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#living here is.. not as great as i thought
bellaxgiornata · 2 days
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Acquaintances
Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader Word Count: 4.4k
Warnings/tags: 18+; bit of light angst, running into exes, brief fluff, and a hopeful ending
Summary: He was once the love of your life in college–someone you'd been planning a future with–but seeing him now, he felt just like a past acquaintance in a bar.
a/n: So the concept for this one shot was something that I'd written about back in a creative fiction writing course years ago and figured would be fun to rehash with Matt (who forced my hand with the hopeful ending). But that whole idea of knowing someone so intimately and then not knowing them at all is just...weird and relatable. Also, this is set more towards future Born Again era if you can't tell by all the facial hair. Feedback is always appreciated!
Matt Murdock one shot tag list: @pazii @shouldbestudying41 @kmc1989 @ebathory997 @mattkinsella @yeonalie @shiorimakibawrites @xxdrixx @wkndwlff @leikelle @pinkratts @lazyxsquirrel @1988-fiend @marvelcinematiquniverse @carstairswife @stilldreaming666 @kiwwia-wiwwia @willwork4dilfs @will-delete-this-later-probably @mattmurdocks6thscaleapartment @theetherealbloom @yarrystyleeza @dramaholic18 @ladywholikesreading @sleepysleepymom @tartbeanpuzzles @harleycao @sunflower-tia @gamingfeline @juskonutoh @kezibear @ninacotte
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“Ohh, wait,” Olivia said, catching your attention as she came to an abrupt stop. “What about this place?” 
Stopping on the sidewalk next to her, the city foot traffic began to stream around the pair of you. Your gaze followed her finger to the bar she was pointing at that you’d both stopped beside. ‘Josie’s’ was glaring back at you in red neon through the window. Taking a step closer to the glass, your feet unsteady in your heels from the couple of drinks you’d had earlier, you peered inside at the bar.
“Here?” you asked her skeptically.
You pulled a face at the dive bar before you, your eyes catching sight of the many gruff-looking men in cut-off shirts throwing back bottles of beer at the bar. The sound of rock music was noticeable even from your place on the sidewalk, and there was a sports game playing on the television that was hanging on the wall beside the bar. Despite you both living in Hell’s Kitchen, this place looked nothing like the usual bars the pair of you frequented to drink–certainly nothing like the bar the pair of you had just left.
Looking back over your shoulder, you raised a brow at your friend. “You want to go here ? I thought we were walking home.”
Olivia pouted back at you. “Oh come on, please?” she asked. “Live a little tonight. For me? Please just try something new? We can stop here for just one drink and then call it a night. For real, this time.”
Sighing, you threw your hands up in defeat. “Fine, if that’s what you want,” you relented. “It’s your promotion we’re celebrating. If you really want to finish your night out at a dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen, then I suppose I’ll support you.”
“Great!” she exclaimed.
Not waiting for you to rescind your answer, she excitedly grabbed you by the hand and tugged you forward towards the door of the bar. Throwing it open wide, Olivia sauntered inside on her heels as if she hadn't just finished throwing back shots at another bar a few blocks away. You stepped inside behind her, running a hand nervously through your hair as Olivia continued to drag you over towards the bar.
When the pair of you reached the counter, you squeezed between your friend and the back of a burly man. Eyeing the sticky bar counter, you very carefully rested your hands against it as beside you, Olivia caught the attention of the older woman tending the bar. You noticed she was also dressed in a cut-off shirt, a dirty towel slung over her shoulder and a frown on her face. As she made her way over, you could see the way she scrutinized the pair of you like you didn’t belong.
“Can I get you two something?” she asked roughly, resting both of her hands against the opposite side of the counter. 
“Do you have a wine list?” Olivia asked. 
The woman behind the bar shot her a flat look. “No, I don't,” she answered simply.
“Then we'll take two glasses of whatever red you have,” Olivia continued unphased, the wide smile still on her face. 
Wordlessly the woman turned away, grabbing two wine glasses and beginning to work on pouring your drinks. Shifting to the side, Olivia rested an elbow on the bar as she focused back on you, beginning to dig through her purse.
“A wine list, seriously?” you asked her, opening up your own purse. “Here?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Doesn't hurt to ask.”
“Right, well, I don't know what your intention with coming here was, but I doubt it'll be to experience a good merlot before we head home,” you teased. 
Olivia shrugged again, throwing some cash on the bar before you'd managed to dig it out of your own wallet. 
“My treat here, you've bought me enough drinks tonight,” she told you.
You opened your mouth to protest but were cut short by the surly bartender roughly setting two wine glasses onto the bar beside you. You shot her a friendly smile as you reached a hand out to grab the stem of one of the glasses, but the woman's expression still remained sour and unchanged.
“Enjoy,” she said flatly. 
Without another word, she grabbed the cash from the bar and turned, walking away to focus on another patron. Picking up your glass of wine, you exchanged a look with Olivia as she grabbed hers. 
“Such friendly service here at least,” Olivia joked.
You laughed, raising your glass out towards her. “Just remember this was your choice to come here,” you said. “But congratulations once again on the promotion. I know you heard that plenty when we were back drinking with everyone at Rosewood, but I'm proud of you. And I just want to add that I hope your wardrobe increases along with that new salary of yours because you deserve it.”
“Amen,” she replied with a grin, tapping her glass to yours.
You brought your glass up to your lips, drinking down some of the wine at the same time as Olivia beside you. Though it was bitter and unpleasant as it passed over your tongue and you pulled a face while reluctantly swallowing it down. Next to you, Olivia cringed as she set her own glass back onto the bar counter. 
“Well, it'll at least help get us drunk,” she muttered, making a face at the wine glass. “So there’s that.”
“Not exactly my goal tonight,” you reminded her.
“I'm still going to get you to relax one way or another tonight,” she said, pointing a finger at your chest. “But first, I might need to use the bathroom.”
Her eyes darted around the dimly lit bar as she began to search for the bathrooms. Slipping your phone out of your purse, you turned to face the bar counter more fully.
“I'll keep an eye on your drink then,” you told her.
She murmured a quick ‘thank you’ before slipping past you, making her way through the bar and towards the bathrooms. Unlocking your phone screen, you began to scroll through your work emails as you waited for her. Absently you picked up your glass of wine again, taking another sip. You immediately winced as the unpleasant taste hit your tongue once more and quickly set the glass back down, pushing it slightly away from yourself.
As you continued skimming through one of your messages while waiting for Olivia to return, someone roughly bumped into your elbow as they sidled up to the bar next to you. Your hands fumbled with your phone as it slipped momentarily out of your grasp. Hurriedly, you attempted to catch it before it could drop down onto the dirty floor.
“Shit, sorry,” the man beside you quickly apologized.
Finally getting a grasp on your phone, you glanced over at the man that had bumped into you, lips parting to say something back to him. But the sight of him caused you to pause, your mouth left hanging open. Something about him seemed oddly familiar as you stared at the side of his face. 
“Josie!” he called out, waving the surly bartender over and paying you no mind. “We need another pitcher of beer!”
“I'm not putting it on your nonexistent tab, Nelson,” she replied, picking up an empty pitcher. 
Nelson? Why had that name sounded familiar?
“Oh come on, we're your favorite patrons and you know it!” the man said.
The sight of the woman actually breaking into a smile as she began to fill the pitcher took you by surprise, briefly breaking through your attempt to wrack your partially inebriated mind for how you knew the man beside you. 
Brows drawing together as you glanced back down at your phone, you kept repeating the name ‘Nelson’ over and over in your mind. Out of the corner of your eye you saw the man look over his shoulder at you before focusing back on the bartender. But then you saw him quickly do a double-take, his attention fixing back on you. You frowned, now entirely positive you somehow knew each other.
“Holy shit,” he breathed out. Swiftly turning where he stood, the man faced you and said your name in something like shock. “Is it really you?”
Lowering your phone, you glanced back up at him. And then it fully hit you now that you weren't staring at his profile. Despite the hair he now wore cropped vastly shorter than back in college, the facial hair he’d clearly grown out, and the fact that he'd traded band shirts for a suit, you recognized him as Franklin Nelson–your college boyfriend's absolute best friend.
“Foggy?” you asked, surprised.
Josie set the pitcher of beer on the counter, her eyes dancing curiously between the pair of you. “You two know each other?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Foggy answered, a look of shock still on his face as he continued to stare at you. “We were close in college. She dated Matt for a long time. But I haven't seen you in years !” He reached a hand out, roughly clapping you on the shoulder. “How the hell have you been?”
“Uh, good,” you said, still surprised that you'd run into him. “How've you been doing?”
“Good, good. Believe it or not, Matt and I actually did it,” he told you excitedly. “We opened our own law firm!”
Brows rising up onto your forehead in surprise, you felt something stir in your chest at his name mentioned once more. It had been so long since you'd thought about him now. Even longer since you'd last seen him.
Matthew Murdock. You'd dated back when you'd both been going to Columbia. You’d both met in a philosophy class that you'd taken during your early college courses while working on your different degrees. The heated debates in class between you and Matt had led to discussions which had carried on outside of classes. And those had quickly devolved into grabbing drinks together while Matt openly flirted with you. Eventually the pair of you had begun to date, becoming nearly inseparable outside of classes. Until your graduation day, of course. 
Your breakup with Matt had been the hardest breakup you'd ever endured when things had finally ended. It had ultimately been a fairly amicable split despite the pain of the situation, though. But you'd never spoken to him after you graduated, even after sending him one final text a week later simply saying you were sorry. He'd never responded to that text.
“Oh, wow, that's impressive,” you said, trying to ignore the weird feeling suddenly stirring inside of you. “I'm surprised you guys actually did it. That’s–that’s great, really.”
“You know, you should actually come say hi,” Foggy told you, enthusiastically gesturing a thumb over his shoulder. “Matt's here, too.”
For a moment you stood there awkwardly, mouth opening and closing as you gaped at Foggy. That strange and unfamiliar feeling began to writhe in your gut, one you were sure had nothing to do with the terrible wine you'd just been drinking. The thought of seeing Matt again with the history you two had after all these years that had passed just felt…odd. 
“I'm sorry, is that weird?” Foggy asked when you hadn't responded. His nose scrunched up on his face as he nodded, studying the look on your own face. “Yeah, that's weird, isn't it? Who wants to see their ex, right?”
“I–”
“Hey, who's this?” Olivia asked, reappearing on the other side of Foggy and eyeing him curiously. “You make a new friend already while I was gone?”
Clearing your throat, you shook your head. “Actually, Liv, this is an old friend of mine from college,” you told her. 
“Oh my God, that’s right!” Olivia exclaimed, her eyes going wide. “You did go to college nearby!”
Foggy immediately turned towards Olivia, sticking his hand out towards her with a large smile on his face. “Foggy Nelson, nice to meet you,” he greeted her.
“Olivia Martinez,” she introduced herself, shaking his hand in return. “So I take it the pair of you were catching up?”
“Somewhat,” Foggy answered, watching as she grabbed her glass from off the bar beside you. “I'd actually just stuck my foot in my mouth asking if she wanted to go say hi to her college ex. I mean that’s weird, right?”
Olivia's eyes lit up at his words and your shoulders slumped at the sight. You knew where this was heading. 
“Your ex is here?” she asked curiously, eyes darting between you and Foggy. 
“Apparently so,” you answered awkwardly. “But look, we are here celebrating you and–”
“No, no, no!” she exclaimed, waving a hand at you. “I don't mind at all! We can go say hi if you want. I'd certainly love to meet your college friends. Maybe hear some embarrassing stories.”
You stood there, your heart speeding up in your chest nervously as both Foggy and Olivia continued to stare expectantly at you, waiting for a response. Mouth feeling dry, you reached your hand out and grabbed your glass of wine from off the counter beside you, forcing a smile onto your face.
“Okay, yeah, sure,” you replied. “I can–can go say hi, I guess.”
“Great!” Foggy exclaimed, reaching past you to grab the pitcher of beer Josie had set down a bit ago now. “You can meet our other firm partner, too. Karen Page. You’ll love her, I promise.”
You hummed out a noise in response, grateful Olivia was at least excitedly talking Foggy’s ear off as you began to follow behind him through the bar. Raising your wine glass to your lips as you walked, you drank a few deep gulps of it down and fought back your urge to gag at the taste. Seeing Matt again certainly hadn’t been on your agenda for the evening, and now you worried about how seeing him was going to make you feel with the way your body was already beginning to react at just the prospect of it. 
In your final year at Columbia, you swore Matt was going to be the one. You’d had plans to get an apartment together in Hell’s Kitchen after your graduation. Matt had even been the one to suggest the idea of moving in together, often talking about how excited he would be to finally have you all to himself, not having to worry about roommates and dorm room rules anymore. You’d grown excited at the idea too, already imagining how your lives would blend together as you both steadily found your place in the city. You’d even begun picturing marrying Matt–though you’d planned for that to be far later, years farther down the road still. Sometimes Matt himself seemed to even hint at your futures entwining together with how he talked about plans he was making. Everything had always sounded so perfect, feeling like both your lives were easily falling into place as if they were always meant to. 
For the duration of your senior year the pair of you had been planning everything out together, covering every detail as you both laid awake–sometimes in Matt’s dorm, sometimes in yours. You’d be wrapped around each other, hands clasped together, discussing everything from how you’d furnish the apartment, to dividing up chores, to future date plans when you both weren’t so broke. You’d both even talked about getting a cat, joking back and forth about names and never being able to agree on one. But the entire beautiful image the pair of you had been painting together had shattered to pieces when you’d been offered a job all the way out in Miami, Florida.  
There’d been a job fair shortly before graduation. A friend of yours had talked you into attending with her and you’d gone, hoping to line up a few prospects somewhere in the city and end up with something in order to afford the apartment you and Matt had both been hoping to get together. It was just because your friend had encouraged you that you’d done it, leaving your resume with a recruiter for a position that you knew was in Miami while knowing full well Matt had no interest in ever leaving Hell’s Kitchen. He’d told you countless times over the years that this city was his home. You honestly hadn’t expected a damn thing to come of it though, forgetting entirely about the job shortly afterwards. But a few days after the job fair you’d been asked for a phone interview and barely a day later you’d been offered the job. And it had been the only job offer you’d received.
You’d cried in your dorm for two nights straight, lying to Matt about why you couldn’t see him and telling him you’d felt sick. And truthfully you had felt sick to your stomach. Part of you was tempted to reject the offer, knowing at some point you could have found something in the city here and continued on the path you’d already planned out with Matt. But the certainty of a job and a salary with an amount you could barely fathom what to do with had you struggling to say no. The only thing holding you back from accepting it had been Matt. If you knew he’d have come with you to Miami, you’d have immediately taken the position.
Eventually through tears you’d told Matt what was going on and why you’d been avoiding him. How you’d been struggling back and forth with figuring out how to make the right decision on something so big. He’d been the one to solemnly take your hands in his and insist that you take the job, telling you it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. He promised the pair of you would figure things out, maybe manage something long distance for a brief bit while he finished his law degree. But as the final weeks passed for you at Columbia, things had grown tense between you two. And after graduation, you’d come to the heartbreaking decision to end things with him, not knowing how a long distance relationship would work with the way things had already started to fall apart. Still dressed in your powder blue cap and gown, you broke down on campus amidst all the other excited students as you ended the years long relationship with Matt. You’d both sat together on Columbia’s lawn for an hour afterwards, crying and holding each other as you said your goodbyes.
And that had been the last time you’d ever seen Matt.
Until right this very moment as you approached the table he was sitting at, Foggy and Olivia walking a few steps ahead of you. Matt was sitting beside a pretty blonde, the pair of them laughing lightly with each other. For the briefest moment your feet faltered on the sticky bar floor as your heart nearly lurched straight out of your throat at the sight of him. He’d certainly changed over the years, but you could still tell it was Matt beneath those red glasses, that dark beard, and the crisp navy suit. 
But at the same time, it was difficult marrying the image of the man sitting right there with the same one you’d known all those years ago. Gone was the fresh shaven face and his black, rectangular glasses you’d always known. The hands that were currently holding an almost empty glass of beer might have been the same hands that had once tenderly held you all those years ago on the night you’d lost your virginity to him. They might have once been hands that had carefully and gently loved you, hands that had held yours and comforted you, but now they were attached to a man you didn’t even know anymore. 
The feeling that washed over you as Foggy greeted the table was impossible to capture into words. It was something that felt jarring and unsettling as you stared at him. Years ago you’d planned to have a future with him, but looking at him now, he felt almost like an acquaintance you barely knew despite the intimate past you both shared. 
Your hands tightened around the stem of your wine glass, your pulse racing as you mentally kicked yourself for agreeing to come say hello to him. He was practically a stranger to you now, both of you having lived entirely separate lives for longer than you’d even been together. What were you even supposed to say to him? He couldn’t possibly care about catching up with his college ex. 
“Matt, you are not going to believe who I ran into at the bar!” Foggy exclaimed.
You continued standing just a step behind Olivia as if you could somehow hide behind her. But as Matt’s head tilted curiously to the side–an adorable habit of his you were surprised to see he still did–the blonde at the table focused her eyes past Olivia and on you. She shot you a warm and friendly smile as if she could see the nerves written on your face, but the sight of it did nothing to slow the frantic pounding of your heart. You felt like you were going to be sick as Olivia continued to stand there, openly gawking at Matt.
“Who?” Matt asked curiously, a crease forming between his brows.
Foggy said your name and you watched as recognition gradually dawned across Matt’s face. It suddenly felt like the bar was closing in on you, both of your hands growing damp against the wine glass you were clutching.
“Wait, she’s here?” Matt asked next, shock evident in his tone. “Here in Hell’s Kitchen?”
“Yeah, buddy, I was just as surprised as you are! I told her she should come say hi because it’s been so damn long,” Foggy answered before glancing back at you, a bright smile on his face.
Thankfully Olivia spoke up first, giving you a chance to find your voice as you stood there, your eyes roving over Matt’s face. There was something strange in the way that it was familiar yet so changed. And in the years since you’d last seen him, he’d only grown more handsome.
“Wait, that’s your ex?” Olivia said, gesturing a hand towards Matt. “You mean to tell me you two dated in college?”
Tongue feeling heavy in your mouth, you nodded slightly. “Yeah,” you answered, your voice sounding a little off. “For a few years.”
Matt’s gaze immediately landed on you when you’d spoken, his brows twitching faintly above his glasses. It was hard to read the expression on his face with the way they were covering his eyes. Eyes that you’d always thought were so beautiful and expressive, whether it was when he was arguing with you in an impassioned, philosophical debate, or fondly focused on you as he confessed that he was in love with you. 
“I thought you were in Miami?” Matt questioned.
Swallowing hard, you tried to keep your trembling knees from giving out beneath you under the heavy weight of his sightless stare. How was seeing him again after all of these years having such an effect on you? 
“Yeah, I was,” you answered, aware of three other sets of eyes curiously darting between the pair of you. “Until almost a year ago. I was looking for a change and missing the city. Grew tired of the humidity and hurricanes, too,” you lightly joked.
A faint smile tugged the corner of Matt’s mouth upwards, your gaze dropping towards the movement. It was once the same mouth you’d kissed so many times before without even thinking about it. A mouth that had spoken so many encouragements and declarations of love to you, but also one that had told you jokes and brought you pleasure in ways that no other mouth ever had since. It was both familiar and not all at once.
“So you came back?” Matt asked.
  “I came back,” you repeated softly. “Suppose it’s no surprise you’re still in Hell’s Kitchen though.”
He shot you a small smile as he nodded his head. “I never could manage to leave it,” he told you.
For a moment the pair of you stood there, eyeing each other wordlessly in your own ways as the sound of the bar filled the growing silence. Out of the corner of your eye you could see Olivia watching you curiously, swirling her wine in her glass. To your left, you could see a smile gradually spreading across Foggy’s face before he glanced over at the blonde.
“Who says we pull up two more chairs?” Foggy suggested, loudly breaking the lull in conversation. “We can all get to know each other! Get reacquainted again and catch up!”
“I think that sounds like a great idea,” the blonde replied, that friendly smile never leaving her face.
“I agree,” Matt said, still focused on you.
Glancing over at Olivia, you saw the mischievous grin growing on her face. She gave you a slight nod of encouragement, her eyes pointedly telling you to say yes. Nervously biting your lip, you glanced back over at Foggy.
“Yeah,” you agreed. “That sounds good.”
Foggy beamed back at you before he turned, grabbing two more chairs from a nearby table and drawing them over to where the others were sitting. The blonde slid over to make room at the table, introducing herself as Karen as she did. Olivia was fast to introduce herself to the group, quickly making herself comfortable in a chair. 
Hesitantly you made your way over to the table, sitting down in the last open seat which was on Matt’s left. Setting your glass of wine onto the table, you slowly lowered yourself into the chair beside him. Matt immediately focused his attention on you and you ducked your head, feeling even more nervous sitting beside him after all of these years. 
“Hey,” he greeted you softly.
“Hey,” you greeted just as quietly back.
“It’s been awhile,” he said.
“Yeah,” you agreed, glancing up at him from beneath your lashes. “Quite a few years.”
“Guess that means we have some catching up to do,” he told you, a smile gradually growing on his face.
Your eyes spotted the lone dimple of his; it was just barely visible beneath his dark beard, but it was there. Some other feeling began to gradually fill you at the sight of it, this one warm and familiar in comparison to the way you'd first felt when you’d spotted him sitting at the table. You always had loved that lone dimple. 
“Yeah, I guess that does,” you replied, gradually smiling back at him.
193 notes · View notes
bangchansgirlsblog · 3 days
Note
HELLO🤩
i am in a randomly good mood
and i need angst to ruin it
so
i present to you
HYUNJIN X READER- they get into a fight and he raises his hand as if he’s gonna hit her and she flinches and he’s like…. “i can’t deal with your shit rn” and LEAVES *a collective gasp rises from the audience* and she’s all like “well i can’t deal with your shit either” and ALSO LEAVES (like the apartment they share or smth lol) and goes to stay at another members house (but like she’s being reasonable because it was a REALLY bad fight😓) and it ends in him apologizing after realizing he was a total dick teehee🤭
sorry if that’s too much lol keep up the great work!!🩵
Protective services
Warning: Angry Hyunjin, violence (not really), angst/comfort
Pairing: hyunjin x reader
It’s 4 am and it’s so fucking hot omg. Shoot me 😔
**
“Hyunjin,” Y/n softly called for her boyfriend from the kitchen. He was sat in their living room finishing off a song on his laptop so he was quite concentrated but still he made sure to reply.
“Hm?”
“Baby, what do you think we should take to your mums house for dinner tomorrow?” She walked over to their dining room to sit and jot down the shopping list of things she needed for the huge family dinner at his family’s home.
“I don’t know, you figure it out,” he waved her off and quickly looked back at his computer. His eyebrows were furrowed and he had his glasses on.
She let out a frustrated sigh and continued to write down the list desiding she would make some kimchi and fried rice. Perfect.
Satisfied with her list she went to change into some grocery shopping clothes and turned it the lights. “Hyunjin, I’m going grocery shopping,” she informed the older man who was pulling at his hair.
“Yeah, hm? Okay, okay,” he dismissed her again not even listening to what she had to say this cause her blood to boil. Atleast he could offer to come spend time with her but ofcourse work took all his time. It was always work, work, work.
She grabbed her wallet and closed the door behind her before quickly making her way to the convince store. It was a little chilly but nothing she couldn’t handle.
South Korea was safe after all so her being late out at night wasn’t a problem…well she thought.
It was when she was walking back to their apartments when she heard it. Footsteps. Footsteps that were following her and getting closer.
She had grocery bags in her hands that were extremely heavy and the fact that Hyunjin wasn’t there was worrying her a little bit.
She quickly turned and saw no one. Weird. Was she dreaming? She quickly started walking again but this time her footsteps got faster and so did the ones behind her.
“Excuse me miss?” She heard a rough voice calling for her. Her heart was beating at a terrible pace. Her hands were shaking.
She quickly looked behind before seeing who it was. It was a man, a scrubby looking man. He had a dirty smirk on his face and his hands were in his pocket.
“Can I help you?” She quietly said before taking a few steps back.
“Yes actually, I saw you shopping and I thought you were really-“
“Really what?” A voice growled from behind Y/n. She quickly jumped and looked up to see her pissed off boyfriend standing behind her. Towering both her and the man.
His hands automatically wrapped around her and that’s when she realized her surroundings. She was 2 blocks away from her and Hyunjin’s apartment. So this man really was following her.
“Is he your boyfriend?” The man asked in disbelief. His eyes grew wider, “Isn’t he famous?”
“I’d advise you leave before this gets ugly for you. I saw you following her and if I see you next to her ever again. I’ll make sure to break your hands off and beat you with them. Don’t think just because I sing and dance I can’t beat the shit out of you,”
Hyunjin stood infront of Y/n and pushed the man, he didn’t even try to fight Hyunjin but instead started to scurry off while cursing.
“Baby how-“
“Why the fuck are you out here in the night time without me?” He said sternly. His voice getting louder the more he talked.
He harshly grabbed the grocery bags from her hands.
“But I told you I was going grocery shopping Hyunjin plus-“
“You don’t leave the house without me at this time. You forget that you’re everyone’s target. Are you stupid?” He growled as he gently pushed her so they could start making their way to the apartments. He wanted to make sure he still had an eye on her even if he was extremely mad.
“I don’t know why you’re mad at me. I told you I was going to-“ she was hurt by his harsh words. She just wanted to explain herself.
“Then why the fuck were you not picking up my calls? Do you know how worried I got?” He was yelling now. “I told you to text me whenever your out so I know your safe, why don’t you listen Y/n,”
“Hyunjin I don’t know why your making this such a big deal but your scaring me,” she frowned as they made it inside their apartment. He slammed the door shut before throwing the bags of stuff on the dining table.
“Be careful there are eggs!” She yelped before running to check if they’re okay.
“Is that all you care about now?! You could have gotten hurt outside there. Raped! Robbed! Beaten!”
“Hyunjin stop yelling! It’s not a big deal! I always go shopping without you. Maybe your overreacting a little,” she begged for him to stop as she paced back out to the living room where he was now.
“I need to go think-“
“Think about what babe? I’m sorry okay. Just don’t leave. I- I promise I didn’t mean to. I thought you heard me when I told you I was leaving the house!”
“We need to find a way for you to be safe out there Y/n. Just let me think,”
He grabbed his jacket yet again and she chased after him clinging on his hand.
“God dammit Y/n!” He roared and raised his hand before punching the wall. She quickly flintched and fell on the floor thinking it would land on her.
She lets out a tiny squeal before shielding her head with her hands.
Hyunjin’s face quickly softens. His heart was in his throat. He couldn’t believe it. “Shit,” he softly said. His anger now slowly disappearing as guilt and worry filled his body.
“I’m so sorry baby,” he kept mumbling. He dropped his jacket and tried to grab her but she quickly scrambled away.
She was genuinely scared. She knew Hyunjin wouldn’t hit her but with the way he was reacting before she didn’t know what he was capable of at the moment.
“I- why?” She sniffled. Her eyes now streaming with tears and she quickly got off the floor and rushed to the bedroom.
Her sobs filled the room as she quickly dialed the only person she could think of.
“Channie?” She cried into the phone.
“Hm? What is it?” He frantically said as he heard her tit sniffles. “What’s wrong Y/nnie? You okay? Where are you?”
“Channie…Hyunjin he- he got angry and-“
“I’m coming over right now, stay there and stay away from him,” she could hear him shuffling around probably getting dressed. All she could do is cry.
On the other side of the door, Hyunjin was a crying mess. He didn’t expect the fight to turn left. He was going to hit her. He just blacked out for a second and her tiny screams woke him up he then realized what he had done.
“What is it Hyung?” He groaned as he sat by their bedroom door.
“Come over. Chan just called me fuming and I’m worried he’ll kill you if he finds you there,”
“But Binnie- I didn’t mean to I swear,”
“I just said come over. You need to calm down and we can talk about it okay?” He knew Changbin was right.
The comfort of knowing that Chan was on his way over was what made him leave the house not without knocking on their door first.
No answer.
He then slowly opened it to find the love of his life in a little ball. Tiny cries left her small frame but all he could do was walk over and kiss her forehead. She didn’t flinch but she didn’t react even and with that he left their shared apartment to head off to his friend’s house.
**
The frantic knocks on the door was what got her up. She knew it was Chan instantly and she honestly couldn’t wait for his cuddles.
“Where is he?” He marched into the house fuming.
“He- he left,” she said. Chan’s posture melted when he saw the state she was in. He felt so sorry and so bad but he knew apologizing wouldn’t do anything.
“Movie while you tell me what happened?” He pulled her into a hug as she broke down even more.
“Yes please,” she mumbled into his hoodie.
By the time the movie had ended, she was fast asleep by his side. It was a long 2 hours of him trying to calm her down and assuring her that Hyunjin didn’t mean what he did. It was probably a big misunderstanding. It took hours of convincing but he was finally able to get her to sleep and calm down.
When he heard the knock on the door he knew who it was and wasn’t shocked when the devil himself walked through the door.
“I won’t kill you,” was all Chan said before getting up and signaling for him to come hold her instead.
“Thank you Hyung, I owe you one,”
“I know you two are a young couple and it gets hard but you slowly learn how to be patient with her. I hope Binnie and leeknow told you that,”
“Trust me they gave me the longest lecture of my life and on top of that they took away all my pc privileges,” he huffed and slowly played with your hair.
“How is she?” He asked while admiring her face. It was still a little puffy and the guilt started to eat him again.
“Okay, she cried and cried but I finally got her to calm down. Just talk to her and apologize. She loved you at the end of the day,” and with that. They said their goodbyes and Hyunjin carried Y/n to their shared room. He slowly put her in bed before rushing to finish up putting the groceries away and cleaning up.
He made his way back to your room and got into bed to cuddle you but what made him smile was the way you wrapped your arms around him before whispering a tiny “I love you.”
Damn he was such a dickhead.
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givemefevrr · 22 hours
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I just read your dom!enha post and jake ?? mr sim ?? the thought of him being possessive ??? ugh I'm the weakest soldier out there !! him seeing you run into your ex and just have a simple convo yet he gets moody af for the few next days without telling why he's suddenly like this then all this ending up in an angry sex ?? pleaseeeeeeee write it in your words I can't do this myself !!! love you in advance
- 🌷 anon
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Is It Him or Me? (NSFW)
Pairings: possessive dom!Jake x fem!reader
Warnings: jealousy, possessiveness, light angst, rough sex, angry sex (all consentual), swearing, fingering, edging (?), cum eating (?), teasing, begging, overstimulation, kissing, dry humping, biting/marking, facials, pet names (baby, pretty girl, etc.), Heeseung is your ex
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Jake is a great boyfriend. He absolutely adores you, and whenever you are out together, he always holds your hand and steals kisses whenever he can. And that's exactly what is occurring right now. 
Standing in line at a cafe, waiting to order, you couldn't help but giggle and squirm as Jake nuzzled into your neck, peppering your skin with soft, tickling kisses. Jake had been talking about bringing you here for months, as this was his favorite coffee joint, which he used to work at all through high school. It's on the other side of town, so it was a bit of a trip. But he chose the perfect day to bring you.
"Stop it, Jake, that tickles," you playfully protest, gently pushing him away amidst your laughter. 
With a grin and sparkling eyes, Jake teased, "But you love it when I tickle you," punctuating his words with a lingering kiss on your cheek.
Suppressing your laughter, you swatted at him. "Not in public, you goof," you replied, noticing amused glances from others in the line.
Jake chuckled, intertwining his fingers with yours as he turned his attention to the menu. "So, what are you in the mood for?" he asked, excitement radiating from him–practically making him vibrate.
"Hmm, what would you recommend, Mr. Barista?" You asked, scanning the menu before smiling up at Jake.
Eyes lighting up, Jake exclaimed, "Vanilla latte, of course! That's what I'm getting. Their vanilla lattes are the best. Well, at least when I worked here, they were." 
You scoffed at his pride but ultimately decided on the vanilla latte. 
But then you saw him. The bell atop the door chimed, a gust of wind blowing into the cafe upon their entrance. The familiar man seemed to recognize you, too, as he locked eyes with you and walked over. 
It's your ex-boyfriend. 
It's not like the two of you left off on bad terms, but you guys haven't talked or seen each other since the breakup, making this incredibly awkward. 
"Hey," your ex greeted, approaching you with a friendly smile.
You glanced at Jake slightly before answering, the boy paying little attention to the conversation. Responding with forced nonchalance, you exchanged pleasantries, hoping the conversation would end soon.
"I didn't expect to run into you here," your ex continued, "It's quite a trip from Hillsdale, huh?"
It's weird, considering you both live in the same town, yet he coincidentally showed up in the same cafe, almost 45 minutes away, at the same time as you. 
"Yeah, it's just a day trip," you nod. 
He nods, too, the awkwardness becoming increasingly more apparent the longer the conversation continues. 
"So, how have you been? What have you been up to? You look good," he complimented, looking you up and down.
"Ah, I've been great. I finally got a temp job for that marketing company downtown," you smiled softly, proud of your achievements.
"That's amazing! Yeah, I work at a car dealership about 10 minutes away from this place now. What a coincidence, though," he chuckled, finally becoming aware of Jake standing beside him. "Who's this?"
"Oh, Jake. This is Heeseung," you glanced at Jake once more. "My ex," you added a bit quieter, noticing that you'd caught the attention of other people around you.
You could feel Jake's grip on your hand tightening upon hearing that Heeseung was your ex, but he said nothing–masking any discomfort with a forced smile. 
"Heeseung, this is my boyfriend, Jake." Heeseung looked like a deer in headlights, an embarrassed flush rising on his neck as he let out a matching embarrassed laugh.
"Oh, my bad, man. I didn't even know," he laughed, sticking a hand towards Jake for a truce.
Jake wore a small, forced smile and shook Heeseung's hand. "You're all good," he replied.
"Well, I'll leave you two be." Heeseung looked back at you. "We'll have to catch up again sometime," he said before walking to the back of the line. 
After he left, there was a silence between you and Jake. You leaned into his shoulder slightly, cuddling up to him, as cuddles always made him feel better. Feeling uncomfortable, you broke the silence and said, "Well, it was nice seeing him again, I guess."
Jake nodded but didn't say anything, his grip on your hand tightening as you both stood in line at the cafe.
When it was your turn to order, you excitedly ordered the vanilla latte Jake recommended. However, Jake didn't even bother getting anything for himself, even though this was allegedly his favorite place. He put a twenty-dollar bill on the counter and mumbled for the cashier to keep the change, around $15. He just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
As your drink was being made, you and Jake waited by the to-go station. When the kind barista boy handed you your drink and said, "Have a great day. I hope you enjoy the nice weather," you reached out to take it.
But Jake beat you to it, grabbing it from the boy and handing it to you instead. "Let's go," he said, practically dragging you out of the cafe. 
Trying not to spoil the date with his attitude, he suggested walking around the city to enjoy the weather.
He bought you some light pink and blue flowers from a small vendor, seeing you croon at them, knowing they were your favorite kind.
Next, you walked across a footbridge over a stream, asking Jake to take a picture of you with the beautiful view in the background. You walked, thinking about how Jake had the privilege of taking this beautiful path home from school every day. 
Finally, as the sun set, you both decided to stop at an ice cream shop. The shop's perimeters had a swinging chair facing a small body of water with fishing docks along the edges. You two sat on the swinging chair with your ice cream in hand, Jake having chosen not to get anything for himself once again.
He had been trying to make the day fun by buying you flowers and taking you to these nice places from his childhood. But even as he handed the flowers to you, you saw his expression falter. Even as he walked across the bridge with you, he hadn't even told you that story about him taking the bridge path home from school–you made that up yourself to fill the gaps of what wasn't spoken. And even as he sits with you now, he sits on the other side of the swing, resting on his chin in his hand on the armrest. His sulky mood and his distance are so unlike him.
Jake had tried not to ruin the date, but his emotions were still visible despite his efforts.
You leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, thanking him for the "wonderful" day. But he remained quiet, fidgeting with his hands and avoiding your gaze. 
And he said nothing on the car ride home as well, only having a hand attached to your thigh as he drove silently. 
Jake was certainly in some sort of mood, as his behavior persisted for the next few days. 
He became increasingly distant, his temper flaring at the most minor inconveniences. If he ran out of milk for his cereal, he'd fly into a rage to the point tears would well up in his eyes as he curled up on the floor in frustration for hours. 
He seemed to withdraw from you completely, barely initiating hugs or kisses like he used to. You tried to talk to him and understand what was happening, but he remained tight-lipped, shutting you out of whatever bothered him.
Almost every night ended with him laying in your lap, upset at something to the point he's shaking, and you running your hands through his hair to try to calm him down. He'd eventually fall asleep in your lap, only to be up and gone elsewhere before you woke up in the morning. 
Then, one day, something happened that pushed Jake over the edge. It was one of those nights you found yourself playing with his hair, trying to soothe him as he wrestled with his inner demons.
It was almost bedtime, and you wore only one of his baggy t-shirts and underwear, as you usually did for bed. You were on your phone, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, when a notification popped up. It was from your ex—he was trying to follow you. 
You hesitated, reading it, and weren't planning on accepting the request, yet Jake must have thought otherwise. He tensed up upon seeing the notification. 
And moments later, he was sitting upright, his arms practically caging you between him and the couch cousin, kissing you roughly, placing your phone on the floor. You weren't against his sudden switch-up, as you haven't gotten a kiss from him in almost a week now. 
You opened your mouth as he asked for entrance, tonguing at your lips. And as he deepened the kiss, he began moving, causing you to chase his lips, following his movements. He lifted you off the couch, carrying you to your room, refusing to let go of your lips, and once he met the edge of your bed, he immediately plopped you down and crawled on top of you, kissing down your neck, sucking and biting dark marks into your skin. 
"I fucking hate him," Jake grunted into your neck, his voice muffled, and you barely just caught what he said. 
A lightbulb lit up in your head. Ah, that makes sense. 
"Is that why you've been in such a mood lately? Because of one interaction I had with Heeseung, who I haven't thought about for years?" you asked, lifting his head up from your skin.
Jake's eyes bore into yours, filled with anger and frustration. "Don't say his name," he commanded, his mood worsening. So, you decided not to press the issue further, realizing that mentioning Heeseung's name only fueled Jake's anger.
Jake ducked back to your neck, lips trailing down. His kisses became more urgent as he pushed your shirt up, revealing your skin underneath. His hands roamed up the sides of your body, his touch desperate and needy. You could feel the intensity of his emotions in every kiss, every touch.
Jake continued to kiss down your chest, his movements almost rushed. His hands roamed over your back, slipping up the back of your sports bra. 
"Off–" He grunted, already pushing your shirt up and off your shoulders along with the bra, leaving you only in your underwear. "Take it all off."
His mouth immediately connected back to your skin, biting your shoulder and kissing all the way down to your chest, where he took his time marking you up. You ran your fingers through his hair, gently guiding and reassuring him with your touch. Despite his roughness, Jake's actions were vulnerable.
His hands gripped your hips and thighs and squeezed roughly, his fingers definitely leaving bruises. You tugged on his shirt, to which he willingly took it off, yet eager to return to your skin. 
"Mine…" Jake kissed down your chest to your stomach, mumbling the word repeatedly. "You're mine. Say it." Jake's voice was low, his gaze on you dark, staring at your body with pure rage and hunger. 
"I'm yours," you giggled. You had never seen him like this before and found it slightly endearing. 
But he wasn't having any of that. "This isn't a fucking joke. Say it." he scolded, gripping your face and effectively grabbing your attention. "Say that you're mine and not… not his…" 
Yet with the way he squeezed your cheeks with one hand–pushing your lips out, making you look stupid–there was no way for you to coherently do as he asked. But you try nonetheless. 
With a whimper, looking right into his blown-out pupils, you said, "I'm yours. O-only yours, I promise," as best you could. 
His possessiveness only turned you on more, and you could feel yourself growing wetter with every touch. Satisfied with the response, his lips crashed back down onto yours hungrily. He growled against your lips, letting go of your face and using that hand to roam down your body, his fingers hovering outside your panties. 
You squeaked into his mouth, thrashing slightly as his thumb rubbed hard at your clit, overstimulating you. 
He pinned your hips down on the mattress to prevent you from squirming, continuing his administrations with a sick grin on his lips. You watched his face as his anger turned into lust, fueled by pure jealousy. You grabbed onto his shoulders, pulling him closer as you rocked your hips against his hand.
Smirking, he added more pressure to your clit, causing you to try to writhe even more. 
"More," you whimper almost inaudibly. 
"Hm?" Jake asked, as if he didn't hear you. But with the look on his face, you could tell that he did. "You want me to stop?" You whimpered softly, shaking your head and reaching for his hand.
Despite that, he stopped touching where you needed it the most, earning a whine and more squirming, even though he's not touching you anymore. 
"N-no, please don't stop," you whined, reaching for his wrist and pulling it back to your heat.
He just looked at you condescending as you humped his hand, and if you were in a normal state of mind, you would have had enough social awareness to stop–but you were far too horny right now.
"Please," you begged again, looking up at him with eyes glossed over with need, your hips bucking against his hand as you desperately tried to get more friction. 
Jake smirked at your eagerness before giving you mercy, pulling your panties off and sliding a finger inside you, making you gasp. He grunted in response, returning to trailing hot kisses on your skin. You could feel his teeth grazing over your skin, knowing that by the time he's done, you'll be covered in bruises for days. 
And that only turned you on even more.
"Oh god–" your breath hitches in your throat, your fingers gripping the sheets tightly.
"You like that, don't you, baby? My fingers inside you?" he purred, watching as you twitched and whined beneath him. "You love how I make you feel, how I can make you fall apart with just my fingers."
"Yes, so good– Fuck," you moaned, arching your back in pleasure as he added another finger and began to thrust harder and curl his fingers just how you like it, stretching you and filling you in a way that only he could. His other hand pressed against your lower stomach, the pressure making you even more sensitive.
"He doesn't know how to fucking touch you like I do," Jake rasped, his voice laced with arrogance. "I know just by the way you came so hard the first time I fingered you–there's no way that fucker has made you cum before. Only I can make you feel this good." 
You could only nod wordlessly, unable to form a coherent sentence. Jake loved every second of it, the smug smirk never leaving his face. Your hands reach down to his sweatpants, trying to undo them.
"You want it so bad, don't you?" He cocked his head to the side, almost condescending. You frantically nod, hoping he'll just give you what you want like he usually does. And you get hopeful with how Jake chuckles darkly and pulls his pants down a bit, exposing his throbbing cock. 
You mewled a bit as he pulled out his fingers and brought them to his lips, licking them clean with a satisfied look. He positions himself at your entrance and leans over you, his face inches from yours. But his following words crush all hope, and you know you'll have to do more begging. "Do you want me? Or do you want him?"
"You," the desperation in your voice was clear and urgent. "Please. I don't want Heesueng, only want you. Just you–" 
But before you can finish begging, Jake slams into you, filling you completely.
"Didn't I tell you not to fucking say his name?" His hands grip your hips tightly as he starts to pump into you, pulling you back onto him with each thrust. He doesn't hold back, his pace rough and frantic with all his pent-up rage and jealousy.
You let out a moan, arching your back. Jake was rough, and it was shocking. But oh, it felt good. It felt better than anyone you had been with before. Jake knew your body so well and knew exactly how to make you lose control. 
You dig your nails into his shoulders, neither caring about the deep red marks as you press into his skin. Your walls clench around him, each thrust bringing you closer to the edge of sanity. 
Jake's voice breaks during one of his moans. "C-can't believe he saw you like this before. I f-fucking hate him. Only I'm allowed to see you like this," he pants and his movements become sloppy, holding your hips down tightly as he continues to fuck you mercilessly. And his movements continued to get more and more desperate, his words becoming incoherent as he kept mentioning your ex. 
You could feel the familiar coil in your stomach tighten as you were pushed closer and closer to your breaking point. "P-please, m' gonna–" you gasp, clenching your teeth together as Jake's cock hits just the right spot inside you.
He uses a hand that was holding your hip to rub circles over your clit, trying to coax you to your orgasm. He then moves his other hand back to your lower belly, pressing down on it hard, like he did earlier. He hadn't done this before tonight, but you wish he had because you can feel his cock pressing against all the right spots even more now. You can't help but feel a bit jealous yourself, wondering who he learned that from. 
But regardless, the added stimulation sent you over the edge, your body shaking as you came hard around Jake's cock, pulling some stray swears from him. 
But Jake wasn't done with you yet. He kept fucking you, even as you rode out your orgasm, pushing you into overstimulation. You could barely form a coherent thought as he continued to pound into you, his own release still building inside him.
"You're so fucking beautiful," he grunted, his thrusts becoming shorter and rougher. "My pretty girl. I'm gonna cum all over your pretty face."
And with one final hard thrust, he pulled out, maneuvering himself to jerk off over your face. 
You were cock drunk at this point, and your face must have shown this, as Jake chuckled deeply. He cooed, brushing his hand on your cheek and wiping away tears you didn't know had fallen. "Awe, who did this to you? Who's got you all fucked out like this?"
And you finally made out a broken "you" through your whines and panting. 
"Yeah, that's right," your response makes his grin widen, seemingly with pride. "Me, not him," Jake spoke as if trying to convince himself more than you. 
It only takes a couple more tugs before his hot release splatters across your face, his moans and deep laughter mixed with one another as he comes down from his high. 
When he's done, he crawls to lay next to you, seemingly a whole new person. 
His puppy-like personality is back, wearing the loving smile he always has when looking at you as he wipes his cum off your face with the corner of your sheets. 
Afterwards, he peppers your face and lips with soft kisses, speaking equally soft words. "I'm sorry, baby," he nestles up next to you as you do the same thing, a small smile on your face, still kind of out of it. Was that too much? I've just been so moody lately because of…yeah."
"No, I just wish you'd talk to me and not let everything build up." You pout, placing your palm on his cheek before snorting out a laugh. "Not that it wasn't amazing. I've never seen you so possessive–it was hot."
He giggled at this, too, a soft blush rising in the apple of his cheeks. 
"But really, talk to me next. You aren't okay after something like that. Okay?"
"Gotcha," He scoffs before peppering you with kisses all over again.
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Ahh!! I guess your my first anon 🌷 :)
Also, apologies for the insane word count, I yap a lot as you can tell 😅
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hotvintagepoll · 2 days
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Propaganda
Ava Gardner (The Killers, The Barefoot Contessa)— She's so goddamn hot. Her and Frank Sinatra could've sandwiched me and I would've thanked them for the privilege
Jean Seberg (Breathless, Saint Joan)— Some of us watched À bout de souffle as a lil French undergrad and had the trajectory of our lives changed by Jean Seberg. She IS French new wave!! She is the moment!! She sadly had to work with a lot of shitty directors in her career but even so, she has this magnetic energy whenever she’s on screen. In her personal life, she was also very supportive of civil rights causes, and was even targeted/harassed by the FBI for financially supporting the Black Panther Party.
This is round 2 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.
[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]
Ava Gardner:
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Ava Gardner is one of my favorite actresses of all time. Although a lot of her roles in movies are about her being beautiful and nothing else, there are some films where her acting truly shines.
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Gifset: https://www.tumblr.com/pelopides/721438308726603776/ava-gardner-as-pandora-reynolds-pandora-and-the
Gifset 2: https://www.tumblr.com/portraitoflestatonfire/731899355804598272/if-the-loustat-reunion-doesnt-look-like-this-then
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HER FACE. LOOK AT IT. Also was a life long supporter of civil rights and a member of the NAACP, had lots of fun love affairs with other stars, bullfighters, married several times but was also happy in between to just have lovers and was unapologetically herself.
I literally gasp every time I see her.
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Between 1942 and 1964, Ava Gardner was credited in no less 50 films, and is still considered by some to be the most beautiful actresses that ever graced the silver screen. Despite life-long insecurities regarding her talent as an actress, she weathered public scandal, industry hostility, and outright condemnation by the Catholic Church with fearless grace. She would later in life talk candidly about the reality and pain of living through two (studio approved!!) abortions during her short marriage to Frank Sinatra, and while the two of them could not make their relationship work, they remained in each other’s lives for nearly 30 years. She would forever describe herself as a small-town girl who just got lucky, but always felt like a beautiful outsider.
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Really genuinely one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever seen. An autodidact. Had amazing chemistry with Gregory Peck to the point where I do think about watching On The Beach again sometimes because they're so good together even though that movie did destroy me. Was a great femme fatale in many movies.
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Jean Seberg:
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anyone who plays Joan of Arc is kind of hot by default tbh
she's gorgeous, she's cool, she has the original blond pixie cut
She donated a lot of her money to civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and the black panther party as well as Native American school groups, as a result of this the fbi ran a smear campaign against her and a surveillance campaign which is thought to have led to her suicide tragically.
idk if this is propaganda but the COINTELPRO and the FBI are widely blamed for her death. If the FBI was after her for supporting the Black Panther Party you know she was good
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taking care of a sick schlatt hcs
since the big guy is sick, but still streaming, here are some of the thoughts i’ve been having about what it would be like to take care of him as a partner (being extra parasocial today)
content warnings: uhhh idek but it gets real smutty toward the end and there’s a full blown oneshot bc i got carried away (afab!reader) (female genitalia mentioned)
-he would be reluctant in accepting your care at first. a. he doesn’t want to get you sick bc then you will just both be miserable and he would rather take care of you b. he would hate to be the reason you start feeling bad c. he’s super protective over you and doesn’t want to see you sick it would make him sad
-however, after some compromising to make sure you don’t get yourself sick with his cold, he lets you begin to baby him
-in the morning, you wake up in the guest room, so the two of you don’t share too much of the same air (as much as it kills you to not be near him)but you go and make him breakfast before he wakes up
-as much as he bitches about not liking the taste of honey, you make him a special warm drink you think he will like containing whiskey, lemon, cinnamon, and just enough honey to help him, but not enough for him to notice. (a hot toddy, also known as the south’s cough syrup) this should help with his sore throat even though his morning voice combined with his sick voice and rasp makes him very hard not to kiss. it’s very sexy.
-once you know he’s awake you bring him his breakfast in bed with a smile on your face and a kiss on the napkin in your red lipstick that he loves so much. the two of you were usually very affectionate and the necessary distance has you losing it a little bit.
-once he’s awake he’s already back to work bc “the grind doesn’t stop baby” he says. but you are popping in every hour to make sure he doesn’t need any medicine, tissues, or water
-throughout his work day you are bringing him mandatory visits from jambo and [redacted] for snuggles that you can’t give him. you say “this cuddle is from me except it’s jambo bc you refuse to give me your sickness”
-you had the great idea of using the throat numbing spray(chloraseptic) you’d bought for other reasons… for it’s actual intended use. grabbing it from the bedside drawer you bring it to his office. “woah toots i appreciate you wanting to make me feel better, but i think that breaks our agreement on not getting you sick” he says. “nice try but i was thinking more about its medicinal use. open up and say ah.” you tell him as you spray it down his throat. “feel any better?” you ask. “no wonder you like this stuff so much! i can’t feel a thing and plus it tastes like cherries!” he says as he pokes at you
this next part is so long it is literally a one shot oops but i had the idea and ran with it! and it fits the theme!
-you tell him if he refers to blowing his nose as “blowing a load” on stream again there will be hell to pay. ofc he doesn’t care and does it anyway and when he’s off stream he finds you in the chair in the corner of his bedroom with a mischievous grin on your face. after a few days of not being able to touch each other, you’ve definitely both got some pent up sexual tension. he hasn’t said a word for some reason but you know that if you are feeling it he has got to be. (men are simple creatures) so you wait in his room in nothing but his favorite little lingerie set of yours. when he’s finally off stream and likely a little drunk,(you had been drinking along with him in the living room while watching stream) he comes in and sees you there. before he can put a hand on you, you stop him. “not so fast big guy. go sit on the bed.” he sits on the bed across the room from you like you asked. “if us not being able to touch each other has got me this worked up, then you must be going crazy. i’m gonna sit right here and do what i need to do… and you can do what we both know you need to do, and we can watch each other. does that sound good to you?”you ask. “jesus christ. i always love your ideas.” he says as you pull your favorite vibrator from beside you and start teasing yourself over your underwear with a grin as you bite your bottom lip “take it off.” you do as he says and remove the matching set as you continue to use the vibrator on your nipples. once you are completely undressed you notice he has quickly lost his shorts and boxers and is now stroking himself slowly. “god i wish this was your hand. promise me you’ll never get sick again?” you plead with a whine. “oh i promise.” he groans and you move the vibrator down to your wet core as begin to unravel. watching him touch himself has got you so worked up that within a few minutes of the toy touching your clit you are already coming undone. you scream out his name as you finish and he quickly reaches his climax as well while you moan on about how bad you need him and how you wish he was inside of you. once the two of you have had enough time to ride out your highs, clean up your messes, and catch a good breath you begin to laugh a little. “we might be a little dramatic. we don’t touch for two days and you’ve got me moaning your name from across the room.” you giggle. “no, not at all. that was exactly what i needed. i can’t have my baby getting sick. and you do such a good job of taking care of me.”
end note: hello!! hope you enjoyed!! def got a little carried away at the end there whoops! but i figure y’all won’t mind😌 most of this is inspired by stuff he’s said on stream today and yesterday and the little interaction i had with him on todays stream (still freaking the fuck out over it btw. if you haven’t seen the clip i posted it on here. not to brag but i made the mf cackle)
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tiucotheus · 3 days
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It's my 30th birthday! I may have taken some extra damage along the year(s) but that's ok. I'm still here, fighting back.
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The Crow Road by Iain Banks
I finished The Crow Road and had a little time to think about it. I'll put my thoughts under a Keep Reading in case anyone is trying to avoid spoilers.
As I speculated before, I think it's likely that The Crow Road is more related to Good Omens in philosophy than in plot. I mean, it's not that the plots necessarily have nothing in common, and we could be very surprised in the end of course, but now that I've read the whole book, its philosophical commonalities with GO are both apparent and kind of inspiring. Also, if I were a writer, I'd be more interested in dropping hints about what themes are important than telegraphing my whole plot ahead of time.
So here, I will describe the book and point out themes that I believe may reappear in Good Omens 3.
This is a long post. If you read it, make a cup of [beverage of choice].
Below are mentions of suicide, death/murder, and sexual acts.
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The Crow Road centers around a character named Prentice McHoan, a university student in Scotland who starts to sort out his complicated relationship with his complicated family as he explores the mystery of his uncle Rory's disappearance. Although the book is mostly from Prentice's perspective, the narration jumps around in time with the McHoan family. There are quite a lot of important characters to keep track of; the bare-bones summary I put below doesn't even include some of the important ones. I wanted to make the summary even shorter and simpler than this, but the truth is that this book is not short or simple, and if I made the summary any simpler, it might be downright misleading.
There are at least three major cultural aspects of The Crow Road that I am inexperienced with: the overall culture in the 1950s-1980s (I was born in 1988, so of course wasn't here for the relevant decades), the international experience of the Gulf War (again, born in 1988), and the history and culture of Scotland itself (I'm USAmerican with only reading as a source). As a result, I'm sure there are important dimensions to the book that I've missed. If someone has a different perspective taking some of these things into account, I'd love to know about it.
Also, keep in mind, there is a great deal of descriptive writing in this book. There are a lot of pages about the geography of Scotland, and about Prentice as a kid, and about Prentice's father and uncles hanging out together in their youth, and about various family incidents, and about Prentice spending time with his brothers and friends. At first, these passages seem to just make things more confusing, and in my head, I accused them of being "filler." But they definitely serve a purpose. They're a way of showing and not telling the characters' attitudes and relationships to each other. More importantly, because we get to actually live these experiences with the characters, they are what give all the plot points below their deeper emotional impacts. In other words, the everyday experiences give the plot its deeper meaning. They resonate with one of the core themes in the novel: that our experiences in life, rather than any supposed existence after death, are what matters.
The Crow Road's story is like this:
Prentice is rather directionless in life, and he seems to have trouble investing any energy in his own future as he moons over his unrequited feelings for an idealized young woman named Verity. Soon, Verity ends up in a romance with Prentice's brother, Lewis, and Prentice feels that Lewis "stole" her from him. Prentice has also become estranged from his father, Kenneth, over spirituality. Prentice believes there has to be something more after death because he feels it would be incredibly unfair if people didn't get anything other than this one life; Kenneth is not only a passionate atheist, but is offended by the notion of an afterlife.
Prentice's uncle Hamish, Kenneth's brother, has always been religious, although his religion involves a number of bizarre and offbeat ideas of his own, with inspiration from more traditional Christian notions. Prentice is not really sure about this ideology, but he's willing to talk to Hamish about it and even participates during Hamish's prayers, whereas Kenneth is openly scornful of Hamish's beliefs. Hamish interprets this as Prentice being on "his side."
Prentice has a few opportunities to go back and talk to his father, and is begged to do so by his mom, Mary, with whom his relationship is still good. Mary doesn't want either of the men to give up their inner ideas about the universe; she just wants them to agree to disagree and move on as a family. Prentice says he will visit, but he just keeps putting it off and off and off.
Prentice acquires a folder containing some of his missing uncle Rory's notes in the process of hooking up with Rory's former girlfriend, Janice Rae, who seems to have taken a shine to Prentice because he reminds her of Rory. Using the contents of the folder, Prentice wants to piece together the great literary work that Rory left unfinished, which Rory titled Crow Road; however, it becomes apparent that Rory didn't turn his concepts into anything substantial and only had a bunch of disconnected notes and ideas. He hadn't even decided whether Crow Road would be a novel, a play, or something else. The few bits of Rory's poetry for Crow Road read are bleak and depressing.
Prentice also spends a lot of time with a young woman named Ash. They've been good friends since childhood and seem to have a somewhat flirtatious dynamic now, but they aren't in a romantic relationship; mostly, they drink and hang out together. Ash tells Prentice bluntly to get his life back on track when she finds out he's failing at school, avoiding his family, and engaging in shoplifting. She is a voice of reason, and when Prentice insists to her that he's just a failure, she reminds him that actually, he's just a kid.
Prentice's efforts to figure out Rory's story or location stagnate, and he continues to fail at school and avoid his father. He then receives word that Kenneth was killed while debating faith with Hamish. In fact, Kenneth dies after a fall from a church lightning rod, which he was climbing in an act of defiance against Hamish's philosophy when it was struck by lightning; Hamish is convinced that Kenneth had incurred God's wrath. Ash is there for support when Prentice finds out about the death.
With Ash's help, Prentice returns to his hometown again to help manage Kenneth's affairs. Prentice speaks with a very shaken Hamish, who is handling Kenneth's death with extreme drama and making it all about his own feelings. Hamish tells Prentice that Kenneth was jealous that Prentice shared more in common with Hamish's faith than with Kenneth's lack of faith. However, this isn't really true, and as he contemplates his father's death, Prentice begins to internalize one of the last things Hamish reported that Kenneth had argued: "All the gods are false. Faith itself is idolatry."
As the chapters go on, Prentice is compelled by some of the meaningful items related to Rory that he discovers in his father's belongings. He gains a renewed sense of purpose trying to solve the mystery of where Rory went and what happened to him. Among the interesting items are an ancient computer disk of Rory's that Prentice can't access with any equipment he can find; Ash uses her connections in the US and Canada to find a computer expert who can finally open the files on it. This takes quite a while, since the disk has to be mailed and Ash's connection is investigating the disk only in his free time.
Prentice also discovers that his feelings for Verity have changed. He no longer feels angry with Lewis for "stealing her." At first, Prentice's narration describes this as his feelings "cooling" as a result of the trauma of losing his father, but interestingly, this soon means Prentice gets to know Verity as a sister-in-law without getting caught up in jealous romantic feelings. Verity gets along well with the family, and Prentice is actually happy to discover that she and Lewis have a baby on the way. Prentice's relationship with Lewis improves greatly as well, partly because he is no longer jealous and partly because he realizes he does not want to lose Lewis, too.
Ash's connection who was looking at Rory's computer disk comes through and sends the printed contents of the files to Prentice. The files reveal to him that Rory likely knew Prentice's uncle, Ferg, murdered his wife by unbuckling her seat belt and crashing their car. Rory had written out a fictional version of events and considered using it in Crow Road. I'm not clear on exactly how certain Rory was about Ferg's crime, or whether Rory would have intentionally reported Ferg, or whether Rory even had enough proof to publicly accuse Ferg of murder, but people would likely have connected the dots in Rory's work and become suspicious of Ferg. For this reason, Prentice believes Ferg murdered Rory as well.
Prentice confronts Ferg. He doesn't get a confession and leaves Ferg's home with no concrete proof of anything; Ferg denies it all. But Prentice is soon physically assaulted in the night, and it seems Ferg was almost certainly the culprit, because he hadn't been home that same night, and he had injuries (probably from being fought off) the next day. A day or two later, Ferg's body is found unconscious in the cockpit of a plane, which crashes into the ocean. It's uncertain whether this was a suicide, but Prentice suspects it was. Rory's body is then soon recovered from the bottom of a waterway near Prentice's home, where Ferg had sunk it years ago.
As the mysteries are solved, Prentice realizes his feelings for Ash are romantic love. However, it's too late, he thinks, because Ash is about to take a job in Canada, where she may or may not stay. Prentice also hesitates to approach her because he's embarrassed about his previous behavior, venting all his angst about Verity and his father. He isn't sure she would even want to be in a relationship with him after that. But the very night before Ash leaves, she kisses Prentice on the cheek, which leads to a deeper kiss. They finally connect, have sex, and confess their mutual feelings. Ash still goes to her job in Canada, but says she'll come back when Prentice is done with his studies that summer.
The relationship's future is somewhat uncertain because something could come up while Ash is in Canada, but Prentice is hopeful. The book ends with Prentice getting ready to graduate with his grades on track as a history scholar, fully renouncing his belief in an afterlife while he acknowledges the inherent importance of our experiences in our lives now, and enjoying his time with Lewis and Verity and his other family members.
What's the point of all these hundreds of pages?
Well, look at all of the above; there's definitely more than one point. But the main point I took away is that we get this one life, with our loved ones in this world here and now, and this is where we make our meanings. There is no other meaning, but that doesn't mean there's no meaning at all. It means the meaning is here.
It's not death that gives life its meaning. It's the things we do while alive that give life its deeper meaning.
The Crow Road is described (on Wikipedia) as a Bildungsroman, a story focusing on the moral and philosophical growth and change of its main character as they transition from childhood to adulthood ("coming-of-age novel" is a similar term that is interchangeable, but more vague and not necessarily focused on morality/philosophy). And, indeed, all of the plots ultimately tie into Prentice's changed philosophy.
After his argument with Kenneth, Prentice feels childish and humiliated, and as a result, he refuses to go back home, which leads to a spiral of shame and depression. Kenneth dies and Prentice realizes it's too late to repair the relationship, which also leads him to realize it's what we do in life that matters, and that therefore, his father's argument was correct after all.
At the end of the novel, Prentice outright describes his new philosophy. However, I can't recall one specific passage where Prentice describes the process of how he changed his mind (if anyone else can remember something I missed, do let me know). There is, however, a moment when his narration indicates that Hamish seems less disturbed by his own part in the incident that led to Kenneth's death and more disturbed by the notion that his beliefs might actually be true: there might actually be an angry, vengeful God. In other words, Hamish's philosophy was selfish at its core.
My interpretation is that when his father died, Prentice realized three things: how utterly self-serving Hamish's devout faith is, how Kenneth's untimely death proves the importance of working things out now rather than in an imaginary afterlife, and how much profound meaning Kenneth had left behind despite having no faith at all. After these realizations, a determined belief in an afterlife no longer makes our lives here more profound like Prentice once thought it did.
Also, it's worth noting that this incident changes Prentice's idea of partnership, too. He loses interest in this distant, idealized woman he's been after. In love as in the rest of life, Prentice lets go of his ideals, and in doing so, he makes room for true meaning, both in a sincere familial, platonic connection with Verity and a sincere intimate, romantic connection with Ash.
But what about the sex scene?!
Yes, indeed, at the tail end of the story, Prentice and Ash have sex and admit they want to be in a relationship together. Prentice's narration describes them sleeping together and having intercourse not just once, but many times, including some slow and relaxed couplings during which they flex the muscles in their private parts to spell out "I.L.Y." and "I.L.Y.T." to each other in Morse code. This is relevant because earlier, they had been surprised and delighted to discover that they both knew Morse code; it isn't a detail that came from nowhere.
I didn't get the impression that this scene was trying to be especially titillating to the reader. It was mostly just a list of stuff the characters did together. I felt the point was that they were still anxious about being emotionally honest, a little desperate to convey their feelings without having to speak them out loud, and awkward in a way that made it obvious that their primary concern was the feelings, not the sexual performance. They cared about each other, but they weren't trying to be impressive or put on a show; contrast this with previous scenes where Prentice would act like a clown in front of Ash to diffuse his own anxiety. I've always thought that being able to have awkward sex and still enjoy it is a good sign.
Okay, so what does this all have to do with Good Omens?
Here's where I have to get especially interpretive. I'm doing my best, but of course, not everyone reading this will have the same perspective on Good Omens, the Final Fifteen especially. I believe similar themes are going to resonate between The Crow Road and Good Omens regardless of our particular interpretations of the characters' behavior and motivations, but I suppose it could hit differently for some people.
The TL;DR: I see similar themes between The Crow Road and Good Omens in:
The importance of mortal life on Earth
Meaning (or purpose) as something that we create as we live, not something that is handed to us by a supreme being
Sincere connection and love/passion (for people, causes, arts, life's work, etc) as a type of meaning/purpose
Relationships as reflections of philosophy
The dual nature of humanity
Life on Earth as the important part of existence is a core theme in Good Omens, and has been since the very beginning. We all already know Adam chose to preserve the world as it already is because he figured this out, and we all already know Aziraphale and Crowley have been shaped for the better by their experiences on Earth. But Good Omens isn't done with this theme by a long shot. I think this is the most important thematic commonality Good Omens will have with The Crow Road. Closely related is the notion that we create our meanings as we live, rather than having them handed to us. Isn't this, in a way, what Aziraphale struggles with in A Companion to Owls? He's been given this meaning, this identity, that doesn't fit him. But does he have anything else to be? Not yet.
Partnerships as a parallel to the characters' philosophical development also resonates as a commonality that The Crow Road may have with Good Omens. Prentice's obsession with Verity goes away when he starts to embrace the importance of life on Earth and makes room for his sincere relationship with Ash. Note their names: "Verity" is truth, an ideal Prentice's father instills in him; "Ashley" means "dweller in the ash tree meadow" in Anglo-Saxon, according to Wikipedia, and "ash" is one of the things people return to after death. Prentice literally trades his high ideals for life on Earth. We see in Aziraphale a similar tug-o'-war between Heaven's distant ideals and Crowley's Earthly pleasures, so I can see a similar process potentially playing out for him.
I don't particularly recall a ton of thematic exploration of free will in The Crow Road. However, there is a glimmer of something there: Prentice feels excessively controlled by Kenneth's desire to pass down his beliefs, and part of the reason Prentice is so resistant to change is simply his frustration with feeling censored and not being taken seriously. As the reader, I do get the feeling that while Prentice is immature, Kenneth made major mistakes in handling their conflict, too. And Kenneth's mistakes come from trying to dictate Prentice's thoughts. There is likely some crossover with Good Omens in the sense that I'm pretty sure both stories are going to take the position that people need to be allowed to make mistakes, and to do things that one perceives as mistakes, without getting written off as "stupid" or "bad" or otherwise "unworthy."
Suffice it to say that the human characters in Good Omens will also certainly play into these themes, but it's hard to write about them when we don't know much about them except that one of them is almost certainly the reincarnation of Jesus. This also makes me suspect perhaps the human cast will be 100% entirely all-new, or mostly new, symbolic of how Aziraphale and Crowley have immersed themselves in the ever-evolving, ever-changing world of life on Earth. Alternatively, if we encounter human characters again from Season 1 or 2, perhaps the ways they've grown and changed will be highlighted. For example, even in real-world time, Adam and Warlock have already, as of the time I'm writing this, gone through at least one entire life stage (from 11 in 2019 to 16 in 2024). They'll be legal adults in a couple of years, and if there's a significant time skip, they could be much older. If characters from Season 1 do reappear and themes from The Crow Road are prominent, I would expect either some key scenes highlighting contrasts and changes from their younger selves or for stagnation and growth to be a central part of their plot.
The more I write, the more I just interpret everything in circles. Hopefully this post has at least given you a decent idea of what The Crow Road is like and how it may relate to Good Omens.
I'll end this post with a quotation that feels relevant:
Telling us straight or through his stories, my father taught us that there was, generally, a fire at the core of things, and that change was the only constant, and that we – like everybody else – were both the most important people in the universe, and utterly without significance, depending, and that individuals mattered before their institutions, and that people were people, much the same everywhere, and when they appeared to do things that were stupid or evil, often you hadn’t been told the whole story, but that sometimes people did behave badly, usually because some idea had taken hold of them and given them an excuse to regard other people as expendable (or bad), and that was part of who we were too, as a species, and it wasn’t always possible to know that you were right and they were wrong, but the important thing was to keep trying to find out, and always to face the truth. Because truth mattered. Iain Banks, The Crow Road
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elvensorceress · 1 day
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wip wednesday
tagged by @hoodie-buck @exhuastedpigeon @eddiebabygirldiaz @wikiangela @disasterbuckdiaz @diazsdimples @tizniz @heartshapedvows @theotherbuckley be sure to read their lovely snippets! 💕 tagging @spotsandsocks @shortsighted-owl @hippolotamus @messyhairdiaz @rogerzsteven @monsterrae1 @loveyouanyway @bekkachaos @daffi-990 @wh0re-behavi0r @eddiediazisascorpio @evanbegins @confetti-cupcake if you want to share anything 💕 More Unless because I WILL finish this monster. I WILL.
Eddie leans down, but only a little because his son is already ridiculously tall, and kisses Chris’ forehead. “You know you’re my favorite, right?” 
Chris rolls his eyes but grins. “Buck can be your favorite, too. I know he is.”
“It’s different. You both are. But you are always first. He thinks so, too. You’re our son. We love you more than anything.”
The smile fades a little and then disappears as quickly as it appeared. “He’s going to stay with us, right? He’s not going to leave?” 
Why is it always Chris who can so effectively drive a knife through Eddie’s chest with the way he’s suffered and lost and been in pain? Chris never should have had to experience so much pain. “Yes, Chris. He’s going to stay with us.” 
Chris gives him that pointed, very Shannon look that twists the knife so well. He sounds fragile and so much closer to being the heartbroken six year old who missed his mom than he is to being the teenage survivor that he is. “Promise?” 
He can’t promise that. Eddie can’t even say he believes it himself all the way. Why wouldn’t he fuck up and lose the best thing that’s ever happened to them? Why wouldn’t Buck get tired or fed up and leave Eddie? 
Eddie’s not enough for him. 
“I promise Buck is never going to leave you, okay?” Eddie tells him and it has to be enough. “You’ll always have him. He’s not going to stop being your dad for any reason.” 
Chris just looks at him with unending sorrow and eyes full of tears. “What about you? You need Buck, too. I know you do. He’s also your favorite and your ‘more than anything’ and he’s both of ours and I don’t want him to leave you either. I know how sad you were, Dad. I know you were. You’re not the same without him. You need him. We both need him. I don’t want you to be sad like that ever. I don’t want to— I don’t want to lose Buck like we lost Mom. He’s my dad and you love him and I don’t want to do that again. We can’t do that again.”
Jesus Christ. Can he have a chance to not be stabbed through the heart, thanks? 
“Chris—” What the fuck does Eddie even say? “Buck will always be my friend. Even if we don’t— even if—” 
He can’t breathe. He can’t. There’s no air. 
He has to swallow and get it together. It’s fine. He’s fine. The mere thought of having to break up is not going to make him panic. The thought of Chris losing another parent cannot make him panic either. 
It’s just— it’s not great. The whole idea of losing Buck is awful and he hates it and doesn’t want to even think such a thing let alone talk about it. 
But he has to say something. He has to reassure Chris. He blinks back his own tears and he can do this. They’ll figure it out. It’ll be okay. It has to. “If dating him doesn’t work out, Buck and I will still be friends.” 
They will be. Their relationship is so much more than dating and kissing and being in love. It’s strong enough to survive anything. It would be awful and Eddie honestly doesn’t know if he’d ever stop being in love with him even if they had to face the horrible reality of a divorce. How could his heart ever stop wanting Buck? But they would find a way to be friends. 
They might not be able to have a marriage, but they have to be in each other’s lives. That is nonnegotiable. They’d figure it out. 
“And he’d still be your dad,” Eddie adds. “None of that would change.”
Chris sniffs and still frowns. But he tries to at least look like he buys it. “He wouldn’t live here with us though.”
“No, probably not. But in a few years, you won’t want to live here either. You’ll want to go to college or get some fancy job or maybe you’ll travel, but you’ll have your own life to live wherever you want and do whatever you want. You won’t be here either.” 
It was supposed to be comforting, but it only makes Chris’ tears overflow. He goes back to hugging Eddie as tightly as possible and trying to stifle the way he cries.
Eddie simply hugs him in return and wishes he could banish away all his pain and anguish. But he doesn’t know how they would make it through losing Buck either. They would. They would have to. They have each other. 
But Buck is missing pieces and filled in needs and worlds of love and support for both of them. Eddie doesn’t know how they’d keep going if all of that is ripped away. They would, but. How? 
One step forward, one more breath. That’s all you can ever do. That’s what Bobby and Athena told him before. That’s all anyone can do. 
Eddie closes his eyes tightly and has to shut it off and he just needs to comfort his son. He can do that. He just needs to protect and love his son. 
After a tiny second of quiet, there’s movement at the doorway to the kitchen. And then Buck is wrapping around them both. Until they’re holding Chris between them while also gripping each other. 
They’ve all been through so much loss, so much trauma, why wouldn’t the scariest, most horrible nightmare imaginable be the thought of losing each other and their little family? 
Buck kisses them both, Chris on the side of his head and Eddie on his cheek, and he whispers promises of infallible, irrevocable love. Because he’s nothing if not his unfailing heart. 
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WIBTA for mentioning college again to my online friend, despite her telling me she knows it's not for her/not making a decision about it right now?
We both turned 18 this year, and are in our last years of highschool, and hopefully will both graduate this year! We met two years ago, and call and play games together sometimes, send each other selfies, share our silly crushes—she's the best girl friend I have right now and im very grateful for her.
Some info about me: both of my parents grew up very low income and from rough places and got full scholarships/a deal(like they pay for your college, and then you work for them after), because of this they're financially doing much better than both their families(my mother regularly sending money back home to pay for surgeries , bills, etc.). All of this is to say I've been raised with the mindset that higher education is my ticket to bettering my life, and I take school very seriously. I live in an area with a lot of immigrants, and all my friends do plan on going to college. Here is my disclaimer that I know college is *not* for everyone, and you do not need to go to college to be successful. But my friend is in the same stage in life as me, and I think it could be beneficial for her. She's not the best student at all(also home-schooled and does online schooling), but she's passing all her classes. We've talked about it before and I've asked if she's thought about college, and she said no because everyone in her family who went was just left with debt. Additionally she's not motivated in school now, so she doesn't think she would be motivated in college and would just end up as a "money dump". She's also talked about college with her mom, who said that she was only 18 and didn't need to make decisions about it right now. Right now her plan is to get a minimum wage job after high school(she's mentioned a fast food chain). I do think it would be good for her to get out of the house because right now she's basically stuck at home because her mom doesn't like going places. To my knowledge she has no friends irl, because of the homeschooling. Which is one of the reasons why I think college would be great for her--the chance to be with other people your own age.
We've only talked about college one time where I just asked, and after that I haven't mentioned it because I don't want to act like I have any say in her life decisions or make her feel bad. I've just been thinking about it lately because logically to me it seems like if she did want to go to college, now would be the best time because she would have the support of her online school where she has a counselor. Her mom didn't go to college and she isn't in regular contact with her dad.
For more context my family is middle class and I'm not sure what her financial situation is, but I do know comfortable but not deeply so. I would hate to bring up college if it's something she knows she cant afford( but long term I think going to college would help her make more money than any job she started now, which is why Im thinking about bringing it up again). I don't know if this is enough context, and I'm willing to provide more! I'll admit I'm not the smartest teen out there, so if you see any thing wrong with my thinking or think I'm a total asshole please tell me and I'll check my behavior. Im also keeping in mind her lack of motivation that she mentioned she had in school, and of course her mental health and wellbeing is of like. the utmost importance.
so, would I be the asshole for bringing up college with her again, despite knowing her situation? I really love this friend and the last thing I would want to do with her is be disrespectful and insensitive. thank you for very much, Tumblr! any advice you can give in the comments would be greatly appreciated.
What are these acronyms?
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antiporn-activist · 22 hours
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I thought y'all should read this
I have a free trial to News+ so I copy-pasted it for you here. I don't think Jonathan Haidt would object to more people having this info.
Tumblr wouldn't let me post it until i removed all the links to Haidt's sources. You'll have to take my word that everything is sourced.
End the Phone-Based Childhood Now
The environment in which kids grow up today is hostile to human development.
By Jonathan Haidt
Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent.
The problem was not limited to the U.S.: Similar patterns emerged around the same time in Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic countries, and beyond. By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries, the members of Generation Z (born in and after 1996) are suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, and related disorders at levels higher than any other generation for which we have data.
The decline in mental health is just one of many signs that something went awry. Loneliness and friendlessness among American teens began to surge around 2012. Academic achievement went down, too. According to “The Nation’s Report Card,” scores in reading and math began to decline for U.S. students after 2012, reversing decades of slow but generally steady increase. PISA, the major international measure of educational trends, shows that declines in math, reading, and science happened globally, also beginning in the early 2010s.
As the oldest members of Gen Z reach their late 20s, their troubles are carrying over into adulthood. Young adults are dating less, having less sex, and showing less interest in ever having children than prior generations. They are more likelyto live with their parents. They were less likely to get jobs as teens, and managers say they are harder to work with. Many of these trends began with earlier generations, but most of them accelerated with Gen Z.
Surveys show that members of Gen Z are shyer and more risk averse than previous generations, too, and risk aversion may make them less ambitious. In an interview last May, OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman and Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison noted that, for the first time since the 1970s, none of Silicon Valley’s preeminent entrepreneurs are under 30. “Something has really gone wrong,” Altman said. In a famously young industry, he was baffled by the sudden absence of great founders in their 20s.
Generations are not monolithic, of course. Many young people are flourishing. Taken as a whole, however, Gen Z is in poor mental health and is lagging behind previous generations on many important metrics. And if a generation is doing poorly––if it is more anxious and depressed and is starting families, careers, and important companies at a substantially lower rate than previous generations––then the sociological and economic consequences will be profound for the entire society.
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What happened in the early 2010s that altered adolescent development and worsened mental health? Theories abound, but the fact that similar trends are found in many countries worldwide means that events and trends that are specific to the United States cannot be the main story.
I think the answer can be stated simply, although the underlying psychology is complex: Those were the years when adolescents in rich countries traded in their flip phones for smartphones and moved much more of their social lives online—particularly onto social-media platforms designed for virality and addiction. Once young people began carrying the entire internet in their pockets, available to them day and night, it altered their daily experiences and developmental pathways across the board. Friendship, dating, sexuality, exercise, sleep, academics, politics, family dynamics, identity—all were affected. Life changed rapidly for younger children, too, as they began to get access to their parents’ smartphones and, later, got their own iPads, laptops, and even smartphones during elementary school.
As a social psychologist who has long studied social and moral development, I have been involved in debates about the effects of digital technology for years. Typically, the scientific questions have been framed somewhat narrowly, to make them easier to address with data. For example, do adolescents who consume more social media have higher levels of depression? Does using a smartphone just before bedtime interfere with sleep? The answer to these questions is usually found to be yes, although the size of the relationship is often statistically small, which has led some researchers to conclude that these new technologies are not responsible for the gigantic increases in mental illness that began in the early 2010s.
But before we can evaluate the evidence on any one potential avenue of harm, we need to step back and ask a broader question: What is childhood––including adolescence––and how did it change when smartphones moved to the center of it? If we take a more holistic view of what childhood is and what young children, tweens, and teens need to do to mature into competent adults, the picture becomes much clearer. Smartphone-based life, it turns out, alters or interferes with a great number of developmental processes.
The intrusion of smartphones and social media are not the only changes that have deformed childhood. There’s an important backstory, beginning as long ago as the 1980s, when we started systematically depriving children and adolescents of freedom, unsupervised play, responsibility, and opportunities for risk taking, all of which promote competence, maturity, and mental health. But the change in childhood accelerated in the early 2010s, when an already independence-deprived generation was lured into a new virtual universe that seemed safe to parents but in fact is more dangerous, in many respects, than the physical world.
My claim is that the new phone-based childhood that took shape roughly 12 years ago is making young people sick and blocking their progress to flourishing in adulthood. We need a dramatic cultural correction, and we need it now.
1. The Decline of Play and Independence 
Human brains are extraordinarily large compared with those of other primates, and human childhoods are extraordinarily long, too, to give those large brains time to wire up within a particular culture. A child’s brain is already 90 percent of its adult size by about age 6. The next 10 or 15 years are about learning norms and mastering skills—physical, analytical, creative, and social. As children and adolescents seek out experiences and practice a wide variety of behaviors, the synapses and neurons that are used frequently are retained while those that are used less often disappear. Neurons that fire together wire together, as brain researchers say.
Brain development is sometimes said to be “experience-expectant,” because specific parts of the brain show increased plasticity during periods of life when an animal’s brain can “expect” to have certain kinds of experiences. You can see this with baby geese, who will imprint on whatever mother-sized object moves in their vicinity just after they hatch. You can see it with human children, who are able to learn languages quickly and take on the local accent, but only through early puberty; after that, it’s hard to learn a language and sound like a native speaker. There is also some evidence of a sensitive period for cultural learning more generally. Japanese children who spent a few years in California in the 1970s came to feel “American” in their identity and ways of interacting only if they attended American schools for a few years between ages 9 and 15. If they left before age 9, there was no lasting impact. If they didn’t arrive until they were 15, it was too late; they didn’t come to feel American.
Human childhood is an extended cultural apprenticeship with different tasks at different ages all the way through puberty. Once we see it this way, we can identify factors that promote or impede the right kinds of learning at each age. For children of all ages, one of the most powerful drivers of learning is the strong motivation to play. Play is the work of childhood, and all young mammals have the same job: to wire up their brains by playing vigorously and often, practicing the moves and skills they’ll need as adults. Kittens will play-pounce on anything that looks like a mouse tail. Human children will play games such as tag and sharks and minnows, which let them practice both their predator skills and their escaping-from-predator skills. Adolescents will play sports with greater intensity, and will incorporate playfulness into their social interactions—flirting, teasing, and developing inside jokes that bond friends together. Hundreds of studies on young rats, monkeys, and humans show that young mammals want to play, need to play, and end up socially, cognitively, and emotionally impaired when they are deprived of play.
One crucial aspect of play is physical risk taking. Children and adolescents must take risks and fail—often—in environments in which failure is not very costly. This is how they extend their abilities, overcome their fears, learn to estimate risk, and learn to cooperate in order to take on larger challenges later. The ever-present possibility of getting hurt while running around, exploring, play-fighting, or getting into a real conflict with another group adds an element of thrill, and thrilling play appears to be the most effective kind for overcoming childhood anxieties and building social, emotional, and physical competence. The desire for risk and thrill increases in the teen years, when failure might carry more serious consequences. Children of all ages need to choose the risk they are ready for at a given moment. Young people who are deprived of opportunities for risk taking and independent exploration will, on average, develop into more anxious and risk-averse adults.
Human childhood and adolescence evolved outdoors, in a physical world full of dangers and opportunities. Its central activities––play, exploration, and intense socializing––were largely unsupervised by adults, allowing children to make their own choices, resolve their own conflicts, and take care of one another. Shared adventures and shared adversity bound young people together into strong friendship clusters within which they mastered the social dynamics of small groups, which prepared them to master bigger challenges and larger groups later on.
And then we changed childhood.
The changes started slowly in the late 1970s and ’80s, before the arrival of the internet, as many parents in the U.S. grew fearful that their children would be harmed or abducted if left unsupervised. Such crimes have always been extremely rare, but they loomed larger in parents’ minds thanks in part to rising levels of street crime combined with the arrival of cable TV, which enabled round-the-clock coverage of missing-children cases. A general decline in social capital––the degree to which people knew and trusted their neighbors and institutions––exacerbated parental fears. Meanwhile, rising competition for college admissions encouraged more intensive forms of parenting. In the 1990s, American parents began pulling their children indoors or insisting that afternoons be spent in adult-run enrichment activities. Free play, independent exploration, and teen-hangout time declined.
In recent decades, seeing unchaperoned children outdoors has become so novel that when one is spotted in the wild, some adults feel it is their duty to call the police. In 2015, the Pew Research Center found that parents, on average, believed that children should be at least 10 years old to play unsupervised in front of their house, and that kids should be 14 before being allowed to go unsupervised to a public park. Most of these same parents had enjoyed joyous and unsupervised outdoor play by the age of 7 or 8.
2. The Virtual World Arrives in Two Waves
The internet, which now dominates the lives of young people, arrived in two waves of linked technologies. The first one did little harm to Millennials. The second one swallowed Gen Z whole.
The first wave came ashore in the 1990s with the arrival of dial-up internet access, which made personal computers good for something beyond word processing and basic games. By 2003, 55 percent of American households had a computer with (slow) internet access. Rates of adolescent depression, loneliness, and other measures of poor mental health did not rise in this first wave. If anything, they went down a bit. Millennial teens (born 1981 through 1995), who were the first to go through puberty with access to the internet, were psychologically healthier and happier, on average, than their older siblings or parents in Generation X (born 1965 through 1980).
The second wave began to rise in the 2000s, though its full force didn’t hit until the early 2010s. It began rather innocently with the introduction of social-media platforms that helped people connect with their friends. Posting and sharing content became much easier with sites such as Friendster (launched in 2003), Myspace (2003), and Facebook (2004).
Teens embraced social media soon after it came out, but the time they could spend on these sites was limited in those early years because the sites could only be accessed from a computer, often the family computer in the living room. Young people couldn’t access social media (and the rest of the internet) from the school bus, during class time, or while hanging out with friends outdoors. Many teens in the early-to-mid-2000s had cellphones, but these were basic phones (many of them flip phones) that had no internet access. Typing on them was difficult––they had only number keys. Basic phones were tools that helped Millennials meet up with one another in person or talk with each other one-on-one. I have seen no evidence to suggest that basic cellphones harmed the mental health of Millennials.
It was not until the introduction of the iPhone (2007), the App Store (2008), and high-speed internet (which reached 50 percent of American homes in 2007)—and the corresponding pivot to mobile made by many providers of social media, video games, and porn—that it became possible for adolescents to spend nearly every waking moment online. The extraordinary synergy among these innovations was what powered the second technological wave. In 2011, only 23 percent of teens had a smartphone. By 2015, that number had risen to 73 percent, and a quarter of teens said they were online “almost constantly.” Their younger siblings in elementary school didn’t usually have their own smartphones, but after its release in 2010, the iPad quickly became a staple of young children’s daily lives. It was in this brief period, from 2010 to 2015, that childhood in America (and many other countries) was rewired into a form that was more sedentary, solitary, virtual, and incompatible with healthy human development.
3. Techno-optimism and the Birth of the Phone-Based Childhood
The phone-based childhood created by that second wave—including not just smartphones themselves, but all manner of internet-connected devices, such as tablets, laptops, video-game consoles, and smartwatches—arrived near the end of a period of enormous optimism about digital technology. The internet came into our lives in the mid-1990s, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union. By the end of that decade, it was widely thought that the web would be an ally of democracy and a slayer of tyrants. When people are connected to each other, and to all the information in the world, how could any dictator keep them down?
In the 2000s, Silicon Valley and its world-changing inventions were a source of pride and excitement in America. Smart and ambitious young people around the world wanted to move to the West Coast to be part of the digital revolution. Tech-company founders such as Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin were lauded as gods, or at least as modern Prometheans, bringing humans godlike powers. The Arab Spring bloomed in 2011 with the help of decentralized social platforms, including Twitter and Facebook. When pundits and entrepreneurs talked about the power of social media to transform society, it didn’t sound like a dark prophecy.
You have to put yourself back in this heady time to understand why adults acquiesced so readily to the rapid transformation of childhood. Many parents had concerns, even then, about what their children were doing online, especially because of the internet’s ability to put children in contact with strangers. But there was also a lot of excitement about the upsides of this new digital world. If computers and the internet were the vanguards of progress, and if young people––widely referred to as “digital natives”––were going to live their lives entwined with these technologies, then why not give them a head start? I remember how exciting it was to see my 2-year-old son master the touch-and-swipe interface of my first iPhone in 2008. I thought I could see his neurons being woven together faster as a result of the stimulation it brought to his brain, compared to the passivity of watching television or the slowness of building a block tower. I thought I could see his future job prospects improving.
Touchscreen devices were also a godsend for harried parents. Many of us discovered that we could have peace at a restaurant, on a long car trip, or at home while making dinner or replying to emails if we just gave our children what they most wanted: our smartphones and tablets. We saw that everyone else was doing it and figured it must be okay.
It was the same for older children, desperate to join their friends on social-media platforms, where the minimum age to open an account was set by law to 13, even though no research had been done to establish the safety of these products for minors. Because the platforms did nothing (and still do nothing) to verify the stated age of new-account applicants, any 10-year-old could open multiple accounts without parental permission or knowledge, and many did. Facebook and later Instagram became places where many sixth and seventh graders were hanging out and socializing. If parents did find out about these accounts, it was too late. Nobody wanted their child to be isolated and alone, so parents rarely forced their children to shut down their accounts.
We had no idea what we were doing.
4. The High Cost of a Phone-Based Childhood
In Walden, his 1854 reflection on simple living, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The cost of a thing is the amount of … life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” It’s an elegant formulation of what economists would later call the opportunity cost of any choice—all of the things you can no longer do with your money and time once you’ve committed them to something else. So it’s important that we grasp just how much of a young person’s day is now taken up by their devices.
The numbers are hard to believe. The most recent Gallup data show that American teens spend about five hours a day just on social-media platforms (including watching videos on TikTok and YouTube). Add in all the other phone- and screen-based activities, and the number rises to somewhere between seven and nine hours a day, on average. The numbers are even higher in single-parent and low-income families, and among Black, Hispanic, and Native American families.
In Thoreau’s terms, how much of life is exchanged for all this screen time? Arguably, most of it. Everything else in an adolescent’s day must get squeezed down or eliminated entirely to make room for the vast amount of content that is consumed, and for the hundreds of “friends,” “followers,” and other network connections that must be serviced with texts, posts, comments, likes, snaps, and direct messages. I recently surveyed my students at NYU, and most of them reported that the very first thing they do when they open their eyes in the morning is check their texts, direct messages, and social-media feeds. It’s also the last thing they do before they close their eyes at night. And it’s a lot of what they do in between.
The amount of time that adolescents spend sleeping declined in the early 2010s, and many studies tie sleep loss directly to the use of devices around bedtime, particularly when they’re used to scroll through social media. Exercise declined, too, which is unfortunate because exercise, like sleep, improves both mental and physical health. Book reading has been declining for decades, pushed aside by digital alternatives, but the decline, like so much else, sped up in the early 2010s. With passive entertainment always available, adolescent minds likely wander less than they used to; contemplation and imagination might be placed on the list of things winnowed down or crowded out.
But perhaps the most devastating cost of the new phone-based childhood was the collapse of time spent interacting with other people face-to-face. A study of how Americans spend their time found that, before 2010, young people (ages 15 to 24) reported spending far more time with their friends (about two hours a day, on average, not counting time together at school) than did older people (who spent just 30 to 60 minutes with friends). Time with friends began decreasing for young people in the 2000s, but the drop accelerated in the 2010s, while it barely changed for older people. By 2019, young people’s time with friends had dropped to just 67 minutes a day. It turns out that Gen Z had been socially distancing for many years and had mostly completed the project by the time COVID-19 struck.
You might question the importance of this decline. After all, isn’t much of this online time spent interacting with friends through texting, social media, and multiplayer video games? Isn’t that just as good?
Some of it surely is, and virtual interactions offer unique benefits too, especially for young people who are geographically or socially isolated. But in general, the virtual world lacks many of the features that make human interactions in the real world nutritious, as we might say, for physical, social, and emotional development. In particular, real-world relationships and social interactions are characterized by four features—typical for hundreds of thousands of years—that online interactions either distort or erase.
First, real-world interactions are embodied, meaning that we use our hands and facial expressions to communicate, and we learn to respond to the body language of others. Virtual interactions, in contrast, mostly rely on language alone. No matter how many emojis are offered as compensation, the elimination of communication channels for which we have eons of evolutionary programming is likely to produce adults who are less comfortable and less skilled at interacting in person.
Second, real-world interactions are synchronous; they happen at the same time. As a result, we learn subtle cues about timing and conversational turn taking. Synchronous interactions make us feel closer to the other person because that’s what getting “in sync” does. Texts, posts, and many other virtual interactions lack synchrony. There is less real laughter, more room for misinterpretation, and more stress after a comment that gets no immediate response.
Third, real-world interactions primarily involve one‐to‐one communication, or sometimes one-to-several. But many virtual communications are broadcast to a potentially huge audience. Online, each person can engage in dozens of asynchronous interactions in parallel, which interferes with the depth achieved in all of them. The sender’s motivations are different, too: With a large audience, one’s reputation is always on the line; an error or poor performance can damage social standing with large numbers of peers. These communications thus tend to be more performative and anxiety-inducing than one-to-one conversations.
Finally, real-world interactions usually take place within communities that have a high bar for entry and exit, so people are strongly motivated to invest in relationships and repair rifts when they happen. But in many virtual networks, people can easily block others or quit when they are displeased. Relationships within such networks are usually more disposable.
These unsatisfying and anxiety-producing features of life online should be recognizable to most adults. Online interactions can bring out antisocial behavior that people would never display in their offline communities. But if life online takes a toll on adults, just imagine what it does to adolescents in the early years of puberty, when their “experience expectant” brains are rewiring based on feedback from their social interactions.
Kids going through puberty online are likely to experience far more social comparison, self-consciousness, public shaming, and chronic anxiety than adolescents in previous generations, which could potentially set developing brains into a habitual state of defensiveness. The brain contains systems that are specialized for approach (when opportunities beckon) and withdrawal (when threats appear or seem likely). People can be in what we might call “discover mode” or “defend mode” at any moment, but generally not both. The two systems together form a mechanism for quickly adapting to changing conditions, like a thermostat that can activate either a heating system or a cooling system as the temperature fluctuates. Some people’s internal thermostats are generally set to discover mode, and they flip into defend mode only when clear threats arise. These people tend to see the world as full of opportunities. They are happier and less anxious. Other people’s internal thermostats are generally set to defend mode, and they flip into discover mode only when they feel unusually safe. They tend to see the world as full of threats and are more prone to anxiety and depressive disorders.
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A simple way to understand the differences between Gen Z and previous generations is that people born in and after 1996 have internal thermostats that were shifted toward defend mode. This is why life on college campuses changed so suddenly when Gen Z arrived, beginning around 2014. Students began requesting “safe spaces” and trigger warnings. They were highly sensitive to “microaggressions” and sometimes claimed that words were “violence.” These trends mystified those of us in older generations at the time, but in hindsight, it all makes sense. Gen Z students found words, ideas, and ambiguous social encounters more threatening than had previous generations of students because we had fundamentally altered their psychological development.
5. So Many Harms
The debate around adolescents’ use of smartphones and social media typically revolves around mental health, and understandably so. But the harms that have resulted from transforming childhood so suddenly and heedlessly go far beyondmental health. I’ve touched on some of them—social awkwardness, reduced self-confidence, and a more sedentary childhood. Here are three additional harms.
Fragmented Attention, Disrupted Learning
Staying on task while sitting at a computer is hard enough for an adult with a fully developed prefrontal cortex. It is far more difficult for adolescents in front of their laptop trying to do homework. They are probably less intrinsically motivated to stay on task. They’re certainly less able, given their undeveloped prefrontal cortex, and hence it’s easy for any company with an app to lure them away with an offer of social validation or entertainment. Their phones are pinging constantly—one study found that the typical adolescent now gets 237 notifications a day, roughly 15 every waking hour. Sustained attention is essential for doing almost anything big, creative, or valuable, yet young people find their attention chopped up into little bits by notifications offering the possibility of high-pleasure, low-effort digital experiences.
It even happens in the classroom. Studies confirm that when students have access to their phones during class time, they use them, especially for texting and checking social media, and their grades and learning suffer. This might explain why benchmark test scores began to decline in the U.S. and around the world in the early 2010s—well before the pandemic hit.
Addiction and Social Withdrawal
The neural basis of behavioral addiction to social media or video games is not exactly the same as chemical addiction to cocaine or opioids. Nonetheless, they all involve abnormally heavy and sustained activation of dopamine neurons and reward pathways. Over time, the brain adapts to these high levels of dopamine; when the child is not engaged in digital activity, their brain doesn’t have enough dopamine, and the child experiences withdrawal symptoms. These generally include anxiety, insomnia, and intense irritability. Kids with these kinds of behavioral addictions often become surly and aggressive, and withdraw from their families into their bedrooms and devices.
Social-media and gaming platforms were designed to hook users. How successful are they? How many kids suffer from digital addictions?
The main addiction risks for boys seem to be video games and porn. “Internet gaming disorder,” which was added to the main diagnosis manual of psychiatry in 2013 as a condition for further study, describes “significant impairment or distress” in several aspects of life, along with many hallmarks of addiction, including an inability to reduce usage despite attempts to do so. Estimates for the prevalence of IGD range from 7 to 15 percent among adolescent boys and young men. As for porn, a nationally representative survey of American adults published in 2019 found that 7 percent of American men agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I am addicted to pornography”—and the rates were higher for the youngest men.
Girls have much lower rates of addiction to video games and porn, but they use social media more intensely than boys do. A study of teens in 29 nations found that between 5 and 15 percent of adolescents engage in what is called “problematic social media use,” which includes symptoms such as preoccupation, withdrawal symptoms, neglect of other areas of life, and lying to parents and friends about time spent on social media. That study did not break down results by gender, but many others have found that rates of “problematic use” are higher for girls.
I don’t want to overstate the risks: Most teens do not become addicted to their phones and video games. But across multiple studies and across genders, rates of problematic use come out in the ballpark of 5 to 15 percent. Is there any other consumer product that parents would let their children use relatively freely if they knew that something like one in 10 kids would end up with a pattern of habitual and compulsive use that disrupted various domains of life and looked a lot like an addiction?
The Decay of Wisdom and the Loss of Meaning 
During that crucial sensitive period for cultural learning, from roughly ages 9 through 15, we should be especially thoughtful about who is socializing our children for adulthood. Instead, that’s when most kids get their first smartphone and sign themselves up (with or without parental permission) to consume rivers of content from random strangers. Much of that content is produced by other adolescents, in blocks of a few minutes or a few seconds.
This rerouting of enculturating content has created a generation that is largely cut off from older generations and, to some extent, from the accumulated wisdom of humankind, including knowledge about how to live a flourishing life. Adolescents spend less time steeped in their local or national culture. They are coming of age in a confusing, placeless, ahistorical maelstrom of 30-second stories curated by algorithms designed to mesmerize them. Without solid knowledge of the past and the filtering of good ideas from bad––a process that plays out over many generations––young people will be more prone to believe whatever terrible ideas become popular around them, which might explain why videos showing young people reacting positively to Osama bin Laden’s thoughts about America were trending on TikTok last fall.
All this is made worse by the fact that so much of digital public life is an unending supply of micro dramas about somebody somewhere in our country of 340 million people who did something that can fuel an outrage cycle, only to be pushed aside by the next. It doesn’t add up to anything and leaves behind only a distorted sense of human nature and affairs.
When our public life becomes fragmented, ephemeral, and incomprehensible, it is a recipe for anomie, or normlessness. The great French sociologist Émile Durkheim showed long ago that a society that fails to bind its people together with some shared sense of sacredness and common respect for rules and norms is not a society of great individual freedom; it is, rather, a place where disoriented individuals have difficulty setting goals and exerting themselves to achieve them. Durkheim argued that anomie was a major driver of suicide rates in European countries. Modern scholars continue to draw on his work to understand suicide rates today. 
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Durkheim’s observations are crucial for understanding what happened in the early 2010s. A long-running survey of American teens found that, from 1990 to 2010, high-school seniors became slightly less likely to agree with statements such as “Life often feels meaningless.” But as soon as they adopted a phone-based life and many began to live in the whirlpool of social media, where no stability can be found, every measure of despair increased. From 2010 to 2019, the number who agreed that their lives felt “meaningless” increased by about 70 percent, to more than one in five.
6. Young People Don’t Like Their Phone-Based Lives
How can I be confident that the epidemic of adolescent mental illness was kicked off by the arrival of the phone-based childhood? Skeptics point to other events as possible culprits, including the 2008 global financial crisis, global warming, the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting and the subsequent active-shooter drills, rising academic pressures, and the opioid epidemic. But while these events might have been contributing factors in some countries, none can explain both the timing and international scope of the disaster.
An additional source of evidence comes from Gen Z itself. With all the talk of regulating social media, raising age limits, and getting phones out of schools, you might expect to find many members of Gen Z writing and speaking out in opposition. I’ve looked for such arguments and found hardly any. In contrast, many young adults tell stories of devastation.
Freya India, a 24-year-old British essayist who writes about girls, explains how social-media sites carry girls off to unhealthy places: “It seems like your child is simply watching some makeup tutorials, following some mental health influencers, or experimenting with their identity. But let me tell you: they are on a conveyor belt to someplace bad. Whatever insecurity or vulnerability they are struggling with, they will be pushed further and further into it.” She continues:
Gen Z were the guinea pigs in this uncontrolled global social experiment. We were the first to have our vulnerabilities and insecurities fed into a machine that magnified and refracted them back at us, all the time, before we had any sense of who we were. We didn’t just grow up with algorithms. They raised us. They rearranged our faces. Shaped our identities. Convinced us we were sick.
Rikki Schlott, a 23-year-old American journalist and co-author of The Canceling of the American Mind, writes,
"The day-to-day life of a typical teen or tween today would be unrecognizable to someone who came of age before the smartphone arrived. Zoomers are spending an average of 9 hours daily in this screen-time doom loop—desperate to forget the gaping holes they’re bleeding out of, even if just for … 9 hours a day. Uncomfortable silence could be time to ponder why they’re so miserable in the first place. Drowning it out with algorithmic white noise is far easier."
A 27-year-old man who spent his adolescent years addicted (his word) to video games and pornography sent me this reflection on what that did to him:
I missed out on a lot of stuff in life—a lot of socialization. I feel the effects now: meeting new people, talking to people. I feel that my interactions are not as smooth and fluid as I want. My knowledge of the world (geography, politics, etc.) is lacking. I didn’t spend time having conversations or learning about sports. I often feel like a hollow operating system.
Or consider what Facebook found in a research project involving focus groups of young people, revealed in 2021 by the whistleblower Frances Haugen: “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rates of anxiety and depression among teens,” an internal document said. “This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”
7. Collective-Action Problems
Social-media companies such as Meta, TikTok, and Snap are often compared to tobacco companies, but that’s not really fair to the tobacco industry. It’s true that companies in both industries marketed harmful products to children and tweaked their products for maximum customer retention (that is, addiction), but there’s a big difference: Teens could and did choose, in large numbers, not to smoke. Even at the peak of teen cigarette use, in 1997, nearly two-thirds of high-school students did not smoke.
Social media, in contrast, applies a lot more pressure on nonusers, at a much younger age and in a more insidious way. Once a few students in any middle school lie about their age and open accounts at age 11 or 12, they start posting photos and comments about themselves and other students. Drama ensues. The pressure on everyone else to join becomes intense. Even a girl who knows, consciously, that Instagram can foster beauty obsession, anxiety, and eating disorders might sooner take those risks than accept the seeming certainty of being out of the loop, clueless, and excluded. And indeed, if she resists while most of her classmates do not, she might, in fact, be marginalized, which puts her at risk for anxiety and depression, though via a different pathway than the one taken by those who use social media heavily. In this way, social media accomplishes a remarkable feat: It even harms adolescents who do not use it.
A recent study led by the University of Chicago economist Leonardo Bursztyn captured the dynamics of the social-media trap precisely. The researchers recruited more than 1,000 college students and asked them how much they’d need to be paid to deactivate their accounts on either Instagram or TikTok for four weeks. That’s a standard economist’s question to try to compute the net value of a product to society. On average, students said they’d need to be paid roughly $50 ($59 for TikTok, $47 for Instagram) to deactivate whichever platform they were asked about. Then the experimenters told the students that they were going to try to get most of the others in their school to deactivate that same platform, offering to pay them to do so as well, and asked, Now how much would you have to be paid to deactivate, if most others did so? The answer, on average, was less than zero. In each case, most students were willing to pay to have that happen.
Social media is all about network effects. Most students are only on it because everyone else is too. Most of them would prefer that nobody be on these platforms. Later in the study, students were asked directly, “Would you prefer to live in a world without Instagram [or TikTok]?” A majority of students said yes––58 percent for each app.
This is the textbook definition of what social scientists call a collective-action problem. It’s what happens when a group would be better off if everyone in the group took a particular action, but each actor is deterred from acting, because unless the others do the same, the personal cost outweighs the benefit. Fishermen considering limiting their catch to avoid wiping out the local fish population are caught in this same kind of trap. If no one else does it too, they just lose profit.
Cigarettes trapped individual smokers with a biological addiction. Social media has trapped an entire generation in a collective-action problem. Early app developers deliberately and knowingly exploited the psychological weaknesses and insecurities of young people to pressure them to consume a product that, upon reflection, many wish they could use less, or not at all.
8. Four Norms to Break Four Traps
Young people and their parents are stuck in at least four collective-action traps. Each is hard to escape for an individual family, but escape becomes much easier if families, schools, and communities coordinate and act together. Here are four norms that would roll back the phone-based childhood. I believe that any community that adopts all four will see substantial improvements in youth mental health within two years.
No smartphones before high school  
The trap here is that each child thinks they need a smartphone because “everyone else” has one, and many parents give in because they don’t want their child to feel excluded. But if no one else had a smartphone—or even if, say, only half of the child’s sixth-grade class had one—parents would feel more comfortable providing a basic flip phone (or no phone at all). Delaying round-the-clock internet access until ninth grade (around age 14) as a national or community norm would help to protect adolescents during the very vulnerable first few years of puberty. According to a 2022 British study, these are the years when social-media use is most correlated with poor mental health. Family policies about tablets, laptops, and video-game consoles should be aligned with smartphone restrictions to prevent overuse of other screen activities.
No social media before 16
The trap here, as with smartphones, is that each adolescent feels a strong need to open accounts on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms primarily because that’s where most of their peers are posting and gossiping. But if the majority of adolescents were not on these accounts until they were 16, families and adolescents could more easily resist the pressure to sign up. The delay would not mean that kids younger than 16 could never watch videos on TikTok or YouTube—only that they could not open accounts, give away their data, post their own content, and let algorithms get to know them and their preferences.
Phone‐free schools 
Most schools claim that they ban phones, but this usually just means that students aren’t supposed to take their phone out of their pocket during class. Research shows that most students do use their phones during class time. They also use them during lunchtime, free periods, and breaks between classes––times when students could and should be interacting with their classmates face-to-face. The only way to get students’ minds off their phones during the school day is to require all students to put their phones (and other devices that can send or receive texts) into a phone locker or locked pouch at the start of the day. Schools that have gone phone-free always seem to report that it has improved the culture, making students more attentive in class and more interactive with one another. Published studies back them up.
More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world
Many parents are afraid to give their children the level of independence and responsibility they themselves enjoyed when they were young, even though rates of homicide, drunk driving, and other physical threats to children are way down in recent decades. Part of the fear comes from the fact that parents look at each other to determine what is normal and therefore safe, and they see few examples of families acting as if a 9-year-old can be trusted to walk to a store without a chaperone. But if many parents started sending their children out to play or run errands, then the norms of what is safe and accepted would change quickly. So would ideas about what constitutes “good parenting.” And if more parents trusted their children with more responsibility––for example, by asking their kids to do more to help out, or to care for others––then the pervasive sense of uselessness now found in surveys of high-school students might begin to dissipate.
It would be a mistake to overlook this fourth norm. If parents don’t replace screen time with real-world experiences involving friends and independent activity, then banning devices will feel like deprivation, not the opening up of a world of opportunities.
The main reason why the phone-based childhood is so harmful is because it pushes aside everything else. Smartphones are experience blockers. Our ultimate goal should not be to remove screens entirely, nor should it be to return childhood to exactly the way it was in 1960. Rather, it should be to create a version of childhood and adolescence that keeps young people anchored in the real world while flourishing in the digital age.
9. What Are We Waiting For?
An essential function of government is to solve collective-action problems. Congress could solve or help solve the ones I’ve highlighted—for instance, by raising the age of “internet adulthood” to 16 and requiring tech companies to keep underage children off their sites.
In recent decades, however, Congress has not been good at addressing public concerns when the solutions would displease a powerful and deep-pocketed industry. Governors and state legislators have been much more effective, and their successes might let us evaluate how well various reforms work. But the bottom line is that to change norms, we’re going to need to do most of the work ourselves, in neighborhood groups, schools, and other communities.
There are now hundreds of organizations––most of them started by mothers who saw what smartphones had done to their children––that are working to roll back the phone-based childhood or promote a more independent, real-world childhood. (I have assembled a list of many of them.) One that I co-founded, at LetGrow.org, suggests a variety of simple programs for parents or schools, such as play club (schools keep the playground open at least one day a week before or after school, and kids sign up for phone-free, mixed-age, unstructured play as a regular weekly activity) and the Let Grow Experience (a series of homework assignments in which students––with their parents’ consent––choose something to do on their own that they’ve never done before, such as walk the dog, climb a tree, walk to a store, or cook dinner).
Parents are fed up with what childhood has become. Many are tired of having daily arguments about technologies that were designed to grab hold of their children’s attention and not let go. But the phone-based childhood is not inevitable.
The four norms I have proposed cost almost nothing to implement, they cause no clear harm to anyone, and while they could be supported by new legislation, they can be instilled even without it. We can begin implementing all of them right away, this year, especially in communities with good cooperation between schools and parents. A single memo from a principal asking parents to delay smartphones and social media, in support of the school’s effort to improve mental health by going phone free, would catalyze collective action and reset the community’s norms.
We didn’t know what we were doing in the early 2010s. Now we do. It’s time to end the phone-based childhood.
This article is adapted from Jonathan Haidt’s forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.
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copperbadge · 2 days
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I was catching my train home today in the land down under and there was an ad, apparently paid for by the City of Chicago, saying that Chicago was voted the best city in the U.S.A and telling people to come visit
And all I could think was, I must tell Sam, I'm sure he will have thoughts(tm)
LOL, I will admit my first reaction was "By whom?" and "For what?"
I mean, I love Chicago and think it's a great city, but I don't know if there's any metric by which it is actually the best city in America, unless you confine your sample size to "people who live in Chicago" and even then, like, we don't tend to have many illusions about this place. It's a great city to be a tourist in but there are better ones, depending on what you're touristing for, and there's not much going on in winter outside of shopping. We have some world-class museums, but New York has bigger, and while we do have some of the nicest parks around, nobody visits Chicago for the parks. We have a lot of summer festivals but not as many or as large as say, Austin.
I'd love to see a photo of the ad if you happen to see it again, or know who placed it -- it must be a tourism board of some kind. But Australia? Advertising for Chicago in March, when it's freezing here and probably very pleasant there, is a real choice someone made.
I wonder if an airline subsidized it. We have a hub, so it could be some airline that just opened up flights between Chicago and Australia wants to encourage people to travel.
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mixelation · 2 days
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oh my god stop posting about minato
👀👀👀
fine here’s whatever else i have of asynchronicity
Minato grimaced as he climbed out of the tub. So. Tori did not care about him killing people and maybe was… into that…? But she did physically flee from him at the idea of talking about their feelings.
He probably should have expected that. Oh well. They could work on it.
Tori had left an extremely ugly sweater on the floor by the sink, but she’d also at some point pulled a couple yukata and towels and left them on the sink counter. The yukata were both a little too small on him, but he pulled one on anyway. He could go home and grab something in less than a minute, but he also liked Tori doing things for him.
His joints all felt sore as he walked. The main area of the house had an open kitchen and living area, he found Tori cutting up potatoes. They’d all sprouted, and she was frowning to herself as she cut around the sprouts. The way she held her knife was remarkably civilian, and Minato paused to watch her for a few moments.
She blushed when she realized he was watching her, and then in true Tori fashion, started babbling about different ways potatoes could poison you.
Cute, Minato thought, and then went and collapsed on the couch. He fell into a light sleep almost immediately, listening to Tori chop away.
He woke again to Tori offering him a bowl of soup.
“I’m not a great cook,” she warned him, and then offered up a thing of chili flakes. “I usually try to cover up my sins.”
The soup was a truly random assembly of things, but Minato didn’t mind. Tori had been working with whatever was on hand, and chakra exhaustion was treated with rest and nutritionally dense foods. Potatoes and tinned tuna weren’t something he’d normally mix, but they were both good for the occasion. He turned down the chili flakes; he didn’t really like spicy things anyway.
Plus, Tori had cooked for him. For him!
“I have some NSAIDs if you want them,” Tori said after a while. “Sorry I didn’t think to offer them earlier.”
“I think I’m okay,” Minato said after a few moments of consideration. Pain like this was a reminder not to push himself.
“What’s the plan next?” Tori asked.
Minato mulled this over. He did not have orders for what to do next, because he’d dropped the dead Iwa commander off at his current assigned camp, very briefly said he’d confirmed the whole camp was dead, including twenty-six additional Iwa-nin he found in the surrounding area, and then just left.
In hindsight, he should have realized he’d done something really major. He hadn’t technically disobeyed orders, but also he’d done a bunch of things and killed a lot of people without orders and then immediately disappeared into the ether. That was probably technically abandoning his post or something.
“I should… go talk to Konoha base camp,” he said slowly.
“Uh huh,” Tori said, and then looked like she was fighting back a laugh. “Do you think they know?”
“Uh, well…”
Minato briefly went over what had happened the previous night, for context. He was currently assigned to a Konoha base camp near the Grass border. He was surveying ahead of a team from Konoha proper that had been sent up to negotiate with Iwa for prisoner release. He’d then run into the prisoners and escorted them back to base. Upon questioning, it had become blatantly obvious to Minato that Tori had been with them, and that she’d been left behind.
“So I just left without an explanation,” he said. “I didn’t really think about it. I was hoping you were just in the woods somewhere, and I’d be back in an hour.”
Tori, sitting cross legged on the couch next to him, shifted uncomfortably. Her gaze fell to the now empty soup bowl in her lap.
“But you weren’t,” he said, “so I went to get you.”
“I…” Tori started, running a finger around the rim of the bowl. “I like… that… you came for me.”
Her face was red. She squirmed uncomfortably. This was Tori telling him something very difficult and emotionally vulnerable, something she’d never say to another human being. He wanted to pull her into another kiss and promise her he would make a world world where she’d never be abandoned again.
That might be too intense, though. Instead he set his bowl aside, and then gently lifted hers out of her hands to also set aside.
“Thank you,” she said, clearly not talking about the soup bowl. “I was… really happy.”
Minato reached forward, running his hand through her hair. It was still damp, just now starting to curl up again, and it smelled pretty. He thought about how good her hands in his hair had felt. He wanted her to feel good too.
She let him pull her into his arms and rested her cheek against his chest while he reclined.
“So will you get in trouble?” she asked, the slightest hint of worry in her voice.
“I have no idea,” he answered, fiddling with her hair. “Probably.”
“You’re awful blaisé about it,” Tori observed, skeptical.
“I did report in last night and say I killed everyone,” Minato said. “The commander seemed shocked, but not angry.”
Tori sat up slightly, frowning at him. “You were gone for like ten minutes, tops. Did you even give him time to react?”
“Not really,” Minato admitted. “But I go off alone all the time and never get more than a slap on the wrist. The worst they’ll do is fine me. I’m too valuable to demote or put on probation.”
“You are worse than I thought you were,” Tori said, tone affectionate, and she pressed her face against him again.
“It’s not like they’ll be mad the Iwa camp is gone,” Minato defended. “Just… surprised.”
Tori let out a short, ironic laugh.
“Probably they’ve already sent someone to investigate,” Minato guessed. “Unless they didn’t believe me. I didn’t realize how insane my report that I’d killed everyone was at the time.”
Tori laughed again.
Minato still wasn’t sure how he felt. At the time, he’d just wanted to make sure the girl he liked was safe, and given he’d had no idea where she was, there was no way to guarantee that while enemies were still alive in the camp.
Probably he would have backed off if he’d found her. But she’d been in the commander’s tent, which was the most well-guarded place. It’d been the last place he’d gone.
A thousand people was a lot, though. He wasn’t even sure he’d ever seen that many ninja gathered at once outside of Konoha. Did he care…?
No, they’d been in his way, threatening someone special to him. He didn’t feel an ounce of guilt.
“They’ll want to talk to me for a long time either way,” Minato predicted. He held up a lock of Tori’s hair and then watched the strains slip through his fingers.
“Come with me?” he asked. When Tori didn’t reply for a while, he traced a line down her spine. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone touch you.”
That got her. Tori shifted on him, her hand balling into a fist in his yukata. He felt a smug smirk spread across his face. So this is what got her off…?
“I can think of some things Konoha-nin could do without touching me,” Tori said eventually.
Minato traced a line back up her spine.
“True,” he agreed. “But can they do those things faster than I could stop them?”
Tori hummed happily.
Minato would not kill or seriously injure a fellow Konoha-nin. But certainly he could intervene in any number of ways.
“We could get a healer to look at you,” he said.
“What, you don’t want me with a cool face scar?” Tori replied, but then immediately admitted she’d like that.
“We can go after I take another nap,” Minato decided. Afterall, what difference would it make if he fucked around for another few hours?
xXx
Everyone at the base camp was severely freaked out. For some reason, this surprised Minato.
“Yo!” he greeted the chunin at mission check-in with a friendly wave. The woman, who’d run multiple missions with Minato, looked up at him with evident fear. She stuttered while she checked him in.
“And, um, w-who’s this?” she asked, waving nervously at Tori. She would not meet Minato’s eyes.
“That’s… Tori,” Minato said lamely. “She’s… well, the commander will know who she is.”
Tori was a known player to Konoha. He did not think most random ninja would know about her, but he hadn’t been keeping the amount of time he spent with her a secret, and he’d actively mooned over her to both Jiraiya and Kushina. It was… it was known. If you’d read Minato’s file, you knew about her.
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shini--chan · 15 hours
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Personal pet peeve of mine: Reading a yandere story with a historical setting with the yandere reducing the target of their obsession to just sitting around all day when they are not being subjected to "affections" and it being written that way for "historical accuracy".
I mean, yeah, there were gender roles in the past, but those gender roles didn't feature women being completely reduced to fleshlights with no other purpose. That was a job and it was called prostitute or concubine, and many women didn't do it willingly. Even high society women had a lot of tasks.
Being into historical re-enactment really showed me that it didn't matter if you were a man or a woman, or even just a child; you really didn't have much time to be idle. Asides, idlness was/is frowned upon in many religions and cultures.
C'mon, even the thing with societal norms is that a great part of society didn't adhere to them 'cause it just wasn't feasible. The attitude went along the lines of: "Nice morals you got there. We're just gonna throw a few out 'cause else we're not gonna survive. Mary, go get ye scythe now, the wheat's not gonna reap itself." And high society geneally didn't really practise what it preached because it was commonly too interested in debauchery.
People didn't get married for shits and giggles either. The single lifestyle only really worked when you either inheired a lot/had relatives paying for you or that you were living under your employers roof and all your worldy possessions fitted in one bag. Or you just lived with your family until you kicked the bucket. I mean, the armour and weapons a knight had were often provided by their liege lord and a priest's housing belonged to the Church.
Also, the trope of arranged marriages is a bit overused at this point. How about more stories about both parties hating each other's guts, or the woman loving the idea of marrying her intended but the man wanting to run for the hills? The woman baby-trapping the man perhaps? Because all of that existed to!
Don't get me started on fashion. Corset =/= patriarchy. You don't see the women in Jane Austen or Mary Shelley novels complaining about corsets and burning them, so let it rest. Really, that trope of corsets being a torture device comes from men making fun of woman's fashion and actresses with illfitting periode costumes. Corsets were more comfortable than stays and only really went out of fashion due to women needing more flexability due to bicycles. Ya really think ladies removed ribs, in a period where there weren't antibiotics and doctors went from cutting up corpses to treating patients without washing their hands inbetween? Common sense, where are you?
Asides, the clothing having to be chaste and covering certain parts applied to everybody. Breeches went out of fashion because people thought women would become arroused by men's exposed calves. Such standards didn't only apply to the Victorians, mind you.
I'll stop here, else this will be ten pages long. You also get the gist of it. Over and out.
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maraudersmyloves · 1 day
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hiii, congrats for the 750 followers!! 🎉 the event is so creative and adorable too, i'm in love with it <3 can i please get a thornless rose, pink, with statice and tree fern (the prompt being "can we stay just like this?") thank you anyways, i love your blog!!
thank you for requesting!!
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CUT AND ARRANGED JUST FOR: anonymous
⊹˚₊˚꒰🌹・꒱ THORNLESS ROSES ; James Potter, golden retriever x black cat, Fluff
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⊹˚. ౨ৎ can we just stay like this?
Pairing: James Potter x reader Warnings: cussing Word count: 739 Disclaimer 1: Everything on this Blog is fiction!!! "lazy mornings". :☆。゚. ───
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You often wish for the morning to last longer. Your dorm mates wake up expecting to hear you grumbling about how it's way too early and the air is too cold. The only thing that gets you to shut up about it is the breakfast, even though it's not the best you appreciate any warm food in the morning. So, when you decide not to show up to breakfast on waffle day it raises some questions.
You, however, haven't bothered to think about something as mundane as breakfast when you're in James' warm arms. You've been awake for at least an hour but chose to stay still listening to the calming heartbeat in James' ever-rising chest. He's been awake for even longer than you, but can't bring himself to do more than mumble quiet "I love you" s into the warm and slightly stuffy air. He pulls you impossibly closer, knowing what's about to happen.
His last-minute alarm is going to go off in about five minutes, meaning he really has to get up. But then he wouldn't be hugging you anymore, so… Instead of thinking about the breakfast he's missing and the places he has to be he opts for simply looking at you. Your face is snuggled into his chest, hiding your gorgeous face from his view. Since he can't admire your beautiful features, he lets his eyes scan your relaxed posture.
Your legs are intertwined with his, with one hiking up higher than the other, while your arms circle his waist and he can't help but sigh in adoration as you wiggle around to get even more comfortable,
James loves moments like this, but sadly it is disrupted by a high-pitched alarm going off from his desk. It's a good trick, really. To have the alarm far enough away that he has to stand up to stop the disgustingly loud beeping but god does he loath himself for doing it. You don't seem too fond of it either as you release a muffled but originally very loud scream into his chest.
"God, James! What the fuck kind of alarm is this. Put it out, won't ya??"
He chuckles. He goddamn chuckles at you as if a war crime wasn't being committed to your ears. God, you hate him.
"Can't love," he says with a big smirk as if the alarm isn't even bothering him. Of course, it isn't. Nothing bothers the great James fucking Potter. You would've thought he cared more about still having fine hearing when he's thirty but guess not. Then again if this continues he won't even live till twenty-one if you've got something to say about it.
You breathe out through your nose, irritated as you answer, "Why the fuck not?" And he looks like he just found a pot of gold under a goddamn rainbow. God, you want to kiss slap him!!
"You're laying on me, darling."
Oh.
Well, guess he really couldn't.
Maybe you should apologize. You do feel a bit bad, nonetheless, you roll off him with a huff and a small glare. Can't let him know he's defeated you.
He stands up after giving you a small kiss on the nose and walks over to his desk to put an end to the noise. When he does, he can see and hear you calm down. You exhale and your whole face relaxes, you're eyebrows unscrunch (is that even a word??) and your eyes go from squeezed close incredibly tight to slightly open. You're lying on your back now, body covered in his oversized shirt and giant blanket.
You look at him sweetly and he knows he's going to have to ask Remus for notes later because he wants nothing more than to spend the day here, cuddled up with you.
Apperantly, you don't agree.
You move to get up but before you're able to do more than put away the blanket James is covering you in his body instead. And he will not let you go. "Jamie," you whine. "We have to get to class."
He kisses your neck, "class is boring."
You try pushing him off you even though you know you won't be able to lift his muscular body off you. The fact that you don't really want to doesn't help either. Sadly, though, you have common sense. "For you maybe. I actually have to study."
"I'll help you later. Can't we just stay like this?"
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newtonsheffield · 2 days
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What’s going through Mary’s head on her way to the hospital?
Honestly Mary’s having a real time of it.
She’s just been told her child’s been shot at, and she’s seen footage of Kate screaming for the man in her arms as he tumbled to the ground. She’s watched her daughter be dragged to safety and she doesn’t know for sure if Kate’s even really alright despite initial reports that she’s uninjured.
There’s also the fact that this is final confirmation that Kate and Anthony are in some kind of a relationship. There’s a beard trimmer and a toothbrush in Kate’s bathroom when she goes in there to get some things for Kate, and Anthony’s clothes are strewn about her wardrobe. There’s signs that her child is living a whole life that she thought she couldn’t share with her. Mary’s devastated for that alone. Kate didn’t think she could tell her parents this and that’s a failing, in Mary’s eyes. She and Tharman have disappointed Kate in this way she feels.
But this isn’t about Mary now. Kate’s been through an incredibly traumatic experience and this is about what she needs. She does find a moment to call her husband while she disappears on the premise of getting food for everyone though. And that’s a hard conversation.
“She’s fine.” Mary said, her hands finally shaking, letting herself fall apart just a little. “She had some stitches once she knew it looked like Anthony would pull through.”
“How is he?” Tharman asked wearily, “Is he going to survive this?”
“Thankfully, yes.” Mary paused before she said the next thing she knew she had to. “Ronald was with them as well. She… told him she didn’t… care if she got shot as well.”
Stunned silence rang through the phone before her husband spoke. “Jesus Christ. What are we supposed to do?”
Mary took a deep breath, “Thank the man who saved our daughter’s life by being supportive. She didn’t think she could tell us this, Tharman. That’s on us. I went to her rooms today, I saw how ingrained he is and she didn’t tell us.”
“We have a great relationship. We do, it’s open it’s-”
“Well, obviously not as open as we thought. And we don’t get to make this about us so you are going to come back here with me tomorrow. You’re going to look him in the eye and say thank you and not grumble.”
“I never grumble.”
“You grumble a lot.”
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lucithegreat666 · 1 day
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I just wanna rant about the way a lot of this fandom interprets Lucifer.
People love to woobify Lucifer and I get it he’s small, he’s cute, you wanna fuck him soooo bad /hj but the way everyone sort of infantilizes him because of the way he’s perceived as an Innocent Socially Awkward Bean is so irritating, (especially when you consider that people constantly do this with autistic coded characters but that’s a whole other rant). And yeah he is socially awkward and, arguably, a Bean.
My problem is with the way people seem to forget this guy is the embodiment of the sin of Pride. Gonna put this below a cut cause it’s long lol. Forgive me that this isn’t the moooost well thought out, I’m busy with college and this is just a rant with thoughts I’ve had over the past TWO MONTHS.
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Lucifer is very clear with Charlie that he thinks sinners are inferior and not worth their time and efforts, based on his thousands of years of dealing with them plus his superiority complex as he still perceives himself as more of an angel than a demon. In episode 5 applies this logic to All sinners evenly, as if not one single one could be worth trying to help and he believes at this point that they’ve earned their damnation.
I will say I don’t think it’s fair to use the fact that he agreed to the exterminations as a reason to back this up, because we don’t know yet what the exact circumstances were that led to that agreement. I think it’s possible the exterminations may have made him more jaded, with viewing them as inferior as a way to cope with feeling responsible for their double-deaths. Or it could be the other way around and he didn’t think the exterminations were a big deal. We don’t know yet whether his feelings of superiority came before or after the exterminations and I’m not ready to make a guess.
When he’s talking to a sinner and is tense, it’s not (just) because he’s socially awkward or wasn’t paying attention. He is tense toward the sinners living in the hotel from the moment he notices them.
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(Picture relevant but also just so funny to look at lol. He’s clearly uncomfortable with Angel but he sort of just looks past him and carries on as if he isn’t there. Rude, Lucifer!)
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(This isn’t just a look of being startled, this is a look of startled disgust. Because he doesn’t want to socialize with Mimzy.)
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(This is also disgust. With a hefty side of condescension since he’s been insulted and so unfairly forced to interact with a sinner directly. I’m being facetious here; Lucifer was aloof and it was rude to ignore everyone but Charlie and his creations)
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(This moment would have been a great opportunity for Lucifer to take interest in what was going on, or at least make some small talk with Sir Pentious since he looks so interested in Lucifer! But he’s in his own world, withdrawn. And that’s fine, that’s just how he is, but he truly has NO interest whatsoever in anyone here except himself and Charlie.)
And if you have any doubt that he sees sinners as basically worthless, I suggest rewatching the scene in episode 5 starting from the balcony to Charlie calling him out in not supporting her. Or you can just read these quotes:
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“I love that you want to see the best in people, but these sinners, you know, they're just the worst.”
“Our ‘people,’ Charlie, are awful! They got gifted free will and look what they did with it! Everything's terrible!”
My favorite, when the hotel is under attack and he is standing around doing nothing while the main cast are defending each other and taking up arms: “You see? This is exactly what I'm talking about Charlie. You build something nice, you invite people in and offer them everything and they just bring violence and chaos to your doorstep. It doesn't matter how well intentioned you are, they're always going to disappoint you.”
And the irony of him saying this kills me. Alastor defends the hotel and stops the attack, but ohp! It’s still excessive violence, still typical Sinner Behavior, ew lol (then he has his own excessively violent rampage in episode 8. Lmao what will the angels say!): “Mhm, you see? What'd I tell you? Charlie, sinners are violent psychopaths, hell bent on causing as much pain and destruction as they can. There's really no point in trying.”
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To summarize: Lucifer ignores sinners and pretends they don’t exist in his vicinity whenever possible and struggles to hide his discomfort when he has to be nice to them for the sake of his relationship with Charlie. This discomfort stems from him devaluing their lives’ worth over moral purity and his view of himself and his family as the most Good beings in Hell.
(Now I’d just like to hint at what else I’ve been thinking about: He also doesn’t respect heaven completely despite them being in authority over him and morally superior by his standards. This is the source of his Pride, the cause of his Fall.)
I want to be clear, none of this is to say that Lucifer is a BAD person. The whole point of the show is it’s more complicated than that. I just think his thought process is a lot less “wholesome” than people give him credit for.
Don’t even get me started on what Alastor brings out of Lucifer (I’m already started, I will probably make a post on it at some point, I have so many thoughts).
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