#obviously people can write what they want as long as it's not blatantly offensive

[mwolf0epsilon]

Hi there. I'm still new to tumblr and to the starwars animated series fandom so I'm not very good at keeping up with things or asking about stuff that's been going on. As of late I've noticed there's a lot of discourse about Tech from the bad batch show. Could you maybe explain to me why? It's ok if you don't want to answer, I just saw that sometimes you answer these kinds of questions and you never sound mean when you do it? I'm trying not to sound dumb but I don't understand what's going on.

Yesterday when I got this ask I decided I wasn't going to answer it immediately. Both because it was my birthday and I'd rather enjoy it than delve deep into fandom drama that I'm not 100% interested in following, and because I just didn't have the time to do it any sort of justice in terms of explaining what's gone down.

Newbie Anon I'll be frank with you, I am not really sure what sparked the recent mess relating to Tech (there's always hot debates sparked by TBB for obvious reasons if you ask some of the older people in the fandom, but that's something I think you'll figure out fairly quickly if you stick around tumblr for a while). But I do have a bit of a theory...

I'm gonna keep this one under a cut for the sake of my followers and pals that don't want to get slapped in the face with this topic.

---

To start this off Newbie Anon, The Bad Batch is unquestioningly a Whitewashed Mess.

It has surpassed The Clone Wars in piss poor poc design, and while this is not a new issue (the clones have always been inconsistently portrayed as white men in various forms of older media) the animated series haven't done jackshit to fix the models despite the producers going back to fix other character models in Tales of the Jedi (proving that they can do so but simply refuse to properly represent Temuera's features in the characters that should all look like him).

Temuera Morrison as Jango Fett, compared to clone trooper Dogma

The example above helps point out some of the issues with the clone models. The profile of the face, the shape of the nose, chin and ears, the bone-cheek prominence and even the brow ridge is incorrect.

The shape of the lips and eyebrows are the only parts of the model that look right. The eyes are almost correct if not for their size and coloration. This is less of a stylistic choice like many claim, and more obviously an attempt to make the clones's features resemble less of those of a Polynesian man and more of an Euro-centric man.

Cody is another excellent example of comparison because he was directly portrayed by Tem as well, and thus his model in the show is more blatantly incorrect in the way it was depicted. Down to both the features I mentioned above and also his height being needlessly exaggerated to make him look more "intimidating" (the wikia lists all standard clones as being 6 feet tall despite Tem being 5'7").

Commander Cody as he appears in ROTS compared to his TCW Model

And then we have Clone Force 99...

Clone Force 99 aka the Bad Batch

Newbie Anon, you'd need to be blind not to see the physical discrepancies between Jango Fett and the Bad Batch. The only member that looks remotely like a clone is Wrecker who unfortunately draws heavy inspiration from the Hulk...

The Hulk... Let that sink in.

Even Echo who was a standard clone prior to his capture barely looks like a clone anymore, and the insistence on keeping him looking the way he does while justifying it as medical in nature is offensive in many ways (both towards poc and the disabled) especially when Echo was most definitely treated very poorly by the writing team (dehumanized on various occasions because of his cybernetics all in the name of a "good laugh", portrayed as the broody "killjoy" that does nothing but complain and argue with Hunter, missing the point entirely on his character which we'd gotten to know long before cf99 were a thing, just to then toss him away when they no longer wanted to focus on anyone but TBB exclusive characters).

Their designs are atrocious examples of whitewashing and the fandom has been divided on this topic for a long long time now.

There's those who likely don't understand what the problem is, which doesn't make them dumb mind you. Not everyone who watches a show is super connected to a fandom or with this kind of debate. A show is a show, animated or not, and it's watched and sometimes not spared a second glance. And since TBB is mostly aimed at kids it's mostly kids who are watching it, and the issues pass over their heads because... Well they're kids and they're still learning. No harm in that at all, eventually they'll grow up and grow wiser (or not, sometimes that's just how these things happen).

There's those who have pointed this out time and time again, arguing that they should look more like clones because it makes no sense that they look so wildly different from the rest. Especially when the explanation provided is that their "desirable mutations" made them look like that (which essentially means that being white is a desirable mutation and that's a brutally racist thing to claim).

There's also those who see nothing wrong with their designs and that even consider them hot. Hunter, Tech and Crosshair especially are viewed as the Hotties of the squad and have a massive following of kinnies and girlies who would definitely not mind getting hot and bothered with them.

Which is where the recent discourse kind of starts off...

But not as unexpectedly as you'd think. More, it happened because of something I suspect is far too big of a coincidence to ignore. The overall timing matches up with the recent outcry at least.

So, there's this company called Sideshow. It's a figures/collectibles/merchandise company that has been producing high quality star wars figures for a while now. They take pride in making as accurate a facial sculpt as possible, and over the years they have improved tremendously especially when portraying characters who have Tem's features (mostly thanks to Hot Toys who've improved the original sculpts they were using).

A comparison between the original Sideshow captain Rex sculpt vs the more recent Hot Toys version

Commander Wolffe's two much older face sculpts compared to Commander Cody's more recent face sculpt

Clone trooper Domino Twins face sculpt compared to the Jango Fett face sculpt

ARC trooper Domino Twins face sculpt compared to the ARC trooper Jesse face sculpt

Sideshow and Hot Toys are undeniably good at what they do in terms of sculpting the faces of these characters. They've done a lot of improving and while some of the skin tones are still a little off off on occasion (especially in Rex who's lighter hair color automatically makes his skin tone look even more pale than it already does), you can't exactly say they don't look like the source material.

When it comes to quality figures, the fandom was of course pleased when Sideshow and Hot Toys started working on a TBB line where the figures had facial sculpts that matched Tem more closely than their show counterparts.

The first three figures of the TBB line to be unveiled

Obviously there's still issues (especially on the skin tone department) but you can see Tem's features more easily in Hunter and Echo. In Crosshair's case he seems more like he's related to the clones rather than being a clone himself (he looks like he could be the son of a clone) but at the very least the shape of the eyes, brows and ears is a more accurate match than what his model looks like in the show.

It's not perfect. But the fact Sideshow and Hot Toys tried to make them look like clones made a lot of people happy that there was someone in the companies trying. So when Wrecker and Tech's facial sculpts were announced everyone was excited to see what the end result would be like.

The Wrecker face sculpt revealed at long last

They managed quite well with Wrecker aside from how pale he looks. I'm very grateful they didn't try to make his brow and jawline thicker to make him look "meaner" or more brutish.

The Tech sculpt on the other hand...

The Tech face sculpt

They managed to get the ears and shape of the head right... But the rest is most definitely not at all what a clone should look like. I draw attention towards the shape and size of the lips, nose, brows and eyes specifically (coupled with his lighter hair colour and his hairline being quite receded and it's even worse to look at). The balance is way off to the point they manage to make him most definitely look like a basic white guy in altered clone armour.

This was a blow to people who were hopeful that the figure would make him resemble Temuera a little more like what they'd done to the others. It just didn't work for Tech and people were rightfully frustrated with it.

However, as soon as this was brought up there was a spark of "What's wrong? I thought you said Tech was hot :)" arguments with people laughing over the "Tech Girlies" getting what was coming to them for thinking their whitewashed pretty boy was suddenly less attractive than what they previously thought.

Now I could be wrong, it could have nothing to do with the figure reveals. I'm not very good at keeping up to date with fandom discourse because I mostly don't have the energy to care anymore (I'm here for a good time, I know my own convictions and where I stand morally, I don't need to constantly argue and moan about it when instead I could just pass along information and make my own stuff to share with the people who're here to have fun with me, I am not morally bound to star wars nor would I ever dare equate my enjoyment of the fandom to something like a marriage commitment because that's honestly ridiculous). But I donno Newbie Anon...

The timing seems too much of a coincidence and this fandom is notorious for starting fights very easily. Tech's figure coming out as the ugly duckling of the bunch and setting off a war between people who are genuinely disappointed the sculpt is bad, the Tech fangirls, and anyone who's just eager to pick a fight with everyone else, wouldn't really surprise me much.

I've seen shit like this happen in every fandom I've been. It's a matter of getting used to it and learning to pick your fights more wisely. Getting worked up about fandom discourse will only burn you out faster than you can say "oh bother".

#Eps Talks About: #star wars #the clone wars #the bad batch #tcw #tbb #sideshow collectibles #hot toys #I'm pretty sure this is what sparked the recent drama but -shrugs- #could just be a very weird coincidence #either way sorry if this isn't helpful Anon I am honestly not super sure on it #and also sorry if people have responded to you in a mean way over questions like these #that's not super helpful of them

[crazybagelbitch]

fandom ranting in tags

#obviously people can write what they want as long as it's not blatantly offensive #but that being said #why do i see so many fics about madney baby girl being named after buck/evan #when if they're gonna name her after anyone #chimney's mother who he lost too soon is right there #watch the writers make me boo boo the fool by naming her evelyn #but #naming her middle name after buck? great #i just don't see them giving their baby girl's first name after buck sorry #to make it clear i love buck dearly #so this is not buck hate at all #i just... while being excited about uncle buck is bueno #i see a lot of making madney baby ALL about uncle buck #legit would die of laughter if they name baby Han after hen

[adoringhaikyuu]

when their teammate has a crush on you | 2

characters: akaashi + kyoutani + osamu + tendou

request: aaaaaaa!! i was stalking your feed when i thought of something 👉🏻👈🏻so you did a "when their teammate has a crush on you" and i reaaaally loved it a lot🥺could you do it with tendou, akaashi, kyoutani, and osamu? if you want to!! • by @kalesugar​

warnings: osamu and tendou’s are suggestive

notes: since osamu’s and tendou’s are sexual, everyone is 18+ in those but in the others there is no smut + (i might write a fic about tendou’s bc i’ve been wanting to write a smut w them idk if people want that)

part one | part two

akaashi:

so bokuto might have had a little crush on you

and it’s not like he would actually do anything about it

he respected you and akaashi and your relationship way too much

he even rooted for you two to get together, he thought you were perfect for each other (you were)

but he couldn’t help the way his heart would beat faster when you were around sometimes, the way his eyes would immediately drift to you when you walked in a room, the way your smile made him feel all tingly inside

he was honestly just waiting the feelings out and tried to act normal around you

he told akaashi about his crush on you cause he didn’t want to hide anything from him

and your boyfriend understood why he would have a crush on you, he couldn’t blame him––but that doesn’t mean he was too happy about it

realistically he wasn’t going to ban him from seeing you or anything, you were allowed to interact

but part of him felt a little odd when bokuto would make jokes with you, a light blush on his cheeks that you most likely assumed was from his laughter 

bokuto sure was making you laugh a lot tonight. the three of you were hanging out at his place for your weekly hangout and it seemed he just had an endless amount of jokes. it’s not that akaashi didn’t like his jokes, it’s just that he didn’t like that it seemed as though his best friend was making the jokes for the sole purpose of making you laugh. 

he thought he was doing a good job at hiding his inner thoughts, but in reality, you had picked up on them almost immediately. you waited until you were in the comfort of akaashi’s home, where you were staying the night, to ask him about it when you noticed he wasn’t going to bring it up himself.

“is something bothering you? could tell you weren’t really here tonight.” 

he looked away and shrugged, and you stepped closer to him.

“is it...maybe because bokuto has a little crush on me?” 

he held his breath for a second in shock as he looked at you silently, blinking a few times. “you...you know?”

you shrugged, a small smile on your face. “i had a feeling. i mean, your facial expressions may be minimal but i can still decode them keiji.” he blushed and looked down, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “i could tell you were watching him a little more closely when he would talk to me.” 

“i...i trust him, i do.” he looked into your eyes, “and i trust you too. it’s just...it doesn’t really make me feel too good knowing that bokuto-san,” he muttered the next part, “with all his muscles and charm––has feelings for you.”

you shook your head and put your hands on his cheeks to look into his eyes earnestly. “you have nothing to worry about baby, i promise that. you’re the only man i have eyes for.”

his hands found their spot on your waist as he gave you a small, but grateful and loving smile. “i know. i love you.” he kissed you lightly and you smiled against his mouth. 

“love you too. so much.” 

kyoutani:

let’s say oikawa likes you––

well more-so that he finds you attractive and can’t help but flirt with you from time to time harmlessly

kyoutani doesn’t give a fuck sfkjdh he will growl at his captain

sometimes he’s not even in the mood, he’ll just take your hand or throw you over his shoulder while you’re talking to oikawa and just walk away 

meanwhile oikawa is just pouting and complaining to your boyfriend as he blatantly ignores him

“you know it’s not very nice to interrupt a conversation like that, mad-dog!” 

oikawa wouldn’t actually try to steal you away from your boyfriend, but he did have some genuine questions that were borderline offensive sdfjghs

like “how did mad-dog manage to get you?” 

“are you sure you’re not being held against your will?”

bottom line is, your boyfriend is not happy 

he will try to prevent you from even being in his captain’s line of sight

he’ll step in front of you or turn around and go another way 

when oikawa approached you after the game, strategically waiting for your boyfriend to go get his things so he’d have more time to talk to you, you knew it was only a matter of time before you were snatched away by a growling kyoutani. 

his plan kind of work, considering the conversation lasted about thirty seconds? longer than it normally did. the captain was leaning against the wall next to you, his arm above your head as you looked up at him, completely unaffected by his charming eyes––you appreciated the effort he took to talk to you, but you knew he was just a natural flirt at heart. 

he was mid-sentence when your boyfriend came storming up to the two of you and grabbed your hand, marching you away from the complaining boy. you just laughed and squeezed his hand, “you know i thought you would have gotten tired of doing that by now.” he grumbled in response and you tugged his hand and led him to a quiet corner.

he was looking down at the floor but you put a hand under his chin and made him look you in the eyes, your small smile making him calm down a bit. “you have to stop letting him get to you like this. you know i’d never entertain his flirting––i’m yours.”

he clenched his jaw and nodded, looking to the side when he heard his captain walking by. you turned his head to face you again and surprised him with a kiss and his hands came up to squeeze your waist. he groaned into your mouth and you pulled away to look at him.

“that’s a good way to calm me down.”

you smiled, “oh yeah?”

he nodded, “yeah” and put his lips back on yours. 

osamu:

so atsumu may or may not have had a crush on you

and yes you were dating his brother

no he wasn’t going to steal you (though he thinks he absolutely could if he wanted to), he respects you both and your relationship

and he loves how happy you make his brother

...but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t check you out sometimes or harmlessly flirt with you (he can’t help it, have you seen yourself?)

osamu would catch his brother ogling at you all the time, or hanging around in the room when you’re over for no reason

he’d usually just smack his head and tell him to fuck off

or he’d take a different approach––

you were really trying to pay attention to atsumu’s story, or whatever it is he was saying, but you couldn’t focus on anything but the feeling of osamu’s lips on your neck, and his hand running along your thigh, the other gripping your waist as you sat practically on him on the couch. 

the two of you were spending time together, alone, when atsumu came in, and decided to third-wheel. you didn’t really have a problem with it, but by the way your boyfriend soon pulled you into his lap to distract himself, and most certainly you as well––you could tell he was bothered. 

atsumu trailed off and scratched his neck awkwardly, laughing. “do you guys wanna get a room or something?” he joked and his brother barely lifted his head, hands pulling you even closer. 

“we did get a room, you came in here.”

atsumu rolled his eyes. “so how long are you planning on assaulting y/n’s neck for?” 

osamu lifted his head, annoyance radiating off of him and brought one hand up to tilt your head towards his, his lips grazing yours. “unless you want to see us fuck, you should leave.” 

atsumu blushed but smirked, “i mean...”

osamu glared at him. “get out.”

tendou:

so when you and tendou started dating, you obviously started hanging out with him more, but also ushijima

it’s not like ushijima was expecting to develop feelings for you 

he didn’t want to––he honestly even searched up how to stop a crush from progressing 

he always thought you were nice and good looking but after hanging out with you more, that’s when he realized he liked your personality too and that you were a good person

he waited a little longer before telling tendou––yeah he told him

but tendou had already figured it out, his eyes picking up on the way ushijima was a little more tense or aware of himself when you were around

the way he would smile and blush when you hugged him goodbye

if anything, tendou thought it was cute 

he got you on board with his idea and after you all graduated, you both put the plan in action

ushijima was sat at the edge of the bed, looking at you and his best friend in confusion, “i thought you said my graduation present was in here?”

your boyfriend stood behind you, arms circling around your waist as he peered over your shoulder, his eyes piercing and teasing as he stared at the boy on the bed. “well you see ushi, after you told me about your little crush––which i’m assuming you still have?”

he nodded unashamed, and unblinking as he looked at the two of you and you felt a tingle run down your body. 

tendou went on, “well after that, i figured you might want to have some fun with the two of us,” he kissed your neck teasingly and the brown-haired boy shifted a bit on the bed, clearly itching to touch you. “we both agreed that it was a great idea.” he brought his attention back to your neck and you figured that was your cue to take over.

“so what do you say, ushi?” you sighed softly when tendou sucked a mark onto your sweet spot and you noticed ushijima’s eyes darken. “do you want this graduation present?” 

he licked his lips and scooted forward, his hands squeezing his thighs almost painfully hard. “yes. please–”

#akaashi #akaashi x reader #akaashi fluff #akaashi headcanon #akaashi angst #kyoutani #kyoutani x reader #kyoutain headcanon #kyoutani fluff #kyoutani hc #osamu #osamu x reader #osamu smut #osamu headcanon #osamu hc #tendou #tendou x reader #tendou smut #tendou headcanon #tendou hc

[kyrisflowerfield]

The Unspoken Words (Gojo)

Blu on quotev requested:

Well if it doesn’t bother you, I’d like to req a Gojo x fem reader who has trust issues, and has trouble believing Gojo likes her, it can be fluff or angst- ur choice lmao

So here we are, thanks for the request blu :D I really like it!

Warnings: You guys know how I write readers with issues…..,reader has trouble trusting people, mentioned death

        There is an impenetrable darkness lurking within every corner of the mind, some have a darkness born others, some have a darkness born of themselves, in any case that shadow is always there in the back of your mind. A companion forever no matter what it is you truly what, forget about you need, it will always be waiting to swallow you whole. Always be waiting to become the only one you could see as a constant, all else was stagnant, a liquid lie waiting to drown you in your sleep.

       You were a first grade sorcerer, having nearly no offense capabilities but due to your technique that allowed you turn invisible and cut your cursed energy and residue you were an important stealth resource to the elders. Due to your technique and memories you’d rather erase you knew  that world you lived in was one smoke and steam, one of cover ups disguising disgust and hatred sold as stories of love. Yes, if any knew it was you, in the world a mouse was easily a rat once the screen lifted, a married couple both suffocating in waves of guilt of infidelity, a father and son drowning under the pressure of judgement and blame, bending until it all breaks. ‘Trust’ was a myth, an old folktale long lost, as easily gained as a unicorn is found, trust was…

       “Morning L/N!”’

       You drew your gaze from your papers to look at your white haired friend, he considered you as such so you should do the same you suppose, nodding at him simply before continuing to scrawl on the half-filled, post mission, reports. Gojo Satoru, the world’s strongest sorcerer as of now, was someone you respected and looked up definitely, someone you relied on and trusted in a work setting, but the term 'friend’, you used it loosely on him. It wasn’t as though you hated him, you quite liked his bubbly, loud nature, a clear counter to your own, but whether a decade or a century ago Gojo was and always would be the arrogant asshole he was in school, even if the man who matched his madness had turned traitor and died. Can people change? It was question many asked and the answer usually lied in whether they were a pessimist or an optimist, either wanting to believe their own, the world was to cloudy for such logic. He showed the light of new man but within his face were still the shadows of the younger him, you were not one to fall prey to a predator, not one lurking so obviously and blatantly with tantalizing lies of…

“I’ll ask you again then, go on a date with me L/N."

       You blinked back at him as you always did, not wasting a second to shoot down his request with flat "No.” Hand continuing to stroke ink into existence, the answer would always be the same, no matter how many times he smiled and told you he would ask again tomorrow. Today was different it seemed, today Gojo pulled out a chair and sat down next to you, today Gojo put his shoulder flushed against you, today Gojo’s breath tickled your ear as he spoke, ruffling butterflies you tried many times to kill in the past. Today Gojo…

“Can I at least know why? Don’t I deserve that much?”

       The feeling made you shiver as you looked him dead on, pink forcing its way onto your cheeks despite your refusal as your lips parted.

“I owe you nothing Gojo.”

       A beat, two, three, the room filled with silence as the sun rose higher in the sky, it was here you would die, suffocated by the man whose stare who drilling a hole in you, creating a chasm of endless depths.  Gojo backed away slightly, resting his chin on his hand whilst his other hand brushed a few hairs off your eyes, you swallowed thickly, petrified and unable to move as he spoke slow and deliberately. As he filled your mind with something that could’ve been intoxication and lies, could’ve been….

“You owe me nothing but I want to know. Be a little fair won’t you Y/N?”

       Yes, it had to more smoke and steam, you had to be choking on it as your breath caught in your throat, his voice speaking your name etched into your mind. You were not one to fall prey to predator but Gojo, it seemed you had forgotten for but a moment, Gojo was a god, a predator who preyed who other predators, made everyone his prey.  Made you his prey. Silence wrapped her arms around you and Gojo as you failed to speak, mouth burning dry, as you made a decision, as you swallowed the bile and stood up, never once breaking eye content with the carnivore before you. Never breaking spirit even as you trembled.

“Because I refuse to be yet another person tricked by the likes of you.”

       The steps of a deer, small and fragile but thinking its antlers made it strong, faded from the room and left Gojo alone.

—-

       It is within the deepest night when the moon is not to be seen and the sky has no stars that one could say there is not one shadow for the unseen to hide in. Their is only dark and depending on who you are darkness is ever so enlightening, is holy and precious and sacred, something to be cherished and trusted. Dark is your own personal dawn. It is within this cloudy night that you are, once again, walking aimlessly after a mission well done, mind hazed over with thought and comprehension and the roads blend together and your body travels though your soul stays still. It is a time in which you see no one, hear nothing, become something….

       The door of a 24/7 supermarket swishes open in front of you, flies buzzing incessantly around the dim light, a fan whirred erratically from somewhere above you as you browsed various forms of caffeine, in search of a substance capable of fighting off sleep for you. Something to buzz in your mind and provide liquid confidence only to find the source in which you needed it for.

“L/N? Late to be shopping, no?”

       You turned towards Gojo again, nearly looking away at the sight of him in casual, comfortable clothing, loose and revealing in nature.

“Late doesn’t exist for me, why are you up?”

“Curses don’t sleep, it’s annoying.”

       You watched as his nimble fingers picked up an energy drink, the other hand holding a basket filled with random sweets and bandages (Which was fairly odd considering his world altering technique) before he looked down at you from above the rim of his glasses, blue eyes shattering the last fragments of dark you held onto. His gaze had always forced your spine to straighten, made you swallow and shiver, as of now it also revived more the butterflies you had put into graves.

“I’ll get this for you, I don’t mind. Walk with me?”

“Fine.”

       The store shrunk and was suddenly only able to hold the too of you as you left, the world seeming to have turned into a tunneled as you walked side by side, shoulders knocking each other with every other step. You think it’s suffocating, the way he looks at you, something akin to blatant affection that you in now way trust flaring in them.

You also find suffocating to be an enjoyable fate.

“Earlier, what did you mean Y/N?”

       Gojo is a man who sparks curiosity in you as well, you wonder if he knows the rush you get from hearing your name drift from his lips, if he knows the tingles you get whenever his voice drops that low. It’s jarring and unbelievable, intriguing even as it pushes you away.

“I meant what I said, I know you don’t like me so drop it.”

       The words rang in the air, the silence louder than a gunshot, Gojo’s apprehension and surprise(?) apparent as he gawked at you, neck craned down to peer at you with the enchanting illusions he called 'eyes’ Seeming offended and yet with the way his shoulders sagged and how his eyebrows crease you could think him hurt.

“I do like you Y/N. Why would I lie?”

“Who ever said you changed?”

       Though as much as night is a friend, as much as it a foe, it is an audience, it forces the gentle hum of fans to grows, the mewls of lost cats to intensify, the ambience of life to create an incline of whatever it is feasting on. So as you and Gojo faced each other, looking the other predator, the other prey, in the eye, each wondering if light would grace them with an answer the night made you both sweat and worry and fear. You think if your face gets any hotter, if the chasm isn’t filled, the butterflies gone, and the crystal pointed somewhere else, you might drown in the distrust, might fall victim. Once again you find that the thought of drowning isn’t intimidating with Gojo standing next to you and the thought terrifies you, the cliff you now walk along is far steeper than you thought.

“I have, everything’s changed.”

“Why should I believe that?”

“Just give me a chance Y/N!”

       Trust is born of fragility you think, people made of stone do not trust unless a section is made of glass, people of glass trust to easily unless a part is made of stone. You want to be stone, you want to be pure, unshakable marble capable of crushing anything that dares to cross but faced with this you wonder if marble is hard enough, if titanium is. You also wonder, far more clearly, if marble can still be heavy with a basis of glass thinner than the trust you give.

“And if you hurt me? What then? It’ll be too late.”

A smile, you think you could fall then and there, descend into madness and not care at all so long as this image is burned into your mind. You don’t notice the way he presses his glasses into your hand until his eyes are bright and peering at you in full force, even as marble you would shatter at his slightest touch no matter how much you resisted.

“You’ll just have to trust me then won’t you?”

—-

This was longer than I intended, fuck. Anyway, wrote about half of this in the car because yk, ✨CAR CONTENT✨ I have two other things to post as well but there letters/poems so uh….sorry ;w; Blu, I hoped this lived up to what you were expecting and more! I hope the rest of you are doing well too, remember to stay safe and healthy ok?

-Kyu❤❤❤❤❤

#gojo x reader #request #gojo x you #gojo x y/n #gojo #gojo satoru #satoru #anime #kyri #kyu jjk #jujutsu kaisen #uwu

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 151

This chapter has been one that I have been dying to write for a while. I was worried that @baelpenrose would resist the idea, but he very much thought it was hilarious. As always, his input and riffing on this chapter has very much made it better and better.

However, it also made the chapter longer, lol. But there is just no way to trim it down without losing something that makes it all work, so this week is nearly double my normal length... break everyone’s heart, right? ;)

“I don’t like these numbers,” Parvati grumbled - as much as she was capable of grumbling - as she scrolled through the final counts of approval ratings on her and Hannah’s inaugural Food Festival.

The statistics had been dropped into our inboxes that morning, in the static of about a thousand other notifications now that Derek had finished the stress-test. Also included were the results of the last three invasion-prep drills, which I was in the process of scanning over.

“How bad are they?” I asked, half listening for a number. The drills were trending better, which was a good sign that the moves were effective.

Dismissing her display with a gesture of disgust, she sighed. “Seventy-four percent approval rating.”

I arched a brow and glanced over. “Did you adjust for those who did not attend?”

The glare she sent me wasn’t seen so much as felt. “Of course I did. First thing I ran…”

“Are you filtering by the day the comments came in?”

“I -” Bingo. She huffed. “No! These are intended to be ratings for the entirety of the event!”

I started scrolling through my own statistics. “Chart them out by the date the ratings came in, filtering out everyone who didn’t actually attend.”

A pause. “Oh… Oh! It’s showing ninety-three-point-four now!”

“Et voila,” I murmured. Louder, I clarified, “People like to weigh in early, and those who object in general tend to speak first.”

“I see that… how’s it going over there?” she asked, smoothing her braid over her shoulder as she turned to look at me directly.

“We are improving with every drill, marked upticks since the relocations. Arthur should be here in about - “ I glanced at a clock, “Seven minutes to go over next steps.”

Alistair breezed over to swap my empty bulb of cold coffee for a fresh one of water. “The appointment is in fifteen minutes.”

Parvati beat me to the punch.  “He is also compulsively early, meaning…. Six minutes now.”

He rolled his eyes hard enough that I wanted to giggle. “He doesn’t even have the decency to be fashionably late. Appalling.”

Surely enough, Arthur paged at the entrance - out of some sort of manners I accidentally instilled in him - exactly five minutes prior to our scheduled appointment. As he breezed into my office, he managed a half-assed glare at Alistair for abruptly turning away and focusing on my schedule rather than his usual tendency to get a beverage for any newcomers. “Okay, updated data on drills isn’t what I want it to be.”

I laughed. “You’re joking, right? Your team and Michael’s haven’t gotten past deck four by more than three percent in the last seven exercises.”

“Any percent above zero is unacceptable,” he grumbled. I chalked it up to the indignity of being forced to get his own tea from the console.

Almost as though to spite Arthur, Alistair made a point to set a refreshed water bulb in front of everyone except the professor. “There are guards on the other levels for a reason,” he suggested drily.

“And I would rather those guards be idle, thank you,” Arthur threw back in a near-venomous tone.

“Us guards would rather be prepared for any eventuality, which you may do well to plan for in your petty drills.”

I didn’t even try to intervene. Clearly there was some blatantly disagreement between my  admin and my friend, and I was exhausted from trying to make them cooperate.

“If I’m doing my job, you should be so grateful as to be idle,” Arthur drawled.

Alistair scoffed. “As if being left to rest and get fatter than a Christmas goose is a blessing…”

“You’ll live longer!”

“And get lax in my duties, which I will not stand for!”

“Get fat! Get lazy! LIVE! I don’t care! I’m not going to be lax in my duties to allow you the opportunity of getting practice at fighting.” Standing, Arthur buried both hands in his hair, but it looked less like he was running his fingers through it than pulling on it. “Are we really discussing this when we are training to fight in living body condoms?”

“I need to defend the Archives!”

“And Michael and I need to defend everyone! Us doing our job means you don’t need to do yours.”

My neck snapped back at the vehemence in his tone. This wasn’t their normal sparring… they may have never truly gotten along, but even in the beginning it was never so vicious.

To my further alarm, Alistair took a long stride forward and stared down his nose at Arthur. “We both know that she - “ his hand flung out to point at me “is either the luckiest or unluckiest person in existence. You can’t really believe that, in an actual assault on this ship, that she won’t be in danger. Which will place Tyche, the Archives, Derek Okafor, and Samuel Richardson in equal danger. You aren’t an idiot, you know this.” The hand pointing toward me turned, and time seemed to slow down as he stabbed Arthur in the sternum with it, punctuating each of his next words. “Stop lying to yourself.”

“Poke me again, and the finger comes off.”

“I would dearly love to see you try.”

Hannah and Parvati had jumped to their feet when Alistair approached Arthur, but were now slowly moving around to my position, safely behind my desk. Hannah hissed at me through clenched teeth, “You had to tell them to fight it out.”

“I thought they would use a gym, not the damned office,” I hissed back.

Before she could respond, Alistair spoke again. “You aren’t the only one on the Ark who wants to protect everyone. You need to trust us to do our bloody jobs.”

“The last time I trusted anyone else to protect people, I lost fourteen students,” came the ground out response. “I’m not backing down on this.”

“You will, or I will sedate you and strap you to a medical berth for the next four months.” Alistair stepped back and crossed his arms with finality.

A trickle of nerves ran down my spine as I watched Arthur clench his fists and release them. “You think the solution to everything is to tie it up, I swear.”

“Stop changing the topic. I am deadly serious, Farro.”

Arthur turned away from him, waving him off. “Try something else, you would never just sedate me for months on end.” Before we could stop anything, Alistair leapt forward and put Arthur in a headlock, only to be immediately flipped over the other man’s shoulder and onto the table. “Tch. Sloppy. I know you can do better.”

“I thought you wanted me to get fat and lazy,” Alistair grunted as he sucker-punched Arthur in the stomach and rolled for the other side.  Once on his feet, he eyed Arthur carefully as he circled the table. “You stubborn ass, you know I am right.  You are putting everyone in the lower levels at risk by not running preparedness drills with them, because you don’t want to factor in the fact that one of the offensive teams could fail.”

“We don’t have the luxury of failing, so no. If we do our jobs correctly, everyone who matters will be safe at the other end of the Ark.”

They didn’t seem to be at each other’s throats anymore, but the arguing wasn’t getting anywhere. “Guys - “ I tried.

Both men turned and practically screamed at me with their glares to stop talking.  Oookay. I held up my hands in surrender and decided to let them sort it out their way.

Damned if the console wasn’t on the other side of them, though. I couldn’t even get popcorn and a drink.

Alistair blew a harsh breath through his nose. “If you won’t include the lower decks in your drills, I will start sparring with Jokul.”

“He would kill you,” Arthur barked in the most miserable laugh I’ve ever heard.

“God forbid,” Alistair mocked. “If I were gone, who would make your tea in the morning.”

“The same person who picks up the socks that magically appear all over my quarters every day, obviously. Worthington, I’m serious, he could really hurt you. He has really hurt me. And Charly.”

That last part was dismissed with a wave. “Madam Charles the First put the fear of herself into him.”

“And you haven’t. He could kill you by accident, and he’d never forgive himself.”

“Maybe that wouldn’t be the case if you would let me train more!”

Arthur groaned and ran a hand down his face. “You are an adult, we’ve talked about this. Train all you want, with whoever you want - Charly, Sophia, Tyche… hell, train with Evan or Michael, I don’t care. Just, not Jokul.”

When did they talk about this? I wondered. It had to be during a sparring session or something, because it definitely wasn’t in my office during one of our meetings. A glance at Hannah showed she was watching everything unfold like it was the most riveting show she had ever seen, and Parvati’s squint of consideration wasn’t much better.

“As you said, I’m an adult. Perhaps I should take your advice, and train with Charly - “

“See - “

“- and Jokul. She will make sure I don’t get hurt.”

Arthur flung his hands up in frustration. “You are so stubborn, I swear!” Growling, he paced in a circle. “Fine! Train with Charly and Jokul. IN the bivouac suit, though! And I don’t want to hear a word when you end up confined in a med bay yourself.”

Alistair’s smug grin showed just how much he seemed to care. “At least I would be spared of picking up the trail of dishes that seem to follow you around.”

“For the love of - they are my quarters! Mine! And I don’t want to hear about it when your bloody socks are constantly getting lost behind my sofa!”

Oh. Oh no. Nonononononono.

“My socks can go wherever they fucking want to, when I am constantly cleaning your disgusting whiskers out of the sink!”

“You know what would fix you having to clean whiskers out of the sink? I could just stop shaving altogether. How about...that…” Arthur trailed off and very slowly turned toward the three of us behind my desk with a look of dawning horror.

And I tried. I really, really tried not to laugh.  I could feel my face reddening, my chest aching with the effort of holding it in.  

Hannah’s snort was my undoing. As soon as that tiny noise escaped her, all three of us erupted into hysterical, stomach-cramping, tearful laughter.  I felt stabbing in my arm as Parvati dug her nails in, trying desperately not to fall.  Unfortunately for her, Hannah grabbed me at the same time and all three of us toppled to the floor. The sight of Arthur rolling his eyes and crossing his arms only made me escalate from laughing to shrieking in hysterics and relief.

I couldn’t speak for the other two ladies, but I thought the two men were going to end up killing each other… At no point did I think they took the other option when I told them to either fight it out or….

I gasped for breath, trying to get myself under control. Wobbling to my feet with the help of my trusty desk and a couple yanks to free my shirt from Parvati’s desperate clutching, I pointed between them. “This… how long? Can’t believe… didn’t figure it out.”

“Not everyone is as… public… as you, Conor, and Maverick are,” Arthur snarked at me. “You know, private lives should be private and all that?”

“Must be for you,” I confided in Alistair’s direction, where he had turned his back to our fit.  “He’s never not told me when he was dating someone. Or thinking of dating someone. Or potentially interested in seeing if he was interested in dating someone… Best friend privileges and all that.”  While I waited for Alistair to respond, my mind whirled through all the things I had brushed off before but were very obvious in retrospect.

Glancing at Arthur for a hint yielded nothing but a flat stare that all but declared in flashing lights You Aren’t Stupid.

I tilted my head at that, and kept thinking. There had been genuine animosity on Alistair’s side in the beginning, and not a small amount of needling on Arthur’s.  So I knew it wasn’t something that had always been going on. My mind came to a screeching halt, however, when I remembered something - the day Alistair, Tyche, and I decided that, when I vacated my position on the Council, they would vacate roles as well to leave behind a ‘clean slate’. “Four years, holy shit,” I gasped. “Four years!?”

Finally, Alistair moved. His back was still to us, but his arms went limp by his sides, and his head dropped down toward the floor. “It would be unseemly to have the new Councilor of Education in a relationship with the attache to the Councilor for Resources and Engagement. Or formerly in a relationship, should things not end well.”

“And since he won’t be taking his position until we are on Von,” I put together, “You are okay to serve out the rest of my term, just not Hannah’s or Parvati’s.”

“Correct.”

“Huh. That makes sense,” I admitted before hopping up to sit on my desk, the chair being a lost cause on the other side of two women who were still sniffling and giggling on the floor. “I learned a lot today.”

“Uh huh,” Arthur confirmed drily. “And it had better stay in this office.”

“What?” I managed a pretty convincing confused face before pretending to realize what he meant. “Oh! The relationship thing. Yeah, cool, whatever. That’s not what I was talking about, but you’re good.”

“Dare I even ask what you meant?” Alistair ventured, finally turning around so that he could give me a warning look.

“Uh, isn’t it obvious?” I asked, shaking my head and spreading my hands, palms up. When they both just stared at me, I finally broke and grinned. “Dude. You two are freaking slobs.”

The squeaking noises coming from the vicinity of my feet told me that no further work would be getting done for the rest of the day.

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#the miys #found family #humans are weird #science fiction #aliens #apocalypse #humans are space orcs #humans are space fae #earth is space australia #post apocalypse #post post apocalypse #original science fiction #original sci fi #original writing

[jerepars]

My QOTS 5x09 live reactions:

Oscar is in the “previously on”. Oscar x Jeresa team up?

SO MUCH Kote in the “previously on”. Whyyyyyy? We already had to sit through their episodes once, isn’t that enough?

James taking off that ski mask was somehow really hot

Is it bad if I want to skip through this suburbia Kote stuff and just get to the Jeresa team up lol

“Like the devil himself he lives in the shadows” uhhhhh that was a little…YA fiction-esque. Lol who wrote that line and are they serious.

If there were two very attractive people sitting across from me, dressed like yin and yang, promising me protection like that…I think I’d be very confused LOL

Konstantin Federov? Is Kostya like, a Russian hockey player? Did he play in Detroit with the Russian Five? I am howling.

an INSTRUMENT TO DEFEND OUR DEMOCRACY lol lol lol

again Devon leaves the room without being a blatantly obvious Jeresa shipper. Boooooooo.

suburbia suburbia why can’t we do away with ya?

what happened to don’t come out until I tell you to?! Do you understand the consequences of death or not?

oh good job just show the neighbors you guys have a fucking arsenal in your kitchen that’s not gonna be suspicious at all

“I am a soldado, I will never put my guard down” really REALLY we all know that’s not true this is how you guys got banished to Little Rock in the first place

“it was a big raccoon” Raccoons are adorable they look like little bandits leave them alone

Jeresa are sitting ~very close~!!!!

“in the DR” As in, in the Dominican Republic? Do people really say that? Sounds like I’m watching Big Brother and they’re talking about the Diary Room LOL

Wait what Teresa is doing coke right as James leaves the room? What if he forgot something and comes back??? Does he know? Has this just been accepted by him? This is never going to be addressed, is it?

Ooh, theory time. Is the coke...not coke? Is it something else and Teresa has been building up a tolerance to it so she can appear dead?

“I know you want things to go back to normal” BACK to normal? When were things normal? Why does half the episode have to be spent on these two?

“I don’t want to live like this anymore” You…you...WHAT? Why did you join a drug cartel? You BEGGED back in with them. Proved yourself. Worked too hard, isn’t that what you said? What did you think it was going to be like?

Do we, the audience, have to suffer through the garage sale, too?

HOW LONG IS THIS SCENE WHY ARE WE STILL IN SUBURBIA

Yeah snoop through your neighbor’s mail when the whole neighborhood is around THAT’S NOT SUSPICIOUS AT ALL

oh it’s his little girl’s team now we have to suffer through Pote’s redemption for his misogynist sexist comments from earlier in the season

Yo, why are we only meeting Domingo now? I like this guy. He’s fun. Plus he’s got cool piercings.

aaaaand he’s dead.

Oh, okay, not dead. But injured.

YO I LIKE DOMINGO

CHICHO HOW COULD YOU CALL POTE THIS IS NOT HOW I RAISED YOU

omg is KA going to tell Pote to go back to Teresa where he’s happy because she doesn’t want his spirit to die? If so, I think I might want to die.

I don’t need another tender Kote moment JFC MAKE IT STOP

BRICKS!!!! KISS TIME!!!!

“You wouldn’t let me do it, so why should I let you?” Dead. Dead. DEAAAADDDDD. 😭😭😭

I love you. SAME. (I still wish T had said it first)

So no conversation. Just straight to the sex? Okay. I guess we’ll roll with it.

The way he pauses to tuck her hair away from her face and looks at her all starry-eyed when she’s on top of him. Dead. Dead. Dead dead dead.

And then they SMILE. Can you be more dead than dead? I think that’s where I’m at. 👻

Sidenote: I don’t think we’ve ever seen this much of J’s tattoos up close. This is glorious. Lol yeah because there’s sex happening and I’m looking at the details of the tattoos hahaha

The hand on the thigh to end it before the camera pans and then fade to black. That’s great. I will accept it.

She’s touching his arm in the morning after scene. There is SUNLIGHT. This is the best lit Jeresa scene of this show’s existence, lol. Holy shit.

When does she tell him she loves him? This is obviously setting us up for a goodbye.

LOLOLOLOL James is talking about weapons and making sure she’s well equipped and she’s giving him heart eyes instead sooo is she about to say it?

SHE SAID IT!!!!!!!!!

Jeresa making out. Jeresa getting it on. Jeresa kissing after a love confession. In one episode. ❤️ 🥰 🎊 💞 💓 😘 🎇 🔥 Bask in the glory. Savor it. Let’s all enjoy this and rewatch and reblog gifs etc etc etc because it’s all we’re ever going to get. 🎁

“She’s not going in without us.” “I’ll go.” OoOoOoOo this is all part of the plan isn’t it?

But when did you have time to plan this when you spent all night making out and having sex. You must have been spent. Did you multitask in bed? 😂

Scared Puppy James :( :( :(

Wait. WAIT. This is very plot holey. Kostya didn’t know anything about Teresa’s business? He’s apparently the biggest bad-ass there is and he didn’t even vet her? He just let Oksana handle it? WHATTTTTTT

The tequila isn’t poisoned. She put something on the shot glass, probably? That’s why they had Chicho talk about how Oksana was killed at the beginning. Right?

So Kostya has been elusive all season. Fucked everything up. And he dies as soon as he meets her? WHAT. Just like that. This is so deflating.

Uhhhh, listen, I get it, Teresa is obviously gonna make it out of here. But why have Kostya’s guys not shot her in the head yet? This is very unrealistic. They wouldn’t hesitate. She would be on the ground in a second.

WHAT. NO. WHY IS POTE HERE. GO AWAY. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STEP UP, CHICHO.

I wish Pote had died. A final sacrifice for his family. That would have been his redemption. And I’m not apologizing for anything I just said. Full offense. Not sorry.

“You had enough on your plate.” Are you KIDDING ME? Yo WHO THE FUCK DOES CHICHO THINK HE IS? Making decisions for the boss? That’s not…that wouldn’t happen, helpful or not. Teresa would kill HIM. Know your place. Wow how nice of the writers to screw Chicho up.

“I’m only legit until Devon decides I’m not” So…okay. Jeresa have definitely talked about Devon and made the sniper plan now, right? If she’s saying this?

“Can you shut down operations in New Orleans and meet us when you’re done?” “Of course.” That’s the goodbye, isn’t it? We’re still on track for the sniper plan?

“When everything’s settled I’ll send for you.” Uh. Maybe KA is safer in Little Rock. But you’re gonna leave her out in the wind for an indefinite amount of time? OKAY.

“He may not be as nice” LOL

Omg this is like the most continuous dialogue James has had all season and it’s wasted on DEVON

Personally not a fan of this very predictable James-was-still-under-Devon’s-wing-the-whole-time because I think it’s lazy writing. Very lazy. BUT I bet in James’ mind, he’s for sure been pretending and this whole time whenever he’s been sitting boo-boo faced in the corner moping, he’s been planning out how to tell Teresa and going over the plan of how she’s going to “die” and they’re going to disappear. So he could tell her and they could execute it perfectly when the right time presented itself. Right? And that’s all going to be shoved into like the last few minutes of the finale, isn’t it?

Ah okay so sniper James is going to shoot Teresa through the window to make Devon think he followed orders. They WERE multitasking in bed. 😂😂

I knew it. I fucking knew it. It’s exactly the ending to this episode we all expected.

Finale preview: soooooooo Teresa is barely in it because she’s “dead” and we have to watch Pote carry out her “wishes” for most of it until it’s safe for her to come alive again? COME ON.

#qots spoilers #qots 5x09 #qots #queen of the south #teresa mendoza #james valdez #jeresa #pote galvez #kelly anne van awken #kote #boaz jimenez #devon finch #chicho nolastname #i have opinions they are unpopular

[calpalsworld]

Not "autistic anon," but also autistic, (being called maybe ableist made me want to put this out there before go to bed) i thought Zane was depicted that way purposefully by the writers. He has stereotypical traits like taking things literally, and has an actual humor switch. The writers have done things with Zane before like have him lose bodily autonomy (during that one Wu's teas short) and did something with his voice be it making him unable to be understood or talking too loud and the forced pirate voice by Jay. (what you're doing isn't too different from that, right?) I thought it was just a little iffy to distort his body and memory bc that could be interpreted as something not that I'm sure what exactly, it's some kind of disability. I dunno. I'm not good with putting this to words. I hope this makes sense.

Sorry I went to bed but now I’m awake 😭

Also I ended up totally spilling all my thoughts here rather than only specifically replying to you please forgive me context: my scary zane concept design, & my ninjago rewrite i refer to a lot 

Im a little confused but I think I get what you're saying? You're saying the Ninjago writers absolutely DON'T write Zane well (you listed examples of this) and you don't want me to fall into the same trap?

I had the opposite logic earlier. I thought: If Ninjago writers made Zane have stereotypical autisitic traits while also being a dehumanized robot, I may as well embrace it, say he is autistic blatantly, while also making him do funny/cool non-human robot things, so its clear as possible the two aspects of his character are literal and separate and not a metaphor for each other. But you're right! I do have a choice and I dont have to embrace things! :)

Like there were a couple ways I was gonna reject the original, for example, I never wanted Zane to have a funny switch, and I hated how other characters could fuck with Zane and he didn't even care 😬. I want to change that stuff. So youre right, if I am changing shit like that, it would be counterproductive for ME to GIVE him MORE traits along that theme. 😬😬😬 I should try to feel less obligated to portray Zane like he originally is. I still like the concept of "scary zane" (for reasons i explain below the cut) but I might tone it down a bit like with the claws and weird proportions and shit. I’d def make him look more skeletal and undead. That was my original intention, but i didnt execute it as good as I could have.... idk if anyone could tell thats what he was supposed to be like...my bad! But rn I dont wanna redesign him I wanna draw other stuff like normal alive Zane. Sorry LMAO 😳. Like I said in some earlier asks I think, I think Im gonna focus rn on how I should portray season 1 normal not dead Zane so thank you and feel free to share any other Zane thoughts ^_^ SOME OTHER THOUGHTS:

Also I Wanna Argue Some Stuff But I Understand its a Weak Argument Since All of This Context was Just In My Brain (so don't take this as an argument, just as me rambling): I don't want messed up things to happen to Zane and for it to just be ignored. I think if Zane is going to have fucked up things happen to him, as all characters must, its best for it to happen during a season where he actually addresses his feelings about being a robot (learning to accept that he will always be himself, regardless if hes "human" or the "original" or whatever. (thats how I always interpreted his emotions)). But I wouldn't have the other Ninja be very phased by Zane's looks because the whole point is they already love who he is (seasons 1-3 were about getting to know Zane) and now Zane himself just has to learn the physical, robot part of him is okay. Its about person-hood rather than humanity. Because the season focuses around Zane's soul, and because he lost his original body, I feel like I could mess around with his current, temporary body and have fun and make it scary. Because that body should be irrelevant. I understand it possibly being upsetting for an autistic character to be designed like this, but other people I talked to see it the opposite way. They find it comforting for him to look so different but still be himself and be so loved. SO IM ABSOLUTELY NOT saying its wrong to be bothered or to hate it or to feel any way. Just that I personally think it would be cool for Zane to be portrayed with a little spice lol, so thats why I like scary Zane for season 4.

Another Thing I Wannna Say But Is REALLY Hypocritical: (this isnt directed at anyone I just REALLY want to say this) I know I say "this is Zane but scary, he looks like fnaf" so he's obviously dehumanized, but I always felt like "scary" is more of an objective fact. Its an instinct. But what's "not human" is subjective. I think there is a problem with saying anything different from "average" human is dehumanized because that could extend to real people. Lol I know its bad for me to compare FNAF-ass Zane to real people, but I mean he could be real. People can have exposed teeth, and people can be shaped weird. And when someone first sees a person who looks like that they'll probably think "woah those features are scary" by instinct. And that surprise doesn't make someone ableist obviously. But bring that person’s humanity into question is NOT an instinct, and is fucked to shit. This is kinda a bad point for me to make since its about the fictional FNAF Zane I drew, and I am NOT implying ANYONE was thinking like this. [especially not the original asker anon who I am totally forgetting about at this point OOPS]. But I just thought it was an opinion of mine I couldn't go without mentioning when talking about dehumanization and disabilities.

^^^ I think you (anon) understand what I mean and might’ve said the exact same thing as me if you were writing a long ass response? I think this because you started to bring physical disabilities up and you said it was "a little iffy." ^_^ So we agree, but I don't see Zane's relation to real life disabilities as "a little iffy" I see it more like "complicated"? IF THAT DIFFERENCE EVEN MAKES ANY SENSE?????? I feel like a lot of things about Zane are really just complicated and need the right context, rather than the concepts necessarily being wrong -- NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT! THATS THE WHOLE REASON I DO THIS STUPID REWRITE! XD thats why a lot of my rewrite SO FAR has been the same concepts and plot beats, but different dialogue n specifics and such. I like a lot of concepts in Ninjago but I dont think they were presented correctly.....! :( So I guess all we can do is wait and see if I make Zane offensive or not....???

Also something about the memory part - yeah i agree i was surprised no one thought that was weird to make jokes out of his memory issues..... BUT I am like 100% firm on making his memory take longer to come back because I think its stupid how quick Zane was able to recover from literally dying. Like its just dumb to me. Hate it. (also bc memory & soul mechanics is ummm kinda important in my rewrite.... for reasons). Another memory thing btw, I was going to make his original amnesia come from hitting his head in an attack against the Skulkin when they stole his dads corpse, rather than his dad fucking choosing to make him forget. (its a sweet & iconic scene, but Um, WHY?!!!?!?!?!?) He has to follow data recovery instructions he finds in his dads diary. I think in that context it makes moments of memory loss somewhat different for Zane's character? Instead of loss of autonomy associated with disability, its a literal violent loss of autonomy associated with being traumatized by physical force. Idk how to phrase it exactly but I think that makes some vibes different?

Sorry, I think I got really distracted, and I don't know if I responded well to your points. Because uhhhh I think I agree with your stance actually? If I understand correctly? Fuck Ninjago writers for making the robot lose autonomy (a stereotypical robot theme) while also making him seem clearly autistic (NOT A HAPPY THEME FOR AUTISTIC PEOPLE) and not addressing it. And also auuugh Zane with a weird body is a difficult topic - kinda sussy pretty iffy.

Lol anyway idk if this made any sense and I REALLY rambled on you. but this was nice 👉👈 more Zane criticism pls love you and i love zane. i hope u dont feel mad at me because then it would be weird that im saying that lol. if you do feel mad at me tho you can send another ask (ILL TRY TO JUST LISTEN NOT RAMBLE NEXT TIME) but assuming ur chill rn, love you thnx

Take this page, don’t mind cole’s ass.

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Would love to hear about your beefs with Lucas because I have beefs with Lucas

(Sorry it took me three thousand years to answer this, anon.)

They mainly fall under a few headings, with the third being the most serious and the thing that I am genuinely irl furious about at least biannually (and feeling unable to adequately sum up The Problem with it after yelling about it so often is a huge part of why this post has been in my drafts for such a long time):

1. His self-mythologising and the subsequent uncritical repetition of his bullshit in the fandom. Obvious lies like that he had some master plan for 10 films when it’s clear he did not have anything like a plot outline at any point. We all know the thing was written at the seat of various people’s pants, it’s blatantly self-evident that’s the case. There’s also plenty of public record about how the OT was written. Even dumber, more obvious lies, like that Anakin was ‘always the protagonist’ and the entire 6 films were his story from the beginning. This is preposterous and every time someone brings it up (usually with palpable smugness) as fanboys ‘not understanding star wars’ because they don't get that ‘the OT is not Luke's story’... Yeah, I just... I cannot.

Vader wasn’t Anakin Skywalker until ESB, it’s a retcon. It’s a brilliant retcon and it works perfectly, it elevated SW into something timeless and special it otherwise would not have been, but you can tell it wasn’t the original plan and there’s proof it wasn’t the original plan. Let’s not pretend. And Luke is the protagonist. No amount of waffling about such esoteric flights of theory as ‘ring structure’ is going to get away from the rigidly orthodox narrative and the indisputable fact that it is Luke’s hero’s journey. Vader’s redemption isn’t about his character development (he has almost none) and has no basis in any kind of convincing psychological reality for his character, but it doesn’t need to be because it’s part of Luke’s arc, because Vader is entirely a foil in Luke’s story. It’s a coming-of-age myth about confronting and growing beyond the father.

All attempts to de-centre Luke in RotJ just break the OT’s narrative logic. It’s a character-driven story and the character driving is Luke. Trying to read it as Anakin’s victory, the moral culmination of his choices rather than Luke’s and putting all the agency into Anakin’s hands just destroys the trilogy’s coherence and ignores most of its content in favour of appropriating a handful of scenes into an arc existing only in the prequels. The dilemma of RotJ is how Luke will define ethical adulthood after learning and growing through two previous films worth of challenge, education, failure, and triumph; it’s his choice to love his father and throw down his sword which answers the question the entire story has been asking. Vader’s redemption and the restoration of the galaxy are the consequences of that choice which tell us what kind of world we’re in, but the major dramatic conflict was resolved by Luke’s decision not the response to it.

And, just all over, the idea of Lucas as an infallible auteur is inaccurate and annoying to me. Obviously he’s a tremendous creative force and we wouldn’t have sw without him, but he didn’t create it alone or out of whole cloth. The OT was a very collaborative effort and that’s why it’s what it is and the prequels are what they are. Speaking of which.

2. The hubris of the prequels in general and all the damage their many terrible, protected-from-editors choices do to the symbolic fabric of the sw universe. Midicholrians, Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, Obi-wan as Anakin's surrogate father instead of his peer, incoherent and unmotivated character arcs, the laundry list of serious and meaningful continuity errors, the bad storytelling, the bad direction, the bad characterisation, the shallowness of the parallels which undermine the OT’s imagery, the very clumsy and contradictory way the A/P romance was handled, the weird attitude to romance in general, it goeth on. I don’t want to re-litigate the entire PT here and I’m not going to, but they are both bad as films and bad as prequels. The main idea of them, to add Anakin’s pov and create an actual arc for him as well as to flesh out the themes of compassion and redemption, was totally appropriate. The concept works as a narrative unit, there are lots of powerful thematic elements they introduce, they have a lot of cool building blocks, it’s only in execution and detail that they do a bunch of irreparable harm.

But the constant refrain that only ageing fanboys don’t like them and they only don’t like them because of their themes or because they humanise Anakin... can we not. The shoddy film making in the prequels is an objective fact. If you want to overlook the bad parts for the good or prioritise ideas over technique, that’s fine, but don’t sit here and tell me they’re masterworks of cinema there can be no valid reason to criticise. I was the exact right age for them when I saw them, I am fully on board with the fairy tale nature of sw, I am fully on board with humanising Anakin- the prequels just have a lot of very big problems with a) their scripts and b) their direction, especially of dialogue scenes. If Lucas had acknowledged his limitations like he did back in the day instead of believing his own press, he could have again had the help he obviously needed instead of embarrassing himself.

3. Killing and suppressing the original original trilogy. I consider the fact that the actual original films are not currently available in any form, have never been available in an archival format, and have not been presented in acceptable quality since the VHS release a very troubling case study in the problems of corporate-owned art. LF seizing prints of the films whenever they are shown, destroying the in-camera negatives to make the special editions with no plans to restore them, and doing all in the company’s considerable power to suppress the original versions is something I consider an act of cultural vandalism. The OT defined a whole generation of Hollywood. It had a global impact on popular entertainment. ANH is considered so historically significant it was one of the first films added to the US Library of Congress (Lucas refused to provide even them with a print of the theatrical release, so they made their own viewable scan from the 70s copyright submission).

The fact that the films which made that impact cannot be legally accessed by the public is offensive to me. The fact that Lucas has seen fit to dub over or composite out entire performances (deleting certain actors from the films), to dramatically alter the composition of shots chosen by the original directors, to radically change the entire stylistic tone by completely reinventing the films’ colour timing in attempt to make them match the plasticy palate of the prequels, to shoot new scenes for movies he DID NOT DIRECT, add entire sequences or re-edit existing sequences to the point of being unrecognisable etc. etc. is NOT OKAY WITH ME when he insists that his versions be the ONLY ones available.

I’m okay with the Special Editions existing, though I think they’re mostly... not good... but I’m not okay with them replacing the original films. And all people can say is ‘well, they’re his movies’.

Lucas may have clear legal ownership in the capitalistic sense, but in no way does he have clear artistic ownership. Forget the fans, I’m not one of those people who argue the fans are owed something: A film is always a collaborative exercise and almost never can it be said that the end product is the ultimate responsibility and possession of one person. Even the auteur directors aren't the sole creative vision, even a triple threat like Orson Welles still had cinematographers and production designers, etc. Hundreds of artists work on films. Neither a writer nor a director (nor one person who is both) is The Artist behind a film the way a novelist is The Artist behind a novel. And Lucas did NOT write the screenplays for or direct ESB or RotJ. So in what sense does he have a moral right to alter those films from what the people primarily involved in making them deemed the final product? In what sense would he have the right to make a years-later revision the ONLY version even if he WERE the director?

Then you get into the issue of the immeasurable cultural impact those films had in their original form and the imperative to preserve something that is defining to the history of film and the state of the zeitgeist. I don't think there is any ‘fan entitlement’ involved in saying the originals belonged to the world after being part of its consciousness for decades and it is doing violence to the artistic record to try to erase the films which actually occupied that space. It's exactly like trying to replace every copy of It's a Wonderful Life with a colourised version (well, it's worse but still), and that was something Lucas himself railed against. It’s like if Michaelangelo were miraculously resuscitated and he decided to repaint the Sistine Ceiling to add a gunfight and change his style to something contemporary.

I get genuinely very upset at the cold reality that generations of people are watching sw for the first time and it’s the fucking SE-except-worse they’re seeing. And as fewer people keep physical media and the US corporate oligarchy continues to perform censorship and rewrite history on its streaming services unchecked by any kind of public welfare concerns, you’ll see more and more ‘real Mandela effect’ type shit where the cultural record has suddenly ‘always’ been in line with whatever they want it to be just now. And US media continues to infect us all with its insidious ubiquity. I think misrepresenting and censoring the past is an objectively bad thing and we can’t learn from things we pretend never happened, but apparently not many people are worried about handing the keys to our collective experience to Disney and Amazon.

4. The ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing and how he wanted this to continue with Luke post-RotJ, so it’s obviously not meant to be part of what was wrong with the order in the prequels. I find this... incoherent on a storytelling level. The moral of the anidala story then indeed becomes just plain ‘romantic love is bad and will make you crazy’, rather than the charitable reading of the prequels which I ascribe to, which is that the problem isn’t Anakin’s love for Padmé, it’s that he ceased to love her and began to covet her. And I can’t help but feel this attitude is maybe an expression of GL’s issues with women following his divorce. I don’t remember if there’s evidence to contradict that take, since it’s been some time since I read about this but yeah. ANH absolutely does sow seeds for possible Luke/Leia development and GL was still married while working on that film. Subsequently he was dead set against Luke ever having a relationship and decided Jedi could not marry. Coincidence?

There’s a lot of blinking red ‘issues with women’ warning signs all over Lucas’s work, but the prequels are really... egregious.

#sw #salt #more unhinged rambling #anyway dowload the despecialised editions #unsubscribe from Disney+ #be free #usually we'd be having a big family thing for Boxing Day but you know #so God bless us all at home separately #I hope everyone had as happy a Christmas as possible in keeping with the situation #I should see if I can drag my brother outside to build a snowman

[met-4n0i4]

I want to preface this by saying, yes, I do know that this all happened a very long time ago, but everything about these bands we love happened a long time ago. I also don’t want to be pinning things directly on a certain person because I don’t to come off as an asshole because I am not an asshole I just hate some things and I am going to address them here. One last thing: I am not writing this for people to comment on it and reblog it to start drama with me or another person. Again, this all happened a long time ago. I am merely expressing opinions here and, as a very important person in my life has said, I should feel comfortable to post my opinions on my own blog without fear of people absolutely dragging me for it. 

Sort of a warning here, there will be explicit language and I will have screenshots of racial and homophobic slurs and I will be putting a warning before those screenshots appear. 

Okay, to begin, I will come forth saying I do not like Guns N Roses as a band mainly because their music isn’t necessarily my cup of tea. I am not here to judge people on their music taste because that’s fucked up. While the only reason I don’t like the band is their music, the people in the band are a different story. 

No I am not talking about Slash or Duff or fucking Izzy or anyone like that. I am talking about Axl. Now, I know what you may be thinking: “Axl is sensitive, yeah, we know this.” Well, that isn’t all. There are some very fucked up shit that is going on with that dude and, like I said, I’m not trying to pin anything on one certain person because there are about four-hundred sides to every single story and those sides are all told by different people at different stand-points on one situation, but honestly, something does need to be said. 

First and foremost, why not go ahead and get some of the borderline-racist things out of the way. 

We can start off a little small, what with some song lyrics. 

I think this is the only song, but go take a quick listen to One In A Million on their acoustic record. Sounds a little normal until you get to the second part of the first verse.

Now, let me say again that I know this was the late 80s but the fact that he had been questioned on this before and just played it off is what pisses me off. 

In an interview in 1989 with Rolling Stone, he had this to say: 

“I used words like police and n*****s because you’re not allowed to use the word ‘n****r.’ Why can black people go up to each other and say...but when a white guy does it, all of a sudden it’s a big putdown?” He went on to explain that he doesn’t like boundaries of ‘any kind’ and he doesn’t like being told what he can and cannot say. “I used the word...because its a word to describe somebody that is basically a pain in your life, a problem. The word...doesn’t necessarily mean black.” I don’t know about any of you guys reading this, but I have never heard of anyone refer to a person in their life who is causing disturbances and being a problem as that racial slur. And even then, why is he, a white, straight male out here trying to explain the meaning of a slur that derived from slave times used against slaves. White people aren’t allowed to say it because it wasn’t our word to suffer through, fuckface. He then said something about a song by John Lennon with the word in the title about women, using that as an example that it doesn’t mean black. “There’s a rap group, N.W.A.-N*****s With Attitude. I mean, they’re proud of that word. More power to them. Guns n’ Roses ain’t bad...N.W.A. is baaaad!” Axl then goes on to state that Mr. Goldthwait left the lyrics on the record to sell albums because it would cause controversy. Way to go. Blame someone else for the lyrics YOU wrote. 

Not only did all that occur, but when Guns n’ Roses and Living Colour were supporting The Rolling Stones, Vernon Reid commented on the song during their set and Axl heard it, suggesting that they play the song just to make Living Colour angry. 

In 1992 he went on to comment on the lyrics again, claiming that he was trying to do it for a select group of ‘black people’ who had tried to rob him. 

The thing is, you can’t say a racial slur about an entire race of people for a select few people, otherwise it looks and sounds like you are commenting on the whole race. Not too cool. I don’t believe that claim for a second. 

And that isn’t all the shitty things in that song!

This is said later in the song and holy shit. 

First of all, the word ‘faggot’ is the same to us in the LGBTQ+ community as racial slurs are to people of color. 

He spoke on this topic, saying he was “pro-heterosexual’ and that he isn’t ‘against them doing what they want to do as long as its not hurting anybody else and they’re not forcing it upon me.’ He then recounted a time when a man let him sleep on a hotel room floor then tried to rape Axl. I am not going to sit here and say that that didn’t happen because, as a survivor, I know how it feels to be silenced or to have people not believe you but first of all, what the fuck does pro-heterosexual mean? Second of all, I think we can all agree that he has hurt a lot more people with his word choices in the song. And lastly, I know some people can be pushy but how do you think women feel when confronted by a very persistent man. Coming from someone who has stated that you find it ‘very hard’ to be in a committed, one-on-one relationship if the other person wont let you ‘be with other people’ you should understand just how some women feel about men. And then using Freddie Mercury and Elton John, his supposed ‘idols’ as the only reason he isn’t blatantly homophobic doesn’t really help matters.

But on to the more important part of that verse, the immigrant part. 

How dare you say that immigrants and refugees coming to the land of fucking hypocrites is almost a negative thing. I mean, he says it as if they just waltz right over here without any trouble at all and fucking sit on their asses and do nothing. Then saying that they try to start a ‘mini-Iran’ (more than likely a punch in the form of islamophobia) and spread diseases is just fucking stupid. Not all immigrants are from the middle east. He is an immigrant. I am an immigrant. Anyone who is not native in America is an immigrant and a lot of the immigrants of today including him, rag on the immigrants coming over now. That is your heritage, dude. 

Then just talking about their languages. Like, what the fuck? English isn’t universal you vile swine. 

Ugh, okay now the finale to this whole song bullshit. 

Here. Racists? I am not blatantly trying to call him racist, that isn’t my intention, but I don’t think using the words he has used in this song makes him a particularly good candidate to call out said racists. And then feeling the need to say that he is white? We know. You’re skin is literally fluorescent (mine is too I am just bullying him at this point), there is no need to remind us. 

ANYWAY, I think we can move on from One In A Million with the knowledge that that song is fucking stupid and while there is a fake news clipping on the cover of the album with the header being the name of the song stating that it is a straight to the point song and he apologizes to anyone who takes offense, that just isn’t enough because it is practically hiding in the rest of the newspaper clippings covering the album.

Moving on to just overall band shit, what happened to Steven when he attempted suicide and needed help with addiction? He got kicked. Like I said, I am NOT going to be biased in this so I am going to also bring up the Dave Mustaine and Metallica mishap. While Dave didn’t try to commit, he was struggling with an addiction and some violence problems and they just said ‘fuck you, man, you’re done.’ Let me say again that I know this was back in the day and things like that weren’t as widely accepted as they are now but man, Steven and Dave needed their brothers and they said nah and kicked them out of their little family.

Not only did Guns do that to Steven, but ask Izzy Stradlin why he left. He was sick of Axl being a fucking dick and the band taking percentages of his royalties. Not only that, but he never got proper credit for his admittedly banging music. 

Izzy is a wonderful musician and it was a shame that he wasted that on a band who didn’t respect just how good he was. 

Axl has also called Duff 'spineless’ before when slamming Velvet Revolver, also calling Scott Weiland a ‘fraud.’ 

But that is just isolated incidents within his band. 

Why not move on to other bands. 

Let’s start with Nirvana.

Kurt said it best in 1991 in my opinion, talking about how Nirvana actually had shit to say, commenting on the rebellion they wanted to incorporate in their music. He said “Rebellion is standing up to people like Guns n’ Roses.” 

True. Very very true. 

Then in 1992, Axl tried every way in the world to get Nirvana to tour with Guns, obviously either not listening or not caring when Kurt shit on their music as not having anything to say. 

This was for the tour they had with Metallica and trust me, we will get into Metallica in a little bit. 

But Dave Grohll recalled one time that Kurt was complaining about this, saying that Axl wouldn’t stop calling him. 

Then later in 1992, Axl had a meltdown on stage after having enough of Kurt’s comments and his band’s style, giving into the rumors that Frances Bean had been born with birth defects, stating just what ‘alternative’ meant to him.

“...the only thing that means to me is someone like Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, who is basically just a fuckin’ junkie with a junkie wife. And if the baby’s born deformed, I think they both oughta go to prison — that’s my feeling.” I just don’t understand how you PUBLICLY say things like that about someone. 

In September of 1992, at the VMAs, Axl was walking backstage with his girlfriend and when they passed Courtney and Kurt who were holding Frances, Courtney mocked him, asking if he wanted to be the godfather to their daughter. 

Axl apparently hated that, shouting a quick “You shut your bitch up, or I’m taking you down to the pavement!” to which Kurt mockingly sent a “Shut up, bitch!” over to Courtney. 

This resulted in Duff and Krist going for each other.

The last words were said by Kurt, though, stating that Axl was “a fucking sexist and a racist and a homophobe, and you can’t be on his side and be on our side. I’m sorry that I have to divide this up like this, but it’s something you can’t ignore. And besides they can’t write good music.”

Wrapping that up, Axl never even thought to reach out after Kurt’s death to apologize or send condolences either, even after Duff apologized to Krist and Matt Sorum called Dave to send his condolences. 

Moving onto Metallica, it is a shitstorm. Again, I will not be biased on this just because I love Metallica because they did some fucked up shit too and that will not go unnoticed. 

I mean, for starters, I think it would be fair to begin this with the Montreal show in ‘92. 

What happened during the Metallica set was tragic at best, but what happened after was fucking stupid. Quitting a whole show after barely starting it because your voice was feeling subpar. Not only did the fans have to deal with their Metallica set being cut short, they also had to deal with Guns throwing a hissy fit over Axl’s throat and the sound system not being good enough so they just left, leaving the arena in a mess without them even caring. 

During Metallica’s video recording A Year And A Half In The Life Of Metallica, James totally shit on Axl for his list of crazy commands on tour. 

I will say, even if it was in a joking manner, he should have known that you can’t be that picky over something Axl Rose is doing. He will never forget it. 

After that was released and Axl saw that James was saying things like how Axl had to have his steak cubed so it could “fit down his skinny neck” and making fun of the way he sings, Axl went on to call James a racist for not wanting Ice T and his band Bodycount on the tour which, I think Axl has said his fair share of racist shit and why would anyone mix genres on a tour like that? 

But it has been said that James did say some not so kosher things relative to the situation and while I wish I could back him up, I refuse to on this topic and there are no excuses for that type of behavior. 

James later went on to jab back at the ‘band’ stating it wasn’t necessarily that, but rather ‘a guy and some other guys.’

But, I have made myself tired with the merciless research and my fingers have gone numb from typing on this keyboard for so long. If you guys make it to the end of this, I really appreciate you . Again, I didn't do this ti start drama I merely wanted to get my opinion out. Thank you for reading. 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_in_a_Million_(Guns_N%27_Roses_song)

https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/18-reasons-why-axl-rose-is-the-biggest-douchebag-in-rock-772295    

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/jun/29/guns-n-roses-drummer-steven-adler-hospitalized-aft/#:~:text=Former%20Guns%20N'%20Roses%20band,in%20a%20suspected%20suicide%20attempt.&text=He%20was%20kicked%20out%20of,suicide%20during%20his%20darkest%20hours.

https://www.iheart.com/content/2018-05-29-izzy-stradlin-finally-addresses-absence-from-guns-n-roses-reunion/#:~:text=Adler%20performed%20portions%20of%20the,cut%20his%20percentage%20of%20royalties.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/guns-n-roses-vs-nirvana-a-beef-history-166180/

#metallica #guns n roses #axl rose #slash #duff mckagan #izzy stradlin #steven adler #james hetfield #kirk hammett #lars ulrich #jason newsted

[darkgeminisworld]

This is gonna be a rant about a probably toxic friend so if you don't wanna read it, this is a heads up.

Okay so for several reasons, most of them being that I need to move on, I decided to write this lengthy rant about a friend I'm pretty sure will not be a friend of mine for much longer, which sucks bc he's almost my only irl friend but also feels good bc he's exhausting and I'm pretty sure he's also toxic.

I've met this guy like 6 and a half years ago, and we pretty much bonded over shared interests pretty fast. The first thing that bothered me was that he'd always be late, which would be absolutely fine if he'd been honest about it. But writing that it's five minutes until he's there and then showing up 30 minutes after that, or writing "I'm on your doorstep" and taking another ten minutes to show up, almost every single time, isn't, especially since I strained to be on time the first months (meaning I'd be too early bc my brain only does too early or too late, nothing in between). And his being late wasn't just 20 or 30 minutes, several times he was over an hour late. Oh, and once when we had agreed to meet he legit wasn't home and I waited around 2 hours, which I really should have held a grudge for back then and been way more pissed at him.

The second thing that bothered me was that he was way too nosy. He'd ask if I'm free to meet and play video games or whatever and whenever I said no he'd ask what I'm doing and if I can't manage my time another way to make time for him. And the thing is, not only did I not ask several times after he told me that he's busy that day, but I actively told him, several times over the course of about the last two years, that it bothers me and asked him to tone it down. My problem here is only that he didn't stop after I asked him to, bc before I told him and asked him, how was he supposed to know.

Coming out to him went well, though he did ask me whether I'm into him, which... No. Obviously it could've gone a lot worse, but still.

The next is more a small annoyance, a small itch, although it might have been a warning sign. He couldn't handle defeat very well. In most video games he was better, but he low-key aggressively denied it when I pointed out the win-lose ratio in my all-time favourite video game series and he'd try to cheat at other games. If it was only about him being competitive I'd understand, but that doesn't mean trying to rewrite the past by blatantly lying about it and ridiculing me for pointing out that that's bullshit, especially since it's only games, played for the fun of it.

We also went to the cinema sometimes, though if it had been up to him it'd have been way more often and that's another point where he really didn't let it go after getting a no. Whether he wanted to watch a horror movie after being told, several times, that I really don't like horror movies, or just the general question of whether we'd be going to the cinema, he'd ask again and ask what I'm doing, why did I not want to go, would another time be good, couldn't I ask my parents for money (which, to be fair, I could have. But I preferred not to bc back then it was really stressful bc we had to move and renovate and I just didn't wanna add more frustration if that makes sense? Plus I wanted to get my hands on some things, which required to save up) etc. Almost every time we did end up going, it was he who initiated it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I wanted to see some of the movies just as badly as he did, but... And if he can't even accept "no" from a friend of several years (also a 100% guy friend as far as he is aware bc I didn't start to address gender issues with him), I'm worried about other contexts with that word. Also we did some kind of text role play (just texting back and forth with OCs inserted into several fantasy works like the Inheritance Cycle, who would parttake in the storyline, no set rulebook or anything) and his characters did some questionable and even outright deplorable things and when I wanted his character to suffer consequences, he always wanted him to get away with it. Like, his idea for one of his characters "pranking" mine in reaction to a prank which in itself was a retaliation to his character's pranks was kidnapping and waterboarding my character. And he kept defending it as a prank and demanded that my character should just forgive his character, like... It really made (and continues to make) me wonder and worry just how much of his darker thoughts I don't know about. And I don't know how accurate it is but I once saw a post with a quote that went along the lines of "man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." (btw I couldn't think of a satisfactory way to phrase it so I ended up looking up the quote and apparently it's from Oscar Wilde)

So I spent a fair amount of time arguing with him over that and trying to explain to the best of my ability why it was wrong, and for some time it went better.

Fast forward a few months to the blm protests or more specifically news coverage of it and info I sent him. He defended cops and blamed the protestors and even justified the atrocities of the cops, so that was the first instance where we had a huge fight. I practically drowned him in links and videos etc and some weeks into that I thought I'd managed to get through to him (Spoiler: I didn't really get through to him) so I kept it in mind but continued to have contact with him and everything (bc at the time I didn't know that I didn't really get through as much as I thought).

From there on it pretty much went downhill. We had been thinking about doing a trip to London for a few days (his idea but at the time I really wanted to go, it was around 2 years ago when I still practically worshipped that one author, she who must not be named) and to this very day he's not letting it go completely. Even though the pandemic puts lots of obstacles in the way and I have more important things to worry about, namely final exams and applications. Even though London is expensive as shit and I still have no way to earn money atm. And about the vacation, I finally canceled last summer (and gave the aforementioned reasons) and he completely lost his shit and got super aggressive, insulted me and tried to guilt-trip me into taking that back and agreeing to still go on that vacation with him. Then we got into another fight where he wanted me to cancel the vacation with my grandparents, which was already planned and booked and everything in order to make time for the vacation I'd already said I don't want to go on with him anymore and aggressively demanded (he didn't ask, he sent a demand and bombarded me with exclamation marks) to know when exactly I'd be going on vacation with them. Then he went offline after I refused and ignored the next few messages I sent him and only replied when I asked "what I'd I reconsidered my stance on the trip?". I mean, baiting him with that definitely was shitty of me, but the result showed that that was basically what he wanted, pressure me into still going on that vacation. That specific conflict had been going on for weeks, bc despite me telling him that it's counterproductive and detrimental to my mental health to increase the pressure and therefore my anxiety about getting a job to pay for the trip, he kept pressuring me while acknowledging that he's giving me lots of pressure and anxiety and even using that against me.

He also didn't acknowledge that most times we try to meet, he goes offline for hours before replying and disappearing again. That would be absolutely fine if he didn't accuse me of doing that, which btw is his standard technique and it took me a long time to realize that. He always tries to shift the blame to make me look like the one at fault, and he always, always demands that I apologize when we had a fight via WhatsApp.

And when I started enforcing my boundaries and telling him to stop asking again and again why I can't meet, what I'm doing, or demanding other explanations, he started to attack me for the kind of language I use, so when I'm ever so slightly sarcastic he immediately latches onto that and creates a new conflict.

But this still isn't all, oh no. He's also basically an ecofascist, and is fully okay with sacrificing social justice to save the environment, completely choosing to ignore that the people he's protecting are the ones at fault and that the ppl who contribute the least are the ones experiencing the hardest ecological consequences.

He's said multiple times that he thinks both sides are equally bad, in the context of left and right in general as well as antifascism and fascism and that he doesn't "condone the oppressed defending themselves with any means necessary" bc that, too, would include violence. He's defending the "right to free speech" even when right-wingers say really disgusting shit, he disagrees with prohibiting demonstrations of ppl who think that Corona is a hoax, he has zero empathy for ppl who are affected, who suffer long-term consequences from infections, not even for ppl who die from it (he literally said "people die anyway, that doesn't justify imprisoning everyone else") and somehow still thinks he has the moral high ground.

And the last bit he did was explaining to me, from his endocisallohet white guy perspective, how I'm "not discriminated against" bc gay ppl in my country can get married (only since 2017 btw) and when I, despite the fact that I shouldn't have had to and that it was a real blow to my mental health, wrote him a message that was almost the length of an essay, he calmly started to question my replies with the detachedness of someone who's discussing whether pineapple belongs on pizza and demanding further explanation. To top it off, he said that marginalized ppl have to always reply to everyone calmly and politely, no matter if it was offensive bc the person asking might be unaware of that. Otherwise, he said, everyone would be right to stop listening to us. Like, he literally said that we don't deserve human rights if we're not licking the boots of our oppressors if that way of thinking is followed through to the end.

I almost forgot, he also thinks that white ppl should have a say in whether something is a racist slur, or whether something is racist in general (we're both white, but at least I'm trying my best to unlearn what my upbringing taught me instead of being the cliché of the white person who goes "how dare you call me racist, I've never been more insulted in my whole life!", which is basically his reaction)

So up until this last fight, I conceded some ground to him to end the fights and keep him as a "friend" not only bc I feel horrible when I imagine losing one of my only irl friends but also bc I was hoping I could get through to him and educate him, to the best of my ability, on how to be a good ally to marginalized people. But the disregard with which he treats my explanations why the way he talked (wrote) about marginalized people is absolutely not okay and the fact that he just told me that he genuinely doesn't see how he did anything wrong even after I explained it to him in detail is just too much to bear at this point.

Oh, and while looking through the chat to prove him a liar I found that apparently, to him a promise is a promise, no matter whether it was given under pressure or voluntarily, so do with that what you will.

#toxic friendship? #rant

[haninging-blog]

teaching in korea: step 1

1. pre-applying

before filling out the application or asking some references to write a letter of recommendation, you need to think about yourself for a little bit.

there are a lot of people (and i mean A LOT) coming to teach in south korea for the “wrong” reasons. here are some questions to ask yourself that you really need to answer. i urge you to be honest to yourself -- blatantly, unbiasedly honest.

do you like teaching?

why do you want to come to south korea?

how long do you plan on staying in south korea?

where do you want to live in south korea and why?

do you have the money to do this?

do you like teaching?

EPIK stands for “english program in korea”, meaning that you will be, obviously, teaching in south korea. it may seem redundant to point this out, but there are many cases of people rejecting a job offer because they weren’t placed in their preferred location (mostly seoul), leaving during orientation because it finally hit them that this is a job and not paid vacation, and people even dip out in the middle of the night within the first couple of months of working without even saying anything to their school or to EPIK.

to avoid being in any of those situations, you need to think about if you actually like teaching. if the answer is “yes” then move onto the next question. if the answer is “no”, let’s talk about it.

do you have teaching and/or tutoring experience and genuinely hate it? then do not apply to EPIK, because teaching is all you’re going to do. do you not have teaching and/or tutoring experience and you do not know if you would like or hate it? then think of situations where you’ve have to teach someone something (how to cook, dance, etc.) and assess whether you enjoyed do it or not. if the answer is no, then you probably won’t enjoy being an english teacher. if the answer is yes, then why not try it out?

why do you want to come to south korea?

there could be a range of answers, anywhere from something simple (you like k-pop) to something some complex (you are a south korean adoptee and wish to learn about the place you came from). in orientation, or even in kakaotalk group chats, you’ll learn that the reason for people picking south korea over any other country is really diverse… and you’ll also notice that some people want to come to south korea for some odd reasons.

story time 1. there is someone who is a current EPIK teacher who lives in the southern part of the country and travels to seoul practically every weekend just to sit in a cafe near an entertainment agency and wait for their idol to pass by. through her actions and the way she talks about korean celebrities (and her lack of enthusiasm in regards to teaching), i think it’s safe to assume the only reason she came to south korea was to stalk her favorite celebrities. do you think wanting to stalk celebrities is an ok reason to live and work in south korea? i pray that you answered no.

story time 2. there is someone who is a current EPIK teacher who is absolutely obsessed with japan and has stated repeatedly in separate occasions that japan is better than south korea, that south korea stole a lot of food, culture, and other items from japan, and has said that the only reason that they applied to EPIK was because the JET program is harder to get into and korea is close to japan so they can travel there whenever they want. they also want to use japan as a topic for lesson plans. now, there is nothing wrong with having a preference, but if you know the history between korea and japan, then you know why these statements are absolutely absurd and blatantly offensive. do you think it is alright to be completely ignorant of korea’s history and unabashedly promote japan (a brutal colonizer of korea) in lesson plans and in everyday life? i hope you answered no.

in my opinion, it doesn’t matter if the reason you want to live and work in south korea is “shallow” at first (hell, my initial reason was because i think the language is pretty and the food is amazing). but, i do think you should do research on the country and figure out more things than just something as basic as “food” (and probably in most people’s cases, the music). i also think that if your reason is harmful or offensive (reference the stories above), then please do not come to korea. the next few questions are less serious, so let’s get into them.

how long do you plan on staying in south korea?

this question won’t make or break you, but it’s great to plan ahead for multiple reasons. if you only want to stay in south korea for a year or two, your preparations are going to be a lot different than someone planning on staying for five years (we’ll get into how to prepare in later guides). whoever interviews you will more than likely ask you this question, too, so it’s good to have an answer. know what you want out of the experience, or at least what you hope to learn and how you hope to grow.

where do you want to live in south korea and why?

from my experience, around 70% of applicants want to live in seoul and put seoul down for their preference. however, seoul is just one city in korea; there are plenty more with a lot of culture and things to do. do some research on different cities and different districts, find things to fall in love about different places and locations. now, i’m not telling you to not try for seoul, but i also want to warn you that not that many people get their preference (and, as stated at the beginning of this gude, some people even reject a job offer from EPIK because they didn’t get seoul). if it’s either seoul or nothing for you, perhaps go back to the question “why do you want to come to south korea?” and think about it again.

do you have the money to do this?

this entire process is not only stressful, but it is also expensive. applying to EPIK is free, but gathering all of your documents, doing your TEFL (if you don have a teaching degree), applying for your visa, getting a plane ticket, phone plans, packing, moving, exchanging money to have korean cash on you, the medical exam at orientation, storing your things you are leaving in your home country, buying things for your korean apartment... it all costs money. i recommend having AT LEAST 3,000usd to work with -- you could need more or less, it depends on your situation, but this is what i had to work with. i’ll make a whole other post about money and the expenses of the application process later, but you should know now what you’re getting yourself into. 

now that you’ve thought about your intentions, let’s talk about starting your application.

there are two ways to go about the application process: directly through EPIK or with a recruiter. there are pros and cons to both, but it’s really up to whatever you think would work best for you.

going directly through EPIK

pros:  - your application typically gets processed faster (in regards to the actual application, interview, documents, and placement) - you actually get to meet your EPIK coordinator

cons:  - if you have any random questions (before you get a coordinator), you’re on your own - if you are the kind of person that needs someone to guide them and hold their hand (before you get a coordinator), you’re on your own

going through a recruiter

pros:  - they can help you on your application, a practice interview + tips, and double check your documents - some have pre-orientation orientations where you can get sim cards and open up a bank account - if you don’t get a job with EPIK, some will help you get a different job in korea (still primarily teaching-focused)

cons:  - a recruiter is a middleman to the middleman, so things will progress slower (EPIK is the middleman between you and DOE/NIIED (department of education / national institute for international education development))

there may be more pros and cons depending on your circumstances and your own personal needs (as well as pros and cons between different recruiters), so i urge you to do your own research. i went direct and had no problems at all (and actually prefered going direct), but i have had friends say that they really liked going through their recruiter and wouldn't have done it any other way! there are arguments for both ways, it is just up to what will work for you.  

here is a list of some recruiters and links to their websites: 

Korvia https://www.korvia.com/

Korean Horizons https://www.koreanhorizons.com/

Reach to Teach https://www.reachtoteachrecruiting.com/

CIEE https://www.ciee.org/

TEFLUK https://www.tefluk.com/

Greenheart https://greenhearttravel.org/program/adult/teach/teach-in-south-korea

Canadian Connections https://www.canconx.com/

Gold Key Education http://www.goldkeyeducation.com/GKE/WelcomePage.html

please remember that you are your own person and can do whatever you want; don’t let some stranger on the internet (aka me) tell you how to live your life. the purpose of this guide is simply to help you make an informed decision on whether or not to apply to the EPIK program. the entire process is long, stressful, and can wear you down. if your heart isn’t in it, then it isn’t worth going through the trouble of applying and dropping loads of money on something you don’t even really want to do.

#epik #english program in korea #teaching in korea #expat #korea #south korea #living abroad

[icyxmischief]

Ok, this has been bothering me for a while and I really like your meta so I was wondering what your thoughts on this might be. Sorry if this ends up being super long.

First off, I want to point out that I’m not a Loki apologist insofar as I think that his actions can be justified or excused, but I do think that they can be understood in their context.

Ok, so the people who excoriate Loki for his behavior specifically relating to the Frost Giants and his invasion of New York really irk me, and it took me a long time to be able to pinpoint why. And I think it’s this- they’re judging Loki by human standards. And that makes no sense because he is many things, but human is not one of them.

I’ll start with the Frost Giants, and I’ll preface this with the fact that genocide is horrific (and that’s an understatement). And while it does not come close to justifying his actions, it is important to remember that the Aesir stopped the attempted Jotun genocide of multiple realms and peoples including Asgard/the Aesir and Midgard/humanity. (Obviously the Jotuns had more success on Midgard than Asgard itself.) And I do mean genocide here rather than just conquering because terraforming various realms into frozen wastelands (as they were trying to do with the Casket of Ancient Winters) would kill both humanity (who are incapable of travelling to a different realm) and the Aesir (unless they, in turn, conquer another realm and even then that would suppose that the Jotuns stopped their terraforming with Midgard and Asgard). The resulting lack of agriculture and the collapse of every ecosystem would wipe basically everything out. This establishes the Jotuns as genocidally minded themselves.

Again, this doesn’t justify Loki’s behavior, but it does explain why the Aesir are raised to hate or at least look very suspiciously upon the Frost Giants.

Now consider that the Jotuns have indicated that, given the opportunity, they are ready and willing to reignite conflict. They not only try to steal the casket, but Laufey attempts to murder Odin when he’s in such a position that he cannot possibly defend himself. (The fight between the Jotuns and Thor, Loki, and the Warriors Three is a different situation altogether. That’s more of a bar brawl than anything else.)

Yes, Loki provided those opportunities to the Jotuns. You cannot overlook his involvement in this; however, the Jotuns clearly indicated that they are not past their desire to use the casket to regain political and military power and neither are they above taking revenge on the Aesir for stopping their own genocidal campaign.

Consider the ramifications of both stealing the casket and murdering Odin; had they been successful the Jotuns would have thrown both Asgard itself and the political/military situation of Asgard and the realms it ruled or protected into chaos. The Jotuns are not innocent victims in this situation either historically or *even at the time Thor takes place*. In fact, they are enemy combatants at the time of Thor’s coronation and thereafter.

Once more for the people in the back- this does not justify Loki’s attempt to literally destroy Jotunheim and the entirety of the Jotun population.

It does raise a serious question, though. Loki is not stupid or one to really be controlled by his emotions (influenced by, yes; controlled, no). So why with his extensive training in both politics and military affairs would he think that attempted genocide would be acceptable and even celebrated?

Odin did not, as far as we know, commit genocide himself at any point. I suspect that Odin did not destroy Jotunheim and the Frost Giants because they were clearly defeated and with the casket confiscated they presented no substantial threat. Wiping them out would be a serious breach of ethics and violate the warrior code of Asgard. Where is the honor in destroying a weak, already defeated enemy?

This is why it was important for Loki to goad the Jotuns into reigniting the war. It restores honor to the fighting because to the rest of Asgard it appears as though they have been attacked and it was unprovoked. This reopens the acceptability of open conflict between the two realms and peoples.

Now, this is where things get sticky.

Genocide is acceptable under certain circumstances within the MCU’s Aesir culture.

This is established in The Dark World. Bor did not completely wipe out the Dark Elves, but he thought he had. This destruction is lauded in Asgard. Bor, hailed as a great king, stopped the Dark Elves from destroying creation and in so doing ostensibly wiped them out completely. Not “left the non-combatants alive on Alfheim”- the attack on Asgard after the Aether reappears is the first indication the Aesir have that there are any Dark Elves left. This indicates that there are times when genocide carried out against military enemies is acceptable to these people.

Which means there is cultural and military precedent for Loki’s behavior.

Now, again, consider that the Jotuns have in the past behaved genocidally and have indicated that they are willing to head down that path again by trying to steal the casket and murder Odin. They have aggressed against the Aesir reopening the war. Admittedly it had not progressed far, but conflict was reestablished.

Again, this doesn’t justify Loki’s attempt at genocide. Genocide should not be acceptable under any circumstances as far as humanity is concerned (I won’t get into the politics of whether or not it actually is because I don’t have time to write a dissertation, but I will say that people’s “outrage” about the Khmer Rouge, Mao’s revolution, Stalin’s starvation of the Ukrainians, the continued situation in South Sudan, the Hutus and Tutsis, the Ottomans/Turkey and the Armenians, and recent resurgence of white supremacy in the US indicate that people, broadly, don’t actually care a whole hell of a lot about genocide in practice and reality).

But it does show that Loki’s behavior *was not out of the norm* within Asgardian society and there was *established precedent* for him doing it.

Now, as far as the invasion of New York goes, let me first say that as a human myself, I don’t like it. He killed hundreds, if not thousands of people that day and doomed thousands more to die of illnesses related to the attack in the following years.

But, again, putting his actions into context indicates that his invasion with the Chitauri is not problematic in as much as it targeted humanity. Midgardians are less than in Aesir society. This is clear in Loki’s commentary at the beginning of The Dark World. Hell, he blatantly says he thinks he’s better than us in Avengers. And it’s clear in Odin’s commentary about Jane being equivalent to a goat that he holds no love of humanity. It’s even clear in Thor’s protection of the realm; that in itself is patronizing. Midgard isn’t capable of sufficiently protecting itself, so he swears that he will step up and do it. It’s not that Thor is ill intentioned in doing so, but that he feels the need to do it fairly clearly indicates that the Aesir as a whole consider Midgardians to be lesser beings.

So it’s not that Loki’s attack on New York was a problem because it killed people. After all, as Loki says to Thor, ‘the humans slaughter themselves in droves, while you idly fret.’ Humans are murdering each other all the time and Thor makes no move to stop it. It’s not the human deaths that are a problem.

The issue here is that Loki’s behavior violates two things: the honor code of not attacking a weak/defeated enemy incapable of sufficiently defending itself (see above commentary on the defeated Frost Giants and Odin and Thor’s drive to protect humanity where it cannot protect itself) and the precedent established by both Odin and Thor to protect Midgard.

Allow me to digress for a moment here and expand on an issue with Odin before I get to my ultimate point.

Loki’s attempt at genocide and his invasion of New York are why he gets punished. But it’s not because he tried to kill the Jotuns and it’s not because he killed people. Loki (in Norse mythology) is a master as putting the other gods in their place and reminding them they are not infallible. And, beautifully, he is in the MCU, too. And *that’s* why Odin punishes him.

Loki showed Odin that he was wrong to believe that Thor was ready for the throne. Loki showed Odin that he was wrong to believe that the Frost Giants were no longer a tangible threat. Loki showed Odin *and* Thor they were wrong to believe humanity needed their protection (after all, it was the Council that ultimately actually stopped the invasion by sending the nuke that Tony steered to destroy the Chitauri mother ship).

And so despite the precedent in their culture that says genocide is ok sometimes and despite the fact that Odin also thinks that humans are weak and inferior to the Aesir, Loki had to be punished. But Odin couldn’t say that he was punishing Loki for embarrassing him, which is the only thing he really did wrong as far as the society in which he was raised is concerned.

Now, as far as people judging Loki by human standards go, it’s pretty clear that the reason that they look down on Loki’s behavior is that it violates our own social codes. If you look at sci-fi and fantasy it’s clear that as a species we really believe in human exceptionalism. We’re conceited and think of ourselves as the center of the universe. Again, it was the Council and Tony Stark using a human invention that stopped a massive invasion of technologically superior aliens from conquering Earth. Even in Dr. Strange, it’s a human that outwits an ancient, hugely powerful alien in order in order to control the fate of the planet. Even Peter Quill is half human as he gallivants and ultimately works to save the galaxy. It all centers on Earth and on humans.

As such, we take offense to people thinking of us as inferior.

But I wonder why people don’t often consider the fact that we behave the same way towards other life even here on the planet as the Aesir do with us. With the exception of some vegetarians, vegans, and a few religious and philosophical sects (like Jainism and some Buddhists) we have no qualms about killing animals- that we view as *less than* humans- when it suits our needs. We do it for food, we do it for supplies (like we did/do for whale oil and leather) and we do it for convenience (like when we kill mice or chipmunks or raccoons who get in the trash). We even do it and say it’s for their benefit like when we “thin the herd for its health”.  For the most part, we as a species have no problems disregarding the will and lives of those beings we perceive as being less than us. Why would beings more powerful, intelligent, and technologically advanced than us feel differently?

I suspect that the problem these people have with Loki’s behavior re: the Invasion of New York and the resulting carnage is that it ultimately violates their perception (that is reinforced by society) that humans and humanity are the best. He transgressed by challenging that human maxim.

And I feel that the problem that people have with his attempted genocide, while well founded, is hypocritical. They will hold up his *fictional* attempt at genocide that stems from a place where that genocide would be culturally and militarily acceptable (if distasteful) as horrific while turning a blind eye to *real* and *actual* genocides that have happened and some that are ongoing in and around cultures and societies where it is *not* supposed to be acceptable. They hold his behavior to their theoretical standard of behavior (and not the standard that’s actually allowed in practice).

And none of this takes into consideration the emotional, mental, and physical trauma that Loki experiences across these films which colors his behavior and adds deeper nuance to what he’s doing. Even without that, though, the way he behaves is totally within the realm of acceptable behavior for the society in which he was raised with the exception of challenging and embarrassing Odin, which is what he’s ultimately punished for (and is why his punishment is so very personal).

And that’s the story of how I wrote 2000+ words about the Loki’s behavior in the MCU and fan reaction rather than working on my thesis.

I want to SINCERELY APOLOGIZE for never answering this, because for the past year my life has been very much in transition, but tonight I’m trying to empty my inbox and I found this profoundly elaborate, thoughtful meta in my submissions. 

I haven’t read it fully yet, but when I do I will try to offer comments and feedback. It sounds like you and I have a great number of theories about this character in common already, but I want to read closely for nuance.

For now I am posting it so that people can see the integrity of your work publicized! <3333 

#ooc #meta (not mine) #loki meta (not mine) #submission

[klaineanummel]

flirt

Blaine finds the guy flirting with him hilarious. Cooper does not.

Written for an anonymous prompter over here, who prompted “ Kurt and Blaine going out with their friends, having a good time, maybe someone flirts with one of them and Cooper freaks out because of it :p?” 

As per usual I am terrible at filling prompts the way the person probably wanted them, so this is mainly just the last part, but it was still so fun to write!

I want to make a small announcement, which is that I think this verse is winding down. I have three other fics I’ve written for it that I need to edit and will hopefully publish soon, and one more fic I hope to write, and after that I think it will be complete. So, while I don’t want to say “no more prompts”, I do want to warn that any prompts received from here on out may not be filled. Sorry!!  

Hope you all enjoy <3

Read on AO3 |   Story of My Life masterpost

September 14th, 2024

The Spotlight Diner is buzzing as Blaine walks in. Almost every table is full, and there’s at least a dozen waiters and waitresses running around with plates of food and trays full of drinks.

He catches sight of Cooper sitting in a booth typing something on his phone. Blaine heads his way instantly, slipping into the booth, across from Cooper. Cooper doesn’t raise his eyes from his phone, and so Blaine decides to pick up one of the two menus on the edge of table, even if he already knows what he wants.

Cooper finally finishes up a few seconds later, setting his phone down and looking up at Blaine. “Hey,” he greets, flashing a quick smile. He then glances behind him and asks, “No Kurt?”

Blaine shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says, placing the menu back where he found it. Cooper raises an eyebrow, and Blaine can see the corners of his lips turning up. “Don’t look so happy,” Blaine says, rolling his eyes. “He just had to stay late for work. You know, some people work on Monday’s.”

“Yeah, but those people have the weekend off, so I don’t feel sorry for them,” Cooper snarks back. “Also, I take offense to the assumption that I’m happy that Kurt isn’t here. He’s my best friend.”

“Oh, whatever,” Blaine says. “You’re acting like you haven’t been complaining to me for the past few months about how you and I never get to spend any time together anymore. As if you didn’t completely disappear into a love hole when you and Rachel finally got together.”

“It’s not a crime to miss my brother,” Cooper sing-songs, then raises a hand to the nearest waiter.

Blaine just rolls his eyes, knowing this isn’t a fight he’s going to win. Cooper has been really weird ever since he and Kurt started dating, and while Blaine completely understands, he also wishes that Cooper would hurry up and realize that he and Kurt are in it for the long haul. At least he’s gone from outright hostility to a weird form of passive-aggressiveness. Blaine thinks that’s a good sign.

“Hey, Cooper!” the waiter greets when he reaches the table. “Nice to see you again!” The man reaches his hands up to smooth down his hair, which makes Blaine chuckle. Back when Cooper was the manager here, he was known to be a stickler for hygiene and appearance.

“Hey, Chad,” Cooper replies, sitting up a little straighter. “Things been going good?”

“Can’t complain, can’t complain,” the waiter says. His eyes flick over to Blaine, and his smile turns into a grin. “Hi there,” he greets, voice significantly chirpier. “I’m Chad, your waiter for tonight.”

Blaine nods, trying not to laugh. “I’m Blaine, Cooper’s brother.”

“Right, right, I knew you looked familiar. I’ve totally seen you in here before, haven’t I?”

“Probably,” Blaine replies easily. “My boyfriend and I are really good friends with Sam and Mercedes, so we usually have date night here.”

“Wow, date night at a diner,” Chad’s eyes widen, and his voice dips a little. “Super romantic.”

Blaine just smiles, not sure that he will be able to reply without laughing in this guys’ face, and then says, “Can I get the tuna melt on rye, please? With a Diet Coke on the side?” Thinking for a second, he decides, “Actually, make that two Diet Coke’s and a plate of cheese fries as well.” Kurt’s been texting him all day about what a mess things are at work, and Blaine knows him well enough to know what he’ll be in the mood for when he arrives.

“For sure,” the waiter writes it down quickly. “Excellent choices, by the way. I can tell you have fantastic taste.” He then leans a little closer, and this time it takes all Blaine has not to burst out laughing at his audacity. “Unlike this guy, am I right?” he jabs his thumb at Cooper, as though they’re in on some inside joke. “I bet I can guess what he’s going to order!”

“Yeah, whatever,” Cooper says back. “Just make sure my burger is well done, okay?”

“You got it, boss,” Chad gives Cooper a mock military salute, then winks at Blaine and heads toward the kitchen.

Blaine shakes his head as he goes, finally allowing himself to let out a soft chuckle.

“Sheesh, what was with that guy?” Cooper asks, and Blaine looks up to see him glaring at Chad’s back. “I always knew he wasn’t the subtlest of guys, but jeez.”

“It’s fine, Cooper,” Blaine replies. “I actually thought it was kind of funny.”

“Funny? The way he just blatantly hit on you after you specifically said you had a boyfriend?” Cooper turns back to Blaine, brow furrowed deeply. “It’s just rude.”

“It’s hilarious,” Blaine says, unable to hold back a chuckle. “Come on, you have to admit it’s funny that he thinks any of that ridiculous nonsense will have an effect on my relationship with Kurt.”

“We’ll agree to disagree,” Cooper says, crossing his arms over his chest.

Thankfully, the conversation turns to something a little more pleasant after that. Cooper wants to know everything about the transition from off-Broadway to Broadway, which Blaine finds hilarious since Cooper’s wife has gone through that exact process already. Then, Blaine asks Cooper about his show, which leads into a ridiculously long monologue about how he’s having the time of his life, but it’s really not the same since Rachel left to star in the revival of Wicked.

“Yeah, it must be hard not to see her twenty-four hours a day,” Blaine says, letting the words drip off his tongue slowly.

Cooper rolls his eyes, and says, “You know what, smartass, it is.”

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” comes Kurt’s voice, and Blaine begins to slide further into the booth as he turns up to see his boyfriend. “Things were absolutely nuts today,” he slips in next to Blaine, greeting him with a quick peck on the lips. “Did you order already?”

Blaine nods. “I got you cheese fries.”

“God, I love you,” Kurt replies, pulling Blaine in for a deeper kiss. Blaine lets himself fall into it for a bit, but pulls away when he feels Kurt’s hands on his face and Kurt’s tongue licking at his lips.

“Not here,” he whispers, glancing furtively at Cooper, who has averted his eyes in the most conspicuous way possible.

“Sorry,” Kurt says, wiping over his mouth. “Today was really, really rough.”

“Alright!” a far too eager voice sounds, and Blaine turns to see Chad at their table once again, carrying three glasses. “Two Diet Cokes for the man with incredible taste, and a vanilla milkshake for the man with none.” He doesn’t seem to realize that Kurt is there until he’s literally placing the drinks in front of him. He looks surprised for a second, then says, “You weren’t here before, were you?”

“Ah, no I was not,” Kurt says, glancing over at Blaine questioningly. Blaine just rolls his eyes, so Kurt says. “But I’m assuming one of those Diet Coke’s is for me.”

Chad’s eyes widen, then he looks to Blaine and asks, “Is this the boyfriend?”

Blaine nods, wrapping an arm around Kurt’s waist. “The one and only,” he says, grin threatening to break free.

“Oh, well I really wish you would have told me. I would have spat in his,” he whispers the second part, winking way-too-obviously at Blaine, and Kurt snorts into his hand. “Nothing to be done now!” he flounces away once again, though he does wiggle his fingers in Blaine’s direction as he goes.

As soon as he’s out of sight Kurt bursts out laughing. “Oh, my god!”

“I know,” Blaine says, giggling as well. “Can you believe that guy?”

“Did he really think that would work?” Kurt says between laughs. “Telling you he would have spat in my drink? Oh, waiter-man, just take me now!” He pretends to swoon, and Blaine laughs even harder.

“So inappropriate,” Cooper grumbles, and Blaine just shakes his head.

“Cooper, I told you, it’s fine!”

“And how are you okay with this?” Cooper gestures wildly at Kurt. “You know Chad was in a frat, right?”

“Oh, color me terrified,” Kurt shakes his shoulders in a mock-shiver, then chuckles. “Cooper, it’s fine. It’s funny!”

“I wouldn’t think it was so funny if some muscle-head was flirting so obviously with Rachel.”

“Are you seriously telling me you would feel threatened by that?” Kurt asks, still laughing a little. “Cooper, the guy has zero game.”

“So, so little game,” Blaine shakes his head. “I kind of want to ask him if this technique has ever worked for him before.”

“I kind of want to ask him to leave my little brother alone before I punch his teeth in.”

“Whoa, Cooper!” Kurt says, raising his hands. “Seriously, it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not!” Cooper says. “Blaine is your boyfriend, how are you so cavalier about this?”

“Well, largely because of what I said about the no game, but also because I trust Blaine. And he trusts me. You think this is the first time that someone has flirted with one of us right in front of the other?”

“Oh!” Blaine taps Kurt on the shoulder quickly. “Ten bucks says the next dig is at your age!”

“You’re on,” Kurt reaches out a hand to shake.

“Unbelievable,” Cooper mutters.

“Okay,” and that’s the waiter again. “Cheese fries and a tuna melt for the cutie,” Chad winks at Blaine again, and Blaine can feel Kurt’s hand squeezing his tightly, and can see the way his boyfriend is pressing his lips together. “And for Mr. Boring a cheeseburger well-done with onion rings for the side.” He turns to Kurt once the food has all been handed out, and asks, “Anything for you? We have some fantastic options on our senior’s menu.”

Blaine has to look away, because his eyes are starting to water. Kurt just shakes his head and says, “The cheese fries are for me, but thank you!”

“Blaine, you really need to start telling me what food is for your boyfriend!” Chad says, though Blaine can’t bring himself to look at him.

“So you could spit in it, right?” Kurt asks, sounding far too good-natured.

“You get it,” Chad replies. “Hey, no hard feelings, okay? Your boy is just too cute.”

“Alright, that’s it!” Cooper says, standing up.

“Oh, brother,” Kurt grumbles, and Blaine finally forces himself to turn back to watch.

“Listen, Chad,” the way Cooper sneers his name makes Chad take a step back. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, flirting so obviously with my brother, but he is taken. Like, capital T ‘taken’. He’s been in love with Kurt since he was thirteen years old, so if you really think that coming here and telling Blaine you want to spit in Kurt’s food is going to make him ditch Kurt for you, you have another thing coming.”

“Cooper—”

“No, Kurt, it’s rude, and uncalled for! This is your place of work, what the hell! Did you do this shit while you were working for me? Because I have half a mind to retroactively write you up for inappropriate conduct.”

“Um, hey, man, it’s chill. I was just trying to have a bit of fun,” Chad has his hands raised.

“Well, knock it off. They’re a couple, and that’s not going to change, so just back off.”

Chad nods and then scurries off, leaving a heavily breathing Cooper to fall back into his booth.

Kurt looks utterly horrified at what just happened, and on one level, Blaine is, too, but on the other hand, “Aw, Cooper!” he says, reaching forward and grabbing his brother’s hands. “You just defended our relationship!”

“What?” Cooper looks shocked. “No, I just stood up for you the way that your boyfriend wasn’t doing.”

“No, no,” Blaine grins. “You defended our relationship. You think we’re good together. You want us to stay together.” His eyes light up as he says, “You gave us your blessing!”

Cooper groans and buries his face in his arms. “That is so not what just happened,” he grumbles.

“It so is,” Blaine sing-songs. “Kurt, Cooper approves of our relationship!”

Kurt grins right back and says, “Finally! Does this mean you and I can go back to being best friends, Cooper?”

“Oh, fuck both of you,” Cooper grumbles. “I don’t know why I even bothered.”

They tease Cooper relentlessly as they eat, and by the end of it Cooper seems to have calmed down, and even chimes in on a bit of the teasing. Blaine knows it’s not the actual end of the road, that Cooper probably still has some doubts about Blaine and Kurt being a couple, but this feels like a huge step forward, and he’s going to milk it for everything it is.

When they finish eating, Cooper insists on leaving exact change after the spectacle, but when he isn’t looking, Kurt and Blaine slip a ten-dollar bill into the pile and quickly write, ‘thanks for the entertainment tonight, chad! sorry cooper yelled at you!’ before they leave.

After all, Blaine justifies as they walk out of the restaurant, it was pretty funny.

#klaineanummel fic #klaine fic #klaine au #klaine #fic: soml #over 2k under 10k #age difference #pov: blaine

[peachie-alpaca]

very long post about my experience with therapy and how it affected me, and moving forward from the negative experience

i’ve been going to therapy for almost two years now but i’ve decided to quit it. not quitting therapy in general, but quitting my (now ex) therapist.

because honestly? this therapist didnt have my best interest in mind and it took me a while to realize this.

this is hard for me to talk about but I need to write it out. I wanted to talk about it sooner but I waited until after I actually quit her to since it was so stressful for me to think about. i kept getting anxiety attacks and insecurity about my decision.

but anyway, I really liked this therapist. I really did. she really made me feel understood and I easily got attached to her. even when I would notice little red flags, I ignored them, I kept giving her the benefit of the doubt.

I didn’t quit her because she pushed me to go out of my comfort zone, I certainly did accomplish uncomfortable things and she acknowledged this. 

no, what made me quit her was getting to actually know her ideals that conflict with mine, her making me feel unheard. and, at worst, her hypocrisy. i’ll get to that later.

“wait, didn’t you just say she made you feel understood?” 

at first, yes. after all, she was my first therapist. practically anyone who would simply listen to my deepest fears and thoughts was great in my book, and I had been dreaming about going to a therapist for years. I knew I needed it.

so when I could finally get into an insurance plan that pays for therapy, I wore rose-tinted glasses towards her.

i didn’t care at first that she... hardly took notes.

at most, during some sessions, i would see her quickly scribble something down at the end. well....

whenever I brought up really important things about myself, she wouldn’t delve into them more or ask questions. she would listen, nod, and get the conversation back to the topic of “what goals do you want to accomplish?”

again, this didn’t bother me at the time, “yeah! sorry to bring up irrelevant things, haha!”

it’s one thing to make progress, it’s another to dismiss big things about myself that are very important to me. 

i sort of had a mini epiphany moment when meeting with my psychiatrist for the first time. he asked about my upbringing and i explained it was abusive, then he asked, “are you talking about this with your therapist?” 

i whispered “no”....

it’s not that I haven’t told her, i told her almost first session about my family life. but it didn’t lead to anything more than her saying “okay I see, so that was hard for you” then moving on.

i brought this up with her next session, but that didn’t go anywhere, either... said it’s “off topic for the goals we had”

i had also told her that i came from a religious pentecostal borderline culty home, and that i wanted nothing to do with it now and i’m 1000% atheist. i don’t believe in the god of the bible or any gods for that matter. and i made this very clear to her that it is a trauma of mine. this was a whole process i went through in the past years and came to a head in the beginning of 2019, when i finally accepted myself as bisexual and atheist.

so for her to say to me, when i was sad and anxious about my grandma’s declining health, “I know you said you aren’t a christian anymore, but you’re still a spiritual person and i want to know how that is helping you in coping with your grandmother possibly passing away?”

what?

i felt so shocked that she described me that way, i wanted to cry. “spiritual”? i am hardly the type, even when I was christian. this completely took me aback, and i corrected her shortly afterwards. she apologized and reworded herself but i just... i couldn’t get over it. 

had she not listened to me one bit? I even told her about how i joined a discord server last year specifically for ex-religious people to come together for support.

but i was insecure... i didn’t want to think i had a “bad therapist”

"i guess no therapist has super memory right? who cares if she got a few things wrong...."

i was never afraid to be open and honest when she hurt my feelings. i did feel safe enough to tell her my real thoughts, which i appreciate from her. on multiple occasions when i took things she said the wrong way, i would tell her.

 for example, when she said she was upset when i wasn’t honest with her about a choice (which i later told the truth anyway so...), or when i felt she didn’t take my menstrual pain serious, or when she made me feel like i was making excuses with my depression. 

those conflicts cleared up and i understood she didn’t mean harm, but they stayed at the back of my mind. there are a lot more instances like that where certain things she said lowkey made me skeptical of her, but i’m not trying to write a novel. I wrote them down in my phone notes tho, haha.

it wasn’t all negative, she did help me with skills of thinking outside the box. i could feel that my time with her, i had developed skills that help me not think so negative about the smallest things, relating to my social anxiety. she helped me on how to feel grounded and get some wider perspective of interactions outside myself.

this is why it took me so long to realize she wasn’t good for me, because she wasn’t the cliché obviously terrible therapist. she wasn’t blatantly awful. i question her practices but maybe someone else can benefit from it, idk.

what finally made me quit her for good and realize that she is actually doing more harm than good, was when she wanted to diagnose me with a personality disorder, despite her saying she cannot diagnose me with a personality disorder because i have depression.

when earlier in the year i said i was very concerned that i had a different personality disorder, she just insisted that while yes i have traits, no i didn’t have it, that i’m depressed so she cannot diagnose me with it.

(i’m not going to say which personality disorders since that’s a bit too personal for me to get into, so they’re just 1 and 2.)

i find this extremely unethical and hypocritical.

i questioned her on this and brought it up myself.

“you said you couldn’t diagnose me with 1, even though you yourself admitted i have traits of it, and i identify with it way more than 2, so why can you diagnose me with 2 and not 1? I thought you couldn’t diagnose personality disorders because i have depression?”

she nervously said, “yes, technically i cannot do that, but i strongly feel you have 2 instead of 1. I know this, I know you.”

i did not say anything, and just looked away from her. the air in that room was so unnerving and.... i can’t describe more how i felt.

after that session, to tell you the truth, i avoided her for weeks. i made excuses and told her i needed to reschedule a day or two before each session. i was procrastinating quitting her, also because I needed some paperwork from her before I quit.

but i finally did it, this week. i knew i couldn’t just disappear. besides me not wanting to be billed for missing appointments, i’m not the type that doesn’t give closure. it’s understandable if people do if their therapist did something extremely offensive or illegal, but for some reason i just felt it had to be done in a conclusive way. idk. maybe i didn’t need to do that.

it was short and uncomfortable, i cried. a part of me was a little girl, wanting things to be fixed and that “this is a bad ending! lets just make up and try again! we did that before, why can’t we now?” 

i hushed her in my mind, and said, as a mature adult, “this is for our own good. this has to be done.”

i didn’t get into my huge problem with her about the personality diagnosis, which i regret. I just wanted the session to end as quickly as possible. i mainly told her i felt extremely disrespected and that we just aren’t a good fit for each other. that’s what all the articles about therapy say, right? that you have to be a good fit with your therapist?

i felt so empty afterwards, and this experience honestly leaves me anxious for my next therapist. i feel scared to open up only for them to be something i thought they weren’t...

i want to find a good therapist, i’m just kind of doubtful of it... it was hard enough to find an english speaking therapist. as you might know, i live in germany. even though i’m learning german, i feel more comfortable speaking my native language, which makes sense right?

i’ll keep trying, i won’t lose hope...

#personal

[feministwebcomics]

Galaxia

Link

Grade: F

Slash

Summary: Galaxia's main satellite, V-113, fights for independence by frequently attacking the other planet. Any attempt to destroy Galaxia's tranquillity keeps failing, until the young prince Geron gets involved in a scandal that earns him the exile.

So it’s been a very long time, but sometimes you find a comic that’s so offensive that you can’t NOT talk about it. This comic would be Galaxia, the most ham-fisted transparently obvious rip-off of a more popular comic I have ever seen. I will even admit that it’s written more poorly than the original too, though we all know how I feel about Starfighter.

Nope, nothin’ alike at all. 

ANYWAY, I came across Galaxia on Tapastic, and I expected to find lots of Starfighter fangirls in the comment section, but maybe we’ve moved passed the days of petty comment sections a la Teahouse, because mostly it’s people doing what they do best: offering bland compliments and requests for more. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you’d think at least someone would be like, “Um, hey, so this is so fucking blatantly stolen from Starfighter. Maybe at least avoid the black and white color scheme?” But nah. We are cool with plagiarism if there’s buttsex. 

Not that Starfighter is the most original webcomic ever made but come on— it has artistic themes that are immediately recognizable. If I knew ripping off something popular while contributing absolutely none of your own creativity would grant you 3.6K followers, I shoulda been doing Teahouse parodies from the start.

And everyone who actually works hard on their comic sheds a single tear.

Like all shitty yaois, this one starts out with sex, because sex sells and if you don’t have a plot (it won’t), sex is the best way to get fans. I honestly do not know this character’s name (and I’m not sure the author does either), but he manages to fuck at least twice, so... PRIORITIES!

See? It’s different from Starfighter because he has a star tattoo on his cheek. Totes magotes not Starfighter, ok.

Thanks for the “smooch” action tag. Wouldn’t have picked that up without it.

I don’t know if Council is spelled wrong because our author did not consult spell check or if it’s supposed to be a sci-fi thing, like when people write vampire as “vampyre” or whatever. I’m gonna go with the former.

As an underage what? An underage drawing of absent artistic integrity? Also, if you need to subtitle your comic in order to explain the rules of your universe, you are not telling your story correctly. I especially like how they upped the age of consent to give this comic the FEELING of pedophilia without the CONTENT of the pedophilia. It’s okay, we all know he’s 12 in spirit.

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUUU-UUUN oh girls just wanna have fuuuuuuuuun.

Allow me a moment of self-indulgence because now I feel like this comic is stealing from ME now (I kid; I’m never original, but I try to be subtle about it, lol). Granted, Justin had a much different reaction than *BLUSH BLUSH DESU*

ANYWAY ENOUGH OF THAT

I think we’re supposed to root for the Cai— I mean… whatever this guy’s name is, even though he’s just as much of a sexual harasser as the others. But it’s okay, semes can literally rape someone and people think it’s hot.

This is some SERIOUS anime profile mouth going on. Why is his mouth on his jawline? Ya’ll need to learn how to draw some goddamn lips.

Virgin looks. They’re a thing! Why did no one tell me this? Here I am, showing my virgin face to the world like it’s nothin’, and not a single rapist has licked MY cheek!

I appreciate that this comic is light on stealing the quality of Starfighter’s art but big on stealing Starfighter’s (weak) storyline. Sexual predator asshole main character? CHECK! Spineless scrawny wimp who he is for some reason obsessed with? CHECK! That’s pretty much the whole plot, right?

Another heinous case of anime profile mouth, or as I now shall call it, CheekMouth. Also, I like the doctor showing up out of nowhere to take him somewhere private. I’m sure his intentions are good, as they always are in yaois.

I will never understand these comics that are set waaaaaaay in the future but for some reason the society hasn’t managed how to figure out glass eyes yet. Everyone’s got a goddamn eye patch. Like, people hardly wear eyepatches now. You mean to tell me we’ve got space ships that can traverse the galaxy but no surgery to replace eyes?

Glass eyes don’t exist, but the KKK sure does! Man, we as a society have come far!

The star is gone from his face and I don’t know why. Was it the licking?

Ah yes, look at this obviously-above-the-age-of-19 boy. Definitely doesn’t look 12.

You know what I want in yaoi? Some goddamn sluts. People who know what they want and what they like and actually ask for shit instead of being all ~*~I just don’t know what’s happening to me, what are these FEELINGS~*~. Yaois often come across to me like the internal monologue of a 40-year-old man hitting on teenagers. “Yeah, you don’t like me now, but once I touch your boob you will be so overwhelmed by my sexual prowess!”

Uh, yeah we fucking can.

Part Deux will post in a hot minute!

#grade: F #webcomic review #yaoi #slash #sci-fi #dub-con #rapey seme #useless uke #CheekMouth

[bobledufromage]

Music Speaks

This was based on a prompt from @super-powerful-queen-slayyna. I hope I did okay, I’m so bad at endings, but I hope you enjoy it!

“When words fail, music speaks”

Cas dropped himself onto his sofa with a sigh. It had been a hard day at work, and all he wanted to do now was order takeaway and watch trashy tv with a blanket. 15 minutes later his plan was in motion when he’d hung up the phone; pizza on the way, and the whole new series of RuPaul lined up on Netflix. All that he needed now was his duvet to bury himself under. As he went into his bedroom he heard the soft sounds of music. It was hard to miss really, with the paper thin walls of his apartment block. It wasn’t oppressively loud; just enough that it would blend into the background of his life. No, the volume of the music wasn’t the issue for Cas. It was the song choice. Who in their right mind would listen to that? Then he remembered who’d just moved into the apartment next to his. Dean Winchester. Cas remembered watching him when he was moving in. He was devastatingly handsome, with pretty green eyes and cropped dirty blond hair. Sure, he was obviously good looking, but my god, that didn’t excuse the abomination that assaulted Cas’ ears.

He let out a long-suffering sigh and closed his eyes. He couldn’t exactly go over there and tell Dean his music was awful; that was bad manners. As he deliberated, the next song on Dean’s playlist started. It was even worse than the first one! Cas decided there and then to teach his new neighbour what decent music was. He was only being helpful, right? Wandering back into his small living room, he reached for his iPod and got his favourite playlist up. It was already plugged into his speakers, so he just hit shuffle and cranked the volume. All at once, his music drowned out whatever Dean was listening to, and Cas hoped Dean was paying attention to this free lesson in music. Apparently not. Dean had turned his music up to compete with Cas, which was completely unacceptable. He would have to take drastic action. He looked through his playlist for the perfect song to rival Dean.

It had been a few days since they’d started this whole thing and it was starting to get out of hand. The music had progressed from bad to flirty. It was completely inappropriate, considering the entire complex could hear their ‘battle’. He’d had a few neighbours (people he’d never spoken to before) call by to compliment him on his taste in music, and a few more to tell him his music sucked. It was easy to shrug off the criticisms, especially when he knew for a fact the music he played was infinitely superior to Dean’s. One particularly memorable visit had been from a cheerful redhead asking whether her “ship had sailed yet”. Cas still didn’t understand what that meant but he was sure it wasn’t anything good. He had been kept up to the early hours of the morning with this ridiculous feud, but he couldn’t admit defeat. 

It was all going so well. He and Dean saw each other in the hall between their apartments, exchanging pleasantries and being generally polite, thoughts of their musically inclined conflict kept away from face to face interaction. Cas found that the more time he spent in Dean’s company, however brief, the more he liked him. It was ridiculous how much he looked forward to the nights of playing music just because he thought it gave them a profound bond. He was in danger of approaching stalkerish fangirl territory. Next he’d be writing ‘Mr Castiel Winchester’ in his diary. Not that he kept a diary. No, it was a journal. He was beginning to become obsessed with Dean and it wasn’t at all healthy.

Dean had had enough. He’d been trying to flirt with his cute neighbour Cas all week, by playing increasingly suggestive music in response to the quite frankly, offensive ‘lesson’ Cas was trying to teach him. When he’d heard the beginnings of Cas’ music a week ago, he wasn’t sure how to feel. It was initially annoyance, because how dare his neighbour try and cover up his Zep track? When he’d realised who it was, annoyance quickly gave way to amusement, and then infatuation. He’d grown to really like his blunt, borderline rude neighbour, hence the flirting. It wasn’t going particularly well: either Cas was the most oblivious person to walk this earth, or he wasn’t interested. But why would he continue with the music thing if he wasn’t into Dean? He knew Cas was gay; information he’d gathered from his neighbour Charlie, who was always happy to gossip, especially about her “OTP”, whatever that was. Dean found it best not to ask. 

They’d been going at this thing for almost a week, and Cas had so far given him nothing in the way of moving their arrangement to the next level. He’d asked around, as a new tenant in the complex, trying and failing to seem nonchalant in his fishing about Cas but fortunately for him, his neighbours seemed to be as invested as he was to seeing that they finally got together, proclaiming this to be “way better than any reality tv show”. Dean didn’t know whether to feel flattered or concerned at their almost boundary-crossing interest in his personal life. He needed to get Cas, but he didn’t know how. Every time they crossed each other outside, he always managed to mess up and stutter like an idiot. No wonder Cas hadn’t responded to his not so subtle flirtations. He sighed. This was going to be harder than he thought.

It was Friday, and Charlie was exhausted. Work had been very stressful, and she was tired. Tired of her job, tired of answering to jerks like her boss, and above all tired of listening to her two idiot neighbours skirt around each other and flirt blatantly through bad music instead of just talking to each other. She’d tried a few methods, some more subtle than others, to get them to realise their attraction to each other but it was completely useless. She’d even given Dean all the information she had on Cas in an attempt to give them something to talk about. They were both hopeless, and Charlie didn’t even know why she bothered. She was so fed up, she could only tolerate about 15 minutes of their awful music before she found herself yelling at the top of her lungs through two floors for Dean and Castiel, “would the two of you stop your flirting and just fuck already?!”

Distant applause could be heard from the floors above her, accompanied by laughter from the other residents. The music was turned abruptly off and an embarrassed silence descended on Charlie’s ears. She sighed, giving up all hope that the two of them would ever be happy when she heard it. A muffled sound that sounded distinctly like “fuck it” and then a hard knock on what Charlie assumed to be a door. A beat of silence and then a door definitely slamming. Charlie grinned. Finally.

A few weeks went by, and the residents of Cas’ building were relieved the music had finally stopped. What they weren’t so pleased about was the unmistakable squeaks of a mattress or the thumping of the bed, or even the clear moans for “faster, harder, oh yeah, right there” that they heard on almost a daily basis. Despite this, they couldn’t complain, as they’d wanted this to happen for what felt like months, but had only been a week. Needless to say, Cas was very happy he’d decided to play his music that day, as he and Dean were well on their way to becoming a happy committed couple. He’d sent Charlie a bunch of roses to say thank you and had gotten a mixtape of ‘appropriate songs to keep the bedroom noises private’ (her words) in return. They had used it once, but soon realised that playing obscenely loud heavy death metal really killed the mood. 

Getting together (at long last) hadn’t changed their disputes about music, but that’s the thing when you can distract each other with sex; none of those arguments really mattered anymore.

#writing #destiel fanfic #destiel #based on a prompt #neighbour au #music #music speaks #charlie bradbury #dean winchester #castiel