire fucking generation.

“Well, Doc, Harry Potter was really there for me when--” Oh my god I could not fucking care LESS about your personal emotion connection to “orphan wizard boy turns out to be a rich aristocrat yet somehow less woke than Cinderella though” I have personally emotional connections to hot fucking garbage pails of media properties, and if someone came barreling through talking about the myriad ways in which they were horrible, I would be like, “Oh, you aren’t fucking wrong, pal”

Harry Potter gained wild ass popularity in part due to its magnificent sorting system of Smart, Brave, Evil, and Other, because there’s nothing liberals like more than being able to put everyone’s personality into an easily labeled box, which is why astrology is so popular, or for the intellectuals, Myers-Briggs, which is just as fake but with the veneer of science. This allowed people to give into the tribalism they so desperately liked to pretend they did not possess, and also allow them to write thinkpieces about “The misunderstood Hufflepuff” or “Slytherins aren’t all bad!” or really anything that allows them to write a very real piece about their very imagined oppression for being a part of a totally fake house in a children’s book. Excellent use of your sociology degree, Kai, I thought the addition of phrases like, ‘Content of socialization” and “axes of oppression” really spoke to the struggles you face when wearing a green and silver scarf.

The other reason it became popular is that it’s essentially wallpaper paste formed into characters. I have read all of the books, and I could not tell you even remotely what Harry’s defining personality traits are other than “protagonist”. In American, at least, a large part of it was the fascination with all things British, with the idea of boarding school and prefects and uniforms that aren’t inexplicably chinos and polo shirts for nine year olds. It allowed children to project onto something so bland that it could be anything. And for children, THAT’S FINE. There is a great deal of bland media made for children, but what I’m speaking to is the fandom, which is largely well over the age of 18.

Because if we look at the books, are they...actually good? Was it good, or did I experience it as a child? I mean, honestly, on a literary level, are they, or was it just like we all watched Friends, we did it because everyone else was doing it, because I have a distinct memory of a series that involves such greats as “magical geegaws with poorly defined rules that are quickly forgotten despite being able to solve later problems quickly” or “Everyone loves Harry or is a bad guy, or secretly loved Harry all along”

Oh, speaking of, man, if this was an actual well-written book, wouldn’t it have been wild to have Snape’s whole thing be to teach us that sometimes people do good things for the wrong reasons? Instead of naming your fucking child after the guy who ‘protected you’ because he still wanted to bone your mom? “After all this time” “Always.”

While all this could have been explained, we have Quidditch added into the mix instead because 20 pages of the goddamn Puppy Bowl is exactly what I was looking for while I was waiting for JK to move the goddamn ball on literally any of these actual magical concepts.

Harry Potter is a fucking trust fund baby, star quarterback, who grows up to be a cop and marries his high school sweetheart. (Speaking of, why were we shocked that JKR turned out to be a piece of shit when this was and always has been the conclusion of Harry Potter? Why are liberals so fucking into this series that upholds structures like it ain’t no one’s business? It’s a series that opines that those beneath us “Muggles” should be kept in the dark from us) Literally, he finds out he is a wizard and has a dragon-guarded fucking VAULT OF CASH. At 11. It’s such a series for little tyrants, you are special from birth and need do nothing to prove it, here is a letter certifying as such. Oh, not only are you rich and the greatest seeker and have excellent quips, but also your parents were not only rebels, but the best of rebels, and so deeply involved that your parents were killed by the big bad personally, again, because you are so special. His mother’s love literally saves his ass over and over again, because he was SO SPECIAL. He fought Voldemort FROM THE BEGINNING, and WON. It’s literally the most privilege baby fantasy in the world.

“But Doooooooooooc, it’s for chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiildren”

A) Yeah, and you’re 32, you’re making my fucking point about Harry Potter setting an entire generation up for intellectual failure to launch.

B) Okay, and? I can think of a bunch of kids’ books off the top of my head that in no way require specialness to be given by birth so as to roll out the red carpet for master protagonist. The Hunger Games. Watership Down. A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Chronicles of FUCKING NARNIA, about which I have only a small handful of particularly kind things to say. I’ve never read Percy Jackson, but it’s my understanding that despite his being a literal demigod, the attitudes of the supporting cast are allowed to fall between the extremes of “Appreciates Percy” and “naughty or will learn” Harry does nothing to improve himself even after knowing that he is HUNTED BY THE BIG BAD! “I won’t do this because I don’t like Snape”. So There” which, again, if this series were written with the slightest bit of care or know-how, could be a humbling fucking plot point! BUT NO THAT WOULD BE NAUGHTY.

But the real reason I hate Harry Potter so much has everything to do with the fandom surrounding it, and how it intellectually stunted a generation of adults. The promise of Harry Potter was that it was supposed to make a new generation of readers, and so the popularity of them was pushed, and so there was discussion of teaching them in schools, but I tell you fucking what, I know a whole lot more folks who grew up reading Harry Potter that never advanced beyond reading YA, or even just rereading the entire series every year and that’s pretty much them done and dusted.

In the attempt to recapture whatever it was about Harry Potter that attracted children (A lot of it was your peers doing it. I read them all as they came out, and it was literally the equivalent of watching the game so you could talk at the water cooler. That was never going to be recaptured) people, who by this time were likely in their teens, kept getting recommended stuff at the same and same level. No one ever felt pushed to read things that are challenging, to read things that have some of the concepts or themes of Harry Potter but maybe complicate. I know FAR more adults who read adult books that aren’t into Harry Potter, even if they were as children, than the reverse.

But Doc, why is reading only books meant for 14 year olds a problem??? I mean I suppose I can’t convince you that comfort is not the job of literature or of life, it is the job of an easy chair, because Americans especially are decadent as fuck about being comfy cozy all the time and if anything causes them distress or pain it should be immediately avoided. But Maybe I can convince you that you’re fucking up these books for actual ass children who deserve to have their own writing section without adults bringing their fucking asses into it. They deserve their own spaces. There’s a number of YA editors who have talked about the difficult space YA now occupies because since Potter’s blowup, it’s no longer a niche category, but basically “adult easy reads” and so they have been buying books that are more about the tastes of adult buyers than of literal 14 year olds.

Is that not...sad? To anyone else? Honestly, and this is not part of the essay because it’s a broader reaching problem, but CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS FOR FUCKING CHILDREN. The fucking 40-23 set really needs to get their shit together and grow up a little bit and engage in some fucking adult media, and maybe, if we support what we’re actually looking for FOR ADULTS, it will come to us. No one is saying you can’t read Harry Potter or watch some Cartoon Network show, but like, search your heart and come the fuck on. Engage in something more complex. If not for yourselves, for the kids getting shoved into simplified adult stories. It should not be about us.

ANYWAY, my larger point is that it was Harry Potter, a badly written series about a magical boy who was chosen and magic and also rich and also a favorite of the headmaster and also more clever than most adults and also spoke the same magical snake language as the big bad and was also star quarterback, but at least there was a system in which you could buy a scarf in block colors and feel like you belonged to a team.

(But not a sports team! lol handegg! I’m cool I don’t get into sports! Except Quidditch.)

#TO say nothing of the fact that I haven't been able to wear gold and burgundy together without some dumbass comment for years #despite being a favored color combination #Anonymous #Eight Days 2020 #Holligay Rants and Raves #I didn't even GET to every point I had but it's been over an hour #GOD I HATE THIS FUCKING SERIES SO MUCH #Doc do you hate me for liking it?#oh sweet thing allow me to reassure you: Yes. Absolutely.#also the prose is god-awful #I've taught teenagers with better rpose

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makeste · 4 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 278: MOMO IN CHARGE

Previously on BnHA: Deku and Kacchan were all “SIR, THAT’S OUR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT SENSEI” and got really ferocious and made a very passionate attempt to blow Tomura up and it was great. It basically did nothing, but it was still great. AFO was all “COME HERE LIL BRO”, and Tomura was all “silly Sensei, you can’t just take over my mind and body just like that”, and he was very confident of this despite there really being no evidence to back it up, but okay! Gran was all “time to make the fandom mad at me” and grabbed Tomura by the collar and yelled at him about Nana a bit, and then Bakugou and Endeavor made an even MORE passionate attempt to blow up Tomura, which may or may not have done some actual damage. The chapter ended with Gigantomachia battling Mt. Lady, just kinda out of the blue, which is FINE, but she had better be all right, though!

Today on BnHA: Everyone is all “WAUGHH IT’S GIGANTOMACHIA” and running around freaking out about it. The U.A. alums all kick some ass, and pretty much everyone else not from U.A. does jack fucking shit. Mt. Lady, who I plan on naming all of my future children after, does her best to stop Machia but he keeps flinging her aside. Kamui Woods is all “here I come with Midnight to put Gigantomachia to sleep!” and is PROMPTLY FUCKING MURDERED!? by Dabi because he’s a flammable tree man, and so Midnight falls all the way to the ground and is badly injured. So then she’s all “well I better call the most competent person I can think of to fix this mess” and dials up YAOYOROZU FUCKING MOMO, who proceeds to take charge LIKE THE BOSS SHE IS, and mobilizes the rest of the kids. And honestly I have more faith in them than in any of the adults at this point, so yeah, you know what? Let’s do this.

so I am possibly a bit spoiled on this chapter because I did a “top five predictions” post earlier this week, and someone replied to that yesterday on Thursday saying that they were mostly correct. I don’t know exactly how close to the mark I was though, and in any case most of the predictions were just “so-and-so shows up, probably”, so it’s not too bad. we’ll see how it goes!

OH THANK GOD MY BABIES ARE SAFE

I mean, CLEARLY they’re all about to be in horrible danger, seeing as Jirou is about to inform them of the whole “THE BIG GUY EVERYONE WAS AFRAID ABOUT WAKING UP WOKE UP” thing, but in the meantime at least Kami and Toadette and Honenuki made it back to the group safely

also Kaminari’s use of “Jirou-Jack” here is fucking inspired and I want him to teach a class on nicknames. isn’t he the one who coined “Yaomomo” as well? this boy has a gift and it needs to be appreciated

so Jirou is all “SOMETHING REALLY BIG IS COMING”, and actually she says “INSANELY HUGE”, which if anything is still an understatement, hard as it is to believe

WOW

“A BAD GUY IS HEADING THIS WAY?? SOUNDS LIKE IT’S TIME TO ABANDON THE CHILDREN IN THE WOODS” kjlfakh okay you know what?? fine!! you weren’t even going to do anything anyway so let’s not pretend!!

holy shit it’s like Mt. Lady isn’t even there

look at those speed lines!! goddamn. I just felt this huge rush of empathy for Mt. Lady though. like can you imagine growing up with this super-destructive quirk, and managing to become a hero with it against all odds, and having to put up with the manga making fun of you all the time just because sometimes you have a tendency to DESTROY A LOT OF STUFF, but it’s not like you can help it!! but the upside has always been that when your quirk is on, you are fucking UNSTOPPABLE though. so even though it’s been a hell of a rough ride for you, it’s worth it because you’re a complete badass and the number of people who can beat you out in terms of sheer physical strength is probably in the single digits. and you’re working really hard too, and lately you’ve been moving up through the ranks and actually becoming a damn fine hero if I do say so myself (and I do), and it’s like, about time though?? like finally, finally it is all starting to come together for you. and then this snarling trashrock person suddenly comes stampeding along and you put your all into trying to stop him, and it doesn’t even do a damn thing. like, holy shit. that’s just not fucking fair and YOU DESERVE BETTER, MT. LADY

anyway so she’s still hanging in there for now though so let’s check in with our villain squad riding on his back

lmaooo they’re all “I don’t even understand what is going on here”

YOU GUYS, THIS IMPLIES THAT THEY WERE ALL PLUCKED OFF THE GROUND BY THE SCRUFFS OF THEIR NECKS AND THEY HAD ABSOLUTELY NO SAY IN THE MATTER OMG. like I’m picturing Spinner being held by his cape pinched in between Machia’s thumb and forefinger, and awkwardly trying to lecture him like a mom with his hands on his hips all, “BAD GIGANTOMACHIA! NO! NOOOUAGH -- !” and cutting off with a yelp as he’s dropped onto his back

and I am glad they got Toga some clothes! I like to think Gigantomachia grabbed those for her as well. so thoughtful

wow Skeptic actually wants to go back to Re-Destro??

color me legit impressed. I underestimated your loyalty my dude. and let me also just take this moment to extend my gratitude toward Horikoshi for leaving the rest of the MLA out of it because good fucking riddance to them, goodbye forever hopefully!!

I guess they’ll be needing Skeptic’s quirk down the line for some reason? maybe he is meant to be like a new, less out-of-control Twice. smdh y’all out here trying to replace your dead buddy like a pet goldfish

who is this “they” Dabi is referring to

do you mean the heroes? lol yeah I guess they’re pretty distracted by the literal fucking kaijuu you’re currently piggybacking on

SIGH

“the Jakku team must’ve made a mistake” BOY, I’LL SAY. you know what, don’t even talk to me about that yet. it’s still too fresh. suffice it to say that your suspicions are correct and things in Jakku are not very daijobu right about now

anyway here’s a closeup of this bubble person just cuz

they are everything and I want them to be my friend. also there’s a squid person a few paces behind them who can probably do anything a squid can do. or they might actually be a shark person, actually. I don’t know. either way I love them

GETEN PLEASE GO AWAY

WE ARE PHASING OUT THE MLA!! MOVING FORWARD IT’S ORIGINAL LOV ONLY!! I’M SORRY BUT YOU DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT. we already have an ice character so shoo

OH DAMN MY MAN CEMENTOSS HAS HAD ENOUGH OF HIS NONSENSE TOO AHHHH YESS

1) hey so Cementoss is legit terrifying who’d’ve thought

and 2), did Cementoss always have a mouthful of gigantic perfect teeth each the size of a slice of bread, or is this just something I’m only noticing now because I’m behind the curve. either way, let me just say sincerely, DKJDLKFJLSKJG

RE-DESTRO YOU GO AWAY TOO!!

@waywardfacegarden you asked the other day which are the characters I actually dislike, and this is one of them lol. he’s just a big ol’ prick, and on top of that has the audacity to not even be interesting in any way so as to balance it out. anyway so apologies to any Re-Destro stans out there but I basically spend every panel he’s in hoping that someone will punch him in the face hard enough to finally make him shut up

anyway so my man Edgeshot is here though, finally!! but of all the people for him to fight! this is a real predicament for me. the most soothing character in the series contrasted with the character who grates my nerves the most. Edgeshot’s sexy ASMR voice is gonna be drowned out by all of RD’s punching and self-important ranting in the anime and I’m lowkey devastated but I’m gonna pull myself together and read on

SPEAKING OF SELF-IMPORTANT RANTING

Edge, if you can liberate us from having to put up with his insufferable ass once and for all I will be so grateful to you. can you do this. please. for me

and it looks like some other boring MLA villains are following along behind Machia so I’m gonna need someone to kick their asses as well. please

-- YESSSSSS

okay so now I see what that comment on my prediction post was referring to lol. I did indeed have my fingers crossed that these two would show up again, and sure enough! THE GANG’S ALL HERE YAY

and Mt. Lady is being sumoed aside!

anyone want tonight’s lotto numbers. during this brief fleeting moment of having my predictions be actually credible, I would just like to say that Hagakure is the U.A. traitor. thank you and goodnight

OH NO KAMUI IS WORRIED

HE LOOKS SO PANICKED?? OUT OF THE BLUE I SHIP IT SO MUCH?? I keep forgetting they’re on the same team and stuff and wow, I need to calm down

LOL MIDNIGHT IS ALL “NO TIME FOR SHIPS!!”

I wonder if her quirk will actually be enough to take him down? this is something I’ve been itching to see for a long time, actually. just how powerful is she? we know her quirk is more effective on males than females, but is anyone actually capable of resisting it? imagine if she really did just knock Gigantomachia out after all of this buildup. that would be some god-tier shit omg, DO IT

(ETA: I am just going to assume that since Horikoshi had to go to elaborate lengths to take her out of the fight, this means that her quirk really was capable of knocking them all out. another tragic case of Too Badass For The Plot. y’all better respect Midnight.)

YESSSSSSSS

is she stripping. you know what -- don’t think about it. I won’t let you ruin this for me Horikoshi. Midnight’s gonna be a badass because the ladies are fucking ruling this arc and that’s all there is to it

NOOOOOO

DABI GET BACK HERE I JUST WANT TO TALK!!

oh thank god, she’s all right. BUT KAMUI ISN’T THOUGH DLKJSFLKSJDG??!

did Kamui Woods just... die

(ETA: okay but for real, is there an actual curse in effect on the Billboard Top Ten right now, though?? did one of them accidentally disturb the tomb of some ancient king??)

...

( ･ั﹏･ั)

oH MY GOD!?!

NOOOOOOO WHY ARE YOU SO QUICK TO SLEEP ON MAJESTIC, LET’S SEE IF THEY CAN DO IT!! GIVE US MAJESTIC GOD DAMMIT

(ETA: Horikoshi is seriously just yanking our chain at this point. when Majestic finally does show up, he or she better have the coolest fucking quirk of all time, that’s all I’m saying.)

okay how badly injured is Midnight here, though?? she just fell all that way?? DO I NEED TO BE REALLY MAD. I CAN WORK MY WAY UP TO IT PRETTY QUICKLY, JUST SAY THE WORD. I’M ALREADY HALFWAY THERE HONESTLY. WHERE’S KAMUI WOODS

!!!!!!!!!!!

AND JUST LIKE THAT MY ANGER EVAPORATES INTO THE NIGHT, YESSSSSSSSS!! MOMOOOOO

holy shit. “a quirk that can stop that thing,” she says. and goes and calls YAOYOROZU FUCKING MOMO y’all I am barely holding myself back from SCREAMING right now I...

you guys

you guys. if Midnight and Yaomomo team up to take down Gigantofuckingmachia using some sort of MOMO MADE A MACHINE TO SPREAD MIDNIGHT’S QUIRK strategy, or whatnot?? I will fucking die on the spot. you can end the manga right there. Kacchan you can keep your quirk I don’t even care

“IT MIGHT BE AGAINST THE LAW” lmaooooo insert John Mulaney “WE’RE WELL PAST THAT” gif here. holy shit. listen, that is fine. if anything it’s even better

WHAT THE FUCK

DO I NEED TO START GETTING REALLY MAD AGAIN!?!?! FUCKING WHIPLASH, IS WHAT THIS IS, BUT YOU JUST TELL ME WHAT SORT OF OVER-THE-TOP REACTION IS NEEDED HERE AND I’LL GO FOR IT

(((( ;°Д°))))

[GRABS HORIKOSHI BY THE COLLAR] listen, you. if you only just now, for the first time ever, gave us a lady hero actually mentoring another lady hero, which we have somehow NEVER HAD BEFORE in almost three hundred chapters, only for you to then KILL OFF THE MENTOR IN THE MIDDLE OF HER GODDAMN SPEECH TO THE MENTOREE, I will... there’s... I’ll... okay, listen. DON’T. THERE WILL BE A RECKONING. CAPSLOCK SUCH AS THIS WORLD HAS NEVER WITNESSED!!

ヽ(#ﾟДﾟ)ﾉ┌┛

I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO REACT TO ANYTHING IN THIS CHAPTER AND I’M LOSING MY MIND OVER IT

so the other kids are all “what the fuck” and “so Momo’s in charge??” which, YES!!! IT’S THE ONE GOOD PART ABOUT ALL THIS SO DON’T YOU DARE QUESTION IT

MOMO NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BE CRIPPLED BY YOUR ANXIETY, YOU CAN DO THIS GIRL I BELIEVE IN YOU

hell, it’s not even just an “I believe in you” thing, because it’s not just belief, it’s fact. you motherfucking can do this, you are the most capable and brilliant student in 1-A, you just gotta have faith and let yourself shine!!

so now there are some more panels of Machia running and the villains and heroes fighting, blah blah blah. and Momo screwing up her face as she makes her decision...

YESSSSSSSSS

my baby girl is all grown up and TAKING THESE MOTHERFUCKIN REINS and MOMO I WILL LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU JUST SAY THE WORD!!

lol she’s all “Jirou use your ears and scientifically calculate how long it’ll take him to get here”, and Jirou is all “I can literally fucking see him, he’s gonna be on top of us in like two seconds” WELL OKAY THEN

thank god there are no adult pros left to fuck this up. is that weird that this is a real and honest and completely sincere thought that just ran through my head? like, at this point if any of the adults were around I’d just be afraid of them dying honestly. but with the kids I actually feel real hope that they’re somehow gonna do this. of course it helps that unlike the adults they’re pretty safe from being killed off

also! way to represent the entirety of class 1-B there Honenuki lulz. sorry, The Rest of Class 1-B

OH MY GOD

MT. LADY I WILL LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU AS WELL!! YOU HAVE MY LOVE AND FEALTY!!

I’M STANNING HER SO HARD I’M GONNA EXPLODE SOMEBODY HELP!?!

JIROU SAYS THAT MACHIA HAS SLOWED DOWN!! YOU GUYS I’M ABOUT TO GET “MT. LADY FOR PRESIDENT” TATTOOED ACROSS MY FOREHEAD

lmao at Shouji using his power of “putting some extra eyeballs on my arms” to inform everyone that Gigantomachia is Right Over There and Very Big

good job Shouji

oh my glob I have so much love for Momo right now that it can’t even fucking be contained. brb wildly flailing my hands around a little to try and release some of this excess excitement

maybe Momo can be president instead and Mt. Lady can be the vice president

NO THE CHAPTER IS ENDING I’M NOT READY

AND JUMP IS ON BREAK AGAIN NEXT WEEK TOO, FML!!

okay!!

Kaminari is so fucking brave right now I just want to crush him in a hug?! we know he’s still scared!! look at his eyes!! and he was freaking the hell out earlier too, and now the situation is much worse! but he doesn’t give a fuck because his friends need him! he is ready to be a hero, my little baby boy is all grown up and I’m so proud??

Mineta’s face in the bottom right corner is everything. I know, I know, boooo Mineta, but that’s still the best face anyone has made in the entirety of this manga

Tetsutetsu’s out here all “I humbly request to also represent class 1-B” and Momo is all “okay fine I guess we can have two of you guys”

can we all just stop for a moment to appreciate how KamiJirouMomo is alive and well. like, we had interactions between all three of them in this chapter, in all possible permutations? do you know how happy this makes me?? I am vibrating with joy??!

I really can’t stress this enough -- I have no clue at all what these little soda can things are (anesthetic, I guess??? you know, like how you sometimes buy cans of anesthetic at the supermarket?? what do you mean you don’t do that??), or what they’re gonna do with them. I have like negative clues. but DAMNED IF I GIVE ONE SINGLE FUCK. the next chapter can be them all fucking hurling them at his face for all I care. THE DETAILS OF HOW SHE KICKS HIS ASS DO NOT MATTER!! GOOD MORNING TO YAOMOMO AND YAOMOMO ONLY!! MY MOMO ACADEMIA

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 3 years

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so it turns out I have gay relatives in my extended family. like, at least few of them, at least two of which are still alive--one of them married his husband relatively recently as a fairly old man (because. you know. presumably he had to wait until it was legal) but was apparently out in the 70s and my conservative grandparents still sold him their house at the time to keep it in the family. another one is closer to my dad’s age and he’s been in semi-regular contact with her on Facebook because they’re both interested in tracing and preserving info from their shared family tree (and, hilariously, her dad was also gay I guess?).

and I’m--kind of overwhelmed about this? mostly in a good way! but like...I had no idea. I mean it doesn’t seem unreasonable that there would be somebody, because my extended family is pretty big, but there wasn’t anybody I’d actually met, and I was raised super conservative/evangelical because my parents were both raised conservative because my grandparents have always been conservative, and the extended family I knew best growing up (my dad’s brother and his family) were also pretty damn conservative, so I just...sort of assumed I was either the first queer in my general family circle or the first one to be at all open about it. and I’ve also been worried that my grandparents specifically would have a problem with that, which is a big part of the reason I haven’t made any effort to visit them since 2016...and now I find out they sold a house to their out gay cousin in the 70s. I mean I have no idea if they’re still in contact with him at all or if it was a very close relationship at the time, but according to my dad, everybody knew about it and it just...wasn’t an issue, apparently?? the family was generally cool with it??

which, I mean...that does make me feel better about the chances of my grandparents deciding they can’t have anything to do with me until I stop being queer and liberal! (I’ve also discovered recently that my grandpa’s brother, and presumably a lot of other people on his side of the family, are a lot more progressive than my grandparents are, so I’m simultaneously like...cool, that also indicates my chances are better than I thought, and I’m frustrated that I just happened to be born on the fundie side of the family!)

and I’m honestly really, really touched that my dad told me this stuff, because he’s acknowledged me being ace but has basically dealt with me being otherwise queer by pretending I haven’t said anything even when I literally bring it up in conversation (which, yes, I kind of make an effort to do sometimes, because I don’t want him to be able to ignore it, and it pisses me off when he does). but then last night we went to this outdoor concert and he was like, by the way, there’s some family history tidbits it occurred to me you might not know about and might want to know, and then he told me about these gay relatives that I didn’t know I had. I mean, talking about family history and showing old pictures isn’t at all unusual, but this was...intentional and specific, telling me about my gay relatives because he thought I’d like to know, and showing me pictures from the 70s of, like, my grandparents hanging out with a gay relative or two like it was no big deal, and more recent pictures of the wedding between two old men I didn’t know I was related to. and honestly I got a little emotional about it at the time, and I’m tearing up again because the pictures are on Facebook and I’m looking at them going holy shit there was a gay wedding in my family. I have gay relatives I can maybe talk to and get to know. my own grandparents might not care, actually, that I’m queer.

but at the same time--

my grandpa was a Democrat, a long time ago--a state legislator for the party, even, before he switched parties. I don’t know why he switched. all I know is that he and my grandma have been very conservative for as long as I’ve been alive, which is why my dad’s always been so conservative, which is why I was raised in this toxic, compassionless ideology and didn’t even begin to realize I might be queer until after college. hell, it’s the reason I cringe at a lot of bigoted things I used to believe, and all I can really do to make myself feel better about that is to remind myself that I did change, drastically if gradually, once I realized it was an option--and to hope that I didn’t actually influence anyone when I parroted all the fundie stuff I was raised believing. to the best of my knowledge, my grandparents have been single-ticket Republican voters for a long time and probably still are--I know my parents were when I was growing up, too, and although I’ve gotten my mom to stop reflexively voting for particularly awful Republicans, I strongly suspect my dad still mostly votes GOP. any time political stuff comes up, he just wants to argue with me, either because he figures I don’t know what I’m talking about or because he’s the type of person who always thinks it’s fun to play devil’s advocate (which is...the same thing really, at least when he does it, because it sure seems to be based on the premise of “well you don’t really know what you’re talking about because I bet you haven’t considered this”). I’m sure my grandparents still watch Fox News. I know my dad at least used to listen to a lot of Rush Limbaugh. I know he still thinks Ronald Reagan was one of our truly great presidents. he acts like he’s enlightened or whatever but I remember the mocking shit he always said about things like multiculturalism, sensitivity training, feminism (except he talked about “women’s libbers”), liberals in general, and basically anyone who didn’t think various equal rights issues were done and dusted by the 80s at the latest.

(I have a very specific memory of a time on a family vacation at some point in the 90s when the Supreme Court, I guess, had just upheld a ruling that kept gay marriage illegal, and my dad encountered this old guy looking at a headline about it who asked him, “does that mean queers can’t get married?” my dad confirmed it did, and the old guy said, “Praise God!” and my dad told us about this later like it was a very funny joke. he even added that he was tempted to answer “no, sweetie, we can’t,” with an affected effeminate voice and a limp-wrist gesture to match, just to mess with the old guy a little, but even then it was obvious to me the old guy wasn’t the one really being mocked.)

and this whole time they had gay family members, knew they had gay family members, apparently didn’t hate them as individuals or even think they were particularly wrong for being gay, and...they still supported these hateful pundits, still voted for politicians who would make queer people’s lives materially worse, still passed this shit down to the next generation and the generation after that. and it has probably never occurred to them that there could be something wrong--or even just dissonant--about that.

I don’t know what to do with it. it’s a good thing, and I’m happy to know it, and I’m still genuinely very touched that my dad realized this was something I specifically would want to know, and...there’s all this other ugly stuff wrapped up with it too. and I don’t know what to do with it.

#homophobia #queer stuff #exvangelical #family issues

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mingmingfufu · 3 years

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Can we just talk about the ending of KawoShin open discuss. *sort of spoilerish*

I feel like I’m the only one who’s like reallly disappointed LMFAO--ya’ll there’s so much “canon” alternative universe and merchandise for Kawoshin in Evangelion that it kind of makes me upset to realise this couple just went down the drain. Yeah, I can see how people were like, “Kaworu’s toxic” or “Kaworu has a hero complex for Shinji” to which I say are valid points. But the toxic thing I feel like can also be applied to pretty much everyone around Shinji tbh, except for Rei. I did NOT, like Asuka at all but I really love her character though, and I felt for her a lot throughout the series.

I did not ship them either because honestly, Shinji and Asuka seemed better off playing the sibling dynamic instead of trying to play bf/gf which honestly is kind of forced by their living situation. Also since they’re in a similar disposition non existent father and dead mother, you’d imagine they would rely on each other for emotional comfort. Though Asuka—her personality I feel like she can’t differentiate between familial love and romantic love and the affection she wants is a bit of both. But, her character tries to be “mature”; she wants romantic love more and does this through sexual means and romantic gestures e.g. like kissing. One of my friends told me that you can’t stay friends as a boy and a girl cause eventually you catch feelings. Which I say is kinda dumb cause I have a lot of male friends, and I definitely don’t harbour those feelings, but I guess it’s a common phenomena.

I think this is what happens in this case, of Asuka and Shinji. Even after rejection of instrumentality they actually are depicted as childhood friends. But knowing how they both were before to each other, it was not good tbh. Also to mention the choking like thrice— bro if anything, this showcases a really abusive relationship and I think this outstretches the idea of their character tropes. Which I firmly stand by saying they’re superficial to each other. AsuShin were never really there for each other and are using each other in a forced situation. However, you can’t deny that they didn’t at some point catch feels, also Shinji is pretty consistent how he still cares about everyone around him. Which I really like how they add that to his character because it reminiscent of Yui, because you see a duality of both his parents personality in Shinji throughout the series—it’s a really nice touch. But bruh, if we gonna talk about that coma scene—I’m out LOL.

Thoughhhh, she is a true definition of best girl I really like her arc, fighting drive, and her skills as an Eva pilot 😭💗--but bruh she’s still a toxic and sometimes annoying tsundere trope, but still she’s 14 what can you do. So I feel like Kensuke and Asuka are actually a pretty good combo, cause he’s always been pretty mature even without parents. Also Asuka was into older guys, so I guess this is a win win?? Also Rei and Shinji, I honestly cannot get my head around it cause that’s pretty much his mom—so in a way that’s like either his half-sister or mom-ish clone?? Idk but Yui is definitely the donor LOL.

Kaworu and Shinji I felt like brought a bunch of things out of each other. I don’t know which timeline begins first, but I’d like to think the manga, the anime (plus its movies), and then to the rebuild series. Because I think that order is kind of pivotal to observing Kaworu’s character development from being a person who’s trying to understand human feelings to then the kinder person we see in the final series. You can tell how he’s changed and he knows Shinji a lot more as well as being considerate to him e.g. giving him personal space or letting him work at his own pace. Also that “we’ll meet again.” Is an obvious nod to how he’s done this before.

His literal story in every timeline is always romantic LOL, like bruh I can’t remember which game it was but basically a bad ending of Kawoshin route is that you reject Kaworu and he starts the third impact 🤡. Also I don’t know why but I started to see a weird dynamic between those two, in the manga their interactions reminded me of Asuka and Shinji—which Shinji is the tsundere Asuka here. I don’t know if this is relevant but the older character relative to the character they’re with seems to play off a mature vs a childish person trope. Asuka is younger than Shinji and Shinji is actually younger than Kaworu. Then again I could be overseeing this but istg manga Kaworu and Shinji mirror the whole Asushin dynamic. Like he’s seriously agressive against Kaworu, then after killing him he admits liking him. 🤡 I don’t know which is funnier no homo Shinji, homophobe shinji, or just closet Shinji who needs to realise sexuality is a spectrum so he could’ve idk—come out as bisexual, but whatever manga Shinji lol that timeline is over.

Anyways the development of these two is real and I think the rebuild timeline shows them at their best bringing their own personage out from each other like how they both enjoy music together--WHICH I’M SO SAD WE NEVER GET TO SEE THAT CELLO AGAIN. Then there’s those feelings of humanity, love, kindness, etc. Which yeah an angel could represent those things, but Kaworu is still his own person, self-aware of a cycle and if you think about how he initially was there to USE Shinji, but ultimately turned on that plan set by SEELE because he loved Shinji (and a bunch of other things like him showing Kaworu humanity). I also can see the argument, how “ideal” Kaworu is to Shinji, but he’s more self aware of the time he has before he KNOWS he’ll die and knows how to act for himself in that duration to make the most of it. All with Shinji. At some point, I think he fell in love with Shinji tho I don’t know where it began tbh—considering that all those alternate universes do exist. Kaworu does romantically love Shinji--so, in some universe they both reciprocate their feelings to each other.

In the last movie during that convo with Shinji. Like bREH it’s so emotionally moving because Kaworu remembers ALLLLL the timelines and how he’s been with Shinji and later Shinji himself recalls the events too. Where they show the scene from the manga and anime. Kaworu cries after being set free from the EVA cycle. Which, I definitely understood what he meant by him saying “it’ll be lonely” and how Shinji changed or that he’s actually different this time.

Either way, Shinji did right by him because it’s always Kaworu who has the purpose of “trying to save Shinji” but it always ends up the same. I thought that was really moving because Shinji tells Kaworu he’s gonna let him live a life for himself for once and he wants the same for everyone as well. Which was honestly so meaningful cause I think Kaworu’s character and like Rei too when they start to realise how to “live” like a person and not another puppet it’s truly liberating. Another thing I forgot, bruh Kaworu calls Gendo his father and ngl I feel like this is kind of a weird lore situation because I for sure don’t think he’s the donor. I think he calls him that as an insult because he knows Gendo’s whole doing and relative to Shinji—I kind of see it as a joke LOL. Like it’s equivalent to saying, “daddy chill”, or “hey look it’s daddy and his plans to end the world” also I kind of like to think of it as a father in law thing cause you know, Kawoshin *winks amirite*

The ending, I’m honestly hoping is just an open ending because it gives everything an actual start of their adult lives not being dictated by extraterrestrial forces. Though, I’m kind of wondering if the world doesn’t have EVAs does that still mean everyone else still has the same backstory, and do they remember? Maybe Mari really is just a coworker lmfao, and there’s still a chance for Kaworu and Shinji cause ngl, they did have a convo (presumably from the spoilers) about still remaining close afterwards and that stare at the ending seems very hopeful.

I call bs from Anno saying, “oh Shinji is based off him and Mari off of his wife”, like honestly any OCs made theres always some part of yourself made into that character. Which is probably why a lot of people relate to the characters in EVA because they’re based off real things (e.g. those war machines characters are named after and people around them). I think why Kaworu and Rei are together at the end, is bc they’re very much the same. They’re mass produced dolls—which oddly enough that’s the case for all the children except they don’t recall the loop. Kind of funny also how both Kaworu and Rei became farmers lmfao so ig it runs in the family (yes that’s right I like the idea that they’re siblings it was always noted that they’re like “the same”).

Another thing, i think why the rebuild really did well for Kawoshin and in my opinion canonised it—the convo with elder Ryoji Kaji (Misato’s baby daddy) that there was a time he felt incredibly lonely and depressed thinking Misato didn’t love him and so he started looking out for himself. So self love and found himself a hobby in farming which he suggests to Kaworu—basically saying he might feel like Shinji doesn’t love him but he’s gotta remember to take care of himself. if I go thru a breakup ill feel like it’s the end of the world but Kaji says y’a gotta self love broe and take care yo self gad dam fam 😭 💗.

Though, that look at the end from Shinji to Kaworu—I’d like to believe there is still hope that one day when they’re a bit stable in their adult lives, they’ll run into each other.

#Kaworu Nagisa #shinji ikari #neon genesis evangelion #rei ayanami #mari illustrious makinami #asuka shikinami #discussion #kawoshin #nge kaworu #nge shinji #nge

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staygold-ponyboycurtis · 4 years

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A Semester Early

request: Pony goes on a winter walk, revisiting his hometown a year after college. He is happier now.

I loved this prompt, and wish I had someone to credit it for, but it was sent anonymously. it was so much fun to write! of course, a one-shot about Ponyboy can’t be written without some angst in there, right? ;)

ENJOY. let me know what you think!!!

There’s something to be said for the feeling of outgrowing a place. I decided that was it. That was the feeling I’ve felt ever since returning home from college. I hadn’t been home for this long since I was eighteen years old. After graduating a semester early a few weeks ago, Darry managed to talk me into coming home for a few months. I hemmed and hawed about it - living in a city like New York has a way of liberating you in the same way that a small town in Oklahoma can make you feel too small - but finally conceded defeat and agreed to move back in with him and Soda before I found a job.

It wasn’t the idea of seeing them that deterred me from returning home. Lord knows my arm doesn’t need to be twisted to find an excuse to see Sodapop, Darry, and the gang. It was the idea of not wanting to leave again. Of getting too comfortable for my own good, I guess.

Before I could dwell too long on the irrational doom I’ve felt since I walked in the door, I had to admit that it was good to be back home. Where I was just Ponyboy. Where everyone knew embarrassing stories about me and knew how I liked my eggs cooked and I never had to remind them of anything about myself. I didn’t have to make myself look cool or nuanced in their presence. They knew who I was. They loved me for who I was.

Darry has all the Christmas decorations sitting in boxes scattered on the floor when I walk in. Him and Soda had refused to decorate without me the past few years. It was something we did together and a tradition that meant even more for him to continue since mom and dad were gone.

Our mother loved Christmas. I try my best not to tear up when I notice that Darry has her Loretta Lynn Christmas album sitting on top of the record player, waiting for us to play it and sit in bittersweet silence like we’ve done every year. Decorating for Christmas reminds me of her the most, I’ve decided.

I couldn’t believe this was almost the tenth Christmas without them. It feels like a lifetime.

When I set foot into my childhood bedroom, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia, like I always am. Nothing changes. Not that I expected it to, but it was like walking through a museum. Back at school, I felt like a nomad. I never really had a place to call my own in New York. I was in a different apartment every few months, and none of them were satisfactory, but I had learned to regard it as charm. Perhaps Sodapop knew this, because he always made sure to leave everything as I had it from the last time I had been there.

“I didn’t want to move anything,” Soda said, slinging an arm over my shoulder sweetly, though my height had finally crept beyond his. “I wanted to make sure you’d recognize the place when you finally came back.”

“I guess you guys really do love me,” I said with a chuckle.

“Always, kiddo,” he said, messing with my hair.

The gang - or what’s left of it - piles in our small kitchen for “family dinner”, as Two-Bit lovingly referred to it. Darry made us spaghetti - another favorite of mine. He had improved his cooking tenfold since I’ve been gone, I remark.

“It’s that girl of his,” Sodapop says with a sly smirk. I blush. Darry was secretive about his love life. More secretive than me, which was saying something. “She’s taught him a thing or two.”

“And not just in the kitchen,” Two-Bit adds with an immature, clownish smile on his face, never missing an opportunity for an impish euphemism.

Darry shoots him a look that conveys pure annoyance and deadly threat. I knew that look all too well. I’m pretty sure Darry invented that look for me.

“What?” Two-Bit asks innocently. “She taught him how to clean, too.”

We all break into laughter. “Asshole,” Darry says under his breath.

“You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend,” I say.

“Don’t sweat it, Pone,” Soda says. “He didn’t tell me either. I picked up the phone one day when she called about a date with him. I just about dropped dead right then and there.”

I blush, sheepish at the thought of Darry caring about anyone else other than us. As charismatic as he is, Darry is sometimes more shy than I am about girls.

We fall into our normal rhythm of camaraderie quickly at dinner. It never takes long for me to fall back in line with the gang, catching up on their stories and mine from the last time we were together. Though Tulsa no longer feels the way it used to for me, the gang has. I know they’re the only reason I’d ever come back to this place.

“Gee, Pony,” Two-Bit says while we’re cleaning up the table. “Every time you visit, you seem smarter.”

“Smarter?” I ask.

“‘Ya know… cooler. Different, in a good way.”

“I think the word he’s looking for is ’sophisticated’,” Darry says, slinging the dish towel over his shoulder. “A college scholar.” He smiles at me proudly.

“Thanks,” I say almost inaudibly. It’s surely a compliment, but it makes chills run up my spine. I’m not sure why.

Before we begin decorating, I head towards the door, grabbing my coat.

“Hey, I think I’m gonna go for a walk,” I say, reaching for the door knob. “To… clear my head.”

“You okay, kiddo?” Darry asks, puzzled. “It’s 8 o’clock at night.”

“I’m okay,” I say. “Just trying to take it all in.”

He looks at Sodapop, confused. “Do you want me to go with you, buddy?” Sodapop asks.

I shake my head vehemently. “I’m fine, really,” I say. “I just want to walk around like I used to.”

Darry shrugs. “Don’t be gone for too long. Soda can barely wait to put up the stockings.”

I chuckle, a bit emptily. “Roger that.”

The cold air fills my warm lungs with a shock. New York winters are much more brutal than in Oklahoma. The snow piles high, and it isn’t as picturesque as you see in the movies, either. Just a lot of brown and grey slush. One year, a few of my friends and I went Upstate to go skiing, and that was really nice, though.

I make my way down the sidewalk, not really believing that I’m actually home. I mean, I’ve been home multiple times before now. But it feels different now, because another stage of my life is finished, another chapter closed. And I didn’t think I would be living with my brothers forever or cooped up in Tulsa for the rest of my life, but I’m finally realizing that life is changing. I just can’t realize why I’m bothered so much by it. I think I realize things too late.

I make my way around the block, lost in thought. I notice some of our neighbors have hung Christmas decorations outside their houses. They decorate the same exact way every year, as Darry does, and it makes me feel a bit nostalgic. Dad used to drive us around in his old truck to look at all the lights in our neighborhood. We never really had money to spend on visiting the light displays on the better side of town, but we wouldn’t have ever known it. This was just as fun.

I realize that the perpetual feeling of a broken heart during Christmastime doesn’t do much for my sadness right now.

I stop at a forelorn house at the end of our street, on the corner. It’s a small yellow house, a bit less dilapidated than ours. Typically adorned with all types of big, ceramic lights this time of year, the house sits solemnly, vacant and dark. I stare at it a bit, the writer in me trying to make a metaphor out of its image.

“Mrs. Friedman died two months ago,” I hear a voice behind me. “Her house has been empty ever since.”

“You followed me,” I say, more as a statement than a question.

“I could tell something was bothering you,” Sodapop says.

I laugh, a little curtly. “You can always tell.”

“Of course I can,” he smiles. "And I didn’t want you to be out here alone.”

“You didn’t tell me Mrs. Friedman died,” I say, a bit offended. “She cooked us meals every week after mom and dad died. She always gave us her son’s old clothes, too, remember?”

“I know,” Soda says. “Darry and I didn’t want to upset you.”

“You thought I’d be upset?”

Soda looks at me. “You’re a little bit more sentimental than the rest of us.”

I scoff. “She was our neighbor for years. Did you go to her funeral?”

“Of course,” Sodapop says. “'Woulda been silly for you to come all the way home for a 100-year-old woman’s funeral, though. Don’tcha think?”

“I guess."

We sit in silence for a few moments, and I focus on our breath in the air. It’s white, like cigarette smoke. I laugh a bit in my mind, reminiscing on the period of time where I couldn’t go more than fifteen minutes without smoking. It’s been nearly three years since I’ve quit.

“What’s up, Pone?” Soda finally asks. “What’s wrong?" I give him a look.

“What?” he says. “I can see right through you.”

I pause for a moment, trying to figure out what exactly it is.

“It’s just… I always had an excuse. I had New York. I had college. I knew I was leaving, but I always knew I would come back. And four years seemed so far away,” I say. “Now I’m not sure there’s a place for me here anymore. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Well… no,” Soda says. “Because that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Pone. There’s always gonna be a place for you here. This is your home. Don’t you know that?”

I roll my eyes. “I mean, it’s never going to be like it was. We’re never going to be living under the same roof as one another. Hell, I don’t even know where I’m going next. But it’ll never just be all of us together again. I feel like we’re losing another part of the gang for good, but that part is me. And it feels like….”

“It feels like Dal and Johnny all over again.”

“Kinda.”

Sodapop pauses for a moment, thinking about this. Though he isn’t the most articulate, he’s certainly the most insightful.

“Wanna know how I see it?” Sodapop asks.

I nod. “Of course.”

“You’re twenty-two years old. You graduated college at the top of your class. You have job offers all over the country. That’s something to be proud of, Pone. That doesn’t happen for just anyone. Hell, it didn’t happen for me and Darry. It won’t happen for Steve or Two-Bit. It didn’t happen for Dally or Johnny. You should be grateful you are where you are.”

“Oh, come on…” I say. “I didn’t mean it like that-"

“No, listen,” Sodapop says. "You think you should be feelin’ guilty about leaving, but you shouldn’t be. Me, Darry, the gang, even mom and dad would want you getting the hell out of this pokey ‘ol town,” he says with a laugh. “It’s all we’ve ever wanted for you.”

“I know that. I’m thankful for that.”

“Hell of a way of showin’ it,” Soda says jokingly.

“I guess I never thought of it that way,” I say. “I always figured you and Darry would think I left you guys behind or somethin’. I never wanted you to think that.”

“C’mon, Pone. We’d never think that. We’ve worked so hard to help you make somethin’ of yourself. We’re real proud.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Thanks for knocking some sense into me.”

“You know, you’re afraid of changin’, but that’s one thing that will never change about you,” he says as we begin to walk back to the house. “You’ll always need your big brothers to help you see what’s right in front of you.”

“You’re right about that,” I say.

“And don’t think you’ll never come back here to visit the gang,” he says. “We’ll drag you back here if it’s the last thing we do. You’ll know where to find us.”

“You’re right,” I say. “I’ll never be able to get away from you guys."

“Exactly,” he says. “Now, can we go back and decorate for Christmas? Please? I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

“Yeah,” I say with a chuckle. “Let’s go."

I really could’ve written this conversation forever, but I wanted to keep it short and sweet. Let me know what you think!!!

P.S. if you have any one-shot requests, my ask is always open. I love when you all send in your ideas :)

P.P.S. if you’d like to write a review, this one-shot (along with my other writing) is also posted to my fanfiction.net account, which is linked here 🖤

#the outsiders #the outsiders imagines #the outsiders writing #the outsiders one shot #the outsiders book #the outsiders movie #the outsiders fanfiction #the outsiders ponyboy #Ponyboy curtis #ponyboy #sodapop curtis #Darry curtis #curtis brothers #Two-Bit Mathews #Steve Randle #Dallas Winston #dally winston #Johnny Cade #my writing

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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I really don’t want to start a discourse™, but I want you to know that I really appreciate how you write joe and Nicky in deo volente. So many of the fics I’ve read have placed yusef in the role of more sexually experienced and less devoted to god, while Nicky is depicted as an inexperienced and virginal priest/knight/monk and so forth and so on. Your narrative of joe out there rescuing people and being faithful, while Nicky looks back on his life of gambling and pleasures of the flesh ...(1/?)

Not to say that there’s anything wrong with either, obviously. I love guilty priest Nicky and repressed Nicky and p much every Nicky. But in the vast array of fics out there, it’s rare to see the opposite. Not that you’re working in a binary morally good/religious vs. not way. Your writing in the fic is really subtle and and your characterizations reveal a lot of depth. I just think it’s cool to see Nicky, average second son of a duke, drinking and gambling and feeling terribly guilty (2/?)

Guilty about the crusades and the fucking horror of crusade 1 without being excessively devout. Just an average dude. Not some paragon of virtue (btw, I’m on chapter 2 of the fic, so I don’t know how much your characterization changes moving forward. You have a lovely ability to combine your incredible knowledge of history, your beautiful writing, and these intimate details of the characters that make them fit— fit the canon and fit the history. (3/? Shit I’m sorry this had gotten way too long)

I enjoy the way you’ve really inserted us into the quotidian aspect of history. Aaaaaanyway— the discourse that I was afraid of: I think that a lot of fans of the movie that are generating fan content (tysfm to all of you beauties, btw 🙏🙏♥️) are westerners (which is a whole nother kettle of fish) and that carries a sort of ignorance about the Muslim world in the Middle Ages and this desire to simplify Europe as “Christian” “fighters for faith” etc. (4/? Fuuuuck. One(??) more)

And when we do that, we end up as characterizing the brown people as “not that”. The thing I love about this fandom is that people are definitely down on the crusades. I feel like all the fic I’ve read has been particularly negative about those wars, but the thing I love about your fic is that you don’t just say war is bad because people died and it was despicable and this pious white dude says so and this one brown person agrees. (5/6, I see the end in sight I swear it)

Instead you give us a larger cast of Muslims and Arabs and really flesh them out and give them opinions and different interpretations of faith, and I really appreciate that. The crusades were terrible, and we know this because these regular dudes who struggle with their different faiths and lives say so. And I just. I think that’s really great. Also, I fucking love yusef’s mom. I feel like more people would be accepting of the gift in this fashion and I think she’s lovely and (god damn it 6/7)

Aaaaaaaand. The bit where yusef returns and she’s already gone breaks my fucking heart. Also the moment where he’s like “I’m not sure about Abraham’s god, but my mothers god is worth my faith”?? Just really fucking great. So. Excellent fic. Excellent characters. Excellent not-being-accidentally-biased-towards-white-Christians. That is what I came here to say. Thank you so much for your amazing stories. I love them and I love history. Sorry about the rambling. idek how I wrote so much. (7/7)

Epilogue: tl;dr: you’re great.

Oh man! What a huge and thoughtful comment (which will in turn provoke a long-ass response from me, so…) I absolutely agree that no matter what fandom, I don’t do Discourse TM; I just sit in my bubble and stay in my lane and do my own thing and create content I enjoy. And I don’t even think this is that so much as just… general commentary on character and background? So obviously all of this should be read as my own personal experience and choices in writing DVLA, and that alone. I really appreciate you for saying that you love a wide range of fan creators/fanworks and you’re not placing one over another, you understand that fans have diverse ranges of backgrounds/experience with history and other cultures when they create content, and that’s not the same for everyone. So I just think that’s a great and respectful way to start things off.

First, as a professional historian who has written a literal PhD thesis on the crusades, I absolutely understand that many people (and regular fans) will not have the same privilege/education/perspective that I do, and that’s fine! They should not be expected to get multiple advanced degrees to enjoy a Netflix movie! But since I DO have that background, and since I’ve been working on the intellectual genealogy of the crusades (and the associated Christian/Muslim component, whether racially or religiously) since I was a master’s student, I have a lot of academic training and personal feelings that inform how I write these characters. Aside from my research on all this, my sister lives in an Islamic country and her boyfriend is a Muslim man; I’ve known a lot of Muslims and Middle Easterners; and especially with the current political climate of Islamophobia and the reckoning with racism whether in reality or fandom, I have been thinking about all this a lot, and my impact on such.

Basically: I love Nicky dearly, but I ADORE Joe, and as such, I’m protective of him and certainly very mindful of how I write him. Especially when the obvious default for westerners in general, fandom-related or otherwise, is to write what you are familiar with (i.e. the European Christian white character) and be either less comfortable or less confident or sometimes less thoughtful about his opposing number. I have at times tangentially stumbled across takes on Joe that turn me into the “eeeeeeeh” emoji or Dubious Chrissy Teigen, but I honestly couldn’t tell you anything else about them because I was like, “nope not for me” and went elsewhere rather than do Discourse (which is pretty much a waste of time everywhere and always makes people feel bad). This is why I’m always selective about my fan content, but especially so with this ship, because I have SO much field-specific knowledge that I just have to make what I like and which suits my personal tastes. So that is what I do.

Obviously, there’s a troublesome history with the trope of “sexually liberate brown person seduces virginal white character into a world of Fleshly Decadence,” whether from the medieval correlation of “sodomite” and “Saracen,” or the nineteenth-century Orientalist depictions of the East as a land variously childishly simplistic, societally backward, darkly mysterious and Exotic, or “decadent” (read: code for sexually unlike Western Europe, including the spectrum of queer acts). So when I was writing DVLA, I absolutely did not want to do that and it’s not to my taste, but I’m not going to whip out a red pen on someone else writing a story that broadly follows those parameters (because as I said, I stay in my lane and don’t see it anyway). Joe to me is just such an intensely complex and lovely Muslim character that that’s the only way I feel like I can honestly write him, and I absolutely love that about him. So yeah, any depiction of hypersexualizing him or making him only available for the sexual use and education of the white character(s) is just... mmm, not for me.

For example, I stressed over whether it was appropriate to move his origin from “somewhere in the Maghreb” to Cairo specifically, since Egypt, while it IS in North Africa, is not technically part of the Maghreb. I realize that Marwan Kenzari’s family is Tunisian and that’s probably why they chose it, to honor the actor’s heritage, but on the flip side… “al-Kaysani” is also a specifically Ismai’li Shia name (it’s the name of a branch of it) and the Fatimids (the ruling dynasty in Jerusalem at the time of the First Crusade) were well-known for being the only Ismai’li Shia caliphate. (This is why the Shi’ites still ancestrally dislike Saladin for overthrowing it in 1174, even if Saladin is a huge hero to the rest of the Islamic world.) Plus I really wanted to use medieval Cairo as Joe’s homeland, and it just made more sense for an Ismai’li Shia Fatimid from Cairo (i.e. the actual Muslim denomination and caliphate that controlled Jerusalem) to be defending the Holy City because it was personal for him, rather than a Sunni Zirid from Ifriqiya just kind of turning up there. Especially due to the intense fragmentation and disorganization in the Islamic world at the time of the First Crusade (which was a big part of the reason it succeeded) and since the Zirids were a breakaway group from the Fatimids and therefore not very likely to be militarily allied with them. As with my personal gripes about Nicky being a priest, I decided to make that change because I felt, as a historian, that it made more sense for the character. But I SUPER recognize it as my own choices and tweaks, and obviously I’m not about to complain at anyone for writing what’s in graphic novel/bonus content canon!

That ties, however, into the fact that Nicky has a clearly defined city/region of origin (Genoa, which has a distinct history, culture, and tradition of crusading) and Joe is just said to be from “the Maghreb” which…. is obviously huge. (I.e. anywhere in North Africa west of Egypt all the way to Morocco.) And this isn’t a fandom thing, but from the official creators/writers of the comics and the movie. And I’m over here like: okay, which country? Which city? Which denomination of Islam? You’ve given him a Shia name but then point him to an origin in Sunni Ifriqiya. If he’s from there, why has he gone thousands of miles to Jerusalem in the middle of a dangerous war to help his religious/political rivals defend their territory? Just because he’s nice? Because it was an accident? Why is his motivation or reason for being there any less defined or any less religious (inasmuch as DVLA Nicky’s motive for being on the First Crusade is religious at all, which is not very) than the white character’s? In a sense, the Christians are the ones who have to work a lot harder to justify their presence in the Middle East in the eleventh century at all: the First Crusade was a specifically military and offensive invasion launched at the direct behest of the leader of the Western Roman church (Pope Urban II.) So the idea that they’re “fighting for the faith” or defending it bravely is…

Eeeeh. (Insert Dubious Chrissy Teigen.)

But of course, nobody teaches medieval history to anyone in America (except for Bad Game of Thrones History Tee Em), and they sure as hell don’t teach about the crusades (except for the Religious Violence Bad highlight reel) so people don’t KNOW about these things, and I wish they DID know, and that’s why I’m over here trying to be an academic so I can help them LEARN it, and I get very passionate about it. So once again, I entirely don’t blame people who have acquired this distorted cultural impression of the crusades and don’t want to do a book’s worth of research to write a fic about a Netflix movie. I do hope that they take the initiative to learn more about it because they’re interested and want to know more, since by nature the pairing involves a lot of complex religious, racial, and cultural dynamics that need to be handled thoughtfully, even if you don’t know everything about it. So like, basically all I want is for the Muslim character(s) to be given the same level of respect, attention to detail, background story, family context, and religious diversity as any of the white characters, and Imma do it myself if I have to. Dammit.

(I’m really excited to hear your thoughts on the second half of the fic, especially chapter 3 and chapter 6, but definitely all of it, since I think the characters they’re established as in the early part of the fic do remain true to themselves and both grow and struggle and go through a realistic journey with their faith over their very long lives, and it’s one of my favorite themes about DVLA.)

Anyway, about Nicky. I also made the specific choice to have him be an average guy, the ordinary second son of a nobleman who doesn’t really know what he’s doing with his life and isn’t the mouthpiece of Moral Virtue in the story, since as he himself realizes pretty quick, the crusades and especially the sack/massacre of Jerusalem are actually horrific. I’ve written in various posts about my nitpicking gripes with him being a priest, so he’s not, and as I said, I’m definitely avoiding any scenario where he has to Learn About The World from Joe. That is because I want to make the point that the people on the crusades were people, and they went for a lot of different reasons, not all of which were intense personal religious belief. The crusades were an institution and operated institutionally. Even on the First Crusade, where there were a lot of ordinary people who went because of sincere religious belief, there was the usual bad behavior by soldiers and secular noblemen and people who just went because it was the thing to do. James Brundage has an article about prostitution and miscegenation and other sexual activity on the First Crusade; even at the height of this first and holy expedition, it was happening. So Nicky obviously isn’t going to be the moral exemplar because a) the crusades are horrific, he himself realizes that, and b) it’s just as historically accurate that he wouldn’t be anyway. Since the idea is that medieval crusaders were all just zealots and ergo Not Like Us is dangerous, I didn’t want to do that either. If we think they all went because they were all personally fervent Catholics and thus clearly we couldn’t do the same, then we miss a lot of our own behavior and our parallel (and troubling) decisions, and yeah.

As well, I made a deliberate choice to have Nicky’s kindness (which I LOVE about him, it’s one of my favorite things, god how refreshing to have that be one of the central tenets of a male warrior character) not to be something that was just… always there and he was Meek and Good because a priest or whatever else. Especially as I’ve gotten older and we’ve all been living through these ridiculous hellyears (2020 is the worst, but it’s all been general shit for a while), I’ve thought more and more about how kindness is an active CHOICE and it’s as transgressive as anything else you can do and a whole lot more brave than just cynicism and nihilism and despair. As you’ll see in the second half of the fic, Nicky (and Joe) have been through some truly devastating things and it might be understandable if they gave into despair, but they DON’T. They choose to continue to be good people and to try and to actively BE kind, rather than it being some passive default setting. They struggle with it and it’s raw and painful and they’re not always saints, but they always come down on the side of wanting to keep doing what they’re doing, and I… have feelings about that.

Anyway, this is already SUPER long, so I’ll call it quits for now. But thank you so much for this, because I love these characters and I love the story I created for them in DVLA, since all this is personal to me in a lot of ways, and I’m so glad you picked up on that.

#history #medieval history #queer history #dvla asks #long post #the old guard meta #anonymous #ask

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autumnblogs · 3 years

Text

Aside Glance: The Palpable Absence of the Dubiously Canonical

So you might have noticed throughout my writings that I have at the same time avoided directly talking about any of the expanded universe material while also occasionally alluding to it just enough to make it noticeable. At least, probably.

So to nobody’s surprise, let me say;

I don’t like the Homestuck Epilogues.

Before I dig into why, I wanna dig out what I think I actually do like about the Homestuck Epilogues. CW: for mentions of suicide, sexual violence, fascism, genocide, etc. Spoiler Warning for the Homestuck Epilogues, although if you haven’t read them by now, good; don’t. Keep reading for my thoughts on the Epilogues.

I do like that the Homestuck Epilogues say quite loudly and clearly that Fascism Is Terrible, and that Neo-Liberals are often Discount Fascists at best in terms of the material effects they have on the world that we have to share with them. They can often end up being interchangeable, and events can cause someone with a temperament predisposed toward Neo-liberalism down the path of bloody reactionary sentiment the way it did with Jane.

Homestuck has always been a pretty soundly anti-authoritarian work, and pretty aggressively contemporary work, so it makes sense that Homestuck^2 would reflect an internet culture rabidly obsessing about the politics of the Trump-Era United States, cast its villains as parallels to the Trump Administration, the grody religious movements it catered to, and the hyper-rich dingalings who benefited from it.

I do like that the Homestuck Epilogues develop the theme of criticizing the author and continues to call attention to its narrators, this time by explicitly casting them as villainous, and morally ambiguous/incomprehensible respectively. A central idea in Homestuck is the relationship between Author, Audience, and Characters, and the blending of the lines between them.

I like that it calls attention not just to the idea that a story’s narrator is an agent themselves, but also to the reality that the narrator may not have the best interests of either their readers, or their characters in mind. I like that the authorial powers of these characters are represented as overtly dangerous and evil when they are addressed at all.

I also like that the Homestuck Epilogues are rather brutally honest about the fact that sometimes, the people that you grew up with - your close friends - grow apart from you, and turn into kind of bad people. I’ve watched that happen in real time, and have had to stop hanging out with people because they just kind of... turned evil. That’s something that needs to be discussed more in fiction, and more honestly than the usual way. When the most visible example of like, someone you knew and loved turning into a bad person is like, Anakin Skywalker, maybe the world needs more stories about that.

So good, that’s what we’ve got for things I think were good to say. Well done.

What don’t I like about the Homestuck Epilogues?

In a word, I think, they are cruel. Relentlessly cruel. Even actively malicious.

Homestuck has, of course, always been rather mean-spirited and adversarial, pretty much since page one. And really, so has Andrew’s writing in general, since the days when he ran the site Team Special Olympics. His humor walks a fine line between and outrageous and genuinely offensive, as he dares you to say, “That’s fucked up!” so he can respond “it was just a joke, where’s your sense of humor?”

But the Epilogues transcend the usual sardonic envelope-pushing we can usually count on Andrew for, and instead opt to sink their teeth into the readers in an assault on the senses, and on the sensibilities. Reading the Epilogues is a brutal experience to endure emotionally, and in a lot of places, morally offensive.

And they are this way practically from the first page; our very first impression of the Homestuck Epilogues is a content warning that presents itself in such a way as to be almost unmistakably parodic. The stylization as an AO3 work, particularly in the context of Homestuck, where these sorts of overzealous content warning pages are associated with preachy jerks like Kankri, it comes across as a direct challenge to the viewer, and by a challenge, I really mean an attack. It is a mean-spirited joke at the expense of people who have a desire to curate their media experience - and then the authors have the gall to say that the one of the goals of the Epilogues is to challenge people to curate their media more.

Every time a character could conceivably make a bad decision, or become a more ill-conceived version of themselves, they somehow manage it, which becomes all the more unbearable because of the identification of character and audience that has been the case throughout all of Homestuck. If Homestuck introduces us to this entire cast and says, this is you, the Epilogues seem to follow up with and there is nothing good about you. Jade Harley somehow transforms into a grotesque caricature of a trans-woman, a girl who is sexually incontinent and predatory in a way that is directly tied to her having a dog penis - a state of being which the text variously slut-shames her for in Meat, or alternatively uses to blame her for ruining Dave and Karkat’s relationship in Candy.

John Egbert is severely depressed and dysfunctional, and this leads him either to go off and kill Lord English to chase the thrill of adventure and his own sense of purpose (in direct opposition to the all-but-explicitly-stated takeaway from Homestuck which Dave gives us, that the better option is to just leave the story alone altogether - explicitly the worst decision he could make according to the rules of Homestuck) or descend into decades of nihilistic solipsism while the world disintegrates around him.

Dirk’s worst natures take over him and transform him into a person who can only conceivably be satisfied either by becoming an arch-villain, or by murdering himself.

The Epilogues are aggressively cruel to Jake English, choosing to double down on the lack of emotional resolution he suffered from at the end of Homestuck, and squarely placing the blame for his own misery on his own shoulders, in a way which is pretty hard to read around, which is part and parcel of the general malice which Homestuck has historically treated mentally ill characters with. Nearly all the kids in Homestuck have suffered incomprehensible levels of mental and physical abuse, and the text expects them to simply overcome it sheerly by force of will. Sure, Jake is miserable but it’s his own fault, the text seems to say; if he’d just get his act together, like Dave, maybe he could get on with his life without being mind-broken by Dirk, or raped and whipped by Jane.

This isn’t even to delve into the flagship reveal of Homestuck 2, that Rose and Jade in the Candy Timeline have not only had a daughter of their own (without telling Kanaya), but that furthermore they have replicated their own trauma in her. Rose and Jade’s daughter has grown up completely emotionally alone, in the care of her Moms’ archenemy.

The point in all of this is not that the Epilogues have made everyone behave out of character or anything like that - I think it’s clear after a re-read especially that all of this is a conceivable direction that these characters could have taken. Rather, the Epilogues reliably choose to believe the worst of the characters of Homestuck in terms of their writing decisions. Everyone always makes the worst decision that they could make, or at the very least, nearly the worst. And because of the identification of reader and character, we can’t help but take away from that a sense that this is what the authors think of us as well.

And in case it wasn’t stated explicitly enough, a running theme throughout the Epilogues is that all this conflict and badness taking place is, to some extent or another, because we the audience are looking at it. As Andrew stated in relation to the Epilogues, there’s a kind of Happily Ever After possibility bubble around the characters that intrinsically collapses into conflict the moment we observe the events again - in other words, by participating in a story, we the audience members are somehow complicit in the characters’ suffering. Yet not all stories must be driven by conflict - and who triumphs and who fails in that conflict says a lot about what a story has to say about real life.

The Epilogues engage in a kind of voyeuristic cruelty, a kind of pessimism and cynicism, a kind of relentless ugliness that I have seldom seen, and to what end? The whole thing seems to me an attack on the audience.

Aside from general, abstracted claims toward authorial intent (which I think is there), I also want to say that, I can’t emotionally engage with the Epilogues, for a personal reason; as somebody who has struggled with almost daily suicidal ideation for most of my adult life, the way that the Epilogues deal with that subject goes from troubling to malicious and hostile in its treatment of Dirk’s suicide.

And staying personal, while I haven’t had to deal with some of the other sensitive topics that the Epilogues handle recklessly, handle them recklessly they do - Jake is serially raped by Jane, and in a way that he serves as a vehicle to move the plot forward, rather than with any kind of compassion for Jake’s condition. The possibility that Tavros Crocker might be being molested by Gamzee is brought up flippantly in one scene and played off as a joke.

The Homestuck Epilogues play at maturity through handling dark themes and sensitive topics, and reveal a profound immaturity in their authors because of the ways in which they are cruelly, insensitively handled over and over again.

I guess I’ll close with the least egregious thing. The Homestuck Epilogues just aren’t funny. Even at its bleakest, Homestuck has always been funny. In their relentless pursuit of cruelty, and the shared misery of their audience and characters, the Homestuck Epilogues forgo even this most basic element of Homestuck, which Andrew has always described as being basically a comedy.

Anyway; I will not be doing a thorough analysis of the Epilogues. I hate them too much and they suck.

#The Homestuck Epilogues #rape mention #suicide mention #fascism

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