#'annoying' is actually an euphemism lol but yeah

[anti-spop]

tumblr keeps recommending me c//a and pro Catra posts, it's both entertaining and irritating. anyway, i'd like to know your thoughts on this post!

personally, i feel like c//a stans misunderstand our point. we keep saying that Catra does deserve a redemption but she doesn't deserve forgiveness, or at least, instantaneous forgiveness when she has put no effort into trying to change. but they take it as "CATRA IS AN IRREDEEMABLE MONSTER WHO DESERVES TO ROT IN HELL" (which, ironically, is what they say about characters like shadow weaver).

also Adora "wanted" Catra in the finale season because that's how the authors wrote her. it made no sense for her character to suddenly want Catra back after it took her so long to finally cut Catra out of her life.

Do not go after the person who wrote the original post. (this is mostly for my other followers)

Tumblr has been doing the same thing to me, too. It showed me a post that said that as similar as Catra was to Shadow Weaver, she improved to be better. Which is a lie, lmao.

I hate that people think redemption and forgiveness are the same thing. You are allowed to improve as an individual, but the people you hurt don't owe you forgiveness. Sadly, SPOP doesn't have a single character that chooses not to forgive Catra. Even though Frosta punched her in the face, she was more accepting of Catra than Entrapta. Same counts for Perfuma and the other princesses. Though I'm pretty sure anyone would be demonized for not believing that "Catra got better!!!". S5 already does this when Adora vents about Catra being a stubborn brat, she just looks pathetic and Glimmer doesn't take her seriously.

And indeed, most stans think characters like Shadow Weaver or Hordak are not allowed to be redeemed, that's really because they're older and physically disabled.

Finally, yeah, Adora in s4 completely gave up on Catra, she didn't hesitate to nearly kill her without any remorse. Adora's priority was her friends, but especially Glimmer. "I want to be the hero she deserves". But you never see C//A stans talking about that, lol. They only bring up Glimmer and Adora's conflict or Glimmadora at all so they can shit on Glimmer and prove that Catra is a better girlfriend. Which is also bullshit.

Adora is allowed to want things, yes, but s5 pretty much sums it up as her wanting Catra of all people. Not her friends, not a family, or knowing more about her origins, idk. Just Catra. It's literally always about her. Adora is not a character that exists outside of Catra anymore. S5 definitely reinforced this, and the fandom only repeats this. It's annoying.

[orionsangel86]

Listening to The Sandman Audible again and I can't help but think about a few interesting choices made including:

1. Hob and Dream have absolutely ZERO chemistry. Like there is nothing there at all. I physically can NOT ship Audible Hob and Dream the actor playing Hob is just far too Straight and kinda annoying #sorrynotsorry. I've listened to Hob's scenes with Dream in Audible a few times now for my Dreamling meta essay and its literally a zero on the chemistry front. There is nothing compelling there I'm afraid.

2. However Dream and Lucifer have amaaazing chemistry and its honestly difficult to listen too WITHOUT assuming they had a fling back in the old days. Its implied in the comics, but imo they went pretty heavy in this (clearly Michael Sheen knows all about getting fans to ship his characters lol).

3. Titania x Dream is confirmed in Audible. They talk about how they slept together in A Midsummer Nights Dream (I checked and this isn't in the comic and Titania refuses to talk about her relationship with Dream in The Wake so its only ever implied until the Audible show). This officially makes Titania the only confirmed ex lover Dream is actually still on good terms. Something worth exploring in our meta analysis perhaps?

4. What the hell happened in Babylon? Okay so do y'all remember Pharamond? The transportation guy who helps Dream and Delirium travel on Earth? Yeah I barely paid attention to him in the comic, but in the Audible show he's like a super simp for Dream. I dunno if its just me but the chemistry between them is heady... like with Lucifer I get a strong impression that something went down between them and I'm just gonna go ahead and consider "we drank wine together in Babylon" a euphemism from now on.

5. Furry Porn...? I am absolutely dyyying to know how Netflix plans to portray Lady Bast, and Dream when Lady Bast sees him, because they dont have a lot of options tbh. Either they pull a Doctor Who cat people thing (which is always gonna look clunky and low budget) or they do some form of uncanny valley style CGI (prob the most likely option) or they just go full furry outfits (the funniest option imo however unlikely). Either way though, the Audible show turns up the heat. I love the voice actress for Bast, she totally leans in to the sexy kitten persona - like Cat Woman but extra furry and in heat. I wanna see the cat lady totally come on to Tom's Dream and see his reaction to her propositioning him whilst he has a cat face. Do NOT chicken out Netflix. You better lean into the extra weird even if it does end up looking like furry porn. I wanna see it, and I'm not even a furry! 😅

6. The Goddess of Love in the strip club - honestly HOW are they gonna adapt this? Its difficult enough having to listen to Neil Gaiman's voice explaining in graphic detail how the men watched her dance whilst ejaculating over and over again until they were "cumming blood".

Also "you really don't like women do you?" One issue before "he's gotta stop hanging out with poets and stick with me, I'll set him straight."

Dream really isn't beating the gay allegations anytime soon lmao.

[not-souleaterpost]

Ok most random topic yet, but few days ago I emulated Parappa the rapper 2, fun game, but one song was really catchy:

But what annoys me is that everone is going in the comments for the obvious lowbrow "haha what a funny euphemism xdd" angel on it - and I wont even deny that yeah, the whole game is about growing up and becoming an adult so why not add that - but I think people are missing the forrest for the threes:

Think the real joke is parodying "consious" rappers or atleast those that have this too cool for everyone attitude, as if they were above everything:

Hence the nonsense lyrics at the start adressing social issuess like "changing world with hunger" and shit about being super important - Its setting up the whole thing of "wow what a wise guru, he knows whats up!"

Only to break it all down when he ACTUALLY gets big - the fassad falls down, he actually is scared and reveals that it was all for show - as many people who claim to be "underground" but actually know that they could either not deal with the responsibility of actually having fame and influence or want it but actually wont ever reach ir, claiming they are small "by choice".

Idk, probably really obvious stuff, but still the comments focus on boner jokes so I had to set the record straight lol

[alextturcotte]

lols here we go again @2manytabsopen

rant no.1 

um so has everyone just forgotten that matty beniers was talking to a minor… like a person who is under the age of 18 kind of minor because i’m pretty sure that shit happened and i’m not quite sure why we are still making fics about this boy. or even talking about him but whatever you do you i guess 💀 another thing hockeyblr has somehow forgot is thomas bordeleau being besties with a rapist like excuse me. also not to mention using a euphemism of the n-word which is so very inappropriate. honestly i’m so sick and tired of people defending both of these boys' actions. stop saying they’re too young to know better like just no. there are literal 10 year olds out there that know these actions are inappropriate and completely unacceptable. so don’t anyone give me that “they’re too young to know better speech” because i will not hear it. they do and should know better than to do these things because they are grown ass people. they are both 20 years old and that is definitely old enough to understand that talking to a minor in a sexual way, associating yourself with a rapist and saying a racial slur is not okay. to be honest people that are still making fics about just whatever i don’t associate myself with the people who do and i block the tags and shit. it just annoys me that people don’t give a fuck and choose to ignore the issues at hand. 

rant no.2 

again with the talking shot about WAGS !!! like excuse me ma'am i know you did not just insult a woman for being friends, dating or marrying a hockey player. who the fuck do you think you are. like i know you have singular m&m rolling around in your brain but maybe just maybe put the god damn m&m to good use and THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK. what the actual hell happened to “girls supporting girls” does that suddenly not apply when your favourite hockey gets into a relationship ?! you’re jealous so what suck it up ur fav hockey was bound to get into a relationship at some point and honestly if ur THAT jealous you just had to bully the gf how come you didn’t slide into the dm’s while he was single and try to bag him… like girl come on. even if you did and it failed that doesn’t give you the okay to bully the S/O. the whole thing is so fucked up i have so much more to say but i don’t know how to type it out so yeah 

rant no.3 

tying in with rant no.2 the whole girls being friends with hockey players and people bullying the girls, trying to find out information and literally stalking them is just weird. specifically with the umich hockey team. like since when was it bad to have guy friends or girl friends…  some of y’all are bullying these girls that are in COLLEGE fucking college !!!! leave them the fuck alone they haven’t done anything to hurt you all they’re doing is having a good fun time making friends in college is that so wrong to do. and so what if some are in a relationship that’s none of your business to find out if they are. talk about invasion of privacy. some people on this app are really finding these girls tiktoks, instagrams and VSCO’s and posting them on here like just stop. for the millionth time they are in college just normal fucking people and you are invading their privacy and making them probably very uncomfortable. they just want a normal college experience but you are ruining it for them by making unnecessary comments. ESPECIALLY on tiktok just get out of the poor girls comments and stop making her feel uncomfortable. some of the people on umichblr are the reason these girls delete videos, private their account and take vsco’s out of the bio. it’s because you guys are making them uncomfortable and all of y’all are saying stupid shit like “oh idk why they deleted the video” like what ?? you posted that video on this app maybe posted a link so now all these jealous ass people can go into the comment and bully the girl like enough is enough. i’m sick and tired of it. 

um anyways these are my rants for now i hope these made sense i tend to not make sense when i’m mad but ya 🤩

[lg-secretsx]

Hi cutie! Quick question for you. My Daddy and I have always had our own version of a Dd/lg relationship, where he’s very much a caregiver in a lot of ways which I love but I’ve never been one to ever be super little with him. Even in my little moments, I never really slip into what I consider “true little space” because I’m not always a big fan of age regression (due to some traumas in my childhood). But I’ve been feeling sad lately which makes me sink deeper into my little space and I’m really pining for my Daddy to just take care of me. I’m feeling really shy and anxious about showing my Daddy my little side because I don’t want to ever make him uncomfortable and our relationship is still fairly new.

Do you have any advice on how I can bring this up with my Daddy and find out what he’s comfortable with? I have a feeling he’s going to be more than happy no matter what, I just get a lil scared 🥺🥺🥺 so any advice you have would be lovely. Thank you 💕💕

Wow first let me just say I LOVED reading this ask because I relate to it so much. I think it's probably true for a lot of littles in this community that little space feels almost a bit out of reach because it takes some serious vulnerability to really get there. You have to get past any of your own shame you might feel about wanting to be little, and then on top of that you have to take the risk of showing that side to someone whose opinion matters to you a lot. Neither of those things are easy. I also totally relate to the feeling of wanting to be closer to that space when you're feeling soft and sad. So yeah, thanks for sharing all that.

I want to address your point where you said "I don't ever want to make him uncomfortable." It sounds like you are pretty confident that he'll be accepting no matter what, but this is still a fear of yours. And I think this is really common among women and especially among subs, where it feels like our partner's disapproval of us is the literally the. Worst. Possible. Thing, and it's a huge tragedy if we make them annoyed or uncomfortable in any way.

Earlier in my relationship, I had a bad habit of constantly asking my daddy "am I annoying you?" And it would drive him crazy. Also, no matter how many times he would reassure me that I wasn't, I still would end up asking him later on or the next day. The one thing that made me finally squash this habit was when he said something like, "even if you are annoying me, it's okay. It's not a big deal."

The reason I bring this up is because it will be a good idea to first acknowledge that if you do start to dive more into little space together or even just have a conversation about it and something makes him uncomfortable, it's okay. How many times have you been uncomfortable in your life? And you survived. I think it will help take the pressure off if you try to remind yourself that a little awkwardness around this topic wouldn't be the end of the world... or your relationship.

All that said, I really don't think it's likely that he will be uncomfortable if you go about it slowly. Here's why. My experience was super similar to yours in that we considered ourselves to be in a dd/lg relationship before I ever really got into little space. I think we just knew our dynamic fit the mold - he's a caretaker and I like being taken care of - and the kinky aspects pretty much defined our sex life. But it was a while before I actually started to be little with him. And I think the reason it ended up working is because we both knew that those "little" things are part of the lifestyle. We were just a little afraid to completely dive in.

If your daddy is familiar with dd/lg and identifies with the daddy Dom role, then he probably knows that taking care of a little when they're in little space is a part of it, and he's probably got some interest in doing that. Or at the very least, he's curious about it.

So I think a good way to broach this topic is to both be direct about it and provide some ideas for what it might look like for you. This is obviously easier said than done which I guess is why you sent this ask lol. Here are some ways my daddy and I eased into little space:

I talked about other people. I would tell him about things I saw on Tumblr and share (incredibly timidly) what interests me or makes me curious.

We started small. One of the things I was most interested in was having him read to me, but at first, I just asked him to read a regular adult book. Now it's become storytime and he reads me kids' stories while I'm little.

I checked in about how he was feeling about different activities. And I still do. Not in an "am I annoying you?" way, but more in a "do you like this or not and why?" kinda way.

We used euphemisms. This is kind of ridiculous but for a while we didn't even say "D/s" or "dd/lg." We would just say "the kink stuff" because for whatever reason that was easier.

Another good approach would be to ask questions. It's often easier to create space for discussion than it is to just volunteer vulnerable information. What attracts him about dd/lg? What does being a daddy mean to him, and what are some new ways he could express that? This will make room for you to share your feelings, too.

It takes trust, and there's no magic way to avoid the vulnerability it will require of you. But I think the most important thing to remember is that you're both interested in this lifestyle for a reason! You might as well see where it takes you. Because it will be worth it. 💖

[kaypeace21]

i'm losing hope of byler being an endgame :( milevens say that we are invalidating mileven, besides having several scenes that they show "passion/love". they make fun of us, besides always giving reasons why mileven is an endgame, and disrespecting other people's ship, and maybe actually Will will be with another boy right?? idk but I really hope I'm not being deluded

lol  lets not focus on byler for a sec and mostly discuss mileven. what scenes show mileven’s  ‘passion/love’? Because the show invalidates mileven constantly-why they’re so aggressive/afraid of us.THEY KNOW IT’S DOOMED (they live in head canons and nothing else).  I’m going to try keeping this short by doing bullet points.

-The writers in s3 threw in a telemarketing joke just for Mike to say “El. no. sorry not interested” and hang up the phone. 

- Flo  in s1: “only love makes you that crazy and that damn stupid.”

Mike: “if we’re both going crazy. we’ll go crazy together right?”will: “yeah, crazy together “ *smile and stare longingly at eachother *————————————————————-Mike: “they do say it makes you crazy”El: “what makes you crazy?”(the exact opposite of crazy together as she continues to be confused over every explanation he gives of love 😂)————————————————————-During the byler fight  Mike says “el’s not stupid!” After this, Will calls himself “ so stupid “ 4x .  rips up photo where they said they’d go crazy together and cries . But, El after fighting with mike happily says: “there’s more to life than STUPID boys .”  El’s catchphrase being “not stupid” which she says in s2 before going to see Mike at the school. And Nancy before Mike says he loves El / Mikeduring the byler fight (about mileven) say “El’s not stupid!”

original gifs  sources

-the s3 stobin confession parallels mileven’s s3 shop confession (full analysis in link). Both El/Robin have bandages on their legs and both pairings sit together (on the floor) during their confessions- and are interrupted by Dustin. And in both straight baits- the guys use the terms “stupid/crazy” but subvert the expectation of it being romantic-as both girls say they’re not “crazy” or “stupid” for the guy. El saying “what makes you crazy?” in response to Mike. And Robin saying she was not into Steve’s “stupid hair” (similar to El saying there’s more to life than ‘stupid boys’/other saying she’s not stupid.”Also the song ‘the first i love you’ only plays twice in s3. During Steve’s romantic confession and robin rejecting him because she’s gay & El’s romantic confession and awkward kiss with mike (where Mike doesn’t reciprocate). Cause Robin/Mike are both gay and will reject the romantic confession.

- Erica making he-man and barbie kiss: “Hey , They’re in love!”Lucas (livid- and standing right next to a rainbow forcing them apart): “No, actually,  they’re not. they’re not even from the same planet.”  El even watches he-man in s1! Mileven is not in love!

Cue El and mike being compared to ET and Eliot -WHO AREN’T FROM THE SAME PLANET (by the Duffers in multiple interviews and in the pilot script ) .   And then there’s the  old euphemism of “girls come from Venus, and boys come from Mars”.  The Duffers saying mileven isn’t in love cause they’re not from the same planet (aka the same gender) -is just them telling us Mike is gay so he can’t fall for El-who is a girl/diff species. They literally have Will say to Mike “welcome to my world” as a contrast. So El telling mike he should ‘stick with his own species’ (aka boys) is another gay hint.

In s2 they even had El wear the same shirt as a 1986 movie character (staring Winona Ryder). The movie is called coincidentally “lucas”- and he’s in an unrequited romantic relationship with a gal named maggie. And he later says him and Maggie are  from “different worlds.” El being movie-Lucas in a unrequited romance, in this scenario. And the other easteregg is the Duffers have st-Lucas  say the “planet/worlds” similar to movie-Lucas.

some milevens also attribute romeo/juliet to mileven cause Dustin mentioned it while mileven was out of shot. But romeo & juliet weren’t actually in love-it was just kids in infatuation. And also used to describe the unrequited infatuation of Lucas/Maggie.

-Also when dustin in s1 says el is “like a wizard” (like Will.) Mike corrects dustin and says “more like yoda”. Really hammering down the alien references- which the Duffers reference to el in interviews all the time-by comparing her to et . In the pilot they even said mike and el are like “Eliot and et.” They said they made el dress like a ghost cause et did so- and then for the extra burn they made mike a ghost hunter/buster. And they also said that EL’s makeover in s1 was like et’s in the movie. And sorry ... who compares the girl they “crush on” with a green gross alien (yoda)- kind of shows how he sees her more as this foreign superpowered entity rather than a girl/crush. And on what planet is et /Eliot romantic??Answer is -it’s not. 

- In contrast, They have Mike and Will parallel  Diane and Venkman. In ghost Busters, Mike -is Venkman- and Will -is Dana Barret- who Venkman flirts with shamelessly until she is possessed. Dana finds a demon-dog in her fridge, and hires the ghost busters. And right before Venkman goes on a date with her she is possessed by the big-bad, Zuul, and is transformed into the gate-keeper (who controls demo(n)-dogs). Venkman proceeded to try to talk to the real Dana , ignoring her possessed form and eventually realizes how serious her condition is, is forced to sedate her. Eventually with the help of his team, Venkman closes the gate to Zuul’s dimension, rescuing Dana in the process. And Venkman plants one on Dana before riding away in triumph. While, El is a ghost and Mike is a ghost hunter XD

Notice in the same season lucas says mileven is ‘not in love’ and compares mileven to he-man and barbie .  Dustin has a  he-man & Et next to each other (along with a ghost buster sign above them, and the ghostbusters-trap next to et). This just reinforces the mileven eastereggs I’ve already talked about -  and how they want you to make the connections  about mileven not being in love. They showed et/barbie next to he-man, had El watch he-man, compared El to Et (who had a barbie-like makeover/ghost costume), so the next he-man ref of ‘not being in love’  cause rhey’re from different planets would connect in a more obvious way to mileven.  Same with Et next to the ghost trap and ghost busters sign (and El dressing as a ghost and Mike as a ghost buster-as an extra burn).

- Mike dehumanizing El is hammered down again when they compare s1 mileven to s2 dart /dustin (a demo dog) , to further show how un-romantic it is. Fin even said the duffers told him Mike saw el (OFFENSIVELY) as a “puppy’ (right after s1).  And of course millie accurately said “what a horrible way to describe me!”But the parallels are there: Dustin/Mike sharing sweets ( nougat vs eggos) for breakfast and saying they’ll have to wait for them to come home from school. And having mike annoyed, say  “a bond? cause you shared nougat?!” is dissing milevens who think the ego thing is cute/romantic. Dustin/Mike saying they ‘promised’ to take care of them and that they ‘trust’ dustin & mike. Dart killing a cat and El almost killing a cat. Dustin/Mike trying to convince Lucas- Dart & El aren’t bad. The boys thinking both El & Dart were bad guys causing both to end up running away because of that. Mike even admits in s1 he doesn’t like eggos and told El she doesn’t have to eat “like a dog” anymore.  it’s ironic when Mike says to Dustin “she’s not a dog” cause he treated her as such. Why El says in s3 angrily , “am I your pet?” It’s because he did/does unfortunately treat her this way to some degree. 

-They Parallel Mileven to Hopper & El (since mileven isn’t actually romantic)!

*teaching the meaning of promise vs com-promise. And making “promises” to eachother is not some super romantic thing- for just mileven.

* Telling her to eat “real food” vs eggos

* saying her new look is “cool”and saying it’s “bitchin” after El says the look is.

* Saying others are “corrupting her” and in response gals say neither respect her ability to make “decisions” in regards to romance. Hopper not accepting Mileven together (want them to break up)  and Mike not accepting she dumped him.

* Max saying to not let Hopper/Mike control her

*El saying “you lie” to both of them

ok , back to listing other points

- they dance to ‘every breath you take’ a break up song about a stalker ex who can’t accept he is now with her friend. The writer of the song also has said many times “it’s NOT a love song.” The duffers obviously knew that. Lumax also danced to it and Lucas was called a ‘stalker’ . El also stalked Mike in s2 (all that stuff milevens found romantic- El watching him without him knowing. Mike says he was not ok with it in s3). And in s3 he said not to do that and she just says ‘i make my own rules’.Plus, sting (the singer) mentions it’s supposed to sound romantic but the lyrics are sinister. And that the ambiguity/deceptive happy -romantic tone was intentional. Kind of like how people think mileven is healthy and in love when the show (ambiguosly says ) that it’s not -and the “opposite”.Just like the song being misinterpreted as romantic because of its deceptive packaging -mileven is the same . Mileven got popular cause everyone missed all the warning signs it wasn’t healthy (cause it was packaged as ‘cute’ and ‘ in love’) when behind the surface it was shown to be the opposite and not healthy.

 Not to mention Nancy teaching Dustin how to dance is a direct parallel to Mike teaching El. 

Mike also tries to act like Dustin, and  forces Will to dance with a girl (who’s wearing a rainbow hair clip). Trying to be a good sport like Dustin is about lumax. And right after this we see Dustin look sad about Max/Lucas dancing and Mike (next to Dustin) look sadly at Will/girl dancing in the same exact frame as Max/Lucas. As they switch between these 2 shots to emphasize their sadness/jealousy.Then they both sit down (mirroring each other) on the verge of tears before Nancy and El show up to comfort them and distract them.  As El once again (presumably) wears Nancy’s dress. Mike after El asks “will you be my brother?” “you cant go  (to the snowball) with your sister... i mean you can but it’d be really weird.” 

- before their first kiss in s1 she asked if he would be like her brother (after being compared to a cousin, and being compared to Holly, and wearing Nancy’s dress.) In s2 they even make a direct parallel to Luke &Leia (who were siblings who had a weird romantic relationship/kissed before realizing they were related). Mike (as Leia) saying “it’s a trap” to El (Luke). 

- Mike in s1 writes a d&d story for Will inspired by star wars.  in ep one Will tells Mike “it was a 7, the demogorgan it got me.”At the end of the season Mike writes a whole story of him and his friends killing a 7 headed monster, and showing the decapitated head of the monster to king Tristan (Will). Similar to how at the hospital he tells Will to not worry cause “it’s dead now”. This is right after Will rolls a 14 (cause Mike and Will are 7s together). And Mike who is a fan of starwars has King Tristan give them medals after killing the monster. Cause he wants Will/king tristan (instead of Leia -a girl) to present him with medals and be his romantic love interest (and praise him for being a hero).

- They had Dustin call mileven “bullshit” just like stancy (who were never in love). And in s3 for almost every single character in the show to dislike mileven . if that isn’t a cry for help from the writers idk what is XD

other stancy parallels: Making out on a bed to cheesy music. stancy wasn’t in love but they kissed the most in the series and nancy and steve (similar to mileven exchanged ‘i love yous’) but weren’t endgame and it was never love. Mike and Steve sing to their gfs and neither girls are fans and cut them off.In s1, both Nancy/Mike slap Steve and El and then both yell “ What is wrong with you?!”  Stancy/mileven are compared to Karen/ted who according to Nancy “never loved each other”. El is a fan of ted’s lazy boy. (Karen in s3 looks at Ted in the chair when the lyric “I should have walked away “ plays). And Steve and ted continuing to eat chicken as their gf /wife storm off from the table upset , and they do nothing. After the mileven and Karen/Ted fight- Steve says while eating “what did I do?what did i do?” And mike while eating says about el after their fight “what did i do wrong? what did i do wrong?!Steve and Ted both tell Mike to “stay on the bench/you’re on the bench.” Karen/ ted that they “never loved each other” (just like mileven and stancy which are “bullshit.”) All 3 wheelers were with people cause it seemed like the rational choice ( rich guy/ popular guy/ girl). Not to mention mike said “ I don’t remember” ( in reference to saying he loved el ) . And doesn’t say it back when el says “I love you”. Which mimics Nancy in s2 saying “I don’t remember ” (saying the stancy relationship is bs) . And she is also unable to say she loves Steve when he says“say you love me.” And Steve and el walking away as both wheelers stand there in silence. Unable to say “I love you” back.  Also, when stancy officially breakup it also pans to mileven on the porch as another parallel.And 11byers mentioned (at Christmas)  jancy has a moment but despite stancy’s issues she goes back to Steve where she looks sad over the decision .  Similar to how Byler have a moment , but then after , mileven talks about christmas  and they have that awkward kiss. In s3, steve when talking about stancy and trying to be popular even says “dustin’s right it’s all a bunch of bullshit.” (meaning Dustin’s right about mileven). Steve even says “everything people tell you is important that you’re supposed to care about- it’s bullshit.” (same season Mike mimics Lucas’ words from s1 about El being the “most important thing”.

-They also had Mike tell Max “i don’t hate you. I don’t even know you.”  Aka he can’t hate Max or love el cause he knew both for a week-and doesn’t know them. The amount of mileven burns that were in s2 -were insane XD.

other direct contrasts between Mileven & byler 

besides the ones already mentioned. 1) ‘crazy together/so stupid’ vs ‘what makes you crazy?/el’s not stupid/more to life than stupid boys & 2) ‘they’re not in love they’re not even from the same planet’ vs byler’s ‘welcome to my world’

3) Mike has drastically different expressions after the byler/mileven fights and the difference in weather and music selection ,convey how Mike is feeling. He looks regretful with Will, and almost annoyed with El dumping him.  Mileven breaks up to upbeat music on a sunny day (the break up being in front a crowd and a joke) vs the morose music and the storm shown (with just Mike and Will fighting ). We are supposed to take the byler fight seriously and the mileven one as a joke.They had Mike apologize to Will immediately. But with El he says “what did i do wrong?’ (Kind of like how ted, after pissing off karen says “what did I do?”)And then had Mike wait by the phone for her to apologize- says sexist stuff about her. Then have mike laugh/burp and talk about cheese and El to laugh about the break up/high five max and immediately oggle a pic of another boy/male celeb (unlike Will who looks sadly at the pic of Mike after their fight). And then after staring at the  teen-male celeb,  El says she’s not sure if  Mike’s a good kisser cause he’s just her “first boyfriend” and she has no other boys to compare him to (implying she’s thinking of other boys in the future).  Contrasted to Will who said he thought him & Mike would never get gfs but just spend the rest of their lives together. El after all these events, then happily reads comics  as Max says she shouldn’t hang out with Mike all the time. VS Will having him sadly read his comic to distract himself  only to throw his comic on the ground right before he looks at the pic of mike from Halloween (where they said they would go ‘crazy together’), calls himself stupid (unlike El saying there’s more to life than stupid boys/mike saying El is not stupid-aka in love ). And then destroys castle byers /crIES after the their fight. These events were perfect opposites.

4) When Mike says in the pool shed she’s the “most important thing in the world” to him. she cuts him off and says Hopper is right about them spending too much time together. But when Mike in the shed says asking Will to be his friend was the “best thing he’s ever done” (it was practically the cliche of true love breaking the curse) XD.

When Mike says to El  “you’re most important thing to me” in the pool shed. El doesn’t even acknowledge the comment (and neither should the audience- cause the words were empty). The framing of this mileven scene was not cinematic or heartfelt, and neither was the delivery from Mike. He’s not crying, trying to reach her with proclamations of his genuine feelings. There’s no dramatic music, framing, lighting or shot composition (and the scene was incredibly short).And El just responds and cuts his supposed ‘true feelings’ off- only to agree with Hopper and says “ what if he’s right”  . I didn’t speed this up FYI.

Juxtaposed to the MUCH longer byler shed scene. A literal single tear falling down his cheek as Mike , recounts the first day they met. This whole monologue is only of tight shots of just their faces (their bodies aren’t shown like in the pool shed scene). With contrasting colors of light and shadow.This is a personal moment between them and them alone- and the fact we zoom in on their faces (expresses this to be important emotionally) . And when we see Will’s reaction to Mike saying “it was the best thing I’ve ever done”. We just see Will’s face only- no music is playing and all we hear is  Will’s whimpers and Mike crying in the background.*

5) Max in s2 at Will’s house questions how Mike can still trust Will now that he’s a spy for the mf . Max (in s3) at El’s house: says that Mike doesn’t trust El- and Mike mentions that her spying is why he doesn’t trust her.  in s2, Mike: “if anyone could stop them it’s Will“. Max: “ I thought we couldn’t trust him that he’s a spy for the mf now?” Max in s3 calling Mike out  : “El has saved the world twice. And Mike still doesn’t trust her.” Mike: you want to talk about trust really?! after... Eleven spied on us! I guess girlfriends don’t lie they SPY!”

Not to mention - the fact is... El has “saved the world twice but Mike still doesn’t trust her” to fight the mf. Yet he 100% believed Will could defeat the mf -despite Will being possessed/a spy for the mf . And despite the fact Mike  thinks Will has no powers - unlike El ( but we all know he does , though :P). And, Mike even says Billy is dangerous cause  the “mf is in him ...Billy’s mind is sick, diseased” (but with Will possession -Mike still trusted him).  Max rolls her eyes and stares challengingly at Mike cause she remembers what Mike said about Will in s2- and the hypocrisy . And she finds it annoying how little faith he has in her compared to his almost unmoving-trust in Will (who at the time was possessed) . Mike has 100% trust and faith in Will-but simply doesn’t trust El.  And MAX KNOWS IT! Cause she’s paying attention. Like her facial expression/raised brow, at the end, is a challenge- you think non-superpowered Will could defeat the mf but not El with a history of fighting monsters? You say Billy possessed by the mf is dangerous- but still have more faith in Will possessed by the mf- than your own gf?! tbh El couldn’t defeat the mf (so technically him trusting Will over  El was proven to be correct). He wasn’t right about the El ‘giving up’ bs and he was still wrong for not respecting El as her “own person” with her “own free will” : not believing in El’s ability to make decisions like breaking up with him/ not believing El made the idea to spy on him, etc . But, Team work has always been what saved the day in s1-2, so over-relying on El to do it all and acting like she was the messiah ( like most of the st fanbase) was a poor plan . It’s not the El-show (it’s an ensemble cast with several mains). When they relied on her only ,to be the chosen one- she lost her powers, 30+ people d*ed, and they had to save her.

6) ) El and Will both calling for “Mike” alone in the upside down . And Mike “never giving up” on them.In the exact same ep (s2 e2) , both call for Mike from the upside down. El saves herself without Mike’s help. But Mike rushes to save Will crouching to comfort Will (whose body language mirrors El’s but who was alone in the forest after she sees mike and he did nothing). 

in s2 ep 1, both call for Mike ,but Mike only comes for Will -not el. It was like how Nancy in s1 called for Jon, and jonathan pulled her out of the upsidedown.  And as Jonathan and Mike both pull Nancy and Will back from the upside down , Jonathan says “I got you”. And Mike says “I got him “ twice. But mileven is like how barb while in the upsidedown called for Nancy (but nancy didn’t hear her screaming her name-cause it shows symbolically Nancy does not return Barb’s romantic feelings). Just like mileven.

Mike even saw Will’s dead body but the second he heard his voice he convinced everyone he was alive. Mike deep down assumed El was dead he brushed off seeing El as seeing things (like how Hopper described seeing Sarah). He even tells Max “ they took her just like they took bob” who was dead. Then a few minutes later lies and says he “never gave up” on her when she appears alive (which was a lie cause he just said she was dead). When El goes to his house Mike doesn’t ever go the forest to find her (unlike how Mike went into the forest in the pouring rain twice for Will). The truth is the only person he ‘never gave up on’ was Will.

7) They have El & Will have pics of Mike on Halloween (same night of the ‘crazy together’ speech). El only has a pic of Mike being miserable  and Will has pics of Mike staring at Will, and smiling next to him- despite the joke Mike never smiles in photos , this isn’t the case when mike is next to Will (he always smiles with Will). Cause being crazy with Will makes him happy - unlike his relationship with El who he fakes being ‘crazy’ about .

zoom in of Will & El’s pics of Mike: Will’s pic on left vs El’s on right . XD

8) Millie said El is “obsessed with Mike” so she has Mike-themed stuff all over  her room. She has a drawing with a heart that says mike on it/random heart pics, mike pic, dice that spell out mike, mikes’ stuff. So, It’s funny that mike has nothing relating to El at his place. In contrast to this, he still has 5 d&d drawings from Will on his wall (that he’s kept on his wall for 3 years despite removing an old poster from that same wall-which he gave to El). Mike even put up a 6th Will-drawing in s3- next to his new poster. And he never put a single 1 of her many drawings on his wall-just Will’s).

back to other points...

- They compared mileven to karen/billy. El in s2 , mimics Erica Kane who m(in the ep she is watching) rushes into a relationship with a writer named Mike Roy. (That relationship is not endgame-and  literally ends with one of them stalking and sabotaging their next relationship, but eventually accepting it’s over). This, also parallels Karen/ Billy. Before she meets him in s2, Karen is reading a romance book that has a guy that resembles Billy on the cover. The Duffers even mentioned they changed the cover to show the resemblance between Billy and the fictional book character. And we see Karen reading the sequel in s3 before Billy appears. Both El and Karen don’t/didn’t love Mike or Billy- they just projected onto them fictional characters they were infatuated with. El being into Mike roy- but projecting her crush on to Mike wheeler.

-They had El’s whole s2 arc be destroyed to show mileven is bad for her. “friends don’t lie” to let me lie to my friends so I can kiss mike and ditch them. lucas even said “they’re lying (about her curfew).”And lie to Mike about hearing his confession. Then in s2 trying to leave the cabin to experience the world and see my friends and fam again. To literally ignoring them all for 6 months and never leaving the cabin-despite Hopper letting me leave the house in s3.

- El in s3 says Mike treats her “like a pet” and “garbage”.

-In s1 Mike referred to her as a ‘weapon’  to help get Will back. smacked her when he thought she lied about Will being alive and said Lucas was right about her all along when he thought Will was dead and he couldn’t use her anymore. 

- They had El never apologize for spying/stalking . And  Mike never apologize for lying -despite it being the cause of the breakup . And had mike not reciprocate the kiss/ or say ‘i love you ‘ back  and had his eyes open while the same exact song plays that robin came out to: called ‘the first i love you’). These are the only 2 times the song plays in s3. The ‘first i love you’ also sounds like ‘the first lie’ - that song played when jancy said they were just friends. it sounds the same cause jancy lied about it not being romantic while mileven lied by saying it was.  He never apologized for lying cause the love is the lie- like Max said “boyfriends lie ALL THE TIME”. And it’s why the camera panned to Will when Lucas asked why Mike lied to her. And he never answers El’s question of ‘why do you lie?!’ (he just looks up silent and guilt ridden).This awkward kiss all happens in Will’s room too while Mike is in front of an open closet (while El is holding Will’s old bear).  

Plus he also fought with Hopper in s2 (’about El’) in Will’s room too. He wasn’t actually calling Hopper the liar he was calling himself “a stupid disgusting liar”out of self hate .  That scene was foreshadowing his lying to El in s3 (about his feelings for her). He blamed Hopper for his feelings for Will cause he told himself it wouldn’t have escalated if El had been around to ‘fix him’ . “I BLAME YOU! NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS OK! NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS OK. YOU STUPID DISGUSTING liar, liar, liar, liar”.starts crying.

- Mike says “i never gave up on you (to El). “ When moments earlier he says “it took her just like it took Bob.” HE’S LYING AGAIN. He always thought she was dead -he was just hoping she was alive so he didn’t have to blame himself. He felt bad for treating her like a “weapon”. Mike saw El and didn’t even bother looking for her in the woods cause he assumed she was dead and was hallucinating. Mike saw Will’s dead body- but heard his voice and got him from another dimension (for El he couldn’t even bother to walk into the woods). Despite going into the woods in the pouring rain 2x for Will in s1& 3. El and Mike both call for Mike in the upside down (Mike in the same ep only comes for Will).

- They barely spoke to each other and all they did was makeout for 1 ep (while Mike put a drawing of ‘Will (the fire wielding) wise’ on the wall to help him kiss her/ with rainbows pic everywhere in the room to signify he’s gay and lying).  All while listening to a mixtape Will gave him as he kisses El.As Mike moves her hands off him (and sings a song from ‘boy in the box’) and El says to Max later she doesn’t know if mike’s a good kisser . And Mike rushes to one of his many established double-dates with Will and lumax  (x). And Mike in s3 when dating el, removes the sign of the heart being propelled by a rainbow (which he had before meeting El in his basement) .BUT it follows him symbolically ,as a drawing of a heart being propelled by a rainbow (in el’s room- cause no matter how much he kisses el there, he can’t escape his rainbow/being gay.)

-as mileven kiss in s3 e1. We zoom in on the drawing of Will the wise (the lyrics over the pic are “a little more time can open closing doors”). And then Mike continues to sing this song from ‘boy in the box’ (cough closet).Will in s3e1 says he won’t fall in love and the song then a diff song plays “love that was new to you , you open up the door.” mileven at the end of s3 kissing in front of Will’s open closet door with Mike’s eyes open not kissing back , and saying he doesn’t “ remember “ the love you and just says it was “in the heat of the moment”. The mike song being from “boy in the box” (closet). And they make out to “I can’t fight this feeling” which the singer says is about wanting to admit your feelings to your friend of many years and being afraid it’ll ruin the relationship. Aka even when kissing El he’s thinking of Will and admitting his feelings and not being able to fight his feelings

- Mike saying about Max “awesome? you don’t even know her.” Dustin says “ i don’t have to i mean look at her.” El was said in s1 multiple times to look like a boy (specifically Will). So Dustin and Lucas had no interest in her -only Mike did. BUT when max (a girl who looked like a girl) arrived- they as straight boys  were smitten. And Mike was not interested at all (cause he’s gay). The fact people don’t realize Mike was rude to her because he thought Will liked her too makes me laugh - he even was 1/2 honest in s3 saying he was jealous of her  XD 

why in s3 (when she looks like a girl) the compliment to her look is almost the same as Hopper’s comment to her makeover in s2. Paralleling Mike to her dad is the opposite of romantic!

-people say in s3 Will saying “a day free of girls” is gay coded but everyone ignores Mike in s3 saying “BOYS ONLY”. Same energy.

-MiKE has more rainbows than Will: Mike’s rainbow bedroom blinds, the rainbow-heart wooden sign in the basement in s1, the rainbow heart drawing that says Mike in s3, a rainbow sticker in his room, byler standing behind a rainbow poster in s2. And Will with the rainbow ship and the girl he danced with having a rainbow hearts-hairclip.

- People mention Mike saving El in s3 was romantic ( when he hit Billy). But when Billy slapped max he charged in to save her too and tried punching him (despite their beef). that moment wasn’t romantic (unless you think madweheeler is- which no). Mike is just a good person- he also risked his life for dustin. He’s brave and will defend HIS FRIENDS. 

- we’re almost to the end for those not keeping tract mileven is compared to stancy, ted/karen,  karen/billy, stobin, Dart/Dustin, max &mike, barb/nancy, nancy & dustin, siblings & cousins & a parent/kid dynamic. And contrasted to byler.

- Finn, after s1, said the duffers told him,   Mike thinks of her as a “puppy/ “et” , and that Mileven was a  “first summer love thing”- foreshadowing what was mileven’s downfall during the Summer (aka s3). He repeats this “first summer love” phrase 2x.  Millie when he mentioned what the duffers said, rightfully thought the puppy thing was “awful”, but Finn was clearly told mileven doesn’t last -very early on.Summer love” by definition fails-as it only lasts during the summer.  

-It wasn’t a break it was a breakup. Like Max and Will said in response to Mike  “ she said she dumped your ass! That doesn’t sound like a break?!/ it wasn’t!’ Or El knocking all the candy out of the machine, except the kit kat Mike wanted. Slogan of kit-kat “ having a break , have a kit kat.” In other words, it was NOT a break. It was a breakup. Difference is - in s4 it’ll be El who can’t accept this fact , not Mike. Max having to correct El that Mike is her “ex boyfriend” after the breakup (in s3) foreshadows this.The other couples in s3 who fought -were always still paired together in framed shots (jancy/ lumax) were on a break (but got back together- by the end of s3,  not confident about their futures together, but they still have a distinction from mileven-based on such framing). That mileven didn’t get back together. El in s3 was always on her own and Mike was paired with Will (while the other couples were in frame). 

this could go on and on honestly. there’s so much other stuff proving mileven is not going to be endgame. Not to mention all of Mike’s queer coding (x) XD   

[amyscascadingtabs]

fic interview tag

tagged by @feeisamarshmallow and @peralta-guaranteed! thank you guys, finally had time for this now :)

name: johanna/amyscascadingtabs on tumblr and ao3!

fandoms that I write for: right now only b99. through time it’s also been harry potter, with brief adventures (like a few works each, mostly unpublished) in skam, shadowhunters, glee and carmilla i think

two-shot: uhh i mostly either do one-shots or even longer. i suppose your light, it follows me in darkness is an unintentional two-shot right now because i had a third chapter planned but guys, the inspiration is GONE, like i cannot find it _anywhere_ and yeah. i’m ashamed because i genuinely never drop things like that but i guess we’ll see.

most popular multichapter: i don’t have a lot of them (but one more is coming!!) but i’ll walk through hell with you is my biggest one and it was a big part of my life during an otherwise pretty terrible time for me and it’s just. very dear to me :’)

if we count oneshot collections (which we’re probably not) then i just saw that i just care about being with you has 1100 kudos which is insaaane. 🥺

actual Worst Part about Writing: ooohh. i don’t know. when the inspiration just won’t come. when every line just sounds wrong. when something doesn’t do as well as you’d hoped for and you have to give up on ideas. also dialogue tags, euphemisms for genitals, realising you’ve used that one word a ton of times and having to change it, remembering you have to add in touches of scenery and having to go back... it has its downs. or just when you realise you’re not happy with something and you have to rewrite it, it always annoys me (probably because i outline so much before that once i write it i want it to be Perfect)

how you choose your titles: i’m a song lyric gal, i used to have a whole document with possible ones that i updated but i haven’t used it in a while now! but usually song lyrics because.. i just like being able to associate music with writing anyway? i’ve always collected lyrics i like anyway so to be able to use them is a nice extra bonus!

do you outline? YES. like a crazy person if it’s a longer fic. okay, not a crazy person, but i sketch out all the scenes i want and before i write a scene, i sketch that out in even smaller steps, and before i write dialogue i usually write that one down first too. basically i really hate getting stuck and so i have to write down everything first in order to avoid it.

if anyone is curious this is an example of a basic outline for me, for the third part of the little that i know, i’ll tell to you. i usually copy that into the document i’m writing in and then i make it into even more detail and delete as i write it “properly”. i don’t know if any of that made sense haha but there you go, bonus insight into my brain and my first ideas!

i also always write down random ideas for later bits so i don’t forget them later!

ideas I probably won't get to but it would be nice: that third chapter of the miscarriage fic? lol. i don't know, but i'm definitely stressing about my fic exchange fics! otherwise i don't really have a lot of ideas i'm thinking about right now. we'll see what happens after season 8!

best writing habits: can i say my outlining? it helps me massively and just makes it that much easier for me because then i can enjoy the actual process without feeling like i’m getting stuck – i can get the ideas down without them having to sound “good” and i can later just write without worrying about getting stuck!! and also i'm pretty good at writing on my phone on trains and buses, which was a lot more useful when i actually used public transport daily, but hey. god i genuinely miss having 40 minutes of train commuting time to write on my phone sometimes, lol. 

spicy opinions: i agree with the ones that tagged me! but, hmm, i can’t really think of something else.. i have one thing which is going to seem like a callout but really isn’t meant to be, haha. anyway, uhm, i don’t like reading characters being outright self-deprecating about their own bodies, like calling themselves fat in negative ways. that can get me down a lot sometimes to be honest. but each to their own, i’m aware this is a bit of a personal issue for me. 

tagging: not sure who has/hasn’t been tagged right now... but i’d be interested in what @amydancepants-peralta, @b99peraltiago and @letsperaltiago​ has to say!

[auntbibby]

the things we DON’T share in our struggle, for cruel & arbitrary reasons

ohhhhhhhhhhhh...... sooo.... so, the "let's get down" part of "let's get down to business" would be a euphemism/innuendo for sex????? yeah, ohhh... okay, yeah, then i can see how that line in the song would imply something that was completely or mostly uninteresting to asexuals... A.K.A. a snoozefest for them lol

if i had caught on to THAT part then i probably wouldn't have stupidly asked "DuRrRrRr HoW dOeS aSeXuAlIsM CoNnEcT tO tHe AgEnDeRiSm MeNtIoNeD iN tHe LaSt CoMmEnT DuRrRrRr I tHoUgHt AcE oNlY mEaNt AsExUaL nOt AgEnDeR" but, i literally didn't percieve anything at all in your comment relating to or even referencing in any way Sex or Sexuality or Asexuality other than the word "Ace" itself...... so i moved on to the comment you were replying to and saw the word "Agender" and automatically assumed that that must have been what you were connecting the word "Ace" to, but i just had to confirm with you, because even THAT seemed to conflict with literally everything i had ever heard about the word "Ace" and what it was meant to refer to.... lmao...

being autistic in a neurotypical world is like having to successfully solve a really hard Professor Layton for Nintendo DS puzzle challenge everytime you interact with a specific piece of language, body language, gestural meaning, text, art, or architecture that was made by a neurotypical person... but if you fail at figuring it out, that's on YOU and you failed to meet the bare minimum requirement of Society (not neurotypical society, just Society... because we don't have an autistic society to compare this to, unfortunately, so our neurotypically-shaped society is assumed to be Default-shaped by law, morality & every other societal metric in every nation on earth). but when a neurotypical person even NOTICES you dropping your neurotypical-mask for a single second to react RATIONALLY to the reality you actually perceive 24/7, it's ALSO on you to change YOUR behavior to reflect a more acceptable neurotypical-style reaction to something that YOU YOURSELF ARE NOT ACTUALLY SEEING or, guess what? once again, you failed to meet the bare minimum requirement of Society......

you see, a lot of us autistic people don't realise it, but to the extent to which our autism is severe, it also makes the reality we perceive completely different than the "objectively-universal" reality that neurotypicals percieve. we may not realize this in part because the only shoes we've ever stepped in are our own, so to speak (a fish won't know about the existence of water if it's been swimming in it since it hatched), so we don't actually have a way of knowing exactly how differently we perceive reality than neurotypicals. but according to the intense world theory of autism as well as just broader notions of how autism works, autism is basically just a disorder of either 1) how your sensory organs report on your external reality to your brain thru your nervous system, or more likely 2) how your brain processes that sensory data before it starts trying to make sense of it (finding patterns, making predictions based on those patterns, scaling this process up in a hierarchical pattern)... but the thing is, of course, the brain itself has no way of knowing anything whatsoever about the world outside the skull it's encased in except thru this sensory data, so if it comes into the brain differently than another person's brain, this brain will effectively just be perceiving a different reality entirely...

so believe it or not, the fact that we can't filter out the annoying sound of the electric lights on the ceiling and the fact that we feel most comfortable eating the same set of foods over & over again without exploring new tastes because we actually will never get bored of the incredibly-rare few tastes that don't make us gag are actually just indicators of a larger difference in how we inherently & biologically perceive the entire universe that our eyes, ears, skin etc. sends data via nerves into our neurons.... and we had no choice in the matter about this....

we were born autistic, and therefor have no choice but to perceive a severely different reality than all neurotypical people to the precise extent that our autism is deemed to be severe.... just as trans people had no choice but to feel like they were born in a body that doesn't fit their gender identity, and gay people have no choice but to be attracted to the same gender from birth, and people of one race or another were born in a body that could only pass as being the races that it can pass as, with no choice in the matter, and no way to change this for the rest of their life.

in some ways ableism has a lot more similarity to queer oppression than racial oppression, because with queer and disabled people, the oppression stems from the oppressors refusal to accept that the oppressed group ARE inherently or biologically different for reasons that they have no control or choice over, and to be willing to make compromises for these very-different needs (mainly because they refuse to accept that they are, in fact, NEEDS and not WANTS)..........

....while with racial oppression, the oppression stems from the oppressors refusal to accept that there ISN'T anything inherently or biologically different with the oppressed group (other than skin color and other aspects of surface apperance) compared to the racial oppressor..... the fact that the oppressed group has a significantly-different culture (with differently defined and originated moral compasses & societal values) as well as higher statistical rates of failing to succeed in the oppressors allegedly fair-and-balanced society (The American Dream states that anyone can succeed from any origin in america) and also higher statistical rates of things like addiction & incarceration that the societies of the oppressor AND the oppressed both might see as a failure of the individual??? It's all proof of a problem with the racial oppressors society itself (systemic racism) that can't be explained by a few "bad apples" on one side or the other or both.....unless you believe that there IS something inherently or biologically different about an oppressed race, in which case you are simply a racist.....

so essentially, the way to view queer and disabled people as a NON-bigoted person, is the way to view people of systematically-oppressed races as a VERY BIGOTED person.... and vice-versa.....

which just shows that, racism is an arbitrary and unscientific cruelty based on the genuine belief of something that is a ludicrous fantasy (that people of certain races are somehow less human or have less capacity for Goodness than others) that LINGERS ON like A RESILIENT DELUSION THAT COULD ONLY HAVE COME FROM HUMANITY’S IRRATIONAL PAST, despite the acceleration at which WIDELY-KNOWN TRUTHS about HUGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE are distributed to families in the racist parts of the world over the DECADES, CENTURIES, MILLENNIA, and even right up to this day.......

while in contrast, homophobia, transphobia, & ableism are stubborn and selfish cruelties based on the lack of genuine knowledge of something that is an undeniable truth (that people with certain bodies are somehow differently human and yet still have the same capacity for Goodness as others) that COVER THEIR EYES like FRAGILE DELUSIONS THAT COULD EASILY ARISE FROM HUMANITY’S NAIVE ASSUMPTIONS despite the unchanging nature of CERTAIN SPECIFIC TRUTHS about SMALL PERCENTAGES OF PEOPLE that have been born to families all over the world for DECADES, CENTURIES, MILLENNIA, and even right up to this day.........

[scarlettlawyer]

Part 11 of my reaction/commentary to the Phantoms & Mirages Saga, the fanfic series by @renegadewangs

(Chasing Phantoms): Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

(Haunted Specters): Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

(Vanquishing Mirages): Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

Vanquishing Mirages / Lifting Spirits: Part 10

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 1

At the very least, he could rest easy knowing that his first motorcycle lesson hadn’t been a complete disaster. The future looked promising.

ANY future looks promising when it has Motorcycle Simon in it

“Here, I brought you a sandwich.” “Is it chicken?”

Blackquill: [known bird lover, intense lover of birds pouring over bird documentaries in his spare time and cherishing Taka with all his heart]

The boy who would become the phantom, the moment he is presented with a sandwich: iS IT CHICKEN?

“But… People die when they are killed.”

ASDJHSDBKJS

A+ DIALOGUE THANK YOU I LOVE IT. GOOOSH I’M. SOMEBODY needs to compile a list of things this same person has said in this series. The above line. The courtroom jokes, the irony line… the “I’m aroace” line… The other things he said to intentionally turn Bobby against him post-phantomquill kissbait, throw in a bunch of other Lex lines too. The RANGE. THE SHEER RANGE. You could just do a list like that, show it to someone and be like “Yeeeaahh so ALL of these are essentially said by the same character in different stages of his life.”

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 2

Finally, there was a knock on the door and Lang led the way into the room. He looked irritable. He’d been giving off that air since before the surgery. Lex had a suspicion on what might be causing such irritation, but kept it to himself. Lang wouldn’t take his advice on matters like that anyway.

“Matters like that” I’M FGLKFGLKNGF

OKAY ALSO

I SOMEHOW MISREMEMBERED THIS AS BEING SOMETHING HE THINKS BACK BEFORE THE SURGERY BUT EITHER WAY IT’S JUST. GOLD.

The phantom – or the former phantom – Lex just sitting there doing his best to refrain from giving out romantic advice.

Someone younger than he’d expected. This man couldn’t be older than thirty- probably hadn’t even reached that age yet. […] this guy looked rather meek. He was lean; the sort of physique that made it seem like a strong gust of wind could blow him off his feet. His black hair was smoothed back with copious amounts of gel and his face bore overly kind features. A few sheets of paper and a notebook were clutched firmly under his right arm. Coupled with his neat black suit, dark blue tie and thick-rimmed glasses, he looked more like a door-to-door salesman than a therapist.

GEEEEE MEOWZY, GEEEE, SUCH DESCRIPTION, I WONDER IF HE’S AN IMPORTANT CHARACTER OR ANYTHING sdjnksdfknl.

Okay but back when I read this 1st time I was like. Well I seriously didn’t know WHY the hell this guy needed such a strong narrative focus on what he looked like. Like. “He’s the therapist. That’s all we need to know. He’s not important! Why do we care what he looks like! Why does it matter!” askjbsdkjnedskj just felt SO excessive just annoying that the narrative felt like it Cared so much about a random therapist character DFKDFKJ GOD I WAS A FOOL

AND ALSO UHHH

Like yes this fic post-bait was still promising and as superb as ever and had thrilled me with things like the music-listening thing BUT. I need you to understand that I was still very hurt over Fake Phantomquill and therefore, REALLY not in the mood for getting to know Sudden New Characters. The intense goodwill I’d built up for this series over three fics had been largely derailed at this point. I just… didn’t really care all that much about giving new characters a chance thanks to that new apathy. That, and the fact that this series genuinely felt like it was reaching the end at this point, with all of the Major Players already introduced. So how could any important character POSSIBLY show up now? Coupled with how Done I was after the phantomquill bait. SO YKNOW. Idiot that I am, I kind of breezed over the above paragraph a little impatiently without really taking anything in, like I read it but didn’t really ABSORB it or incorporate the physical description into how I pictured the character. I was just like “yeah ok he’s the therapist moving on? What’s next?” (BENNY I’M SO SORRY I WAS VERY MEAN). So yeah, my foolish logic: “series is almost over, all the important characters are introduced, therefore no character introduced at this point could possibly be important, therefore I don’t need to care about or pay attention to anyone new.”

…Like okay, I knew the story wanted me to see this new character as someone important and therefore pay attention to them, but I couldn’t understand why and therefore intentionally failed to pay much close attention almost out of spite.

But like. God. If I had actually bothered to take in anything about that physical description I would have actually NOTICED how handsome he is right from the start. Joke’s on me!

“[…] a person who’s supposed to have no emotions is incredibly interesting.”

[…]

Such an odd point of view was another thing that took Lex by surprise. All his life, people had called him a monster. A freak. A heartless robot or a demon. A Phantom. No one had ever considered his emotional state to be interesting. No one had ever considered it an honor to be sitting across from him. Who in their right mind would?

WHY WOULD YOU CALL ME OUT LIKE THIS

HELLO. SDKJNSFKJNSDKJ. ALSO THANK YOU SOMEONE ACTUALLY AGREES HOW INTERESTING THE LACK OF EMOTIONS THING IS.

But this is so funny it’s like the fic is takign aim at the fangirls. Me, a phantom fan: Hah… Yes… Who in their right mind would consider it an honour to be sitting across from him.. sdkjsdkjdsf

(Okay, that angle didn’t occur to me on 1st readthrough but now I’m just jokingly like “I feel so attacked” HAHAAH)

Most of the focus had been on Lex’s physical health and the way he was being treated, both on a medical level and on a personal level. Emotions could affect the body and Lex had to admit that recovery from his surgery was still going at a slow pace. 

OH MY GOOOOOD FUUUUUDGE TH. BENNY IS SIZING HIM UP HE’S ASKING THOSE KINDS OF QUESTIONS FOR A REASON. GOD DAAAMN IT BENNY… Knowing the way he is being treated medically, things like that, can make it just that little bit easier! To! Make an attempt on his life! I’M

TFW u do ur job as a therapist but also as an assassin simultaneously.

No one else stopped by his room for hours on end. Not until it was time for the guard shift to rotate and Bobby Fulbright came strolling inside. Over the past week, it’d become painfully obvious that the Phantom’s attempt to crush the man’s cheerful attitude towards him had failed. That Bobby was still as overbearing as ever, acting as if that little incident involving Simon Blackquill hadn’t happened.

Idiot spy underestimated the power and strength of just HOW MUCH Bobby cares about him.

“Hahaha, that’s just like him.” Bobby nudged the wrapper towards the bin with his foot. “And just so you know, he’s single.”

BOBBY NO. THAT IS HIS THERAPIST. THAT IS YOUR THERAPIST,

Lex made sure to shoot Bobby the most emotionless expression he could still bring his face to ease into. It was funny how the surgery had messed with even that much. “It isn’t too late for me to end your life, you know.”

SDJKSDFNKJSDFKLNSDLNKSDLKN this & him saying this is so funny SEND HELP

The mark of Shelly de Killer.

OH. OKAAAY. I’D FORGOTTEN THAT THE FIRST ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT TAKES PLACE ON THE SAME DAY. BENNY WASTES NO TIME AT ALL… And it makes sense I mean. He got the info he needed to go ahead, so why wait? Oh my god..

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 3

…It’s terrible how much I kind of enjoyed Lex’s sudden downturn; what essentially was the prelude to and then became a vomit scene just because This man used to be the Unshakeable Phantom! LOOK AT HIM NOW. >:D

Plus he starts off soooo arrogant and overconfident at the beginning of the chapter as well before Lang is just like. “Lol. Looks like you didn’t actually kill Shelly and he’s after you.” Making the rapid nosedive that follows even more… It feels kinda weird to say “amusing”, but… IDK MAN THERE’S JUST INHERENT NARRATIVE APPEAL IN THIS LEVEL OF WEAKNESS AND VULNERABILITY AND WHAT HAVE YOU ON DISPLAY after a bout of confidence no less, from this character with this history specifically. Any other character and I’d be appropriately squicked out/feeling bad. I CAN BE VERY MEAN TO MY FAVE.

Also, “prayers to the porcelain god” is actually SUCH a good euphemism. Somehow… If I ever get the chance… I want to see if I can work it into saying it in real-life at least once. I don’t see any such opportunity arising anytime soon, however. :P

“Just send him in, it’s not like the day can get any worse,” Lex grumbled, clambering back onto his bed.

>:D

Benny shows up and it’s just pure dramatic irony. Re-reading is suuuuch a bonus.

What if they were endangering Benny by having him here?

OH MY G

“You’re a Snapple guy?”

I’M, I LOST IT AT THIS

Maybe he just wanted to be the one raising the questions- to be in control of the conversation. …Yeah, that was probably it. That was how the human psyche worked.

I’M?

“Of course. I don’t know how other people manage with their android phones. Snapple’s always got the upper hand,” Benny remarked, not even bothering to take his eyes off the screen.

Lex: Right. Have fun with your planned obsolescence, sucker.

IF A REAL LIFE MAN ACTUALLY SAID THIS TO MY FACE.. I GOTTA TELL YA… The sheer level of aggravating this is. XD. I DON’T KNOW IF I’D BE ABLE TO HOLD MYSELF BACK FROM SAYING SOMETHING.

Me internally if an IRL man said this to me: Oh so you’re insufferable and I probably won’t like you very much at all.

SDKJSDNKJSDNKJ

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 4

Bro. Bro I was suspicious of that coffee, man. And then when Lex drains it all, I was like “MMMM somehow… that feels like a mistake he’s going to regret.”

“Could there be any kind of poison in it that interpol could fail to detect?”

But, I didn’t suspect Benny of wrongdoing. I was suspicious of the coffee, but not Benny. I figured that if the coffee had been tampered with, Benny was completely unaware of it. But then, I forgot about it and put it out of mind after that when nothing too dramatic happened immediately after he takes the coffee.

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 5

“It’s fine.” Lex was embarrassed to hear that he’d taken on a rather squeaky tone.

Embarrassed… Embarrassed… Embarrassed…!

Yeeeees. It’s like I’ve waited 3 full fics and then some to see this man FINALLY be embarrassed. Feels good.

…Well this chapter certainly gets intense after that. :[

Now this second vomit scene is actually quite appropriately upsetting to read. OOF.

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 6

Bro just imagining that slowed-down music really IS super eerie, damn.

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 7

“Bobby Fulbright. I was under the impression that you were no longer allowed to be here.”

Gooood he STILL goes for the full titles all the time when “orienting” to the conversation, like he didn’t need to use any name at all here. I’m telling you, 1. This is his character trait, Lex and Phantom alike, and 2. It’s so Franziskan sdkjsdnkjsd.

Bobby sighed. It was like everyone around him realized his care for the Phantom was unwarranted. He himself realized it too, but that didn’t change anything. “I know. I’m just an idiot like that.” “Acknowledgment is the first step to recovery. Now take the next step and get out.” With that, Lex made to slide the headphones back over his ears.

UM rUDE xDDD

While the concept of him being aromantic had been cast into doubt ever since the surgery, he didn’t mean to dig much further into it. Unless he was somehow miraculously saved from execution, his sexuality didn’t matter. He would die just as he’d always lived; alone. The concept didn’t quite stop him from appreciating Benny’s handsome features, though. Or the way Benny kept smiling as if he wasn’t looking at a murderer.

Ohooooh my. Here we are! Precisely what connects back strongly to a lot of the stuff I discussed in my previous post but I couldn’t quite fit it in.

So like. I could very much see what was going on here. Mhm. Yes I did. We are getting implied Lex/Benny. And, confession time, but I MIGHT have stumbled across a post that heavily implied Lex/Benny back before I had ANY inkling of who Benny was… Back before Lex was Lex. So it meant absolutely nothing to me at the time, it simply DEEPLY confused me in the sense of “You’d think I’ve read far enough into the series and yet WHY can’t I make heads or tails of this post?” But, I quickly put it out of mind and temporarily forgot about it and was able to continue reading the text “blind”, but when Benny actually showed up… and Lex is Lex now… And Bobby’s all “He’s SINGLE 😉” I narrowed my eyes all like. Oh. Oh… There’s a certain way this could go. But I still thought “Hey. Maybe nothing will happen and neither of them will develop feelings, maybe it’s just like, a fun side-idea the author personally likes but didn’t put directly into the story- ohhhh and here it is hints on Lex’s side building up in the story. WELL THEN.”

It just felt like…

The author: [shipteases phantomquill, phantom/Athena (YES I KNOW THAT WAS A JOKE AND I AM INCLUDING IT ONLY AS A JOKE THAT WILL LENGTHEN THIS LIST), spyshipping, and even Freudian Phantombright (I AM ALSO INCLUDING THIS LAST ONE ONLY AS A JOKE)]

The author, after doing all of this: [whips out/ushers in their OC at the last minute to pair up with him]

Me:

DFJKSDLKSDKL

The above is a retooled version of a message I sent to my friend at the time – I hope the summary comes across as more of a comically condensed expression of frustration-at-the-time and not mean-spirited (mean-spirited is not what I want to be, I just exaggerate for comical effect is all, and I didn’t expect I’d be telling my feelings to the author directly ahhah..) But as already established? I was quite bitter over the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t phantomquill, and so I was not particularly impressed at the time as a result… xDDD

I also just love how he, of all characters, seems to be the “launcher of a thousand ships” here… LOL

But of course, Benny is not technically an OC, is he? :P You can argue he’s merely an interpretation of a canon character from Dual Destinies – the courtroom sniper. Dskjdsjknsd

At the time it might have felt “ushered in”, but in reality, Benny has that connection to a “canon” character – the courtroom sniper – the further connection to ace attorney canon through being Shelly’s son, AAAND has already been very much intertwined in this series through “off-screen” references. He really is quite heavily grounded in the fic’s lore. And in Ace Attorney lore. Very, very clever and well-done. …Of course, I didn’t know any of this until the Reveal, so I remained unimpressed until then. Now post-reveal is a different story, and I came to intensely appreciate not only Benny as a character but also just how awesome the dynamic between Benny and Lex really is.

Shipping aside, you have the aroace business… I have actually previously come across a post on your blog where you stated you kinda felt bad for not keeping Lex aroace. I feel like this can easily get pretty thorny, and I want to kind of, as I stated in a previous post, analyse the text as an independent entity here – how I would judge/react to the text without any knowledge of or contact with the author or the context it was crafted in. Indeed, at the time of reading Lifting Spirits I didn’t have a clue what you may personally be or whether you were personally aro/ace or not and couldn’t make any assumptions either way.

There’s, I guess, two main ways to look at this… the phantom was effectively aroace and there was never any evidence suggesting otherwise. But with blocked emotions removed, it turns out the man is not aroace. You can treat “the phantom” and “Lex” as two separate entities in this regard.

But the phantom didn’t completely lack emotions. If Lex is not aroace… It stands to reason that EVEN IF there never was any evidence to suggest the phantom was anything but aroace, there was still the potential for small, limited amounts of evidence that he wasn’t to occur, even if such a thing did not happen to occur when he was the phantom. Which would make the phantom technically not aroace(?) but he simply never realised that. Hmm.

If there were a blanket consistency – if the phantom had experienced an extremely limited and probably outright warped sense of attraction or something like that – or if Lex was also aroace – then there wouldn’t be any “issue”. But as it is, it’s very easy to derive Unfortunate Implications from how it is set up, wherein the Emotionless Killer is aroace, but then he gets to experience proper emotions and becomes a “real person” who basically gets redeemed as that new person and all of a sudden… Only after becoming a “real” and “proper” human being he experiences attraction. It’s all too easy to feel like perhaps the message is that attraction is an integral part of the human experience – EVERYONE’S human experience.

And the flip that happens between the phantom and Lex in this realm further drove home what I perceived to be the massive distinction being made between the two and helped fuel much of my feelings surrounding what I discussed in the previous post. About how perhaps “the phantom” was being thrown under the bus to set up Lex as the good and better alternative. By treating them as two separate people, the connection is not TOO far away to feel as if the aroace aspect is attached to the phantom as part of what gets “thrown under the bus”, inherently attached to a villain seeing as it does not get carried over, inherently attached to emotionlessness – something necessary to be “cast aside” in order to fully complete a transition into a redeemable and “complete” human being.

I do know that none of this was your intent, and I sensed at the time of reading that it was not the author’s active intent as well, but not having enough background context at the time, I couldn’t entirely dismiss the possibility that perhaps it was a possible unintended predisposition bleeding through – nothing malicious in the least, mind you. But perhaps a subconscious assumption that every human being feels attraction and… idk. I wanted to believe the best of the work and the author but it was just, at the very least, an unintended implication that I could not entirely ignore. Being ace myself, it kinda stung, although I did keep that to a minimum until I could actually have more context.

I’m glad for being able to have access to additional context so that I can enjoy the work as it is to the best extent – if, for example, I did not have access to any information or additional context whatsoever about the author and the background under which the work was crafted in, I wouldn’t have been able to entirely shake the discomfort and it’s something small that would have continued to bug me long after I’d finished reading, if only for the fact that I would never have been able to know for sure if the writer was actually dismissing something like asexuality or not.

And Conflicted Thoughts/Feelings once again because, if we step back for a moment and look at this particular narrative thread as it exists in Lifting Spirits and its conclusion as a whole, I AM happy for Lex, it’s great that he gets to have a love interest, it’s a great ship, and the concept of the former phantom becoming attracted to someone and getting a crush is so so great…

What it ultimately comes down to, is that even if you can read Unfortunate Implications into the text regarding the aroace business, any such implications were not your intent. I much prefer reading a text in the most charitable way possible to enjoy it to the fullest possible extent, so that’s what I’ve ultimately done, given additional background info.

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 8

The complete role reversal of this chapter is so good… For months and months prior to ever beginning to read this series, I’d actually been working on a fanfic of my own, albeit for a different fandom. It also centres around inverted character dynamics and such as the central running theme to the extent that it’s even alluded to in the title… But this… The role reversal or transformation that Lifting Spirits centres around is so… It does it so damn well. Kind of makes me want to hold myself and my own fanfiction to a higher standard.

I had perhaps been a little bit suspicious of Benny prior to this chapter, but not much… And the end of the previous chapter had me VERY much like “OK… SOMETHING’S WRONG HERE… SOMETHING’S WRONG! WHAT IS THIS GUY’S DEAL?!” BUT omg this reveal

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 9

He’s the fourth heir to the lineage of De Killer, which means spilling blood is in his blood. It’s a shame, really, that he can’t stand the sight of it.

This chapter description is just so poetic. It’s like, the chapter description is not really separate from the fic itself – it’s just as artistically intertwined with the text. Absolutely GORGEOUS chapter description.

Oughhhhh Benny’s backstory and just. His whole character and the internal conflicts that he has and EVERYTHING is just so damn compelling WOW!

The glimpses into Benny’s past and home life are such a fascinating look into how vastly different his frame of references are… How very unique his perspective and positioning in the world is.

The Phantom… Benjamin had heard of this man, of course. An international spy. One who was so wanted that his father had been hired by at least five clients.

F-FIVE CLIENTS?! AT LEAST? LEGEND.

Okay this is quite interesting to think about too because I always figured that Shelly would only ever take on one client and have one target at a time, so that he could devote his full attention to the task at hand and uphold his end of the contract – his client has faith in him to do a job and to do a job well, so I figured a single-handed focus would be part of that. Under normal circumstances, this would present no issue. Why would it? Shelly’s very good at his job and tracking down an assigned individual target wouldn’t be too difficult. My impression is that a job would generally take maybe 2-3 weeks from the time of meeting with the client and the deed getting done, unless it’s exceptionally easy and the person in question gets taken out within the week.

But obviously the phantom presents a clear problem to that operational method. Shelly’s left with a target he has little to no leads on, no physical description, no name beyond the title, who could be anywhere and anyone. Job like that’s gonna take a little bit longer than three weeks. But Shelly is nothing if not a professional, and he’s more than happy to honour his client’s wishes if they want this guy dead, and he’s certainly not gonna give up or back down from the request…! I wonder if Shelly was in the habit of taking on multiple clients at the time or if he was forced to break from his standard method of operation, cause if he has no leads he has to wait until one turns up/keep searching indefinitely. And it kinda puts a huge damper on business to not accept any new clients for years on end. Maaaaan not being able to take the phantom out quickly & efficiently must’ve bugged the HELL out of him too. He’s made a commitment to his client, his (first) client is trusting him to take this guy out, and YEARS pass and STILL it hasn’t been done. Wonder what kind of dynamic that would have caused between Shelly and the first client.

I have no real doubt that Shelly actually had enough money to put business on hold for a few years if that’s what it meant to track down the phantom, if he wanted to. But it’s just not practical if he genuinely has 0 leads to go on for months on end, it makes more sense to be doing stuff in the meantime. PLUS, part of it would also be to ensure that the de Killer name does not fall into disuse and remains prominent in the minds of the public. To disappear for years only for calling cards to start showing up again… It just wouldn’t look particularly good for The Brand I suppose? The general public wouldn’t know the reason for the silence.

There’s not only that, but he accepts requests from multiple clients for the same target, hugely increasing his payout for a single job. I would have thought it’s possible that were someone to make a request that’s already been made, Shelly might be like “Ah, actually, you can’t select this particular individual”. And if years have passed with no success it begins to raise questions about the “ethics” of accepting further requests for the same person if part of the payment is being made in advance, which I’m sure it is. But then again – I’m sure there was no doubt in Shelly’s mind that he’d actually get him in the end. The length of time that passed didn’t matter. The job would be done, and he was never going to give up. He had multiple clients depending on him, after all.

I guess every time he got another Phantom request he’d sigh and internally be like “ADD THIS CLIENT TO THE LIST I SUPPOSE…”

Client: I want you to take out the phantom

Shelly, internally: Get in line

Dsjsdjh

Really though I’m very sure that the phantom’s difficulty to track down would have irked Shelly to no end. Not that he would necessarily let such sentiments show externally.

And while I’m speaking about this, I guess I will also address Benny being his son here as well. My reaction REALLY was “HIS FATHER??? HIS FATHER????”

I’ve never played DGS and I know there’s de Killer stuff going on in those game(s) and I don’t know if any light is shed in that series on how the lineage works – hm! It’s interesting to think about. One of the theories I’ve seen proposed is that the new de Killer establishes themselves as such by successfully taking out the previous de Killer – no familial relation. That has logistical issues of its own however but it was kind of the default idea that I’d gone with as I hadn’t really seen any others discussed.

Shelly’s unique job and his intense dedication to said job makes it very VERY hard for me to picture him not only establishing a relationship with someone but also fathering a child with someone… It’s quite hard for me to picture how it would work. How it would look in practice. And of course, in the Benny flashbacks, there is no mention of a mother. So I was a little bit like ????? on that front. And then you get the reveal practically at the VERY end of the fic that Benny is adopted, which makes plenty of sense. It is hard for me to picture Shelly as a father but I CAN see him adopting, caring for and raising an adopted child. A child that is to continue the proud de Killer heritage.

THE FACT THAT SOMEONE GOT MISTAKENLY SHOT BECAUSE THEY WERE ASSUMED TO BE THE PHANTOM BUT WEREN’T… OOF. Hope Shelly didn’t prematurely celebrate on that one. He might’ve already enlisted three clients wanting the phantom gone by that point and thought that he could FINALLY collect the rest of whatever money they owed him from them – that he could FINALLY reassure them that the guy was finally flippin’ DEAD. Perhaps only for the phantom to show up AGAIN some time later. (Shelly doing refunds? Dsjksdkj). Ok but on a serious note – I know he would’ve probably known it was not the phantom either immediately after/soon after the guy was shot. There’s things like No Mask and whatnot and probably the aftermath would have made it obvious it was the wrong person without the phantom needing to show up on Shelly’s radar once again. But OOF.

In March, a man had come to see Ben ‘Benny’ Volent, seeking counseling. A man who bore the name of Bobby Fulbright.

WHEN THIS REALISATION HIT ME… OH MY GOD? OH MY GOD? BOBBY FULBRIGHT HAD BEEN UNLOADING THE TRAUMA OF WHAT HE SAW… ONTO THE SON OF THE VICTIM! I CANNOT. THAT IS… NOT GOOD. Being so close to the murder victim can compromise the therapist’s ability to assist the patient at hand, so… conflict of interest! Benny had to sit there and listen to recounts that would have deepened his OWN pain. Bro I am SO sorry. WHAT a punch this was.

Agent Lang had mentioned a move to the federal prison right in front of Benny.

NO JOKE but back when that scene originally occurred I was just like “UMM should they REALLY be discussing this while the therapist is there?” Because I had found Benny to be a LITTLE bit potentially suspicious and. Hmm!

OKAY THE FUNNIEST PART – OR RATHER – THE MOST WACK PART OF THIS ENTIRE SITUATION IS JUST HOW MANY LEVELS OF “CROSSES THE LINE TWICE” IT IS.

Like. The realisations started pouring in for me, one after the other. First it was like “um, Benny counselling Bobby considering the circumstances is a conflict of interest that can potentially compromise his ability to remain objective and properly assist Bobby’s recovery”. THEN, hilariously enough, I was like “UM, IT IS HIGHLY UNPROFESSIONAL FOR BENNY TO ACT AS LEX’S THERAPIST – EXTREME CONFLICT OF INTEREST SEEING AS THE PHANTOM KILLED BENNY’S FATHER AND YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED PERSONAL BIASES TO GET IN THE WAY WITH HOW YOU SEE THE PATIENT”. This was coupled with how… awkward I found it earlier on for Bobby to even suggest, however jokingly, to Lex that Benny was single – how iffy it was for Lex to have developed feelings for Benny (cause if you got feelings for ur therapist that’s bad news for the therapy and Lex even seems to know this) or the possibility that perhaps it was on some level reciprocated, which would be highly unprofessional and further detrimental to the therapist-patient relationship.

BUT THEN I REALISED THIS WAS ALL MOOT AND COMPLETELY BLOWN OUT OF THE WATER ALL BY:

BENNY WAS TRYING TO KILL LEX THE WHOLE TIME ANYWAY.

So LITERALLY WHO CARES about conflict of interest or “professional conduct” here, I’M PRETTY SURE IT IS NOT IN THE LINE OF A THERAPIST’S WORK TO BE ACTIVELY TRYING TO KILL YOUR PATIENT.

And all I could do was laugh. This is the kind of crosses-the-line-twice funny, there’s just SUCH a cluster of professional breaches going on that it is OFF THE CHARTS and loops back around to being hilarious. You can’t even criticise ANYTHING specific about Benny’s conduct, there’s no point, because it is so BLATANTLY and obviously out of line, professionally and legally speaking, in its ENTIRETY. And then you realise his credentials were faked to begin with too, even though he’s genuinely studied the profession and is good at what he does. He’s walking around with faked qualifications ANYWAY.

Lex and Benny’s patient-therapist dynamic was stuffed to HIGH hell, inherently, far before it ever began. It was already compromised beyond belief. THE GUY’S QUALIFICATIONS AREN’T EVEN 100% LEGIT… >failed step one. It is SO wild and subsequently funny as a result. Benny got built up as such a good therapist too, and don’t get me wrong, he does seem to actually be good at what he does as I said. But then you go ahead and reveal all of this about him and it’s sooo… omg

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 10

Simon was about to turn away when he thought he saw it. Just for a fraction of a second. Were Alexander’s lips about to quirk into a victorious smirk? …No, that was ridiculous.

OOOHH MY GOOOOOD I HAD TOTALLY FORGOTTEN ABOUT THIS I SWEAR TO GOD………… I swear to god. Acting skills WAY too strong. He’s still got it. This man is way too powerful/skilled for his own good I swear to god.

Yes, he successfully got Benny to leave and he got out of the ordeal of being held at gunpoint unscathed. But he still had been terrified when going through that. Regardless of how things turned out it makes sense for Lex to be in shock and still be working out some of that fear. Because he HAD been genuinely terrified. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he is genuinely a little in shock during this scene but oh my god.. Because it makes sense for him to still be jittery and then I just. LEX. KINDA HATE THAT I MAYBE GOT A LITTLE WORRIED BECAUSE STILL BEING SHAKEN MAKES SENSE BUT ALSO CONFUSED AT THE EXTENT. On first and second readthrough.

Can’t really say too much else about this chapter right now it’s just sooo intense and riveting gosh.

For a split second, it seemed like Fulbright was so overcome with emotion he might try to pull Alexander into a hug as well. Luckily, Lang cleared his throat in such a loud manner that it was obvious he did so on purpose.

LANG HOW COULD YOU. “LUCKILY” MY FOOT.

Lifting Spirits, Chapter 11

His license was most likely a fake. Would any report compiled by him be worth a damn? And to think, Bobby Fulbright had spoken so highly of him.

WAIT I WAS ONLY JUST SAYING THIS EARLIER SDKSDKNS

Hey. I obviously knew this Mirage scene was coming this time around and yet it managed to somehow sneak up on me anyway. When I got up to it and read through it I just outright started crying. I did not cry on the first readthrough, I was completely dry-eyed. I GOT SUPER ATTACHED TO AND MORE EMOTIONAL OVER MIRAGE ON MY SECOND READTHROUGH OF THIS SERIES FOR A REASON.

Oh, something else that struck me on first readthrough about this scene was… The phantom always EASILY felt to me the far more “bad” person compared to Mirage. When compared to the phantom, Mirage always felt… well, it was easy for me to forget that she’s also done terrible things, that she’s also a criminal. She naturally just seemed like the waay better person – with SOME amount of a moral compass. So it was odd to suddenly have her being in the same room as Lex, no longer being contrasted against the phantom, but contrasted against Lex instead… Lex seems to actually have a much more proper moral compass compared to her now. He’s actually filled with remorse and regrets.

Mirage… still chose to kill people. She’s still herself, and that self is someone who didn’t have a bone sliver preventing her from understanding how much of a powerful impact death can have. It was odd… Lex knows internally how bad killing people is now. Mirage most likely still doesn’t really know… not only that, but… he would know that she doesn’t? I don’t know how to explain what I’m getting at here, but yeah.

Also:

“Why did you ask to see me?” he found himself asking. “…Why do you care?” She giggled, the sound of it rather strained. “Because we’re friends, you idiot.” “We’re not…-”

Me:

“You’d better pray the Phantom’s retrial leads to the death penalty. I’m being released next year, but I wouldn’t mind being tossed right back in here if it means I got to strangle Metis’s killer with these two hands.”

…N-NEXT YEAR?! BUT THAT’S… SO SOON… SOONER THAN I… THOUGHT… I FIGURED SHE HAD LIKE… MAYBE ANOTHER TWO YEARS LEFT… I DIDN’T REMEMBER HER SAYING IT’S NEXT YEAR.

[Thinks about this line and then Tracking Ghosts]

Oh my god… Can it PLEASE at least be the second half of the year I’m dying here… Like I KNEW she had to be released from prison eventually and. Yeah. I JUST THOUGHT WE HAD MORE TIME.

You know what’s funny? This line 100% didn’t faze me on first readthrough. Ahahaha. Why should it have? “You’d better pray the Phantom’s retrial leads to the death penalty” was, after all, my own train of thought at the time… HDHDFH. I was just kinda [nods] “at least someone around here’s got the right idea.” …AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

You completely missed me on the first go, but second time’s a charm. Ya got me. Ya got me with this line this time around. I am worried. :’)

[yes-i-also-miss-our-talks]

I'm super angsty so how about a one shot of like, when Libby starts developing feelings for Lee at the very beginning and her trying to distance herself from him for a while because like she seems to believe he'd be better without her sadly and him not realising why and being sad but then she realises it's not helping either of them and he doesn't find out why she did it but it's cute and they're friends again at the end please and thanks lol

Ahahahahahahahahahahaha I can’t write short things so here’s a case study of their relationship loosely (?) based on this ask whoops I have important assignments to do but nope here I am

“He’s cute, don’t you think?” Zoe asked, leaning in conspiratorily. “In a puppy kind of way. One look at him and your heart just fuckin’ melts. I want to cuddle him so hard.”

Libby gave her a concerned look. “You know he’s sixteen and I’m an adult, right? I think it might be illegal for me to answer that question.”

Zoe rolled her eyes and laughed. “Okay, you got me there. Say in two or three years, when he’s not jailbait anymore, would you agree that he’s schnuggle material?”

Libby wrinkled her nose in mild disgust. “Is that some sort of euphemism? I hear you use it a lot and Evan’s face gets really red whenever you do...”

“What? No!” Zoe’s face was a mixture of horror, confusion, and mild amusement. “No, it’s like snuggling, but not. It’s more warm and fuzzy than snuggles, so we call it schnuggles. It’s a Murphy family trademark.”

“Somehow, I’m still not convinced.”

“You’re the worst. And don’t think I don’t see how you’re trying to avoid the question.”

Sighing in defeat, Libby looked across the room to the corner where Lee was sitting alone, face partially buried in a book. His leg tapped consistently and the end of one of the strings of his hoodie was stuck between his teeth. Despite the nervous fidgeting, he still turned the pages of his book without a problem, and his eyes showed quite clearly that he was far, far away from the rest of them. 

Zoe was right. There was something undeniably endearing about Lee Paige, but Libby just couldn’t put a finger on what. If it was his big, dark blue eyes, the way his floppy hair always looked soft, the naturally sweet, boyish way his face was put together, or something else entirely. 

Two years later, Libby still can’t figure out what it is. His eating habits have improved, so there’s now a glow to his skin that hadn’t been there when she’d met him. He’s become more comfortable with laughing louder and smiling with teeth. His mindset still wasn’t always positive, but he could at least be honest with his friends about when it was bad. There were still days that he couldn’t, of course, like two weeks previously when he’d had a panic attack while helping Libby study for her upcoming finals.

She’d never dealt with a panic attack before. Alana going into sensory overload or her mother sobbing uncontrollably after waking from a nightmare, sure, but this was uncharted territory. She’d heard enough from Evan and other kids with anxiety to know that telling someone to take deep breaths only made it worse. So, instead of trying to make Lee calm down, she’d wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, dimmed the lights in her living room, held his hand loosely, and hummed the lullabies her dad had sung to her as a kid. Eventually, his distress had left him be but drained him of energy, so Libby had to call Annaliese and explain why her barely eighteen-year-old son was going to be spending the night with a girl who was nearly twenty-two.

Lee ended up asleep on her couch, wrapped in the same blanket she’d given him at the start of it all. Libby had dragged a sleeping bag out of her closet and slept on the floor next to the couch. When she woke up the next morning, the first thing she saw was Lee. As she made that first, cat-like stretch of the day, her hand accidentally brushed his hair. It really was quite soft. She spent several long moments playing absently with his hair before realizing what she was doing and bolting into the bathroom.

They’d spoken over breakfast at the cafe down the street from her apartment. She walked him to his car and hugged him before he got in. For all intents and purposes, Lee and Libby had parted on the exact same terms they had been on when they met up the previous evening.

Still, they hadn’t spoken since. Libby had tried texting him, had even typed out messages and been a millimeter away from hitting send, but her mind always conjured the feeling of his hair between her fingers right as she went to make a decision.

I can’t have a crush on Lee. He’s young, inexperienced, wracked with insecurities - and this is all assuming he’d like me back. He’s still got so much growing to do, and I’d try to convince him to do it my way whether I meant to or not. I can’t do that to him.

With that in mind, Libby went back to hanging closer to Alana, even if it made her the third wheel to the mush fest that was her cousin and Zoe. Lee went back to hanging on to Jared. Ben made a friend. Finals came and went. Libby got her credential. It worked out alright.

“Hypothetically, which two team members would be the ultimate power couple?” Jared read. They were doing a lighthearted Q&A for the You Will Be Found YouTube channel and most of the questions had been similar to this. “So I guess we’re excluding the actual couples we’ve got here, then.” The rest of the gang nodded in agreement. “Alright, since this is purely hypothetical and not at all bound by reality, I’m gonna go straight out and say Alana and me.”

“Was that a lesbian pun or a pan pun?” Zoe asked. “Because there’s nothing straight going on between the two of you.”

“Yes,” Jared replied, not looking at her. “Either way, Team Autism for the win. Everyone else can go home.”

Zoe snorted and poked him with her foot. “Well, I’m formally nominating Libby and Lee.”

“Ooh, I’m with her on that,” Alana agreed.

Libby looked down at her hands. She did not want to know where Lee was looking.

Jared turned and gave Alana a look that was both annoyed and betrayed. “You’re with Zoe on everything,” he whined. “What am I, chopped liver?”

“You’re a dick,” Connor corrected. “And I’m with Zo and Lon on this one. Hypothetical Lee and Lib would kick Brangelina’s ass.”

“Enough from you, Wednesday,” Jared decided grumpily. “Is anyone on my side?”

“I nominate Lee and me,” Ben decided. It was one of the few times he’d opted to participate in a video and a single of perhaps a handful of occasions when he’d spoken unprompted.

Jared groaned and threw his hands into the air in surrender. “Alright, alright, Leeb wins. I’ll set the wedding for labor day 2017.”

Zoe frowned. “Leeb is a shit ship name, Kleinman.”

“I didn’t ask for this!”

The comments of the video were widely people either debating ship names for Lee and Libby or cheering on the fact that there were others who ‘saw the obvious romantic tension’ between the two of them. Libby felt mildly sick to her stomach.

“He was kidding about us getting married, right?” Lee asked, coming into the kitchen and startling Libby from her thoughts.

She laughed. “Oh, yeah. He loves you way too much to hitch you to me of all people. The internet will be disappointed, but you’ll be safe.”

Lee shrugged. “I can definitely think of worse things than you.”

“I appreciate the compliment, but you’re allowed to have the bar a bit higher than that.” She laughed as she took a sip of coffee.

“I think the bar is right where it needs to be.”

Libby smiled and set down her now-empty mug in the sink. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

“I need you to know that you didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve been crappy lately and none of it’s on you. If you can swing it, I’d like to go back to where we were. If not, I totally understand and I’ll respect it. Any and all the space you want, you can have.”

Lee gave her an amused smile that lit up his sweet, boyish face in a way that made Libby’s heart melt.

“Did you miss the part where I said I missed you, too?”

[7deer-ofthe-dawn7]

Tag!

Tagged by @swaggyt-enthusiast​ !

Rules: You must answer these 92 statements and tag 20 people.

THE LAST 1.Drink: Tap water lol 2.Phone call: Parents 3.Text message: a group chat with 2 friends 4.Song you listened to: Medals by Luhan (ofc) 5.Time you cried: a long time ago? I don’t think I cry much?

6.Dated someone twice: yes and no? complicated?  7. Been Cheated on: Not exactly 8.Kissed someone and regretted it: No 9.Lost someone special: Yeah 10.Been depressed: ah... 11.Gotten drunk and thrown up: No way!!

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: Black, white, red IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU… 15.Made new friends: A lot of new ones!! 16.Fallen out of love: Yes... 17.Laughed until you cried: Yes bc my friends are nuts 18.Found out someone was talking about you: Yeah but all good things (I hope no one is saying something negative?) 19.Met someone who changed you: Yes 20.Found out who your true friends are: We’re getting there 21.Kissed someone on your Facebook list: No 22.How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: Most? But a lot I just met recently because I’m searching for college roommates but I haven’t seen them in person yet 23.Do you have any pets: I HAD a goldfish for 6 days... otherwise... do the 2 cats that wander into my yard count? Cloudy and Professor Orange?? 24.Do you want to change your name: Yes but I don’t know what to 25.What did you do for your last birthday: Ate with friends, got bubble tea and went to an art museum 26.What time did you wake up: Usually I wake up at 7 on days off. Sometimes later but I never sleep later than 8 or 9 27.What were you doing at midnight last night: Sleeping. Some of my friends were out clubbing tho lol 28.Name something you cannot wait for: Going to college! I’m super excited 29.When was the last time you saw your mother: Half an hour ago 30.What is one thing you wish you could change about your life: I wish I grew up learning Chinese. It’s hard because I was adopted so I didn’t grow up around it like my other Chinese friends did 31.What are you listening to right now: Let Out the Beast by EXO M (I’m making myself emo) 32.Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: I think so? I only know one Tom. I think he has anger issues 33.Something that is getting on your nerves: Certain... people. I don’t get annoyed easily but... 34.Most visited website: Tumblr or YouTube 35.Elementary: Finished 36, High School: I’m graduating in June!! 37.College: Almost!! 38.Hair color: Black... it’s never touched bleach or dye but we’ll see about that when I’m in college haha 39.Long or short hair: Pretty short. It was an undercut but it’s growing out. 40.Do you have a crush on someone: No 41.What do you like about yourself: I like my eyes and my hands lol 42.Piercings: Just one on each ear 43.Blood type: B 44.Nickname: V, Vic, Vivi, mom 45.Relationship status: Single :’) 46.Zodiac sign: Virgo 47.Pronouns: Male pronouns 48.Favorite tv show: I don’t watch much TV but I do like Ancient Aliens when I’m bored haha 49.Tattoos: None but I’d like to get something on my forearms  50.Right or left hand: Right

FIRST… 51.Surgery: None 52.Piercing: Ears when I was in 5th grade 54.Sport: I’m good at anything with running... but that’s it so I’ve never actually played a recreational sport... Unless you count soccer in the yard with my dad a sport 55.Vacation: Florida? When I was 5? or maybe NYC? 56.Pair of trainers: No idea

MORE GENERAL… 57.Eating: I just ate chocolate. My favorite foods involve meat, noodles and spicy stuff 58.Drinking: Water. I wish I had bubble tea 59.I’m about to: do my art homework 61.Waiting for: waiting to wake up inside (lol I’m not funny) 62.Want: cats, good relationships, a solid future 63.Get married: maybe someday in the future? I’m only 17 I’m not really worried right now! 64.Career: Ehh something with art? Writing? Music? Anything creative 65.Hugs or kisses: Hugs 66.Lips or eyes: Eyes!! 67.Shorter or taller: Either 68.Older or younger: Either 70.Nice arms or nice stomach: Stomach? But I don’t think it really matters 71.Sensitive or loud: sensitive but loud when I’m comfortable 72.Hook up or relationship: Relationship!!! 73.Troublemaker or hesitant: Maybe a happy medium? Or know when either is appropreate

HAVE YOU EVER… 74.Kissed a stranger?: No 75.Drank hard liquor?: No 76.Lost glasses contact/lenses?: I don’t wear either 77.Turned someone down?: Sort of 78.Sex on first date?: I’m a virgin and no 79.Broken someone’s heart?: Yeah.. 80.Had your heart broken?: Yeah 81.Been arrested?: No! 82.Cried when someone died?: Yeah 83.Fallen for a friend?: Well people are friends usually before they start dating so yes DO YOU BELIEVE IN… 84.Yourself?: I’m trying my best to!! 85.Miracles?: Miracles exist but in all honesty they’re really just slim chances. But not always impossible if you work hard enough!! 86.Love at first sight?: Idk? 87.Santa Claus?: Ok I still believed in Santa up until like middle school. Not bc I wanted him to be real but bc i wanted Rudolph to be real and i sincerely believed that my Rudolph stuffed animal came alive every Christmas to help Santa. I was a weird kid ok. 88.Kiss on the first date?: I don’t think so but maybe? 89.Angels?: Maybe? I’m not too religious

OTHER…. 90.Current best friend’s name: I don’t have just one... but my mini squad is Ak and Jun and my art squad has Al, Haley, Julie, Nan, and sometimes Jordan even though she dropped the class  91.Eye color: Warm orange-brown (a euphemism for poopy brown) 92. Favourite movie: The Grand Budapest Hotel, Studio Ghibli movies

I don’t think I have 20 people to tag but this is close enough!

@chogiwapark @baekhyunsboo @3ouncesofwhoopass @forever-dasha @official-lightsticks

[owlfoxxiii]

Do all the questions for the ask memeee

Okay my darling

There’s a lot of them so I’m gonna read more so I’m not jamming up anyone’s feeds.

sun: what makes you feel like you?

Being with my girlfriend. Making new music.

moon: do you have problem with trust?

Hahahaha...yeah. It takes a really long time for me to trust you.

rising: how/what do people say you come off as?

Either a really angry person or intimidating, even though I’m usually neither.

midheaven: what do you want to be when you grow up?

When I was a kid a firefighter ironically (when my house caught fire at age 6 it changed my mind)

venus: do you flirt more knowingly or unknowingly?

Unknowingly. People then tell that I am and I’m like oh I’m just trying to socialize.

mars: when was the last time you got mad and why?

Actual mad? I don’t really remember. I get annoyed by things but not actually mad.

mercury: who's your go-to person when you need to talk?

My girlfriend. I know it’s cliché but she’s always there for me.

jupiter: when was the last time you got lucky?

If lucky is a euphemism for sex then never. Otherwise I don’t really know. 

saturn: what are you the weakest and strongest at?

Weakest: Being assertive/confident. I have next to no confidence in myself.

Strongest: Being creative and thinking outside the box.

uranus: are you rebellious and do you act upon it frequently?

Not rebellious, just non-conformist. And not like edgy non-conformity either just I’m me and I’m gonna do my own thing.

neptune: what was your best dream and why?

To be content with my life. I just want to be happier in general cause it’s a nice feeling surprisingly.

pluto: what is your biggest aspiration and why?

Become an accomplished musician. I really love creating music and if it took off and I became successful with it it’d be awesome.

lilith: what's your biggest turn on in someone?

Physically? Curves probably? Personality kindness and affection.

aries: what's your favorite sport to play?

Badminton and golf.

taurus: are you a dog or cat person?

I’m fine with both but I like cats more.

gemini: are you introverted or extroverted?

i n t r o v e r t e d

cancer: when was the last time you cried and why?

When my great uncle died. I cried at the funeral. I don’t think I need to explain why lol.

leo: what makes you the most confident?

Looking like I have myself together.

virgo: what's your strongest subject in school?

Art classes.

libra: what's your favorite make up brand?

E.L.F. and Sephora. E.L.F. is really good low price makeup if you’re ballin’ on a budget.

scorpio: what's your most kept secret?

I really like traditionally feminine things. Also I nonironically like vaporwave.

sagittarius: do you like to party?

Hellz yeah bitch.

capricorn: what's the last book you've read?

I reread To Kill a Mockingbird recently and I need to get back to reading The Martian.

aquarius: do you believe in aliens?

It would be idiotic to believe otherwise. Given our understanding of spacetime works there’s no way of knowing what’s out there.

pisces: how frequently do you remember your dream?

I can remember them rather well, but I used to practice lucid dreaming and keeping a dream journal. It kind of fucked with my bearing of what is reality or not since doing it so it’s usually not the best.

Thanks for asking sweetheart~ And now the rest of you have learned something about me maybe.