#that was exactly a year before i started using the internet for things outside of webkinz so thats a blind spot for me hjkfjfds | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

artsekey · 2 months

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I'd been seeing videos on Tiktok and Youtube about how younger Gen Z & Gen Alpha were demonstrating low computer literacy & below benchmark reading & writing skills, but-- like with many things on the internet-- I assumed most of what I read and watched was exaggerated. Hell, even if things were as bad as people were saying, it would be at least ~5 years before I started seeing the problem in higher education.

I was very wrong.

Of the many applications I've read this application season, only %6 percent demonstrated would I would consider a college-level mastery of language & grammar. The students writing these applications have been enrolled in university for at least two years, and have taken all fundamental courses. This means they've had classes dedicated to reading, writing, and literature analysis, and yet!

There are sentences I have to read over and over again to discern intent. Circular arguments that offer no actual substance. Errors in spelling and capitalization that spellcheck should've flagged.

At a glance, it's easy to trace this issue back to two things:

The state of education in the United States is abhorrent. Instructors are not paid enough, so schools-- particularly public schools-- take whatever instructors they can find.

COVID. The two year long gap in education, especially in high school, left many students struggling to keep up.

But I think there's a third culprit-- something I mentioned earlier in this post. A lack of computer literacy.

This subject has been covered extensively by multiple news outlets like the Washington Post and Raconteur, but as someone seeing it firsthand I wanted to add my voice to the rising chorus of concerned educators begging you to pay attention.

As the interface we use to engage with technology becomes more user friendly, the knowledge we need to access our files, photos, programs, & data becomes less and less important. Why do I need to know about directories if I can search my files in Windows (are you searching in Windows? Are you sure? Do you know what that bar you're typing into is part of? Where it's looking)? Maybe you don't have any files on your computer at all-- maybe they're on the cloud through OneDrive, or backed up through Google. Some of you reading this may know exactly where and how your files are stored. Many of you probably don't, and that's okay. For most people, being able to access a file in as short a time as possible is what they prioritize.

The problem is, when you as a consumer are only using a tool, you are intrinsically limited by the functions that tool is advertised to have. Worse yet, when the tool fails or is insufficient for what you need, you have no way of working outside of that tool. You'll need to consult an expert, which is usually expensive.

When you as a consumer understand a tool, your options are limitless. You can break it apart and put it back together in just the way you like, or you can identify what parts of the tool you need and search for more accessible or affordable options that focus more on your specific use-case.

The problem-- and to be clear, I do not blame Gen Z & Gen Alpha for what I'm about to outline-- is that this user-friendly interface has fostered a culture that no longer troubleshoots. If something on the computer doesn't work well, it's the computer's fault. It's UI should be more intuitive, and it it's not operating as expected, it's broken. What I'm seeing more and more of is that if something's broken, students stop there. They believe there's nothing they can do. They don't actively seek out solutions, they don't take to Google, they don't hop on Reddit to ask around; they just... stop. The gap in knowledge between where they stand and where they need to be to begin troubleshooting seems to wide and inaccessible (because the fundamental structure of files/directories is unknown to many) that they don't begin.

This isn't demonstrative of a lack of critical thinking, but without the drive to troubleshoot the number of opportunities to develop those critical thinking skills are greatly diminished. How do you communicate an issue to someone online? How do look for specific information? How do you determine whether that information is specifically helpful to you? If it isn't, what part of it is? This process fosters so many skills that I believe are at least partially linked to the ability to read and write effectively, and for so many of my students it feels like a complete non-starter.

We need basic computer classes back in schools. We need typing classes, we need digital media classes, we need classes that talk about computers outside of learning to code. Students need every opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and the ability to self-reflect & self correct, and in an age of misinformation & portable technology, it's more important now than ever.

#computers #pc #digital #rant #something something planned obsolescence

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luxaofhesperides · 5 months

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For the ghostlights drabbles: “Say my name” with a favor being called in?

Duke had saved Phantom years ago, back when he was just out of high school and working to take down a branch of the government that was kidnapping and experimenting on people, targeting magic users and metas. Phantom had been working on his own to take them down, and they met in the middle, trashing a lab and freeing as many people as they could.

They had managed to shoot his back, knocking him down and making him bleed a glowing green. Phantom couldn’t move, protecting two kids with his body, and Duke couldn’t reach them in time before they were taken away by another swarm of agents.

He was able to go after them in time, free Phantom and the kids, and evacuated the victims before Phantom rained hell down on the facility.

At the end, standing in the background as they watched paramedics treat the victims and take them towards the nearest hospitals, Phantom had turned towards him and thanked him.

Or rather, he thanked the Signal and offered him a bracelet with a rounded orb of ice, glowing faintly in the dark. If you ever need me, he had said, Hold this, and call me name.

Phantom vanished once the last of the victims were transported to a safer location, and Duke hadn’t seen him since.

He’s kept up with news about Phantom as best he can, but from what he could tell, Phantom is based primarily in Amity Park, Illinois, and the town is fiercely protective of their hero. News rarely leaks out of there, and with them running on their own servers and independent internet, it was nearly impossible to get in from the outside.

Phantom remained a curious and distant figure in Duke’s life. He holds onto the bracelet still, guarding it carefully and sometimes running his fingers over the ice that never melts.

But he doesn’t call in that favor. He’s never to.

At least, not until now.

Sucking in a breath, Duke prepares himself and holds the orb of ice in the palm of his hand. He’s in civies, unable to hide his identity for this, and closes his eyes. “Phantom,” he says.

For a moment, nothing happens. Duke blinks his eyes open and frowns, mind already forming new plans to contact Phantom. Then the ice goes bitingly cold, almost painful, and the temperature in the room drops dramatically. The ice lifts up from his hand, floating in the air, then cracks open.

White-blue light spills out of it, growing brighter as it seems to swallow up the room entirely. Duke hurries to back up, an arm thrown up to protect his eyes. His breath mists out before him and he shivers as the sound of ice cracking fills the room.

And then, just as suddenly as it started, the light disappears and the cold fades away like a bad dream.

Slowly, Duke lowers his arm and looks up at Phantom, floating in the middle of his living room with a crown made of ice, engulfed in blue fire, hovers above his head. He looks older, more regal, holding his head high.

He regards Duke carefully for a minute, then tilts his head and says, “Signal?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Man, I’m so glad you came.”

“You… need help with something? You’re calling in your favor now, right?”

Duke nods. He understands Phantom’s confusion; being in the hero business means that favors like these tend to be used only during the most hopeless of times, when the world is close to ending, when the chances of getting out of a situation alive is close to impossible. It’s exactly the kind of thing Duke was expecting to call Phantom in for.

Not the kid sleeping on his couch.

“You’re a ghost, yeah?”

Phantom blinks at him. “Ghost king, now. Why?”

“Well…” Duke rubs the back of his neck, nervously. “I didn’t really know who else to call, and I can’t do this on my own since I’m not a ghost. But this kid got attached to me and won’t leave, so now I’m taking care of her and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“I don’t know why you think I have any experience with kids but—”

“She’s a ghost.”

Phantom stops short. “Ah. I see.” He floats down until his feet touch the floor, and then he’s standing like any other person. “Where…?”

Duke looks past Phantom’s shoulder, and Phantom turns to follow his gaze. Chelsea, the ghost girl, looks to be around nine years old and is fast asleep on the couch, curled up under Duke’s softest blanket.

“Signal,” Phantom says quietly, “What, exactly, is the favor you need from me?”

“You can say no,” Duke starts. “I get that this is a lot. But I need help raising her. And since you’re a ghost, I figured you could help me learn about the ghostly side of things. You don’t have to raise her with me or anything! Just… I would appreciate any help you’re willing to give me.”

Phantom doesn’t say no. He doesn’t say anything. He just stares down at Chelsea, an unreadable expression on his face.

On the couch. Chelsea shifts in her sleep, brows furrowing as she makes a choked noise in the back of her throat.

Moving on autopilot after so many nights of this routine, Duke kneels next to the couch, fishing one of her hands from beneath the blanket. He gives it a few reassuring squeezes, keeping it a slow rhythm to pull her gently from her nightmare. She settles down in just a minute, brow smoothing out as she continues to sleep.

The silence grows and Duke is all too aware that his heart is the only one beating.

He doesn’t hear Phantom move. Doesn’t realize he’s right next to him until he sees Phantom’s hand reach out towards Chelsea. When Duke looks, Phantom is sitting on the floor next to Duke, looking at Chelsea with something soft and devastated in his eyes. His hand hovers about her head for a long moment, then slowly lowers to rest on her head.

The touch looks gently, barely putting any pressure on her head, but it’s enough to make Chelsea’s eyes snap open, suddenly wide awake. She stares at Phantom with wide eyes, then sits up and looks between him and Duke.

“Who are you?” she asks in a small voice that makes Duke want to stand against the world to keep her safe.

Phantom smiles. It’s casual and charming and makes him look like anyone else, as if he’s not a powerful king from a realm unreachable to humans. “Hi there,” he says, “I’m Danny. I’m a ghost like you. Signal called me and asked me to meet you.”

The Ghost King is good with kids. Who would have thought?

Chelsea looks at him for confirmation and only relaxes when he nods. “I’m Chelsea. What do you mean ghost? I’m not dead.”

Both he and Phantom tense, carefully keeping their expressions neutral. She hasn’t told him much at all, just that her parents were gone and forgot her and she got hurt, so she wanted to stay with ‘Mr. Signal’ because he’s a hero and heroes keep people safe and he was the only one who was Black like her. Duke hadn’t had the heart to say no, and began searching for her family, only to find that her parents had fled the state, and likely the country, after killing their only child through neglect and a dangerous environment.

It was then that he realized that her powers were not because she was a meta, but because she was ghost.

It still hurts to realize how young she is, how much of her life had been stolen from her in an instant. Duke hadn’t been brave enough to broach the topic with her, instead choosing to let her grow comfortable in his presence, get them both settled into a routine now that he was her primary guardian.

“I know it sounds scary,” Phantom says, “And you may not want to believe me, but it’s true. I’m sorry that you died so young, but that just means you get to hang out with me and other ghosts from now on!”

Chelsea crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him. “I am not dead,” she says.

“Cici, I’m sorry to say this, but you are,” Duke cuts in. “That’s why I called… Danny. You have new powers as a ghost, and he can help you get used to them.”

“I’m not dead!” she says again.

“Kid,” Phantom begins, but Chelsea shakes her head hard and hops off the couch.

“I’m not lying! Watch, I’ll prove it to you!” She closes her eyes and scrunches up her nose, concentrating. Her hands curl into tight fists by her sides, and the glow around her grows dim. Two faint, stuttering rings of light appear around her waist. They flicker and wobble in the air, as if weak and uncertain of their own existence, then split apart, one moving up towards her head while the other falls to her feet.

Beside him, Phantom sucks in a sharp breath, but Duke can’t turn to see what’s wrong when he’s trying to take in the sight of Chelsea suddenly full of vibrant color, looking more solid that he’s ever seen her, very much alive.

“See?” she says proudly, lifting her arms and doing a spin to show off her right she was. “I told you I’m not dead!”

“No, you’re not,” Phantom agrees, sounding shell-shocked. When Duke is finally able to look away from Chelsea to check on him, he looks awed. There’s the smallest smile on his face, just the slightest upturn of his lips, but it makes him look softer.

Duke turns his attention back to Chelsea before he can be caught staring. “Cici, can you come here for a second?”

She goes before he’s finished speaking, crossing the space between them in a single jump, then grins up at him. Her hair is a bit of a mess, the two buns he managed to get her hair into falling askew. He makes a note to visit the old aunties in the Narrows later to ask them to teach him how to do hair. For now, he holds out a hand and Chelsea drops an arm into it.

It seems to good to be true, having her be alive, but her pulse is steady and strong when he presses his thumb against the inside of her wrist.

“Well,” he says, leaning back and letting go of her arm. “You certainly proved us wrong.”

Chelsea doesn’t have much time to look smug before PHantom quietly says, “You’re like me.”

“What?”

“You’re like me,” he tells Chelsea. “A halfa.”

She tilts her head to one side. “What’s that?”

“Someone who is half human and half ghost. Both dead and alive.”

Duke blinks, taking in the words, then turns to face Phantom so quickly he’s worried he might give himself whiplash. Halfa, he said. Like me, he said.

And sure enough, two rings of light, bright and strong, appear around Phantom’s waist before splitting in half, moving over his entire body.

Gone is the Ghost King, all powerful and adorned in dark clothing with a crown of ice above his head. In his place is a guy who looks to be Duke’s age, eyes a deep blue and his black hair messy, feet set solidly on the floor. He looks completely normal, completely human, and no longer an impossibility.

“You still up for learning how to use all your new powers?” Phantom asks.

Chelsea grins. “Yeah!” And then, with a quick flick of her eyes going from Phantom to Duke that he almost misses, very innocently asks, “Are you going to stay with us then?”

“I… don’t know?” Phantom looks to Duke for an answer.

Already, Duke can see this going two ways. The correct way forward, the normal one, has Phantom popping in every so often, taking Chelsea out for a few hours to work on training her and her powers. It’s easy and routine and they can keep their boundaries uncrossed and be professional.

The other path is what Duke wants most that he shouldn’t impose onto the literal Ghost King. He could have Phantom living with them while he’s on Earth and out of Amity Park, having a place at the table, a section in the closet for his own clothes, a quietly domestic night together while Chelsea sleeps where they can get to know each other more, get to know each other outside of news reports and texts on a screen.

“You can stay with us if you want,” Duke offers, casually, “It might keep my apartment safe from her powers acting up on their own again.”

“Are you sure? I could always just fly in on the weekends or something.”

“I’d appreciate having you around. So you can help Cici.”

“If you don’t mind,” Phantom says, looking away. Like this, fully alive with a beating heart, it’s easy to see the blush steal away across his cheeks.

“I don’t.”

“I don’t either!” Chelsea pops in, looking far too gleeful by their awkward conversation.

Duke can’t help but laugh, feeling lighter than he had in ages. The relief of knowing that Chelsea is alive, for the most part at least, eases the guilt of thinking he had been too late to save her, that there was no chance she could have made it out and had a future, makes him feel weak. All the exhaustion of the past few weeks hits him all at once and he wants nothing more than to collapse in bed and sleep for twelve hours.

“Alright, squirt,” he says, reaching out to pat her head. “It’s late. We can talk more in the morning, so go to bed. In your actual bed this time, not on the couch.”

Chelsea stands up taller, ready to argue, but Duke gives her a Look™ and she quickly shuts her mouth, nods, and drags her feet back to her room (the former guestroom he can never give any of the other Waynes ever again, once they find out about her).

Sighing, Duke collapses onto the couch once he hears the door shut behind her. Phantom joins him after a few seconds, sitting tentatively on the edge of the couch. The cushion moves beneath his weight, another reminder of how solid and alive he is right not.

Duke wants to touch him, to reach out and feel for himself his pulse, the warmth of his body, his chest lifting with each breath.

He doesn’t move. He stays where he is, hands carefully still, and tries to think past the dizzying thoughts of she’s still alive, I’m not too late, he’s still here, he’s alive.

“Rough week?” Phantom asks, voice purposefully light.

“Something like that.”

“You should get some sleep too.”

“I don’t think I can. Not after everything. My mind’s too loud right now.”

Phantom shifts closer to him, hesitant in a way that Duke has never seen before in him, and asks, “Want me to stay with you until you mind quiets down some?”

“Yeah. I’d like that. Thanks, Phantom.”

“You know, if I’m going to be around so often as Chelsea’s halfa mentor, then you might as well call me Danny.”

Truth be told, Duke didn’t think that was his real name. He’s glad to know it’s not.

“Then call me Duke.”

“...Are you sure? You could still hide your identity from me.”

“Nah, I trust you. A name for a name, yeah?”

Danny smiles. “Duke,” he says, testing out the name, and it’s never sounded better than when it falls from Danny’s mouth.

“Danny,” Duke returns. He belatedly realizes that they’ve leaned towards each other, drawn together like gravity, stuck in each other’s orbit. It feels natural. It feels like this is where they’re meant to be.

Maybe he should be more cautious. They’ve only meant once before, after all. But he’s read all he could on Phantom and has seen how Amity Park loves him. He’s stressed and exhausted and trying to figure out how to look after a half-ghost child that’s already been dealt a bad hand in life. He should be keeping Phantom at a distance, watching over him carefully to ensure he isn’t a threat to Chelsea.

But Duke saw how he acted with Chelsea, so gentle and understanding and kind. That’s all he needed to see.

He may not know much about Danny, but he knows this: he is trustworthy.

Enough to entrust his identity to him.

Enough to entrust Chelsea to him.

It’s more than a favor; it’s a promise to walk this road together.

There’s no one he’d rather do this with.

“Thanks,” he says again, “For all of this. I know it’s a lot.”

Danny shrugs. “I don’t mind. Really. It’s nice to know there’s another halfa out there, no matter how she came to be one. Makes things feel less lonely.”

“Will you tell me more about halfas?”

“Later. Once you get some proper rest. We’ve got time, haven’t we?”

“We do,” Duke agrees, affection settling warm in his chest. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

Learning how to control her new powers won’t be easy for Chelsea. Learning how to take care of her won’t be easy. Learning how to do things together, as Duke and Danny rather than the Signal and Phantom, won’t be easy. But Duke knows with a certainty he feels in his bones that they’re going to be fine.

So long as they’ve got each other, they’ll be fine.

#ghostlights #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #dpxdc #dc x dp fic #prompt fill #my writing #thought a lot abt what the favor could be but i could not resist the idea of surprise co-parents once i thought of it #here's a kid who clings to someone she knows is safe bc she is scared and alone!!#heres a stressed out hero trying to take care of a kid with no knowledge of how to do that!! and the kid is a ghost!!#heres a ghost king expecting to be used as a weapon and called in for a big battle suddenly finding another halfa!!!#so much going on here. so much to think abt with this!!!!!#i do love found family like this where they all kinda stumble into it and do their best to make it good #also could not resist making yet another oc. chelsea has my whole heart i love her <3 shes my daughter first #the bats dont know abt chelsea yet!! bc she can go invisble. its all been instinct every time they pop over to visit duke #soon she'll be able to control it and meet them properly #by properly i mean dukes gonna go over for sunday brunch and a little girl is gonna pop out from behind him like 'hi! im new!'#they will all love her of course. they will be shocked but happy!!#and a little less happy abt the GHOST KING duke has been hiding in his apartment that hes co-parenting with #sorry for the long tags im obsessed w this idea i want to Expand on it #maybe one day... with my other wips out of the way...

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buckttommy · 6 days

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i don't think i really understand pr and what actors should and shouldn't say. why is what oliver's saying so wild?

Hi, it's okay. I'll walk you through it. The tl;dr version is written in bold.

So. PR, or, Public Relations, is the dynamic between the general public (us) and any entity that has interests to protect (in this case, that would be the network + 911). PR teams are designed to ensure the relationship between the public and [their entity] is as harmonious as possible. Happy relationship, happy consumer, happy company.

Because keeping the peace is the intention of good pr, pleasant ambiguity is the name of the game. People can speculate, and people can guess, but no one should ever be able to look back at your words and claim that you've given a definitive answer on anything—good or bad—because definitive statements can harm the entity's bottom line, whatever that may be.

Oliver is very good at keeping the peace between the network and the public. We know this because we have seen evidence supporting this fact for years. He always says a little bit of what everyone wants to hear—he'll keep things vague (plausible deniability) for the sake of the network, while also giving nods of support and encouragement to the fandom without promising anything. You know how he's talked about being cautious and aware of what he's saying in interviews because he knows the impact it could have? Okay, well, aside from wanting to avoid "queerbaiting" allegations, this is part of the reason. PR is a very delicate game and he plays it very well.

Or at least he did.

Right now, Oliver is using binoculars to identify the line, making sure the line is exactly where he left it, and then taking a giant wrecking ball to it. Because now, Oliver is saying things that should absolutely not be said in interviews, or to anyone in the general public, at all. Now, he's elevating the conversation from pure speculation, to actively confirming and placing the blame at people's feet for things that have gone on behind the scenes.

Saying that Buck's Queer storyline was floated years ago? Huge no-no. Why? You were on tumblr yesterday. You can see why. People were angry, and people were hurt, but most importantly, people started to ask questions. We started to look at past arcs, past moments in Buck and in Buck and Eddie's relationship (because, whether you like it or not, Buck's queerness is and always has been tangentially linked to the existence of Buddie) to try and pinpoint when/how his queer arc could have launched. Now. Most of us have been here for years, so we can easily look back at the show and see where it's pretty damn obvious how Buck's Queer arc could have launched, depending on the arc(s), the characters at the time, things that were going on outside of the show (re: Oliver liking Buddie edits before/after the shooting), etc.

But we're not the only ones who are reading these interviews. Other people—casual fans, new fans, people who don't give a damn at all and are just clicking around on the internet—are going to look at these interviews, they're going to look at the things Oliver is saying, and they're going to have the same questions that we had. When could this have happened? And, more importantly, why didn't it? To keep it simple: everyone is going to start looking a little closer at the man behind the curtain, and the network does not want that.

Now, sure, it could be argued that, "hey, 911 isn't with FOX anymore, so maybe Oliver is allowed to say these things." But that's not really how it works. Sure, he might have a bit more leeway (as in, a microscopic, so-small-it-might-as-well-be-insignificant amount of leeway) to say whatever it is he wants, but this isn't the first time a major transfer/acquisition has occurred, and there are safeguards in place (such as NDA's—Non-Disclosure Agreements—which often do not expire for years post-acquisition, depending on the entity they're protecting) to prevent him from harming FOX's bottom line. So, that reasoning rings hollow. Especially because, now, it's not just FOX he's pulling into the fray either.

In the article that dropped today, he openly acknowledges this thing between Buck and Eddie in Season 7. And at this point, we're well into ABC's era. So the fact that he's saying, "I went to Tim and asked if there's something I can play with when Eddie says he's going on a date"—that's odd behavior from him. Not necessarily bad, just odd. And after years of toeing the line, the question that has to be asked now is why? And, more importantly, why now?

Does this mean that Buddie is going canon? Not necessarily (and, before anyone freaks out, I'm not saying it's not going canon either; I'm just saying this isn't an indication). But The Buddie Problem, at least, in the way Oliver is addressing it, is something the Higher Ups would want to keep quiet for as long as possible, for whatever reason. Maybe because they intend to go forward with it. Maybe because they don't. But the fact that he's cracking the shades open and letting light through is deeply fascinating.

But, despite all this, it's important, also, to realize that, even with demolishing the good PR line he's always walked so carefully, Oliver still isn't promising us anything. He's still treading carefully regarding how we, Buddie shippers, will interpret his words. He's not claiming Buddie canon is a go and it'd be remiss to think that's the implication here when it's not. He's not that stupid, and he's not that cruel. But all of it is very curious.

So that's why a lot of us are looking at each other, and then looking at Oliver, wondering what the hell he's doing. Because he knows better, and we know he knows better. We know he's very good at playing this delicate game but right now, he's making moves that are... intriguing... to say the least. And it's not just him, even though he's the main culprit. 9-1-1's move to ABC—and this entire press junket since 7x4—has been rife with sensitive information being released to the public, starting with Lou's untrained self revealing that it was supposed to be Eddie and Tommy that were going to get together, and circling back around to... literally every single word Oliver has uttered in the past three weeks.

So. It's odd! As you can see. So I'm sitting back, and I'm waiting and seeing because something is happening behind the scenes, and I don't know what it is (and I don't even think it's bad!) but it is still very much happening. So.

#god this was so long and i'm so fucking late for work #jack answers mail #tv: 911 #oliver stark

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marksbear · 11 months

Text

Request is:

What if the BAU team got a new team member who used to work on old xfiles/unsolved cases, he's seen things that just can't be explained and thing you wish you never knew existed?--- @xweirdo101x

I made this with headcanons and Drabble. At first I was thinking about turning this into something very dark and creepy but I decided not to.

BAU X NEW AGENT READER

-The team new at a instant you wasn’t your typical new agent. You looked tired, but in the same way not tired. You kept to yourself not making any real efforts to know your team outside of their business life.

-They noticed how your eyes weren’t full as hope and life like the other new agents they meet. No yours were cold and that you self aware.

-At first they thought you were just shy. Like during the first case you had just stayed in the back observing everything and anything.

But soon enough they all found out that you were far from shy.

-Each member of the team noticed separate details about you. Some that they won’t usually care about, but with you they analyzed your every move.

-Hotch noticed how you connect things fast. Whether it’s relationships with the victims like how their similar from each other all the way to knowing how and where would the unsub would strike next.

-Derek noticed how you remember even the biggest and smallest details. Like the conversations you have with suspects to even remembering the first thing he said to you.

-Penelope seen you write notes to yourself. You wrote fast and from afar it looked like you were just scribbling on paper. But as she looked closer she saw that of had lost of ideas and possibilities even had sketches of what the unsub may look like.

-Anytime you were in the office late at night Rossi would sometimes sit next to you quietly watching you write and type various of things. What really caught his eye was a very old cold case you was researching about.

“You like reading old mysteries?” Rossi finally says catching you off guard. You turned your head to face his and with a straight face you spoke back.

“Not just reading… I liked solving those so called mysteries.” Y/n answers before turning back around to write.

“Liked? What do you mean?” Rossi asks with a raised brow. “I still do of course, but now I’m working here, so I gotta stop focusing on the past and focus on the present. But old habits just die hard.” Y/n answered as if it was nothing.

-After that Rossi had a unspoken respect for you.

-He told the rest of the team about the moment you guys shared and told him exactly what he told him.

-While the team talked about it and what your past job could have been like Penelope opens her laptop quickly getting onto google searching up your name.

-Shockingly to her the internet knew a lot of thins about you. You were somewhat a hero to say the least. Hundreds of unsolved cases but now solved by you popped up. Interviews and news lines about you was everywhere.

-She wondered how the hell did you come here without anyone knowing who you were.

-She quickly showed her team about her findings.

-Now everything was clicking together about your habits and personality. Reid began to ramble on and on about all the signs that you showed like correcting people when they mention the wrong serial killer or knowing secrets details that most regular agents won’t know about the criminal justice system.

-They all knew that you were different from the start, but none of them ever guessed that you a expert and a true hero.

-It didn’t take you long to know that they knew about your past experiences. Not like they didn’t try to hide that they knew.

-Reid started to ask you question after question like how you solved a case that was unsolved for years or how you found evidence to the cold cases.

-Derek made a game where he quizzed you about different unsolved and cold cases.

-Hotch was first to ask a more deeper question like about the things you saw and had to go through. And you gave honest answers. You told him that you seen things that doesn’t even seem real and things that anyone wouldn’t think existed. He felt sad for you but in the same time respect grew.

-Rossi randomly had just gave you a random comforting hug saying that he’s proud of you. He didn’t care that you started a new chapter in your career he just felt the need to tell you how much he cared and how proud he is at you.

-You and Penelope had a rough time bonding since your more realistic and mysterious while she’s sweet and bubbly always looking at the bright side while you expect the worst.

-it was hard trying to understand and know each other.

-But once y’all finally did y’all became inseparable. In a strange way you both found comfort in each other.

-The team all started to understand and bond with you after they all excepted what you went through in the past to get where you are now.

THE END

#criminal minds #criminal minds x male reader #criminal minds x reader #The BAU x male reader #x agent male reader #x male reader #male reader #the bear club

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conundrumoftime · 8 months

Text

Fandom grandma tales: how I survived canon ruining two of the ships I liked.

(Written after a discussion with some of my TROP fan pals about how canon can break your heart re: shipping, and how fandom manages. There are spoilers here for the entire run of Babylon 5, and for one story JMS wrote after it. yes, that story. sorry.)

Babylon 5 was a sci-fi space opera show that ran from 1993 to 1998. It is sci-fi of the era of 22-episode seasons, of huge ensemble casts with characters who get their own B- and C-plots, with an effects and casting budget that doesn’t always match its ambition, and - something it was quite pioneering in, at the time - grand pre-planned story arcs.

It’s the first fandom that I was involved with in internet spaces as it was running, or at least when its final season was (there’s Discourse and drama from earlier years that I missed). Its showrunner, J. Michael Straczynski - ‘JMS’ - was very active in (non-fanfic) fan community spaces, and you always knew exactly what he was thinking about things because he was part of the discussion around them. There was also fanfic, which he didn’t stop but didn’t go near on the grounds of legal liability for story ideas.

Most of the fanfic in the early days as the show was airing was focused around two big ships, of which one was canon endgame (Delenn/Sheridan) and one was canon all-ends-in-despair (Marcus/Ivanova). I, as a teenager discovering a developing online fandom for the first time with all the overwhelm and excitement that causes (ask me anything about what reading fic was like before the days of tags/ratings/warnings!) got into Marcus/Ivanova and also into one of the minor ships, Delenn/Lennier.

Delenn/Lennier was never, ever going to happen in canon. This is obvious; it clashes with Delenn/Sheridan which was JMS’s baby darling OTP, the show’s big love story. Delenn is married for the later part of the show. Lennier is her diplomatic aide, is absolutely devoted to her, and they have a very intense mentor/student relationship, which it seems is kind of standard in their culture (when Delenn’s own mentor died she went briefly insane with grief and started a genocidal war over it) but is still Very Intense. He is canonically in love with her, but that’s as far as the explicit canon statements go.

However. HowEVER. Canon also gives us, for that relationship, some wonderful ship fuel. Lennier knows about every bad thing Delenn has done, including all the stuff she doesn’t/can’t tell her husband. He’s her link to her previous world and culture and stands by her even when they kick her out. She says at one point, “without him, I would stumble and fall and never get up again.”

And then… we had Season 5, the final season.

Season 5, for various complicated production reasons, was operating a little outside of pre-planned story arcs and in this season the Delenn/Lennier stuff ramped up about three gears in one go. It was still very obviously never, ever going to be canon, and was almost certainly not intended by the creator (who wrote most of the episodes himself) to look like there was even anything there. At this point Delenn is married; any relationship with her aide would not only be going against the show’s OTP, but going against it in the sense where she’s cheating on her husband, and there is Just No Way JMS would have gone there. And yet! Season 5 gave us:

A scene where Lennier says he can’t stay, it’s too painful to be around her now she’s married, and she’s devastated and has the following conversation with her husband about it:

S: I got your message about Lennier. Is there anything I can do?

D [snapping]: Almost certainly not.

S: Is it because of me?

D: In part, I think so.

S: Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well, as we say back on Earth, three’s a crowd.

D: On Minbar, three is sacred.

S [slightly uncomfortable laugh]: Well, I don’t think I’m ready to handle that one, Delenn.

Delenn then calling Lennier back to the station to do some secret mission thing for her, which involves her sneaking out of her bed while her husband sleeps to meet Lennier in a darkened alley behind a bar, where she tenderly strokes his face and they have a whole conversation about whether her husband understands her or not.

A scene where Lennier comes back from his secret mission to meet both Delenn and Sheridan, Delenn goes to greet him with a hug, and Lennier does this very pointed step back and nod in the direction of her husband, and she pulls back and just sort of pats him on the arms instead.

I MEAN.

But, the issue here is not what fans did about it but what canon did about it. Canon did the canon equivalent of dragging that ship outside and shooting it in the head.

In the final few episodes of the entire series, Lennier tries to kill Sheridan, runs away in shame, and then someone finds his diary in which he’d been writing for ages about what a bad decision he thought Delenn had made and how her whole marriage was an awful idea. Even to this day, it’s fun/awful watching people go through a first-time watch when they get to season 5 and hit that. ‘Character assassination in the form of a diary’ was a whole thing for a while. It’s been 20+ years and the actor who played Lennier is stilll mad about it (not because of shippy stuff, but because he - correctly! - thinks Lennier absolutely would not have done that).

What *fandom* did, on the other hand, was Fixed The Problem.

Delenn/Lennier was not at all a big ship when the series was airing, and for a few years after. Then the fandom dynamics started to change. With less pressure on what canon was going to do, it felt like fandom had more space to play around with things it didn’t do. Fanfic got less interested in trying to fit within the overall story being told and started spinning off in all its own directions. And *this* ship started getting bigger and bigger. People did really interesting things with it, canon divergence went in all directions, everyone wrote a fix-it story of some variety, some authors did a great series of connected stories based on an idea that Minbari have three genders, the quality of the writing has been brilliant. And I think without that absolute whiplash feeling of what happened in canon, there would never have been this feeling of “well I’m not having THAT” which led to all this.

We did not need canon! Canon had done its thing. And canon had broken our hearts enough ways with many of the other stories it told (entirely on purpose) and we weren’t just going to sit back and let it ruin us forever.

By comparison, the other ship I was into was Marcus/Ivanova. This is entirely doomed. Susan Ivanova’s love life is just perpetually doomed. The first partner of hers we meet is an ex who’s interested in getting back together, but then it turns out he’s just using her to infiltrate the station for the fascist terrorist group he’s secretly joined. Then she falls for an archrival of hers, Talia, who works for Psi Corps, the organisation she loathes most of all things - but it’s okay because it turns out Talia is starting to question them too! Maybe these crazy kids can make it work! They have one night together and then OOPS turns out Talia was being secretly controlled by a sleeper personality implanted in her by Psi Corps the whole time. Ivanova’s love life is doomed.

So for two seasons, she has this sort-of-flirty, sort-of-bickery, sort-of-friendship going with Marcus, who is on the surface of it very much “why not fall in love at first sight like a true romantic, YOLO!” but it turns out is actually deeply messed up himself and full of survivor’s guilt and pain and, you get the clear impression, would have died of shock if she’d actually called his bluff on the OTT flirting and said “yeah, let’s go for it”. And then he sacrifices himself to save her life. It is a very tragic ending, it is absolutely the way he would have wanted to go, she wakes up both furious and absolutely distraught, says that the last thing she heard was him saying “I love you”, says she wishes she’d at least slept with him once, and says that in a way all love is unrequited. PAIN.

So, lots of fix-it fanfic, lots of ‘Marcus comes back to life’, lots of canon divergence AUs where he doesn’t die and they live happily ever after and both get over their huge levels of unresolved pain. Pretty standard for that kind of pairing. And as a pairing it doesn’t get in the way of any big canon pairings, it doesn’t imply anything icky like mentor/student power imbalances or adultery. And JMS clearly quite liked it. So that’s better, right?

NO. It was WORSE.

JMS wrote an Marcus/Ivanova story himself, published in one of the sci-fi magazines, to try to give them a happy ending. This happy ending involves Marcus, many many years in the future, waking up from the cryogenic suspension he’s in (it’s sci-fi, keep up, keep up). Ivanova is long dead, but he isn’t about to let this get in the way, so what he does is to *create a new Ivanova* by getting some kind of DNA + computerised memory/personality bank thing, finding a doctor who will clone her, putting himself back into animated sleep until the clone reaches the age Ivanova was when she died, then - THEN, I’M STILL GOING - takes her to a distant planet where, with her memories wiped and their spaceship having deliberately been crashed BY HIM so there’s no way back, they live out their lives in peace.

WHAT.

That pairing still does okay in fandom but it’s not really taken on a post-show world of headcanons and riffing on other people’s ideas and tropes in the way that Delenn/Lennier has (and we all just pretend that story never existed).

So! This has been my experiences in the field of What We Do When The Show Has Thoughts On That Non-Endgame Ship We’re Into. Fandom manages. Fandom will see you through. And in the words of Susan Ivanova:

Babylon Five was the last of the Babylon stations; there would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, for if we don’t, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings - even for people like us.

#fandom grandma #fandom history #non-endgame ships #shipping #canon and non-canon ships #babylon 5 #delenn x lennier #marcus x ivanova #that story's not canon if I say it's not canon #b5 #what in the actual hell was that diary anyway #snarky bill mumy interview forever in our hearts #never have I seen a more perfect ot3 setup and YET

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mysticmunson · 1 year

Text

rainy days (steddie x reader)

summary: when rain wakes you up earlier than usual

word count: 1.5k

authors note: this is for my best friend @lilacletter i love you so much and appreciate you beyond what i can say. i hope you have an amazing birthday and a fabulous week in general. you deserve all the love in the world, to many more. i hope you enjoy. :)

(not proofread)

The gentle patter of rain on pavement roused you from your sleep, the room being a shade of grey due to the storm outside. Peering at the sleeping figures on each of your sides, Eddie and Steve remained in deep slumber, both sets of lips hung open slightly with light snores.

Entangled in them, you stealthily slipped away, adjusting the blankets around them and walking downstairs. The quaint home was a new edition after a few years of dating, deciding more space was necessary amongst the chaos of each of your work schedules, along with your schooling.

Pine seeped from the dried candle on the countertops, mixing with coffee as you put some in the machine. Rubbing your eyes, you checked the time to see it was barely 8 am, something unnoticeable due to the lack of sun. The April showers transcended into May, greeting summer with the chilly water, a welcomed addition.

Hickory liquid began to fall into your pot, smoke surrounding it, as you reached for your blue mug. With a dash of cream and sugar, it soon blended as you poured it in, reaching the very top of the rim.

Thunder rumbled, averting your attention to the small patio out back, the rain not too heavy against the roof. Wandering through the door, the smell of rain met your brew cohesively, looking out at the land before you.

A few years ago, the plausibility of having a home to share with the men you loved seemed slim to none. The mundane became something to be cherished, never taking a moment of solitude for granted. You all had done a lot of growing, fleshing out to be functioning adults once leaving Hawkins.

Steve had used his free time while working at Family Video to learn about the growing world of the internet, taking classes to get more experience after you persuaded him enough. It was one of the first times he really felt good about his abilities, seeing he was good with technology, and he secured a place at a global company.

Eddie had graduated and had a slight crisis, not positive about what exactly his path was. After a few weeks, he decided to try tattooing, knowing his love of the art and his knack for drawing. He didn’t know he could love something as much as playing guitar until he started that, saving up to have his own store that was now successful in your new city.

They had been more than supportive of you continuing your education, bragging about how smart you were, even if you failed a test or cried out of frustration. Along with school, you worked at a hotel as a receptionist until you could work in your field. The boys insisted that you didn’t need to work, knowing they both had bills and extras covered, but you were stubborn in that sense.

There were ups and downs, Steve having to travel, Eddie working overtime, and you being overly stressed with your workload. However, the one thing that saved you all was the effort put in, there was never a moment you doubted the other didn’t want to be with you, making sure communication was clear due to past scenarios.

Part of you wanted to run out in the storm, to feel the cool water trickle down your arms and onto Steve’s shirt. The warmth in your palms kept you restrained, letting it run down your throat and burn slightly in your chest. The caffeine was slowly rising, now more alert of your surroundings as your feet rocked on the cement.

“What’re you doin’, trouble?” A teasing voice spoke softly, the door shutting and tattooed arms wrapping around your waist. A bare chest pulled flush against your back, soft pajama pants skimming past your bare legs.

“You’re up early.” You mused, securing your spare arm against his, feeling his soft brown hairs. His chin rested on your shoulder, stubbly cheek pressed against your soft one, raising your drink to his lips.

Stealing a bit, his eyes fluttered as you tilted it back, pulling away after a beat. Gulping it down, he winced at the slight burn, but thought of pouring himself a cup in a minute.

“Rain woke me up. Also didn’t feel you.” He murmured with closed eyes, pressing his nose against your face, kissing below your jaw. You tilted your head to nuzzle upon his curls, smelling the hints of his coconut shampoo, kissing his hairline.

Taking in another taste, the coffee was gone and the smoke had vanished. The cup clinked against the small side table beside a double-framed photo. One side had Steve, aged 5 at summer camp with missing teeth, and the other with Eddie, about 3 at a picnic.

Holding the frame, you looked at it in adoration, the coloring slightly faded after being shoved between photos in an attic for years. Steve hated his, but it was one of your favorites. You wondered what they were like as kids, to be boys together despite not knowing one another, so unaware of everything else going on.

“He looks so sweet.” You cooed, finger tracing over his outrageously 1970s haircut. Bangs rested above his eyebrows, hints of blonde between hazelnut locks, eyes squinting due to the sun. He was sitting on a log in front of a lake in a yellow shirt and jean shorts, hiking sandals on his feet.

Your eyesight went to the one of Eddie, a mess of ringlets as he reached his chubby hand at a teddy bear. The hand extending it to him had painted nails of pale pink, his wide eyes looking at her with an even wider smile. You could practically hear the giggle erupting, imagining one like his own, but up a few octaves.

“I love this photo of you too.” You commented, touching where the blue gingham cloth sat beneath him years ago.

Blushing at the affection he still hadn’t grown into full comfort of, he scoffed, standing straighter, but pulling you closer.

“I just know I look cooler than Steve does.” He remarked, making you laugh at the foolishness, interjected by the opening door.

“What? When?” Steve questioned, walking out in a baggy shirt and boxers, scratching at his navel. He held his own cup of coffee, but he had his mostly black, only a spot of sugar.

His eyes fell to the frame in hand, groaning himself, grabbing it and putting it back in its place. The furrow in his brow was not solidified as it quickly vanished as he pecked both of your heads. Instead, he glanced at Eddie in a mysterious, silent agreement.

Suddenly wet lips peppered kisses on both sides of your face, exaggerated smooching noises to add to the dramatics. Squealing, you tried to shrink away, being stopped by their firm hold.

“Thinks she can be all cute and embarrass us.” Eddie teased, lifting you up an inch off the ground, your arms wrapping around his neck instinctively, “Did say you were cute though.”

Ignoring Steve’s obvious blush, you playfully berated them instead, “I was just enjoying my rainy morning, go back to sleep.”

Now they both scoffed, Steve wiggling his fingertips against your belly to make you squirm in the other man’s grasp. A sharp gust of wind signaled you all inside, your feet now back on the tiled floor.

“Want pancakes?” Steve asked, yawning behind the back of his hand, already reaching for the cupboard as the answer was always yes. Still, you and Eddie confirmed, leaning against the beige countertops.

The meek hiss of the batter hitting the pan was the only noise as you stood in comfort, Eddie’s arms having returned to your body moments after becoming stationary. He found comfort in touch, not responding well to playful resistance or as a form of punishment. Ignoring either of them wasn’t an option for any of you, no matter how big or small the issue was, it left both distraught.

Without much thought as Steve handed you both a plate, you smacked his bottom with a smirk, noticing how it jiggled. He blushed profusely, leaving both boys’ mouths agape, Eddie’s with a bit more amusement.

“You’re paying for that later.” He quipped, narrowing his eyes with a pointed finger, taking his own plate, and settling you all at the table.

Even if your whole day had consisted around this wooden table, the sticky syrup on the sides of your glass of water from accidental touches, you think you’d still be one of the luckiest girls on the planet. There was every ounce of care and love imaginable in their being, even when being playful.

In decades from now, pictures of the three of you would collect dust on a shelf as loved ones enjoyed their own versions of this day. You hoped the warmth you felt at this moment resonated from the ink, seeing the sparkle in their eyes as you did daily.

The bad days felt heavy, but each of those was worth days like these. Ones where the rain poured, the coffee brewed, and old photographs resided in your possession.

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lostelfwriting · 1 year

Text

Runaway prince Morpheus

But make it modern era

You know how your grandma sometimes gets those spammy, scammy, scummy emails from an “african prince” who is trying to escape the corrupt regime and needs to deposit his wealth into your bank account?

Technophobe Hob who has no idea what spam mail or a scam is.

Btw this is 100 % crack fiction.

History teacher Hob who only got a phone eight yers ago. His students taught him how to use an email when they grew bored of handing in everything through mail or pigeon (seriously, man, mailing your essays???) during covid. So he’s had a small laptop and only used it to access his email for a few years. But then someone reccomends him a couple websites, and what do you mean I don’t need to wait for the new journal to get pronted and mail?! I can read it on the internet a week before it reaches me?!

So, Hob finally starts exploring the internet. But oops, nobody taught him internet safety. The first couple spam emials that he gets are suspicious attractive women that for some reason are interested in him. He brushes it off, kindly turns each of the bots down. Then he starts winning phones. He turns those down too, he is quite happy with his “brick”, as his students call it.

Then he gets an email from a runaway prince from a country that he’s sure doesn’t have a monarchy anymore. He replies with great suspicion. “Morpheus” (Greek name but that guy claims to come from the North and he’s pale as paper) responds with a damn essay that uncovers a huge conspiracy behind his country’s government, and the conclusion is that there still is monarchy that matters but some people don’t aggree with it and want true democracy, including him, so that puts target on his back both from the inside (government) and outside (people who want true democracy and only see him as yet another symptom of the problem). He’s not safe in the country.

Hob, sunshine that he is, offers to help. Sends Morpheus all the info that he asks for, his bank account info, credit card info, his address. He sends Morpheus a lot of money that the prince needs to pay some fees, but he promises he’ll return it.

For three weeks, nothing happens. Hob scours the internet for news of some Nordic prince mysteriously dying or disappearing, but there is nothing. No signs of a huge government conspiracy either, but then it wouldn’t be a conspiracy. Finally, he asks some of his students who are better with technology if they can help him find a person he’s been talking to. He explains how they met. The students gently inform him that he’s been scammed and tell him how to report it.

Hob feels pretty dumb and decides to return to technology-free life. Says goodbye to the moeny that he’ll never see again, if his students are right.

Then one day, a knock on his door in the middle of the night. He opens, because the person sounds quite frantic and Hob will never learn, and the person pushes past him into his apartment and slams the door. And wouldn’t you know it, the man looks exactly like Morpheus from those emails. He looks haunted and pretty beat up, but he’s real.

Hob gets pulled into a complicated web of conspiracies as he helps the prince take the government apart from far away. His apartment turns into a secret hacker den as Morpheus buys more and more computers and... computer things... and apparently, he’s insisting that he can hack the government apart. Morpheus spends day and night slowing down his alleged pursuers and publicising dirt that he has on his own country, and one day, Hob actually sees on the news that several of the country’s politicians end up arrested. His students share memes about the situation with him to cheer him up, thinking he’s still bummed out about the money (that Morpheus has returned tenfold) but in reality he’s freaking out because that proves that this is real.

There are definitely some action scenes. Someone trailing Hob as he’s leaving work, and he leads them into a dark alley and beats them up Greco-Roman wrestling style, because he really enjoyed that hobby at school and he was damn good and nobody ever expects it of him.

Eventually, the whole country is in riot and the current government has to flee and people take over, and some of them demand Morpheus takes over, since he obviously care about democracy, but Morpheus is like nah, I’m comfy here, no thank you. Some feelings have developed between Hob and Morpheus during the few months they spend together with Hob practically force-feeding worcaholic Morpheus and supplying him with a gallon of coffee every day, and Morpheus making sure Hob is alright with being a small but significant part of the greatest scandal in modern history.

And bed-sharing! There is bed-sharing!

#dreamling #crack

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bcolfanfic · 1 month

Note

If you're still accepting young vets au requests - would you be up for exploring more of how they fell in love when they were in the service? Did Buck have a Marge at home? Were they both 'out'? etc etc

Thanks!

standard disclaimer that i am not an expert on the us air force or the afghanistan war- ive done a little research so i have a basic grasp on things but not much. i know because my brother was in iraq that he wasn't just gone for years at a time like the 100th was in wwii which makes this is a littttleee more complicated. but here goes.

in my mind, they enlisted at around the same time and met in basic.

and then after basic they both got sent to the same tech school in texas. this is where bucky did his EOD training stuff. in my head gale's "outside of flying thing" was security forces.

they became fast friends in basic, and then only got closer when they got to texas. maybe gale was originally going to get sent to a different base for tech school, and poor bucky was quite bummed about that!

but then things got moved around and how happy he was that gale *would* be going with to texas made him a little hmmm. maybe this is something i should unpack! not now though!

samesies for gale. he's excited that he gets to go to texas with his buddy. if there's something nagging at the back of his mind about why exactly he's so excited, he ignores it.

according to the internet the dorms are 3 ppl per, so maybe that's where they meet curt and become buddies with him.

gale and bucky start getting closer and well, curt is gay too. he has the spidey senses.

but poor gale and bucky are uh not as in touch with their sexuality and about jump out of their skin when curt ribs them a little saying if they ever want some SpAcE they can tell him to scram.

i don't think it really goes much farther, conversation wise or otherwise, till they're overseas.

esp bc bucky has to finish his EOD training in florida so he does have to, much to his chagrin, leave gale for a bit. they stay in touch, which is much easier with today's technology, but in my head this is when gale and curt get quite close.

gale does have a girl at home, but he breaks up with her in the ten day leave between tech school and leaving the country.

he tells her it's because things are really volatile and she's a good girl who he doesn't want to force to wait around for him.

which isn't a lie per say. but if he leaves out that the more late night talks with curt he has the more he thinks he might be gay well. that's his own secret.

the buckys meet again at their first deployment. in my head its not straight to afghanistan (though maybe for curt it is) and they're in africa first.

very sweet reunion- they missed each other. and now looking at his face on the other side of all those late night talks with curt, gale is *really* like oh. oh.

one night not long after they get to africa they're talking and gale tells him he broke up with his girl. bucky is a little surprised and when he prods gale gets a nervous and just blurts out that he thinks he might be gay.

bucky, though he's a little scared by labels, has been involved with people uh ~across genders~, so he tries to make him feel less nerved out about it. tells him its nothing to be ashamed of etc etc. and then question of the hour, can i ask what the 1+1=2 here was y'know?

sweet gale just looks at him all wide eyed. and bucky knows, knew before he asked him the question.

*fade to black*

#we can keep going i just think this is long enuff for one post LOL #young vets au #clegan #buck x bucky #buckbucky

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bethaven · 2 months

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When I was fifteen I was very lonely. All my school friends were fine and all, but I somehow felt like noone really understood me. This is very normal for a teenager, and it’s also very normal for that teenager to seek attention somewhere else. At this time internet had just broke through for real and I did seek validation at music forums and communities. Finding other fans of my favourite band turned out to be a lifesaver, and something that'd change my life forever.

I met T through a forum for that fandom and we immidiately started talking, a lot. Endless chats about the band, our lives and general thoughts and feelings. She quickly became my best friend, even though we hadn't even met yet. She lived quite far away, but was originally from the same town as me, so when summer arrived she was there to visit family and we met for the first time. I can still see so clearly how our looks met in the middle of a crowd outside the mall, and we just ran into each other's arms. It was like coming home. During the upcomming days we went to the local amusement park and went on all the rides. I was very afraid of most of them before this, but with her I was so safe I just did it. I felt like I was growing up for real, becoming my own person and living my best life, just because she was there.

But, T was not okay. She was sick. Her mental illnes spiraled over the years and I tried everything to make her better. Because I definitely saw it as my duty to fix her, to help her, to dry away all the tears and change everything for the better. Grown ups didn't get it and they were just trying to make her do things she didn't want. I needed to be there. Living far away in all of this was hard, it came with a lot of worry between the messages and calls. I definitely didn't tell my parents exactly how far of T was, I was so afraid they wouldn't allow me to keep her in my life. By the time she was admitted to a home to get help I'd turned 18 and they couldn't say anything when i went to see her. I knew they were worried and didn't completely approve of our friendship, but they also knew that they couldn't stop us.

Our relationship was intense, deeply loving, complicated, amazing, important and inevitably short. After about five years together it fell apart, I can’t even really remember how. We'd crossed over from teens to young adults and somehow we needed something else by then. I see her face flash by on Facebook sometimes. I know she became a mother a few years ago, which always was her biggest dream. I hope she's ok and gets all she wished for. Part of me will always feel a bit torn by the fact that I wasn't able to fix everything and part of me knows that I couldn't.

All of this makes me think about Nick in Heartstopper and how he carries the weight of Charlie's mental illness on his shoulders. The feeling of having to be the one to fix everything, even though noone have demanded that of you. When the one you love have done so many amazing things for you, so you don't want them to suffer in any way and you're willing to do everything to fix all their problems. As Sarah Nelson tells her son; “Love can't cure a mental illness”. We should always be there for our loved ones, but neither them nor we should expect us to perform miracles. We and them need help.

I wish I knew this when I was a lonely teenager, and I wish for others in the same situation to get proper support and help.

No End was our song, which became painfull when it all fell apart. There was an end, there often is. But what we had was still mainly something good, I learned that I deserved good friendships full of love and I wouldn't be who I am today without her. T, this playlist's for you. Thanks for everything.

#heartstopper #alice oseman #charlie spring #osemanverse #nick nelson #nick x charlie #friendship #mental health #Spotify

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ourladyofomega · 5 months

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I was getting deeper and deeper into everything electronic and industrial, all during my one-year break in-between the Brentwood era and community college. The UK electronics invasion, MTV's Amp, and Wipeout XL were the major influences that led me to that point. I was starting to have an endless appetite for music, and one thing I learned about myself that I could be interested in anything and everything. I already had an affinity to golden-era hip-hop / rap and alternative. The seeds of hardcore started to grow, so there would be no stopping me at this point. There were so many genres, artists, and sounds I was getting into, and I wanted to keep up. I had a position at a department store in the shopping mall, then later at a movie rental store, so I could afford to buy titles for whatever cash I had in hand.

I didn't have a desktop with internet to find independent stores. I had yellow pages instead: thick phone-books listing hundreds upon hundreds of pages of local businesses, their addresses, and their phone numbers all in minuscule print. That's how I discovered them back then. It was a year after visiting my first-ever independent record store, Commack's Mr. Cheapo's. Then came West Babylon's Looney Tunes before the holidays. Still enthusiastic in discovering the vast unknown, I wanted to find more. Port Jefferson's Music Den would be the next destination.

I already felt like an outsider when I arrived on campus. It was a different type of demographic I was used to. I looked around and I'd still see cliques, circles, and other "exclusive" groups of students that I felt I wouldn't be included in. I'd meet newfound friends who'd introduce me to their friends, but it felt forced, and they didn't seem to care. I was crazy for Atari Teenage Riot because they showed me exactly what techno always should've been: deafening loud, criminally high-speed, and maniacally all over the place. I tried looking for people who were in them, and observed what types of music the majority were into. Simplistic, manufactured, predictable dance hits. Boring weekend club-mashers. Formulaic radio chart-toppers. I wasn't impressed. The people who were into that were shallow, superficial, judgmental, needlessly competitive, and at times just unnecessarily mean. Drama artists and attitude jockeys all over the place. That's why they called community college "13th Grade". Now you'd see the disgusting distaste of the late-Nineties music scene I had. But, I did have a couple of good cards given to me. I joined the campus newspaper which I'd write music reviews for. An attractive brunette, Sandra, randomly stopped me to strike up a conversation, and wanted to get to know me better. She was also a Jesus freak. I also made another friend I met on campus who decided to set me up with an Irish blonde acquaintance of his, and we hit it off right away. Even then, I'd deal with constant games, rudeness, and random acts of ego during my time there.

The newspaper meeting ended one late October Thursday night. I finally had the opportunity to drive out eight miles from campus to the Port Jefferson Music Den for some shopping. I walked right in, and started digging. I'm not even there for two minutes and I already find gold: the import version of Alec Empire’s The Destroyer for only $9.00 used ($22.00 brand new otherwise). That was a huge deal for me because (once again) I was an Atari Teenage Riot / DHR fanatic. Right after that? Another label release, this time from EC8OR. I'd finally discover all those artists I heard about on the internet; thirty-minute download times of grainy 480P-resolution video and all. I was really starting to like this place. I start scouring the used CD bins, and I’d stumble upon KMFDM’s banned version of Naive for $8.00 - back when used copies on eBay were selling for…$80.00 each! Then came Pigface’s Washingmachinemouth and Ministry’s The Land Of Rape And Honey for a few dollars used. I copped Fluke’s Risotto because of Wipeout XL, and I’d snatch Skinny Puppy’s Back & Forth Volume 2 and Cleopatra’s Industrial Revolution: Third Edition, all for regular price. Finally, Coldcut’s "Atomic Moog 2000" / "Reboot The System": the first-ever multimedia CD I'd ever own.

Minute-by-minute, I'd slowly discover all sorts of wild and unusual sounds and artists they had on the racks. The Port Jeff- Music Den carried all the rare, unusual, and obscure stuff no other store on the island did. Sure, there were plenty of used CDs and vinyl bins in pop, metal, alternative, shoegaze, indie, hip-hop, and jazz. It was their industrial, noise, electronic, and experimental selections, however, that would be the all-important tie-breaker. They had all what I was looking for. I remembered seeing titles like Gescom’s Minidisc on the racks, Coil’s “Autumn Equinox: Amethyst Deceivers” 7", tons of Clock DVA, Controlled Bleeding, plus some Oval and Microstoria albums. It was wild. I felt stimulated because I found plenty of abnormalities that I never knew existed, instead of the expected, typical, calculated fare that did absolutely nothing for me.

90 minutes later, I took my short stack of CDs, placed them on the counter to be rung up, cashed out, and wrapped up what would be my first visit to The -Den. $82.00 later, I leave fucking satisfied.

With each visit after, I’d continue to score big victories where I’d find them. They were Phil Western’s debut album The Escapist, Muslimgauze’s Hamas Arc, Mike & Rich’s Expert Knob Twiddlers, Aphex Twin’s Analogue Bubblebath 3, Merzbow’s Pulse Demon, and Sam & Valley. I’d nab more DHR albums from 16-17, Shizuo on vinyl, Fuck Step '98, Give Up on 12", and Alec Empire’s Squeeze The Trigger. The best? Autechre / Gescom’s “Keynell” 12" that I found under the vinyl bins and hidden inside the cabinet underneath. It was stickered for $17.00 - another record where second-hand copies sold on eBay for $125.00. I also managed to pick up a few of their 12" EPs, mainly Chiclisuite and Envane.

All these finds made The -Music Den the most unforgettable store I had the privilege to visit. They were like nothing else on the island. Sadly, they closed down after the turn of the millennium, and no store that came after was half-as-good enough to fill the hole they left behind. Believe me, if any of you reading this would’ve shopped there, you’d feel amazed and blown away like I was. I’d still have a tough time dealing with all the constant, petty drama on campus over the next couple of years. At the Port Jefferson Music Den, however, I knew that was a place where I felt like I’d belong.

#omega #our lady omega #personal #Long Island #Alec Empire #EC8OR #Pigface #KMFDM #Ministry #industrial #electronic #techno #Cleopatra #Skinny Puppy #Fluke

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causesciencethatswhy · 3 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/causesciencethatswhy/739756690719801344/the-only-expectation-was-that-he-should-have?source=share

Um i disagree on the point that members don't know how deep this shipping or solo shit goes cause taehyung is pretty deep in fandom cause he posts arts from accounts, has showed jm the moon tatto thing, jk used tiktok and every sns in this fandom is dominated by tk shippers be it any. I can bet all my money that all the members have seen worst of their shipping stuff than this. Like i know for a fact that even jm knows about it too. They knows they just don't react cause it might make a big deal so they just let it be.

The comapny also don't care about shippers much cause these delulu tkkrs are the ones that are also giving them some millions of money so why would they when they're making money? They gave tkklives her account back. You have people in that company just to keep the sns safe for boys and make sure people who defame them get's punished but you have all these accounts with big following defaming boys in the name of shipping.

This will sound rude now but mark my words tkkrs are beyond repair now and in future it will be jk, tae and their respective partners that are gonna get the end of their hate. Their partners are gonna get all the unnecessary hate from these shippers and neither the members nor anyone else would be able to do anything about it mark my words. They should have stopped them when it was time but now it's too late and at the end it's taekook that's gonna pay for it.

You're creating a causation= correlation link where there isn't one necessarily. Tae can easily come across pretty jimin fanart or ai art, without being in the trenches of shipping or army spaces (especially with all the plethora of art reposter accounts there are) Jk having tiktok in no way guarantees that he's coming across egregious shippers when most accounts he engages with are either meme accounts or dancers. Just because they have a presence on the internet that we can't exactly track, doesn’t mean than we can take the assumption that all the boys are aware of how deeply messed up the shipping spaces run.

With respect to hybe taking action, I agree that they need to start taking these shippers antis more seriously, especially on the non Korean sides, because most of the claims those accounts make could very well amount to defamation but their lax approach tells me that they either don't see them as a threat or are unable to take much action against perpetrators outside of SK, which we know has been an issue before.

As for tae and jungkook shutting down shippers more, they already have anon?? "Get out of your imagination, it's not good in there ", are Taehyung's own words, but was that good enough for the shippers, no? They found a niche alternative translation to satisfy their delusions or just straight up pretend it didn’t happen. People often accuse tae of ramping up tkkrs esp in chap 2, but its just been moments of him sharing about his interactions with jk, how is it his responsibility if tkkrs have run with it to be terrible to jm/jennie? Saying that he's "feeding these shippers" by simply talking about jk sounds strangely reminiscent of what tkkrs used to say about jm a few years back, but whatever.

As for jk, he's shut down tkkrs many times last year itself, what with his weirded out look into the camera when asked whether he's living with tae and many more examples which I'm not that interested in listing out. But does any of that, stop tkkrs? No.

I agree that tkkrs are beyond repair and it might create serious problems for any partners tae or jk might introduce, but you cannot in good faith put the onus of responsibility on the both of them for the way their shippers act. Its too victim blamey for me. I will hold tae a little responsible for reposting that account without checking, just solely because he has a bigger platform than most, but I'm not going to accuse him of being some secret terrible person for the actual content on those blogs.

#jikook

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betweenthings2 · 5 months

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#25 for the kiss prompts please! ❤️

Yay for kiss prompts! Thank you, @allylikethecat for this request--every time I see you on my dashboard or AO3 I wonder if it's appropriate to profess love to someone on the internet.

Anyway.

A Kiss...as a 'yes.'

There are some things Matty never saw in his future. Hell, there was a point when he never saw a future for himself. He tries not to think about that, but he knows it lingers in the back of everyone's mind when he reaches milestones. Thirty was a milestone. Thirty-five is a rapidly approaching milestone. This will be a milestone. It will be a milestone for them both, really.

Matty and George have decided to stay in London for Christmas this year. It was George's idea and as much as Matty loves the big, chaotic gatherings that his family holidays always are, he doesn't regret staying home with George, especially not now as he wakes, bare skin pressed against bare skin and George's fingers in his hair. It's snowing outside, Matty realizes as he makes his peace with being awake, and the room is quiet. It's idyllic.

"G'mornin'," Matty mumbles.

"Mornin'," is George's response.

"Time is it?" Matty asks.

George peers at his phone, then answers, "Just past nine."

Matty hums, then asks, "How long have you been up?"

"Not long," George promises.

Matty is quiet for a moment, then complains, "'m getting old. We're getting old. Used to be able to sleep way later than this."

George chuckles. "Is that what it is?"

Matty nods, looking put out. "Getting old is a bit shit."

"It beats the alternative."

Matty opens his mouth to ask what the alternative to getting old would be, but fills in the blank before any sound come out, so he just agrees, "Yeah."

George scratches his blunt nails across Matty's scalp once more then suggests they get out of bed, and Matty doesn't really have a good counter-argument, so they do. George makes them coffee and they share a cigarette in the garden, then Matty tries his very best to be helpful before he gets banished from the kitchen as George makes them breakfast.

The rest of the day passes in similar fashion--relaxed and intimate. They exchange some gifts, though much of what is under their tree is for the friends they'll be hosting later. Matty is reluctant to shift from relaxing to preparing to host as mid-afternoon comes, but eventually, the cooking starts, the table gets set, the wine comes out, and they both change into nicer clothes. When they have about fifteen minutes before their friends are supposed to arrive, George corners Matty in the dining room with a hug from behind.

"So, this isn't exactly the traditional way to do it," George starts. "And I know how you feel about things like this, but we had all those conversations when we were touring and-"

"What? What d'ya mean? Nothing about us is traditional."

George smiles, soft and fond, and rests his chin against Matty's head, saying, "I wanted to give you this before everyone gets here," then opens his hands to reveal a small velvet box that he opens to reveal band made of white gold with their birthstones inlaid.

Matty is quiet for a moment, staring down at George's hands, then asks, "George? Are you, are you asking-"

George nods, responding, "Yeah. Marry me?"

Rather than saying anything, Matty twists around and kisses George, hard and desperate.

George snaps the little box closed and holds Matty close, kissing back. When they separate, he asks, "'s that a yes?"

Matty nods. "Yeah," he says, voice slightly choked, "that's a yes."

#the 1975 #matty healy #george daniel #matty x george #my fic

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fleshdyke · 1 year

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in honour of april fool’s day (even though its over in my timezone) and also the amount of insane shit that goes on in my life im gonna list a bunch of things that have happened to me and i want you to guess which one is a lie. i would make this a poll but i dont have those yet

when i was like 7-ish i went to the zoo with my neighbor and went to this bird show they put on and i got to race with like 20 other kids against 15 i think turkey vultures. in a footrace. the vultures outran every single one of us. also the zookeeper lady said “don’t trip and fall or they’ll start eating you!” and it scared the shit out of me

when i was in grade 3 i went on a field trip for school and on the bus home my bus driver literally got arrested for drunk driving. with like 30 8 year olds on the bus. it was like 2:45 and we (all age 8) had to stand outside for almost an hour in november. also it was like three blocks away from the school and my house was literally across the street. the distance back to school was very walkable but for some reason they made us wait for another bus to come pick us up and take us back. but the bus was one of those ones that went to each house individually and the neighborhood it operated in was literally across the main street from my school and for some reason instead of taking 5 minutes to drop us off first they made us wait an additional half hour dropping all the other kids off at home before taking us home. then i had to walk almost a km home anyways

also when i was in grade 3 we all had to take a diagnostic test to see if we could get into the gifted program. i got one (1) below the threshold for getting into it and i was so pissed. like two weeks later they changed the score you had to get to get in so they invited everyone who got close to do it again and i got a higher score than i did before but then i STILL got one below because they raised it. in hindsight i’m glad i didn’t get in because i know it would have been bad for me but i’m still so pissed about it bc of the principle of it

literally my first day working at the aviary there was a snake in one of the birds’ feeders just chilling there. we spent like half an hour trying to catch it and it scared the absolute shit out of like 7 birds

i was a niche internet microcelebrity on reddit when i was literally 12

when i was in grade 8 we had a water hydraulics project and my class was a split class with mostly 7th graders so my teacher just sort of left us alone with a bucket of little tube syringes while she did something else with the grade 7s. then i found 3 actual needles in the bucket for some reason. one of them was in that little wrapper but the other two were just loose in the bucket that we were rummaging around in. i went out to tell my teacher bc she was in a different room and she literally told me she didn’t care and to leave her alone bc she was working with the 7s (they were reading a textbook). i was like ??? but i didnt know what else to do so i just went back into the room to keep working. then this one guy grabbed one of the open needles and stabbed two different girls with the same one like uhhh what the fuck. i went out to go tell my teacher that two people had been stabbed by the same needle and she told me she didn’t care AGAIN like GIRL. honestly i wasn’t too worried about the girls because they both bullied me honestly but yk. then later the teacher came in and berated us for not telling her like I LITERALLY DID TWICE im still so mad about that honestly

when my mom and i were watching the last two episodes of ofmd together (this was before i came out) when ed and stede kissed she turned around and looked directly at me

i was in scouts when i was younger and there was exactly 5 people in my troop and it was me, 2 of my friends (one of them ended up being one of the girls that bullied me and got stabbed with a needle in grade 8), and two boys that i absolutely fucking hated. one time one of the boys said i was dumb and i threw a rock at him

when i was in kindergarten during recess i had to shit really bad and i asked the teacher on duty to let me go inside and she refused so i asked the other teacher to let me in and she didnt have keys. i tried to hold it but i could not go inside and i was 4 so i shit my pants and i was absolutely never a kid who had accidents so i didn’t know what to do and i was so embarrassed i just tried to ignore it. i just walked around for the rest of recess with a massive shit in my pants. when recess ended the teacher told us to come sit down on the carpet in a circle. you can guess what happened next

last year i had a substitute teacher for math and i ticced fuck while she was handing something out and for some reason she refused to believe me when i said i had tics. she sent me to the vice principal’s office and he didn’t believe me at first that i didn’t know what i was there for because she had sent me down for lying to him. when he did realize that i actually didn’t know what was going on he told me that she sent me down for disciplinary action so yk. he walked me back up to my class and took the teacher out in the hall to talk to her and i was losing my fucking mind with my friends for like 15 minutes while she was getting an absolute dressing down for not believing me. then when she came back in i was expecting an apology at the very least and she literally didnt. we waited for like 10 minutes and she said nothing. then my friend actually raised her hand and said she owed me an apology and this old lady started fighting for her LIFE. also she was only a little bit polite to my white friend who was standing up for me but didnt have an OUNCE of respect for either of my other friends who were standing up for me who were black and mohawk. like literally what the hell. my friend did record it though and i have that video now so

when i finally came out to my mom i was literally in a costco parking lot. my brother was in the car and he already knew bc he just guessed it ages ago and i said “did you know one in three people are gay” and my mom said “yeah i know”. also i made a cake for my dad bc he wasn’t there and he said “when do we make the ‘we know’ muffins”

i made my 13th birthday cake and right after i finished frosting it i dropped the entire thing on the ground

when i was like 4 i made a mess of paper in the kitchen and my mom told me to clean it up so i went in there and ate all of the paper

in grade 5 my teacher found out i was self harming and for some reason she decided to talk to me about it while we were doing kindergarten buddies. my kindergartener was literally just left alone in the room. i dont know why she decided to use that time

when we were selling my old house it was during covid so we had to leave during all the open houses and one time we came back from driving around the city during one and i went to the bathroom and there was a puddle of piss on the floor. some lady brought her toddler in and she pissed on the floor and she tried to clean it up with toilet paper but for some reason put it in the garbage instead of the toilet so the whole room smelled like piss

in grade 7 i was walking home from school with my partner and i guess i ate something bad and i ended up shitting my pants halfway home

someone here called me a terrorist for lying about gay sex in bathrooms

#some of you already know these for sure #theres more i just cant think of any right now #rambles #long post #best

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roydeezed · 1 year

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One Piece-Chapter Round-Up(Chapter 1083)

Okay so this week is probably the first normal chapter we’ve had in a while after Oda’s streak of absolute 11/10 chapters in the last few weeks. It was just a 10/10 chapter. Average really. Jokes aside though, if you’re a One Piece fan and reading this, can I just take a moment to gush about how amazing this series and its community are? Like, we’re all over the world. Most of us don’t even share a language or continent, much less the same country. We all got into it at different points in the past 25 years and at different points in our lives. And it’s affected us all so much. I can’t help but romanticize such a romantic series. It’s been a journey for us as much as it has been for the Straw Hats. And like with every journey, it’s going to come to an end too. It’s bittersweet but I can still remember the feeling I had reading certain chapters and moments. Where I was during Rocketman’s chase in Enies Lobby, what I was doing during Skypeia, how stormy and dark it was outside when I first saw Hogback, and how reading Ace’s death shocked me for the entire school day. And all of that’s coming to an end. I know a lot of people joke about Oda’s estimate that One Piece is going to end soon, but if you’ve paid attention, his insistence that it’s going to end in 2025 has always remained the same. I bring this up because in a recent announcement about the live-action show, Oda brought it up again. I think we all realised it when “He Laughed” happened, but One Piece is going to end soon. I just want to say I’m really glad I got to take part in this journey. And meet and talk with people in real life and over the internet about it. And also enjoy the creativity it’s inspired in the readers too. We’re really lucky to have such an awesome series and awesome community be a constant in our lives for the past while.

Okay rose coloured glasses Roy over, it’s time to shift over into analysis mode. I know it’s not for everyone but I love One Piece politicking so much! But before we get into that below the cut, I just want to talk about how adorable and sinister the cover page is. Doffy is helping out the baby chick but he’s so doing it to manipulate it later. Never change Doffy, stay despicable. Alright see ya down there!

Okay, so we get into some really intense political and tactical discussions right away. This chapter is almost laid out like the establishing chapter of a big battle, like we’ve seen in Alabasta and Dressrosa. Where we needed to know the locations and particular struggles of each battle. But it’s not going to be a battle. At least not in the fisticuffs sense. It’s more subtle. But that’s exactly why Oda is being so thorough in this chapter. Oda prefers to rely on the art to tell the story as much as he can so with the amount of dialogue in this chapter it’s almost like that one chapter of Hunter X Hunter. You know the one.

Right away, we get Sabo establishing the objectives they set out to accomplish and Dragon and Iva clarifying to what degree they were successful. It’s a really effective tool to deliver expository dialogue and reminds me a lot of the way Christopher Nolan delivers it in his movies. It’s necessary to do it in such a direct way to take the hit of setting things up as early and in short an amount of time as possible but it’s also punchy and dynamic as the deliverer of each set of expository dialogue gets to showcase what their priorities and personality are.

So the objectives. Let’s start with the first. Destroying the celestial Dragon’s symbol. It’s really interesting how the Revo’s symbolic targets are the Celestial Dragons. To me this, and Sabo’s realistic morals later on, symbolize a muddled goal. Because, in the way One Piece deals with dreams and ideals, it doesn’t leave space for realism. Dreams are meant to be outlandish and unreal and way too far out of reach. They shouldn’t be realistic. But this chapter grounds it all. Makes us face the realism of it. And don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love it, the crunchy technicality of it all. And I think this is an incredibly smart way to go about it. But if we’re looking at this through the ideals Oda has set up, I think he’s saying this is the wrong way to go about it. It reminds me of how way back in Sabaody, Rayleigh said that the Straw Hats might come to a different conclusion once they learn the true history. And how the twenty kingdoms destroyed the Ancient Kingdom and took over. I think there’s a parallel there and it’s about how systems of power will continue to oppress if only the cogs in it are replaced. Meaning, the Revo’s could end up just becoming the new oppressors. It’s a cycle of power and abuse perpetrated by the system.

Destroying the symbol of the Dragons also parallels with how the Straw Hats destroyed the flag of the Marines. Their attack wasn’t planned ahead of time. It was the fastest way to show Robin that they didn’t care who came after them. What she meant to them. This is also what the Revo’s are trying to show the world but the thought and planning of it, belies to us the impurity of it all. This also ties into the third objective Sabo mentioned. Destroying their food reserves and how the Revo’s were placing the Holy land under siege. The Dragons are horrible people. That, no one can deny. And I love the righteous rage of the Revo’s, Iva and especially Sabo. But notice the joy Iva takes in having them go hungry. How dramatic it’s made to be. It’s role reversal. What the Revo’s are doing may be right, but they’re just taking on the role of the oppressors at this point. And I know it’s not as cut and dry as that. That’s war. That’s why I love how Oda has injected this into the story. There’s always been great evil and great good front and center in the story. But the middle ground? The grey area? That’s always been lurking but is equally important. Now that we’re reaching the endgame, Oda has finally decided to let it take center stage and I’m so glad he has. If anything I can see this dividing the community and I am here for it. Because I think that’s when Oda is going to show us how the Straw Hats handle this. And that’s to dream and reach for an impossible ideal. I’m so excited!

Before we get into discussing the final goal, I also want to point out how casually Dragon mentions that eight of the twelve nations' uprisings were successful. You know what that means right? Four of those nations are going to incur a heavy punishment. And Lulusia has already paid the price. Sabo also mentions how Cobra was an acceptable loss but we’ll get more into that later. But this is the collateral damage the Revo’s are willing to accept. We know Luffy would never accept that. And that’s another point of Oda’s genius. The One Piece world is so nuanced. Because I strongly believe that Luffy is going to abolish almost all, if not all systems of oppression. And Oda wants Luffy’s blind hope to set an example. But he also realizes that it would kinda set the wrong message if the oppressed were told to seek out a peaceful resolution, because the world doesn’t work like that. So I think he’s using the Revo’s to soften the blow of it all. Where they’ll weaken the systems of oppression and somewhat take it over, but leave it in a weak enough state that Luffy can dismantle it. That way Oda can have his cake and eat it too. Speculation but I strongly believe it.

And now finally the second point. The freeing of the slaves and Kuma. We’ve barely gotten off of the first page and I've written two pages of this in my google docs. I’m sorry for the length yall hahaha. But this chapter is incredibly dense. This point, of freeing the slaves, is probably the most uncriticizable of their goals. It’s definitely the system of power I can see the Revo’s outright abolishing. It also plays into the squeeze they’re putting on the Celestial Dragons. Not only have they lost their food but also their labor force. We also know that Sabo helped to free the slaves by finding the keys to their collars and that Bonney is in the area too and that she’s trying to free Kuma so I wonder if Sabo and her helped each other out. But Bonney is also the reason I think we’re going to see this lead right back into Egghead as she’ll fill in the blanks.

Next, we get the announcement of a new set of bad guys who are directly loyal to the Dragons. Oda really can’t help himself. I believe Oda when he says One Piece is going to end soon, but things like this are why I don’t blame people for thinking otherwise. Oda’s the type to create 99 alts in an mmo before finishing the story with any of them (this comment is gw2 coded). But on either side of this reveal we get discussions on the part the media plays in this revolution. When I first saw Dragon mention that the media censored everything, I was a bit confused as I didn’t understand how the nations knew to rebel. But then I remembered the posters of Sabo and read closer. The news censored the mentions of other nations rebelling, but are mostly letting the truth get out about what the Revo’s did. I’m really interested in Big News Morgan as a character. Because on one hand, this all feels very calculated and in favour of the Revo’s while placating the government, but also Morgans seems to be someone only wanting to tell the best story while ignoring the inconvenient facts.

This all leads to the Flames of Rebellion. See, the way the story is playing out, with Sabo being the poster child of the rebellion, seems to work in favour of the Marines, as it gives them one symbol to take down and end the rebellion. But in actuality, it makes an unkillable symbol. Because if they let him live, he goes on to do more heroic deeds and raise the profile of the Revo’s. But if they kill him, he becomes a martyr and a symbol for greater revolution. That’s why this feels like Morgans is hoodwinking the marines in the guise of helping them and secretly helping the Revo’s. Or this could just be him telling the best story he could find. Either way this chapter must have been important to him as it did contain a lot of “Big News!”

And now, to get into Sabo’s character. I love Sabo. But very specifically the adult version of him. As a set with Luffy and Ace, he wasn’t as dynamic as them. But as the Flame Emperor?!? He’s just perfect. He’s spurred on by a righteous rage stemming from years living with an unfocused anger. For the longest time, arguably his formative years, he grew up not knowing why he was so angry. He didn’t have any context to his anger but everytime he saw injustice in the world it felt like that anger grew. He was of two worlds so he can’t remain impartial or unrealistic. He has to pick one to avoid getting swamped by the other. And it’s a flame of anger he has to keep stoked by fighting and rebelling. He’s worried that if he doesn’t it’ll go out and then he’ll have no purpose. That’s why, while his humble nature doesn’t let him play too hard into the role of “Flame Emperor”, his self sacrificing side and righteous anger see it as only proper that he be the kindling to the flame of rebellion, just as Cobra was. It’s a guilt of being a cog in the machines of oppression. Cobra was a cog just like Sabo. Or so he believes. That’s why he’s okay with both of their deaths. Maybe the mera-mera-no-mi only picks users that see themselves as sacrifices, as kindling to greater causes. One thing we know for sure is that Luffy won’t let that happen this time.

This picture absolutely sends me. If I saw this even I would be like, yo Sabo, this you? But I wonder? Sabo looked surprised at the picture. If Sabo never went near Cobra, could this be a reintroduction to Bon Clay? We always knew Bon was morally ambiguous, their greatest loyalty to only to their friends. So this could be a deal made with bon Clay to frame Sabo as a killer. Only for it to backfire, maybe due to Morgans meddling. Or this could just be an unlucky arrival by Sabo just in time for the picture. Though I wonder about that because it would be right in front of the Gorosei, who have been teased to be powerful, so they would’ve just cut Sabo down.

Anyways, moving on because this post is dragging and I am also running out of time irl, gotta go do something, we get into the actual flashback. We get the absolute chaos of scattered forces, a showcase of the despicable nature of the Dragons, and the reintroduction of one of my new favorite Revo’s now, Karasu. This only happened because of this chapter. (Karasuno Fly! Yeah I'm a Haikyuu fan too, what of it)(Okay weird tangent but by typing the Celestial Dragons as Dragons so many times, something in my brain unlocked and I just want to point out that Kaido being a dragon mirrors Luffy’s fight against the Celestial Dragons, with the big punch taking him out also mirroring Luffy punching the celestial dragon back in Sabaody, okay tangent over) Karasu is so dedicated to his crow aesthetic that he made a totally unrelated fruit work to enhance it and themed his attack style after it. Mad respect to him. But it also shows how fruit users define the fruit and not vice versa. Love the other captains too but Karasu has shot to near the top of my favourite Revo’s list.

We also get Fujitora, a marine who despises the Dragons attempting to call down a meteor. Oda is able to inject humour into even the most serious situations. But compared to a lot of the fights over the series we see how tactical and precise the Revo’s are. What they’re doing is messy but they’ve planned it all out. They’re holding back the admirals while Sabo gets the keys. They’ve destroyed the food supplies and the symbol already, taking care of the instant tasks probably at the same time. It’s surgical.

And now we get the main setup panel. It tells us what’s at stake and where everyone is. Sabo freeing Kuma will not only save Shirahoshi from the Celestial Dragon (forgive me, these shitstains are the only characters whose names I actively forget), but it will also accomplish Bonney’s goal. I’m eager to see how that plays out.

I love Vivi so much. She often seems like the only one with a full awareness of events. She usually has a hyper awareness of events. We see her confronting Lucci, having her, who I see as a Straw Hat, meet one of their recurring foes she hasn’t had a chance to meet yet. I don’t remember if it was established earlier when we saw the reverie for the first time but the rest of CP0 was also seen in this chapter.

And finally we come to Cobra. He leaves his guards behind and goes into see the Gorosei. Alone. You realize what this means. First of all. The assumption that Sabo is telling the truth is what we’re going ahead with. Which means. That the Gorosei outright murdered Cobra. That’s… huge. What could he have talked about that prompted such a reaction? With no break next week and such an extensive set-up chapter I feel like there’s a chance we find out real soon. CHOO CHOO, THIS HYPE TRAIN HAS NO BREAKS!!! LET’S GO ROCKETMAN!!!

#op 1083 #one piece chapter 1083 #one piece 1083 #one piece #one piece spoilers #sabo #manga recap #manga discussion #eiichiro oda #this one's long yall #and goes into some tangents #i cant help it #literally thought it was going to be super short till i was halfway through

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jjkyaoi · 5 months

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Multigender is a term for anyone who experiences more than one gender identity. It can be used as a gender identity in its own right, or can be an umbrella term for other identities which fit this description. Or at least, that’s how the wiki describes it.

When some people think of the term multigender they think of genderfluid, and really, I can’t blame them. Amongst the small, vastly underrepresented multigenders, genderfluid is the one that’s most known. Although, with the way it’s represented, I could argue that people don’t know jack about how being genderfluid works, but hey, that’s not what I’ve decided to complain about.

Not to sound like companies in June, but it’s a spectrum. There’s hundreds of identities—not just amongst the multigender label, but that’s what I’m focusing on—that aren’t represented amongst the media, and it’s because they aren’t simple. They aren’t understandable enough as trans, or nonbinary, or gay or bisexual, and it’s not like those are widely understood either. Peoples reaction to multigender folks is usually an instinctual, “that’s not real”, and sure, to people who don’t experience the things that multigender people do, it does sound far fetched. It doesn’t make sense. Trust me, buddy, not making sense is my whole fucking existence at this point.

I’m a little something called abrogender.

Abrogender is a gender identity with two definitions: A form of genderfluidity that changes more erratically and in a less defined way. A gender that is so intricate, and changes so quickly, that it is nearly impossible to nail down. Again, at least that’s what the wiki says.

With “micro labels” like these, it’s easy for people to say, “well, that’s just genderfluid” and yeah, it’s similar, but you can’t make that call. You don’t know what I experience and how it differs, and sure, to some people the “millions of labels under the LGBTQ+ identity” are annoying and hard to understand, but they’re there for a reason, because it isn’t as simple as labeling myself as genderfluid as it is for most people, which is another reason why you won’t see bigender, pangender, genderfaun/genderfaunet etc people being represented in media because the media doesn’t know how to represent us, or they take something as complicated as our identities—something they can’t make sense of in a blink of an eye, and call it not real.

Can you imagine how fucking frustrating that is?

I can’t describe to people who are comfortable with their gender, in the body they were born with, the type of feeling that looking in the mirror and seeing the wrong thing is. It’s hard to describe it if you haven’t experienced it, as much of this will be, but I remember I was getting more and more uncomfortable, for reasons I didn’t understand—I didn’t have access to all these millions of different labels as a kid.

I never really felt connected to being a girl. You know, it wasn’t instinctive revulsion, I didn’t “feel trapped in my body” most days, like some trans representation will have you believe. I’m not Kalvin Garrah, I’m not going to say you have to have dysphoria to be trans. I didn’t feel connected to any gender, really, but I didn’t feel without one either. If somebody were to assume I was a boy, I wouldn’t get offended, because sure! It’s not like I wasn’t a boy. Most people don’t experience that shit.

And then quarantine hit. I was on the internet more than I ever had been, because it’s not like there was much else to do, and I was allowed access to things I barely understood before. AKA, I was dipping my toes into the trans label.

Demigirl was what I started with, because at the time it felt accurate. A label where you still identify as a girl but also somewhere outside the binary? That’s exactly what I thought it was. This isn’t me shaming demigirls, you guys are so hot, sexy etc, it just wouldn’t be that simple for me. And then, as the years went on, I felt more and more disconnected from being a girl, and I picked up nonbinary like a golden star and stuck it to my shirt for a couple years, without fully reading the contract that came with it. Again, at the time, that’s what I thought it was. The idea of being a boy wouldn’t come to me for a couple years, but once I started doubting my gender again I sort of.. hid from it? The last couple weeks of identifying as nonbinary weren’t honest, and it was more so me clinging to the surface level of the trans identity just so I wouldn’t have to come out a second time. I slapped transmasc onto the nonbinary label and was hoping to god I wouldn’t fuck around and find out.

And then.. after a while, I allowed myself to look further. Bigender, and then trigender, and then pangender—none of them stuck.

One thing I did know, was that now that I was allowing myself to identify as such, I loved being a boy. I loved it. I wanted to have a flat chest, and a big, bushy beard, and for people to look at me in the store and call me sir, and to be somebody’s husband in the future—I wanted all of it. And with this, I strayed further and further away from being a girl, if that was even possible, and adopted the trans man label in 2022.

Most people would think; well, you’re a trans man. You’re not multigender. And that’s what I thought. I really did think so, I thought my gender crisis was over, I felt content, and I didn’t think much into it because it’s not like I could be wrong again, right?

Well. Some fucking god must have had it ought for me, because after a happy year of identifying as a trans man, in early 2023, I had yet another patented moment of wait.

I have been relatively open about my gender struggles here. Relatively is an understatement, I’m sure you can find a post about each label I identified as at the time I identified as it if you just search it on my account, so you can imagine how frustrating this was. I was finally content with being a trans man, and that year was really, really good. My friends were all insanely supportive, were using my correct pronouns and everything, and then I would have to do the walk of shame to tell them, again, that yeah.. I wasn’t right about this, guys :/

Out of everything, the number one thing I was worried about was annoying people. Amongst my own thoughts of faking it, of trying to be different, I really did think my close friends would get tired of me constantly saying something else. I wanted so badly to just be normal, to be simple, to be like the thousands of cis people in the world who are born with the gender they’re assigned as and don’t have a moment of questioning it—of feeling unsure, but at the same time whenever I thought about being just a girl for the rest of my life I got this sick, awful feeling in my stomach. But just being a man didn’t feel right, either.

So, what? What was I?

I still don’t know. If you assume I’m a girl, you won’t be wrong, but you won’t be entirely right, either. If you assume I’m a man, you won’t be wrong, but you won’t be right either. If you assume I’m neither, something that exists outside the binary, you won’t be wrong and you won’t be right.

I tried to be content with just being me. With saying, I don’t need a label, I am who I am! But that wasn’t true. I wanted so badly to have a label, something to explain this, something to prove that there wasn’t something wrong with me—that I wasn’t alone. That I wasn’t faking it after all.

Abrogender is the closest definition to what I’m feeling.

The definition isn’t in my own words, so it isn’t exactly what I’m feeling—hell if I’ll ever be able to explain that to people without sounding insane—but when I found that label I breathed out the biggest fucking sigh of relief. It’s the closest thing to unlabeled as I can allow myself to have, but at the same time it’s still a label. It’s still a sign that people feel how I feel, enough for there to be a definition for it. After years of switching, of nothing sticking, of feeling crazy, like I was making the whole thing up and trying to stick to one thing just to please other people, I finally, finally could breathe. And it’s not something I can explain to somebody who never has to doubt any of these things to begin with. I’m not going to force myself to tone down what I am just so it appeals to a mass of people who wouldn’t have loved me anyways. I’m not going to do that. I was miserable doing that.

So, if you think it’s not real, what I feel and how I identify, and if you think the millions of people who identify as multigender, or some label on the LGBT spectrum that isn’t easy for you to grasp are all faking it, just know that you have the privilege of never feeling a stranger in your own body, in your own mind. You have the privilege of getting up and getting ready in the morning and loving your body, never feeling like an imposter, like you have to put on a performance to please. Of course you couldn’t understand what we go through, and you know what? I am happy for you.

There's a part of me that’s bitter, that’s envious, because I’ve wanted that experience for myself for years. I can't tell you how much. But I’m learning to let things like that go. If you’re one of the millions of people who are truly, entirely happy with how you identify, then I’m happy for you.

If you asked me why I posted this, I would tell you don’t fucking know. Is it because I wanted people to understand the complexities of gender, of the vast labels and how they’re overlooked, as a person who has a lesser known label? Yeah, sure. Is it also because I wanted to just talk my shit for no apparent reason? Yes.

If you’re doubting your own gender like I was, if you feel like you’re faking it, like you’re an imposter to yourself and the people around you, I promise you that it’s going to make sense eventually. It might not be this year, or the next, but you’ll find something that’ll work. You’ll have that moment of finally being able to breathe, of that euphoria of finally not feeling alienated for something you can’t control anymore—no matter how long it takes, it will happen. And you’ll find people who’ll understand, who won’t get upset with you for being confused. There’s millions of people on this earth, and no matter how much your brain tries to convince you, there is always a group of people, no matter how small, no matter how unrepresented, that feel the same. I feel the same.

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