#(I was extremely fortunate to only have a handful or two of people in our theater and also a whole row to myself)

[izzyizumi]

~TAKE THAT~!!!!! {I GOT THEM ALL}

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[unreliablesnake]

Tough choice (Simon Riley x reader)

Summary: After a successful mission, you get a lot of job offers. But there's one that gets your attention.

Note: We lost a hero, it's hard to fill his shoes. / This will probably get another part where Simon confesses his feelings. And tells the reader about what he thought of them during the first meeting.

Warnings: character death mentioned

Ever since that mission last year, people have been extremely interested in getting you on their side. You were swimming in options, going from briefing to briefing to find that one job which managed to pique your interest. The CIA wanted you higher up the ladder, giving you more responsibilities, while some PMC’s sniffed out what happened and were now trying to sweep you off your feet. Shadow Company offered a fortune for your services, but even Phillip Graves’s charm wasn’t enough to convince you.

And now Laswell brought you an opportunity that made you think. Task force 141. “Ask Alex for reference,” was all she said before handing you the number of Captain John Price. 

It took days to get a hold of your friend, but once you did, he spoke highly of the team he helped out every now and then. “I think they need you to fill some big shoes. A sergeant was KIA and now Ghost needs a partner on the field,” he explained.

“Ghost?”

“Mhm. Man’s a mystery, but he’s damn good at what he does. If I were you, I would go for it.”

So you called Price and organized a meeting with him. This was the first round of the interview process, the opportunity to learn more about your possible future boss, the team, and, of course, how they operate. The captain works with a sergeant called Gaz, while Ghost had worked with Soap, another sergeant who had been KIA. That latter you already knew from Alex. 

Price told you to visit the base the next time they're all there, and you gladly accepted the invitation. The team’s mystery man, the one you would have to work with, grabbed your attention. His superior spoke highly of him, and the fact Alex also emphasized that he was excellent at what he did made you curious. He certainly lived up to his call sign by keeping his identity so hidden. You didn’t know his name, you didn’t know his age, you didn’t know what he looked like. All you knew is that he was a Brit, just like Price and Gaz. 

It took your schedules to align almost four weeks, but eventually you made it to their location and were greeted by the captain as if you were already a member of their team. His warm smile brought one to your lips too, and you soon found yourselves deep in a conversation about Kate and Alex. He liked working with them, and despite Alex being labeled a deserter, the team often crossed paths with him. That was good. Meeting him every once in a while would be nice.

“Ghost is waiting for us in my office,” Price began to say, only to pause for a brief moment when he stopped in front of a door. “But I think I’ll give you two the chance to talk alone. I already told him about you, even mentioned that I want you to work with us, but he has to be the one to finalize our decision.”

Nodding, you waited for him to open the door, then stepped inside the dimly lit room. The window shades were pulled down and the only source of light came from the small lamp on the desk. Ghost was sitting in the swivel chair behind it, his eyes scanning a file that you assumed was yours.

You opened your mouth to say something, but Ghost interrupted you right away. “I want you on my team,” he stated sternly as if it was an order, then threw the file on the top of several other documents. 

Despite your best efforts to keep things professional, a snort coming from you filled the room upon hearing his words. “So does everybody else,” you informed him, slowly folding your arms over your chest. “I already turned down several offers. Convince me; why should I pick this team?”

The lieutenant stood up and walked over to you, finally letting you realize just how much bigger he was. He was intimidating, yes, but that didn’t stop you from keeping eye contact with him. “You know Laswell. If you trust her, you can trust us,” he said.

“It’s not a matter of trust.”

“Then what do you want to hear?”

A sigh left your lips. It wasn’t about the money. If it was, you would be working for Shadow Company now. To be honest, you didn’t even know what you wanted from the job. But there was one question that bugged you since you first heard about this guy. “Are you a good person?” you asked him seriously.

Since you could only see a small part of his face, you almost missed that surprised glint in his eyes. “No,” came his answer. 

For a few moments you just watched him, thinking about his response. He was honest, that you truly appreciated, but you could hear something in his voice that you couldn’t quite place yet. Regret? Pain? Doubt? Self-hate? Whatever it was, it made him sound and look human. Without realizing what you were doing, you took a step closer to him, making this giant man lean his hips against the desk to build back some distance. 

“When can I start?” 

Out of the corner of your eye you noticed the way his large fingers tightly gripped the edge of the desk at your words, as if he was trying to ground himself. Was he thinking about the sergeant he had lost? If it was you, your mind would always return to the person who died under your command. What if this one dies too? You would be asking yourself this over and over again. So you didn’t want to rush him, you just stood there and waited for him to pull himself together. 

And then, after several minutes of deafening silence, he finally spoke up. “Good decision. Price will tell you the details,” Ghost informed you before moving past you to rush out the door.

[atinylittlepain]

Love your writing! I love the Unexpected universe, could I please request a really angsty Joel story where baby Miller gets sick nothing extreme, just a colicky baby but because of what happened to Sarah it just brings all of Joel’s fear to the surface? Please add some fluff spice with reader trying to comfort him and cute baby and dad moments?

aw man, i got a bit carried away with this one, i hope you like it <3

Unmet Expectations

dad!joel miller x f!reader

joel miller masterlist

When baby miller gets sick, Joel gets stuck in the past, leaving her feeling lonelier than ever before.

warnings | 18+ angst, hurt/comfort, grief, sick baby oof, smut at the end

a/n | this one is long, and rather emotionally charged, but with a happy ending of course for our Unexpected Expectings fam :)

....................................

There isn’t much sleeping going on in the Miller household. Except for Ellie, who has the good fortune to be out in the garage, away from the seemingly endless crying. It started a little over a month ago. She had settled Libby down for her afternoon nap, only to be promptly startled by her girl’s shrieking wail, a sound she would become all too familiar with as time progressed and it became clear that they have one very colicky baby on their hands. 

At first, she thought it was just her girl having a bad case of gas, but after a few hours of useless burping and rocking, she started to understand this was something else entirely. Joel came home that night from the stables to find her sitting on the floor of the nursery, tears in her eyes and Libby still screaming in her arms. She wasn’t sure what was worse in that moment, the sound of her girl’s continuous cries, or the look of sheer terror on Joel’s face as he knelt down next to her. He had run across town right then and there to get Suze, who could only advise them to keep their girl comfortable and fed with the reassurance that this sort of thing typically only lasts a month or two. 

It’s been the longest month of her life. Libby is nothing if not consistent, quiet and sweet as a lamb in the mornings, but around one o’clock every day, the crying starts, and it doesn’t stop until late into the night. Ellie has been a saint, and Maria too. Staying with her in the afternoons, keeping her sane as she tries to calm Libby down. Joel, however, is a different story. Since all this started, he’s become silent, unreadable. Much like how he was when they first met.

He takes Libby at night, giving her something of a break when he wordlessly takes her off her hands. She finds him most mornings asleep on the floor of the nursery, pressed right up against the crib, one of his arms usually hung between the wooden slats, keeping contact with their girl who always manages to wear herself off into sleep. It’s the only indication she gets from him of just how much he cares because otherwise, he’s become completely shut off, and it’s starting to freak her out more than Libby’s incessant crying.

They don’t talk anymore. He leaves early for shifts, and when he comes home, usually after dusk, he takes Libby and holes away in the nursery. She had tried to join him a number of times, but the steely look he always gave her kept her hovering at a distance, usually dozing in and out of sleep sitting in the hallway right outside the room. She can hear him in the night, the low thrum of his singing just barely detectable below Libby’s cries, and it breaks her heart that he won’t let anyone else see that part of him, especially not her. She’s grateful for how he takes over with Libby, but it feels like it’s no longer them, no longer a team. She’s surrounded by people who care, but it seems like the one person who matters most is slipping away, and she’s never felt more lonely in her life.

“I’m uh, picking up patrol today with Tommy. Might not be home till later.” Her hands still where she had been scrubbing one of Libby’s bottles in the sink. It’s the most he’s said to her in weeks. She turns around to look at him, his gaze wandering anywhere but to hers.

“I thought you weren’t doing patrol shifts anymore.” 

“They’re down a man today. Just a one time thing.” There’s a lot more she’d like to say, but she can’t get any of it out, not when it feels like she’s talking to a complete stranger. So instead, she just nods, turning back to the sink before the tightness in her throat can spill over into tears. She hears him let out a long sigh behind her.

“I’ll um, see you tonight then.” She sniffs, only answering him with a jerky nod. The sound of his boots thudding away, the open and close of the front door, is a relief that she feels guilty for.

…

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stick around? It’s no sweat, really. Dina will understand.” She offers Ellie what she can of a smile, easier said than done with her other girl screeching directly in her ear as she rocks her back and forth.

“That’s alright, Ellie bean. You’ve been a huge help already this afternoon, but Joel should be back soon. You should go, have fun.” By the furrowed look on her face, Ellie doesn’t seem to buy that, but she nods.

“Um, ok. Well, you know where to find me– i-if you need me or anything.” She nods and Ellie turns to leave, but seems to think twice of it before turning back to her.

“Are you guys– are you guys ok? You and Joel?” Her heart drops at the question, but luckily Libby chooses that exact moment to raise her screaming to a new decibel, effectively distracting the both of them enough for Ellie to offer her one more anxious smile before heading out. 

She sighs with the close of the front door, continuing to try to soothe Libby as she walks upstairs to the nursery. 

“I know, Libs. Tell me about it, huh?” She sits down in the rocking chair, shifting her squirming girl to cradle her in her lap. When she glances at the clock, she realizes it’s at least an hour past when Joel should have been home. She feels terrible that she doesn’t feel much at the realization, too sleep deprived, too frustrated, too utterly hopeless to muster up much more than faint concern as Libby continues to wail. 

She sits like that for a few hours, through Libby’s ceaseless cries, the relentless noise lulling her into a sort of daze. And then, a miracle. For the first time in a month and a half, Libby stops crying before midnight. Her girl lets out a few sleepy coos before dozing off in her arms, and she has to stop herself from laughing in pure relief as she lays her down in her crib. Stepping out into the hall, she slumps back against the wall, but her peace is short-lived when she realizes that Joel still isn’t home and it’s now much later. 

It’s the final straw that finally sends her reeling as she crumples over, her hands on her thighs as she starts to heave in a silent sob. It feels like she can’t get any air in, taking quick gasping breaths that she tries to stifle, not wanting to make any sound and wake her girl up. Her mind is blaring a shrill alarm of two words, over and over again. He’s gone. Under any other circumstances, she might be able to rationalize, to not jump to the worst conclusion. But she’s running on fumes, and her mind can’t shake the thought that she may have lost him tonight. And then she starts to think about that morning, how she hadn’t even said goodbye, and it sends her down to her knees, collapsing over herself in a silent wail. 

She’s completely caught off guard when a warm palm comes to her back, jerking away from the touch and pressing back against the wall.

“Hey, hey. It’s me– it’s just me.” He kneels down in front of her, palms cupping her cheeks as he tries to coax her to look at him, but she’s still inconsolable, a sobbing mess. His face falls when she won’t calm down.

“What’s wrong? Is it– please don’t tell me it’s Libby.” The frantic edge to his voice cuts through the fog enough for her to shake her head.

“No– she– she’s fine– she’s sleeping. I thought– I thought you were gone– I thought I lost y-y-you.” She’s a shuddering mess of words, breaking down in another silent sob before she can say anymore. Joel’s hands slide down to squeeze hers, dipping his head down to catch her watery gaze.

“I’m not gone– we just had some trouble with one of the horses, alright? Just got back a little late. I’m right here.” She’s with it enough to let out a bitter laugh at his choice of words, her sobs finally dying down into breathy shudders.

“No you’re not.” His face crumples in confusion as he sits back on his haunches.

“What?” She sighs, scrubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand.

“You might be here physically. But I have no fucking clue where you’ve been in your head ever since– ever since Libby got sick.” As she says it, she finally starts to connect the dots. Joel has been acting the same way he acted when she told him she was pregnant, when he tried to get Tommy to take Ellie to Salt Lake City, when she got shot back in Boston. Joel’s been acting the way he acts when he’s scared.

Part of her wants to comfort him, to tell him that she knows, that she gets it. But the other part of her is too far gone in the flood of frustration for that, and instead she lets that righteous anger wash over her.

“I told you that I couldn’t do this without you, that we would do this together. We’re not in this together anymore, Joel. You don’t talk to me anymore, and lord knows you haven’t touched me in at least a month. Am I that repulsive to you? The fucking mother of your child?” His eyes are wide, jaw slack at her words.

“That ain’t what this is about.” She scoffs.

“No, I know what this is about. But, jesus christ, Joel, you aren’t the only one who’s scared right now. We’re supposed to be there for each other, that’s what partners do. They do it scared, together. But you won’t let me in, and you clearly want nothing to do with me.” 

“That’s not– I don’t– it’s–” He stops his own stumbling, letting out a ragged sigh. She just shakes her head.

Before either of them can say anything else, a cry resounds from the nursery. But it’s not like the shrieks they’ve grown accustomed to. This cry is quieter, more needy than distressed. She gets up with a sigh, not looking at Joel as she walks back toward the nursery. Joel is right on her heels.

“Let me, I’ve got her.” She whips around on her heel at his words, holding her palm up between them as she tries to steel her expression.

“Don’t.”

He doesn’t.

…

She wakes up the next morning in a crunched tangle on the twin bed in Libby’s room, her girl still sleeping like an angel in her crib. After a diaper change last night, Libby had again stopped crying, another hopeful sign that the colic is finally lifting.  She doesn’t have much room to celebrate it with the way the fight she and Joel had last night is occupying her mind. Though she supposes it wasn’t really a fight, more just her falling apart on him. A cool guilt creeps up her spine. She shouldn’t have lashed out at him like that, but she knows she couldn’t hold it in any longer either.

Libby still asleep, she slips into their bedroom, an awful relief that Joel is nowhere to be seen. She’s not ready to face him yet. 

She gets cleaned up, just barely dressed when she starts hearing fussy coos coming from across the hall. Morning light slides syrupy and gold across the nursery floor as she picks Libby up from her crib. This happens like clockwork, and it’s her favorite part of every morning, sitting down in the rocking chair, Libby’s tiny palm pressing against her sternum as she latches on for her breakfast. Even right now, with her mind swirling in worry, watching the contented flutter of her girl’s eyes as she suckles is enough to soothe her.

He clears his throat, and she glances up just briefly to see him standing in the doorway. 

“I think we might finally be done with the colic.” As she speaks, she keeps her eyes focused on Libby, her ears pricking to the shuffle of his bare feet as he comes closer into the room. He stays silent, but she can feel his eyes watching her as Libby turns her head away. She gets up with a sigh, still not looking at him as she bounces lightly side to side, rubbing her girl’s back after readjusting her shirt. 

“I can burp her if you want. Save you a shirt.” She finally looks at him as he speaks, worry clear in the crease between his brows. Part of her wants to be petty, to tell him that she’s got it and shut him out. But she also knows that this is him trying, so she gives him a small nod, gently passing Libby off to him. He’s been good with her from the start, and now is no different as he holds her to his chest, shushing her fussy whimpers as he lightly pats her back. She can’t help but smile at the sight, leaning up against the crib as she finally holds his gaze.

“Made coffee, if you want some. Pot’s probably still warm.” That’s a peace offering if she ever heard one. She hums, nodding noncommittally in response. It’s clear that Joel has something else to say.

“Could we– could we talk?” He sounds so unsure of the question, his brow all twisted up. She’s already thawing, offering him a smile and a nod.

“That one will conk right out when you’re done burping her. Let’s talk after you get her down, alright?” He sets his mouth in a thin line, his eyes still soft as he nods. She passes by him with a sigh, her palm resting for a moment on his bicep as she presses a kiss to Libby’s crown before slipping out of the room. She really needs that cup of coffee.

Spring is finally thawing out the winter freeze, and it’s just sunny enough to sit on the back porch with a warm mug and a sweater. It isn’t long before he joins her. She notes the way he keeps a sizable distance between them on the bench seat.

“Sarah was colicky too, y’know.” She hadn’t been expecting that, turning to look at him. He’s leaning forward, his elbows resting on his thighs as he cranes his neck back to meet her gaze.

“Was she?” He nods, letting out a breathy laugh.

“Scared the living shit out of me. Her mom– well, she wasn’t much help. Pfft, pretty sure I cussed out the doctor when he told me I just had to wait for it to pass– wait for Sarah to get better.” He studies his hands, fingers flexing as he continues.

“She cried and cried– just like Libby. I stayed up with her every night and just about lost my mind. Knowing she– my baby, my girl– was in so much pain and there was nothing I could do. It was torture.” She brings a tentative palm to his shoulder, feeling him slacken under her touch as he finally looks at her again.

“I’m sorry, darlin. I got stuck in the past and left you here to deal with the present.” She sets her mug down before scooting closer to him to sling her arm over his shoulders, feeling relief when he lets her tangle her other hand with his.

“I accept your apology. I just wish you would’ve talked to me. I know you don’t think I can understand– and I probably can’t, at least not entirely. But I can’t even try to if you don’t let me in.” She rests her chin on his shoulder, feeling the rise and fall of his sigh.

“I know you’re right– I do. It’s just so fucking hard. I just– I’ve gotten real good at running away from it– just shutting it down. Talking like this feels damn near impossible.” She leans back, coaxing him to look at her.

“We knew this wasn’t gonna be easy. And we said we’d get through this together. Joel, you can’t shut down like that– you just can’t. I– we need you too much.” He swallows hard, nodding at her words, and she can’t help but brush his wavy hair out of his face, resting her palm on his cheek afterward.

“You talk to me, huh? And I’m gonna try so hard to understand. I promise.” She stamps her words with a kiss, pressing her forehead against his as they both let out a sigh. 

“Gonna do better by you, darlin. Not gonna disappear on you again.” 

…

“It’s magic, right? It’s gotta be magic.” Joel quietly laughs at her whispers, both of them looking down at their girl who is fast asleep in the settling night time by some sort of miracle. Libby had done so much better the rest of the day. No more relentless shrieking or fussy squirming. It was like a switch had been flipped, and she and Joel are just hoping it stays that way. 

He places his palm between her shoulder blades, head tilting toward the doorway. She gets the hint, both of them quietly padding out of the nursery and across the hall to their own bedroom.

“Are we actually gonna get to sleep in our own bed tonight?” He smiles at that, lifting his hand to brush his fingers along her cheek. He’s being careful, she can tell. All day he’s been quiet, but close, taking the day off of shifts to stick by her side. She knows that this is his way of apologizing, his way of trying, and she’s grateful for it.

Whether or not they’re showering together has become a sort of litmus test to determine how their relationship is doing. They haven’t done this in a month, and she only realizes how much she missed it, missed him, when she finally gets her hands on him again, running her soaped-up palms along the broad expanse of his back as he faces away from her under the warm stream of water. She smiles at the groan he lets out when she presses her fingers into that spot between his shoulder blades that’s always knotted up, working the kink out before slipping her palms further down. A breathy chuckle thrums in his chest when she slides her palms down the strong curve of his ass, stepping in closer to wrap her arms around him and trail her hands up the soft muscle of his stomach.

“What’re you doing back there, mama?” She can hear the smile in his voice, and revels in the shudder that runs through him when she presses a kiss to the nape of his neck.

“Taking care of you. You gonna let me?” She feels the huff he lets out in the rise and fall of his shoulders, quick to turn in her hold and steal one, two, three kisses before she can press on his chest to get him to let up. His hands fall to her waist, squeezing at the swell and pulling her into him, chest to chest. His cock rests hot and solid against her thigh.

“We take care of each other, huh?” His words bloom warm in her chest and the smile she offers him is the biggest relief. He reaches behind her to grab the bar of soap, lathering up his hands. It’s a strange contrast, the roughness of his palms and the tenderness of the press of his skin against hers as he trails over every inch of her body he can reach. She gets both, and she knows it’s a gift.

His touch begins to linger and stutter, squeezes left to his favorite parts of her, his grin growing smugger with each shudder he coaxes out of her. 

“We’re wasting water. Maria’s gonna kill us.” He groans low at that, laying a harsh squeeze to her ass that she yelps at.

“That is the last thing I wanna think about right now.” She breathes out a laugh as he corners her against the tiled wall. She barely manages to flip off the water as he presses against her, licking hotly into her mouth. With a light tug to his damp waves, he pulls away, both of them panting in the humid bathroom air.

“Can we at least get dried off? The last thing I want is one of us slipping and cracking our skull open.” Joel grumbles at that, shaking his head as he steps in closer. However, with the step he takes, his back heel slips out causing him to stumble into her as they both struggle to stay upright. They’re a tangle of limbs as they find their footing, her arms wrapped over his shoulders and his around her waist. Looking at each other, all they can do is laugh.

“Would it kill you to tell me I’m right every now and again?” She teases him, a crooked grin as she stays wrapped up in his arms.

“You’re right– you’re right– you’re right. There, will that do, darlin?” He punctuates each repetition with a chaste kiss to her lips, leaving her laughing as he jostles her in his hold. She hums lightly.

“Hmm, I suppose. For now.” He huffs at that, retaliating with a hard smack to the curve of her ass that has her jolting in his grip, causing them both to stumble about in the shower again. They’re fools for each other, only for each other.

Drying off is made all but impossible by the way they stay glued to each other, and their skin is still damp when they finally make it to their bed, toppling into the sheets still tangled up in kisses and sighs and wandering hands. Joel coaxes her onto her back, settling between her legs as he trails a hand down to her cunt, dragging a brazen swipe through her heat that has her arching up into her touch.

“Joel, please– no teasing tonight. I just– I need you, baby.” He shushes her with a kiss, fingers languidly circling her clit.

“You’ve got me, darlin– not going anywhere, huh? Gonna give you what you need.” She has to bite back a whine at the loss of his touch, but it’s only a fleeting desperation as he presses the throbbing tip of his cock up against her entrance. Though it’s been a while, they move well together like they always do, bodies in complete communion as she draws her leg up along his waist, opening up to him as he presses his hips forward. He stills with his hips hilted into hers, his forehead pressing into her sternum with a ragged sigh. 

“Fucking hell– missed you so bad, mama– s’not fair how good you feel– not gonna last like this–” His voice is hoarse, broken by sweet agony, and she tries to soothe him with a smattering of kisses to his hairline, drawing him to look up at her.

“It’s ok, baby. Just wanna feel you– feel so perfect, Joel. Can you move for me?” She presses a kiss to the crease between his brows and he chases after her lips, groaning into a deep kiss as he rolls his hips back only to snap them forward again. He swallows the gasp she lets out at the deep grind of him, her nails digging into his shoulders as he guides them into that familiar push and pull. 

In just the few months of having their girl, they’ve learned how to keep quiet, all breathy sighs and muffled kisses, but she’s having a hard time holding back her high-pitched whimpers at the way he’s thrusting into her, punctuating each snap of his hips with a hard grind that strokes a spot inside her that’s already tilting her over the edge of pleasure. But it starts to become too much when Joel brings his fingers back to her clit, drawing stuttering swipes that have her spasming around him.

“C’mon, mama– let go for me– want it so bad– that’s it, darlin–” his praises become muffled noise as she comes, her heels now digging into his ass where her legs are wrapped around him, clutching him as he fucks her through the rolling high. Joel is quick to follow, pulling out of her with a harsh groan and sloppily stroking himself a few times before his warmth is smearing across the plush of her thigh. It's a far cry from the heated trysts they used to engage in, hours on end of tangled passion long traded in for these little bursts of love that she cherishes just as much, if not more.

He collapses next to her, slumping on his back, his arm crossed over himself to keep his palm splayed over her stomach. She rests her hand on top of his, tangling their fingers together as they both catch their breath. But, there isn’t much time to revel in the moment when soft cries start to carry from across the hall. She can’t help but smile as she looks at him, and he lets out a sigh.

“Go get cleaned up, mama. I’ve got her.” He punctuates his words with a kiss, leaning over and brushing his fingers along her cheek. They share a quietly murmured “love you,” and she idly watches him get up, the soft pull of his muscles as he slips on a t-shirt and a pair of boxers before padding across the hall to Libby’s room.

They don’t get to sleep in their own bed that night. After getting cleaned up, she trails into the nursery, finding Joel quietly singing to their girl in the rocking chair. He glances up at her, but keeps singing, his voice low and sweet, lulling Libby back to sleep in his arms. With their girl tucked back in her crib, they wind up in a close tangle on the twin bed.

It's the best sleep they've gotten in a month.

[peterparkouryo]

dream palace. | p.p imagine

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

prompt: Movie night with your boyfriend turns into something more.

warnings: fluff, making out, no smut because i suck at writing it (mentions of it)

word count: 1.7k

a/n: i am extremely sorry for not uploading anything last week, really busy with captivated habits two and rebound three. enjoy this lil fic i made this weekend

Every Friday was movie night. It was a traditional thing you and your boyfriend, Peter did, even before the two of you started dating.

Sometimes on a rare occasion, your two other friends would join you, but since MJ and Ned weren't a couple, it almost felt like they were third wheeling whenever the two of you would drift your focus away from the movie playing and onto each other.

You were almost glad that on most Friday nights, it was just you and Peter. It gave you the opportunity to focus less on the movie and more on each other, which in a logical sense, defeats the entire purpose of a "movie night".

Today, rather it be fortunate or unfortunate, wasn't one of those days, and the moment you opened the door of your apartment to Peter's grinning face, and laptop in hand (since you didn't own one and you enjoyed watching it on his rather than the TV in your room), you were ecstatic of his presence. 

He had such a giddy effect on you, it was no wonder with every alone time you two would get, you could never keep yours hands off him.

"So, what movie are we watching?" You questioned the boy, plopping down on your bed as he trailed behind you, the door coming to a close as he did.

"Return of the Jedi, although not my favourite, I figured it's best we get this one out the way." Peter tells you, setting his laptop at the bottom of your bed. You let out a groan of protest, which didn't go unnoticed by him.

You adored Peter's dorkiness, it was one of the many reasons you were dating him, but sometimes it smothered you whenever it was Star Wars related, and you both knew you couldn't really get into the franchise itself no matter if you pretended to or not.

"What?" He asks quite frantically, a small pout forming on his lips.

"This is the fourth Star Wars movie we seen during our movie nights." You pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but the last one didn't really count because we were fu-"

"Okay! But that's different, and that only happened 'cause I didn't want to watch another Star Wars movie." You cut Peter's words off rather quickly as he lets out a laugh.

"No, really?" His voice comes out sarcastic and you roll your eyes.

"Can we just please watching something else?" You pleaded, your first and maybe last attempt at the puppy dog eyes you were giving him.

Peter eyes you for a moment, fighting a debate in his head rather to give in or just see where the night takes him if he insists you have to watch Return of the Jedi, and god knows you and your charm will have him doing the exact opposite as last time.

"Fine." He gives in after another heartbeat of silence, holding back an eye roll at your squeal of happiness.

"What movie did you have in mind?" He grumbles out, opening his laptop to a streaming service.

You think on his words for a minute, not really having a movie that you wanted to watch specifically. In all honesty, anything but a Star Wars movie would do perfectly fine. You say the first movie that comes to your head.

"Clueless." 

"And you say Star Wars is bad." Peter groans and you send the boy a glare.

"Nothing is wrong with Clueless, it's a perfectly good movie with decent comedy." You argue and Peter says nothing as he goes to search for the movie anyhow.

"Yeah, for someone who enjoys cheesy rom coms about rich people." He states back, successfully finding the movie, clicking play.

Thirty or so minutes passes by, the two of you cuddled close together as the laptop settles on Peter's lap, and you don't miss the yawn he lets out as he tries his best to not seem bored of the movie.

You would almost feel bad, but the past few movie nights has been his pickings and rather the two of you would pay attention or not, it was your turn, rightfully.

You feel Peter's figure shift, his hand wrapped around your arm, cuddling you closer as he lets out a bored sigh. You give him a side eye, a very annoyed one before you decide to just ignore his bored state and focus on the movie.

Peter then gives your shoulder a light kiss, running his fingers up and down your arm slowly and it certainly didn't take a rocket scientist to know exactly what he was trying to do.

"Peter." You warned, shrugging his close figure away from you and he smiles at your protests.

"Sorry." The boy apologies sheepishly, and you know all too well that he really wasn't.

After the interaction, a few more minutes pass by and you focus on the movie, or at least you tried to.

"What do you think you're doing?" You feel Peter's hand retreat from underneath your shirt, his hand taking home to your arm where it should had respectfully been anyway.

"I'm not doing anything?" Peter tells you, his voice confused, pretending to be watching the movie.

You roll your eyes at his words, smiling at the thought of Peter being so miserably bored, he'd do anything to distract you from the movie as well.

"Didn't seem that way." You point out, giving him a glance, his eyes refusing to meet yours.

"I know better than to have sex with you during our movie nights." Peter informs and you can tell his words are a clear mocking of the exact thing you do whenever it was a movie of his you didn't want to watch.

You shoot him a glare.

"First of all, I don't do it every time it's a movie you pick, and second of all, Clueless is a lot more entertaining than people in space." You argue, folding your arms over your chest, like a child would.

"I never said you did and this movie is way more boring and has no action." Peter bites back and you chuckle at the adorable pout on his face.

"Would you rather do something else? Like maybe, braid each other's hair, or put on face masks?" You suggest jokingly.

Peter finds no humour in your joke, and continues his pouting, watching the laptop screen, but not actually paying any attention to it.

"Or we could just make out." You joked some more, chuckling to yourself, because even if Peter didn't find anything you were saying funny, you knew you were on some level the funniest person to be known.

"Okay." You hear him say, and you stop yourself from your laughter, raising a quizzical eyebrow, your gaze reaching Peter's eager one.

"I was joking." You point out, and the boy shrugs, unaffected at your words.

"Well I wasn't and if sleeping with you won't drag your attention away from this boring movie, maybe making out with me will." The boy shows you an ear to ear grin and you tilt your head in disbelief.

"How about we finish this movie, then we'll see?" You say slowly, and Peter doesn't give that option into consideration.

"Or, we can see now." Peter pushes the laptop off his lap, turning to you rather quickly, attacking your lips before you could say or do anything.

The first time you and Peter ever kissed was well, awkward. It being your first relationship and vice versa, you never knew exactly how a kiss should be and obviously, neither did Peter. 

Though yes, it was really awkward, given the fact the two of were in the middle of having ice cream, and it was a very sticky, messy kiss, it still was somehow perfect. Some might say it wasn't, but oddly enough, it just made sense.

And ever since your first kiss, Peter made it his life's mission to prove just how progressively good he was at "sucking your face" (as MJ likes to call it).

With the movie now long forgotten, you swiftly fall under the spell that is Peter and his lips, the boy pulling you onto his lap.

The kiss had a mutual understand of the ache burning in your bodies, but you knew better than to act on it. Only because Peter had this annoying habit of leaving very noticeable blemishing on your skin and it took a lot of hours of makeup and strategic thinking to hide them, not only from your friends, but parents too.

Peter's hands were (very) eager, to grip pretty much any part of your body, settling for clasping his ungodly hold on your waist, which was a prominent touch you felt even through your shirt.

Your hands rested on his shoulder, sliding their way to the back of his neck, playing with the soft curls as they did so.

A keen noise escapes Peter's lips and you smile, continuing with the kiss.

There were moments like this were you were content with Peter's captivating presence. It was hard to put in words, but anytime you were in a proximity of him, you felt safe. Not only that, but the boy gave you every reason in the world to trust him with your life.

Hopefully Peter trusted you just as much as you trust him. You surely didn't doubt it, with how he was practically moaning in your mouth at the moment.

You two eventually have to pull away to catch your breath, and you. catch glimpse of Peter's dazed state, biting your bottom lip to stop the grin forming on your face.

"What?" Peter wonders, his flustered gaze staring at your curiously.

"Nothing, just love looking at your post make out face." You admit, running a hand through his head full of curls.

Peter says nothing, closing his eyes as he lets out a sigh of content at your gesture you've done plenty times before.

If it were up to you, you'd stay like this forever. Watching your boyfriend enjoy your delicate touch, his breathing at an even pace, letting you know he was comfortable and genuinely happy in any moment spent with you.

"We should get back to the movie." You suggest, attempting to remove yourself from his lap but unfortunately the spider boy had a stronger advantage.

You raise an eyebrow at him and his pout of protest.

"I'd rather you stay here and keep me warm." He suggests, sliding his hands behind your back for a hug.

You smile at his words, giving him a hug back, melting into his touch.

"If you know what I mean." You hear him say, smirking in your neck.

Your eyes roll at his suggestive option, pushing him away from you.

"Gross." You groan, successfully removing yourself from his lap, reaching for his laptop and unpausing the movie.

"It's not like you haven't done that before." 

"Peter!"

"Right, sorry."

[lil-oreo-crumbles]

“You’re a Disappointment,” An Analysis

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Seven years. Seven. Years. And it only just now finally hit me what Toffee truly meant when he called Marco a disappointment in Storm the Castle, and I feel pretty silly for not realizing it before.

Before Storm the Castle, Toffee has only seen Marco on two significant (canonical) occasions, Fortune Cookies and Mewnipendance Day. (As you may remember, Marco was MIA during Marco Grows a Beard, considering he was… physically trapped in that bathroom as his beard overwhelmed the house)

Fortune Cookies:

The entire plot of the episode, besides the ever enjoyable introduction to our favorite lizard, is Star once again being amazed by another Earth oddity: fortune cookies. She believes that the fortunes are genuine predictions of the future and are infallible and to be relied on for all of her future decisions (not helped by Marco who did influence this misconception by messing with her). This immediately establishes in Toffee’s mind— after learning from Buff Frog that she believes the messages in the messages in her cookies are fortunes— that she’s naive, impulsive, easy to stray, and immature. Of course, he very quickly learns about her impulsivity, fighting prowess, and stubborn will, but her naivety is what sticks out to him in this moment, and it’s what he takes full advantage of. (Note: I don’t think he actually looks down on her for these traits alone and expects her to be mature at all, I think he sees those traits going hand and hand with her age. She’s only 14, after all. Nevertheless, they are still traits he can use to his advantage to further his goals.)

This is something that Star has in common with the monsters Toffee has found himself within the company of. The only difference here? These are grown adults who he expects to have a bit more dignity under their belt, ESPECIALLY Ludo. While I’m sure he’s grateful that Ludo was naive enough to hire him with clever wordplay alone— overall assisting to further his goals— he can’t help but feel annoyed by the plain stupid amount of immaturity he possesses.

I think this is less so with Ludo’s army. Even if they share very similar traits, he knows they’ve been living under Ludo’s childish tyranny, and probably has a bit more faith that they can be molded into proper soldiers. Though, his patience is still worn extremely thin by their shenanigans.

Toffee takes advantage of this by planting a fortune in her bag, “Love is Always the Answer.” While I personally believe there’s a deeper meaning, it’s not relevant right now. But anywho, the core purpose is to let Star’s guard down enough so Ludo can gain ownership of the wand.

While Star believes the message hook, line, and sinker, Marco immediately sees past the ridiculousness of the fortune in such a dire situation. “What? Not in this case! Fighting is!”

“Really? Now??”

He immediately sees past the fortune, relying on logic to reason that such a simple trick is just that: a trick. Clearly Star’s pacifism isn’t working, and they need to make the rational decision to fight. He’s immediately proves himself to be the level headed one of the duo, the one who keeps his head on straight and is clearly the maturer of the two.

Marco saw right through the trap and displayed common sense and logic. And he was later vindicated when it was revealed to Star that the fortune cookie was a trap.

And I can guarantee you Toffee noticed this, and it was only further cemented in the next time Toffee sees him again.

Mewnipendance Day:

In this episode, Star is celebrating what she knows as “Mewnipendance Day”, also known as the Great Monster Massacre, where the first Queen of Mewni attempted to wipe out monsters from the face of the planet, an attempted genocide of innocent people who lived on the land she stole from them.

Star explains the entire story from the Mewman’s propagandized perspective, going through a pop-up storybook to demonstrate the beginning and the end of the massacre. She gives an explanation of the beginnings, skips past the actual genocide and fighting itself, and ends with “And the Mewmans won!”

And guess who’s the only person who notices and brings attention to it? Marco Diaz himself.

“Wait, but you just blew past all the important stuff.”

Once again, Marco is the one who’s calling out important things, looking deeper and more critically at the situation, opposed to everyone else who just goes along with it. He shows very clear and obvious signs that he’s more mature than his peers.

And let’s not forget, Ludo and Toffee are watching all of this through the surveillance device (the “all seeing eye”). Sure, Toffee is a tad distracted by the book he’s reading, but with how intelligent he is I’m almost positive that he’s multitasking here.

And Marco only proceeds to exceed expectations, actually going through the book and starting to see, at least in part, the true reality of the situation, calling it out and bringing it to Star’s attention.

“Star, I know the monsters are bad and all, but this seems… unfair.”

Marco demonstrates that he is willing to see past biases and to see reason. He sees past the blatant propaganda and revisionist history, at least in part.

Overall, he is actively more mature than the others with common sense that aids in critical thinking skills and nuance beyond what’d Toffee would expect at his age, especially contrasted against Star. And I think taking off rose colored glasses and seeing the monster massacre for what it really is (again at least in part) really helps with Toffee’s perception of Marco as some levity amongst the childish people he’s been surrounded with.

That is, until their third interaction in Storm the Castle.

Storm the Castle:

Toffee clearly sees Marco as a competent fighter, considering the double imprisonment with not only the chair that confines him but the crystal box prison too. He knows Marco is more competent and mature than most people in his vicinity

At least. He did.

During Storm the Castle while Marco is imprisoned, he takes on the traits seen with Ludo, his soldiers, and Star. He’s acting immature, he’s being impulsive, and he’s talking back with what he assumes is witty dialogue. He’s trying to act all tough guy, which clearly doesn’t work with Toffee. Toffee humors him a little bit during the sandwich dialogue, releasing him from the chair, and Marco immediately takes an impulsive swing at him, leaving him to punch the crystal and immediately writhe in pain at the impact. Marco then immediately throws away Toffee’s genuine attempt at offering him a meal. Toffee is a monster, and being a monster in Mewni means that food, especially good food, is invaluable, because it’s so hard to come by. Seeing Marco waste and make a mess of it without a second thought is probably the nail in the coffin.

Marco isn’t the slightly more mature young boy Toffee assumed he was. He had witnessed from afar Marco’s knack for nuance and critical thinking, a breath of fresh air amongst incompetence.

But as soon as they get one on one all of that is immediately washed away.

Marco is acting like everyone else he’s come across lately, openly defying the nuanced maturity Toffee had witnessed previously. He’s just like the others. He’s being childish. He isn’t special.

“You’re a disappointment”

It’s not some profound statement, there’s no weight behind it. Toffee had no expectations for Marco and wasn’t planning on using him for his goals. Marco just genuinely was not who Toffee assumed he was by his previous actions. Toffee was mildly genuinely disappointed to learn just how kiddish Marco really is. He really expected better.

I also think this explains why Toffee didn’t bother to put him back in the chair restraints. He really didn’t need to go that far with trapping him in the first place.

I don’t think Toffee is surprised, or even phased by it, Marco is a 14 year old child after all. I don’t even think Toffee’s expectations for his maturity were big, period, just the slightest bit of relief that Marco was a breath of fresh air amongst the sea of incompetence. But no. He wasn’t, as far as Toffee concludes at least. This one interaction completely killed any hope Toffee might have carried, and he would just roll his eyes for even allowing himself to put even a little faith in someone.

“Well, that’s unfortunate. Anyways…”

I know there were tons of theories on this, but the actual answer, as far as I’ve figured, is incredibly simple lol. And now that I’ve finally realized what that line really meant, I think it’s important to share.

[fannishstuff]

Have more Biddleford AU!

This is in specific reference to my AU where Fiddleford tried meditation instead of inventing the memory gun, and consequently met and began to worship Bill.

So, I opened that piece of fanart with Fiddleford reaching out a hand to Ford, and telling him that he was welcome.

"Why," you might ask, "is he welcoming in Ford? Doesn't Ford already worship Bill?

Hehehehehe, that's where the fact that Bill is extremely manipulative comes in. More under the cut.

So, in the ficlet that I included with that picture, you'll note that Bill set himself up to be the golden magical savior that would protect Fiddleford from evil spirits and bad luck. Well, Fiddleford falls for it and he falls for it hard. Bill can be very charming and convincing when he wants to be. (...sort of. He does a lot of, like, giving people upsetting gifts and terrifying compliments and stuff. You kind of have to be a little unhinged already to fall for Bill-style charm, basically. Fortunately our pteratron-building man is.)

Fiddleford now belongs to Bill. Great. You'll remember that Ford is not actually able to build the portal himself - he needed help from Fiddleford because his math wasn't strong enough. Okay, so Bill was using Ford to build the Portal, and Ford was using Fiddleford... but now Bill can use Fiddleford directly, so he has two geniuses under his thumb. Even better: Bill had to manipulate Ford by keeping him isolated and paranoid. Fiddleford, on the other hand, we know to be charismatic and sociable. We know that he tends to seek out people who are suffering from problems similar to his and that he can get them to open up. He's also very convincing, and can convince them he has a solution to their troubles. Ivan, whose recruitment we see in Journal 3 and who is the eventual leader of the Society of the Blind Eye, is a great example of this.

So, now Bill has two patsies: a genius nerd who's convinced everyone is out to get him, and a big-hearted but very odd duck guy who wants nothing more than to help people. The second one, the charmer, has a habit of proselytizing.

And, oh, how Bill loves to be worshiped.

So, he still needs and wants Ford, but why would he settle for Ford? Bill starts occupying more and more of Fiddleford's time with the cult, and while he's at it, he himself start to breadcrumb - and eventually ghosts - Ford. It sends Ford into a panic. Ford is getting increasingly stressed and overworked, he's barely making progress, his only friend is spending almost no time with him and acting weird even when he's around, and his muse has seemingly abandoned him. Oh, and by the way: Bill hasn't told Ford that he's in contact with Fidds, and has instructed Fidds to keep the secret.

One day, Bill returns to Ford's dreams.

He's snide. He's cold. He asks for progress, and then makes like he's going to leave. Ford leaps at him, begs him to stay, asks what happened, and what he did wrong.

What are you talking about, Sixer? Aren't you doing fine without me? I thought you were some kind of genius. Well, I'm - I could never do as well alone as with your guidance, Bill! You're my muse! Oh, yeah. That. What is it? What's wrong?

Bill goes on to point out that, well, yeah, Ford was fine, but Bill was really starting to feel lead on. Bill's not just some broad you can expect to keep around forever and never bother pop the question. Like, Bill's a god, not just a """MUSE,""" and it was just kinda getting old, right? Like, you're clearly fine without me, so whatever. What? What's wrong? No, seriously, it's fine if you don't want to commit, you have commitment issues since you abandoned your brother and all. What, you want another chance? Seriously? I'm not really convinced. Oh? Okay, fine. Fine. We'll talk it out. But you are on thin ice, Sixer.

So, Ford is given some pretty strict instructions for the next couple of days, and then he's sent to meet up with Bill's other worshipers.

Ford didn't know about the other worshipers, and he's really embarrassed about this. (Never mind that they didn't exist.) He's angry, he's frustrated, but most of all he's desperate for approval.

So he goes, and he meets...

Fiddleford.

Bill's been talking to Fiddleford. Bill explained everything to Fiddleford. He explained that Ford is coming, and he's to be the co-ruler of the cult or Fiddleford's right-hand man, but that he needs to behave himself. Ford hasn't always been totally committed, Bill explained, but he's being given another chance.

But it's okay! Fiddleford believes in Ford! Fiddleford one hundred percent is vouching for him, Ford's such a swell guy, always goes the whole way in everything. Fiddleford would never doubt Ford, and together, they're going to prove to Bill that Ford's serious.

Ford... isn't convinced. Ford is having doubts. But Ford has to make sure to never, ever, ever voice those doubts, because that would be proving that he has doubts, and that he's just like Bill was afraid he would be, even though Fiddleford trusts him unconditionally like the good friend he is.

Anyway in this AU the world ends

[jron]

“Well, we survived all of these assholes”

I took a tour of the US Capitol on Saturday with some friends.

I had toured it a few years ago and didn’t exactly want to go to that part of town in the unbearable heat, but we went anyway and it made an interesting perspective. Hot on the heels of the Biden-Trump debate, newspapers like the NYT were calling on Biden to leave the race (presumably they’re happy with Trump staying in it), the Supreme Court was busy helping Trump avoid Justice and undermining safety regulations, and most people I know were essentially freaking out about our choices this fall.

If you’ve been on the Capitol tour, you’ll know it’s fairly short, but still well-done. It doesn’t visit the chambers, but goes through the crypt and the Rotunda, as well as the foyers that once acted as the much smaller original chambers. The focus of the tour is on the art, especially the statues, of which every state sends two.

Our state has sent Dr. Crawford W. Long & Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens. One is known for inventing treatments for malaria (yea!), and the other for his speech declaring that slavery and white supremacy are and always will be the “cornerstone” of the Confederacy that he supported.

Our travel friends from California were represented by Father Junipero Serra, declared a saint but mostly known for torturing indigenous people until they accepted Christianity, and Ronald Reagan, one of the most destructive presidents of the modern era who looks worse and worse with each passing year.

In fact, the whole tour is something of a rogues’ gallery. The occasional hero on display tends to stand out because so many of the people depicted were powerful villains. Robert E. Lee has fortunately been removed, replaced by civil rights hero Barbara Johns, but the visit itself can be whiplash inducing, because it is a display of the fight between modernity and an unjust past.

On the way out, our friend announced to the rest of us, “Well, we survived these assholes. Maybe things aren’t so bad right now.”

Maybe he’s right.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have more work to do to clean up this mess than we did only a week ago. But it’s true, the nation has been in the hands of some fairly terrible people for quite a lot of its existence. And some terrible people are still honoring their destructiveness.

It’s also true - and the Capitol tour shows this - that a lot of extremely talented and visionary people came together to build the government we have today. And that this work is never finished. Some of those new statues bring that message home better than others, but it was inspiring to see them there.

Overall I’m glad we went. The nation has survived some awful people. Maybe we’ll make it through these.

(Edit to add: At one point in my diatribe about Stephens, it was suggested that perhaps his statue should stay as a learning experience. For example, visitors should know about the Cornerstone Speech. However, no one else in our highly educated group knew anything about that statue’s subject, only that the state of Georgia thought it should honor him above all the rest of its citizens. Our conclusion? Get rid of it.)

[linkspooky]

JUJUTSU KAISEN, CHAPTER 214 THOUGHTS

Hana's death could be read as the destruction of innocence. The pointless suffering that is inflicted again and again by life. Just like the audience, the characters in Jujutsu Kaisen are always suffering too. Sukuna and Yuji clash this chapter, and so do their world views. While they seem like opposites they're actually talking about the same thing. How do you live in a world full of suffering? Why do you live in a world full of suffering? What's the point? Yuji and Sukuna are both puzzling over and trying to answer this question, but they're arguing from completely opposite points of view.

They represent two ends of the extreme, one of the side of the weak, and one on the side of the strong. Understanding their points of view can help understand their characters, more underneath the cut.

1. Samsara

Samsara in BUhism refers to the cycle ofrepreated birth, mundane existence, and dying again. Samara is considered to be dukha, suffering, and in general unsatisfactory and painful. More or less from a budhist point of view suffering is always inherent to life no matter how noble a life one tries to lead. The rude of suffering in this thought comes from ignorant desires and fears that all people have.

To borrow a panel from another manga (Tokyo Ghoul, if you read my blog you might have heard of it) the budhist view is essentially life itself will always have suffering and the only way to escape suffering is to eventually escape the cycle of death and rebirth entirely.

"Suffering is inherent to life" a depressing thought, but true nonetheless. There's no such thing as a life without pain or sadness. The cycle of karma is represented in many ways in Jujutsu Kaisen, such as curses which must be exorcised over and over again by sorcerers. No matter how many curses are exorcised, they all eventually reform, which traps sorcerers in this cycle.

Geto's downfall and madness even comes from being worn down as a part of that cycle, and the extremes he's willing to go to our driven by a desire to break free or end that cycle permanently. The curse he's exercising in that panel is the same face as this classic depiction of a thangka showing the bhavacakra, the five cyclic realms of samsara in budhist cosmology. It's the creature at the top of the wheel with the third eye opened.

Curses are created by desires and negative human emotions the same way the sufferig inherent to life in budhit cosmology is created by sins like ignorance and desire. Now, this chapter we have Sukuna, a curse, and Yuji a human who are both aware of the suffering of life and their two completely different responses to it.

2. The Myth of Sisyphus

Yuji's shouting at Sukuna almost comes off as naive. Yuji's basically just yelling "Why can't everyone just be nice?" I just said that Yuji and Sukuna are both responding to the suffering inherent to life but Yuji doesn't even seem capable of comprehending why that suffering exists. To borrow my friend @theanimepsychologist's words.

Theanimepsychologist: It's also kind of infantile of him to ask "why can't you just live without causing suffering?" As though he can't fathom that suffering is a normal aspect of life. Very pisces of him to just want to alleviate suffering.

Gege said in a world where jujutsu sorcerers didn't exist, Yuji would be a fireman, not a policeman. Which is important discussion, because Yuji is entirely focused on rescuing people, he doesn't really think of dealing out punishment. However, as a Jujutsu Sorcerer it's fortunate Yuji is dealing with curses who are just abstract embodiments of negative human emotions that are for the most part chaotic evil. Like, what would Yuji say exactly if he was just facing a normal human being?

To borrow from another manga again, what if he was facing a villain like Shigaraki Tomura, someone who has suffered all throughout his life at the hands of other people, and inflicts suffering in return, but also has a goal of destroying society because he sees the society that rejected him as the source of that suffering. Yuji, conveniently only fights curses who's nature it is to eat humans and consume human misery for no specific reason what would he say exactly if someone had complex nuanced reasons for what they do.

All of this to say while Yuji has good intentions, his views are in the extremes of black and white. Arguably, and this is where the foiling comes in his views are as black and white as Sukuna's, he just sits on the opposite end of the spectrum. They are both unequally able to see nuance or shades of grey in reality, Sukuna just sits from the perspective of the strong, and Yuji from the perspective of the weak.

I'd argue that Yuji doesn't actually want to think of the complexity of the world around him at all. He doesn't even see that humans are equally capable of inflicting suffering on other humans, or that say structures that are constructed by humans, like say the legal system that made Higuruma suffer, or the sorcerer society around him can also make humans suffer. Yuji's so fixated on exorcising curses and looking at doing nothing else because it conveniently plays into this black and white narrative he has.

Yuji's views are, surprisingly nihilistic for the hero of a shonen manga. If he sees life as nothing more than exorcising curses, if there's no deeper meaning to it then just doing his job then why is he even living in the first place? The answer of course, is that he's not really trying to live.

Let me bring out handy chart to explain my point.

Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that life has no instrinsic meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existenital nihilism suggests that a single human or even the entire human is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change the totality of existence.

The Myth of Sisyphus written by Albert Camusb begins with what has become the most famous opening sentences in literature and philosophy.

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether or not life is or is not worth living amounts of answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest - whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories - comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act."

The Myth of Sisyphus itself basically represents the same concept of Samsara. Sisyphus pushes the bolder up the hill, it falls down, then he pushes the bolder back up the hill again. People live, die, and are reborn again. Jujutsu Sorcerers exorcise curses, only for those curses to reform, and they have to exercise them again.

Yuji's views are as nihilistic as Sukuna's. Sukuna doesn't see a point or reason for weak people to continue to live. Yuji isn't trying to live either, nor is he trying to create any meaning for his own life.

3. Hedonism

Sukuna is an inherently hedoinstic character. He has a giant mouth on his stomach. He is a walking appetite. His domain expansion is based around cooking. His only servant / ally Ura Ume was a really good cook. If the concept of samsara argues that all evil in life comes from worldly desires (like gluttony eating more than you need to survive) then Sukuna as a curse represents that evil he spreads suffering because all he does is consume, consume, consume.

One important difference is Hedonism is a lifestyle, whereas Nihilism is a philosophy. Sukuna's views are similiar to Yuji's, life is just suffering for the weak, and he doesn't really see any meaning in extending that life if you are weak. However, his hedonistic lifestyle is a response to that nihilism.

Pleasure plays a central role in all forms of hedonism; it refers to expereince that feels good, and contrasts with pain or suffering. Psychological hedonism is an empirical theory about what could possibly motivates us: all our actions aim at increasing pleasure and avoiding pain. This is usually understood in combination with egosim, i.e. that each person only aims at their own happiness. It probably doesn't need to be said that Sukuna is an extremely egotistical character.

If you accept nihilism as truth, the world has no meaning, people suffer for no reason, than hedonism is one possible logical conclusion, live your life minimizing suffering and seeking pleasure. This is basically what Sukuna says.

People, especially weak and miserable people should spend their lives stifling their misery, and numbing themselves down by avoiding pain rather than trying to seek more.

Sukuna is also equally asking the same question that Camus asks. The basic question of all philsophy is whether or not to shoot yourself. The same way Yuji doesn't see a point in himself living, Sukuna sees no point in weak people living.

Ironically, when it comes to drowning your sorrows as Sukuna suggested, Nietzsche was against that.

He only ever drank milk and avoided alcohol. The idea went to the heart of his philosophy: "There have been two great narcotics in european civilization. Christianity and alcohol." He hated alcohol for the very same reasons that he scorned christianity, because both numbed pain, and both reassure us that things are just as fine as they are, sapping us of the will to cahnge our lives for the better. A few drinks offer in the transient feeling of satisfaction that can get fatally in the way of taking steps necessary to improve our lives." [SOURCE]

Sukuna sees no point in self improvement or struggle to get stronger, the weak will always be the weak, the strong will always be the strong. His views are equally as black and white as Yuji, because he divides those two groups into rigid boxes that will never change. His views even reflect Geto's just a little bit, defining sorcerers and normal humans as two distinct categories with no overlap, sorcerers are strong, humans are weak monkeys.

The weak aren't even worthy of living in Sukuna's eyes, and Geto wants to exterminate the weak non-sorcerers. Sukuna even reminds me of this passage from the JJK light novel.

"To live for the purpose fo being yourself, and for that goal, Geto could only continue to pursue his twisted dream, drowning himself in the curse that lies in the gap between ideal and reality. This was the final confession of a man who could only choose to warp himself, who had erased himself in the pursuit of his goals."

Sukuna, like Geto is a powerful sorcerer who became a curse in pursuit of his goals. Sukuna, like Yuji despite how self-aggrandizing he is, despite how egotistical seems to have no sense of self like Yuji. He does everything for himself of course, he has an overpowering ego, he has strong desires that he lives for... but rather than satisfying those desires, and being the strongest, does Sukuna really live for anything or have a reason for what he does? What are his personality traits besides... strong? He has no friends besides loyal servants. He just eats, and eats, and eats and then what? It's just another cycle, like Geto consuming curses only for more curses to be born, like Sispyhus pushing the boulder up the hill. This is how Sukuna reflects Yuji, because he's not trying to create any meaning for his life either. He's also trapped in the cycle. They are at opposite ends, Yuji is "Weak" while Sukuna is "Strong" but they both have the same nihilistic views. They're both still stuck in the same cycle.

[sashketter]

Preparing for Tantiss

Summary: While the Bad Batch acquire the coordinates to Tantiss, Rex prepares a ragtag team of familiar faces to follow him to the Imperial base.

Word count: 1.3K

Warnings: A hint of Rexiyo; a smidge, a sampling, an infinitesimal iota, if you will 😊

Notes: I’ve been saying for awhile that the "cavalry" in The Bad Batch finale might not just be clones, but it occurred to me only today to write it tf down, the last two episodes be damned lol This takes place during season 3 episode 13 of The Bad Batch, "Into the Breach." Look to the tags for the “familiar faces” - the cast is too long to list here. I wrote this in a rush, but it builds off some ideas I'm using for a series about Riyo Chuchi and the Clone Underground, specifically using Orto Plutonia as a base and the working relationship between Rex and Riyo.

“Careful with those proton torpedoes!”

“Don’t scratch my ship! I don’t care how well the Republic—"

“Father! Can I show Jek ze fighters?”

The small airbase on Orto Plutonia had proven more useful than Rex could have imagined. Clearing an area large enough to host more than half a dozen starships was a challenge, but the clones and the Talz braved extreme snowstorms in record time. Fortune seemed to smile on them today as the sky cleared and the wind calmed to a whisper. Ready the fleet, the breeze seemed to say. All the ships had spilled out of the hangar and into the open air, everyone enjoying the rare bout of good weather. Rex watches the fruits of his quick and dangerous labor from the edge of the field.

“Transmission from Pantora, sir.” A clone hands Rex a holoprojector, and Riyo Chuchi flickers in his palm.

“How are preparations coming along, captain?” Riyo learned to dispense with pleasantries when it came to Rex and his missions.

“Very well, senator.” Rex learned to keep his reports short when it came to Riyo and her transmissions. “It’s a tight fit with all the aircraft, but we’ll be ready in half a rotation. Hopefully by then, Echo will have transmitted the coordinates.”

Riyo nods, but can’t hide her concern. “Be careful, Rex. I can hold off the Senate for awhile, but not long. If Tantiss is as secretive and well-guarded as you say, people will want to know everything if something,” she searches for the right word, “explosive happens.”

“Understood.” Rex nods. “You be careful yourself.” It’s an earnest warning, but he looks around and finds no one within earshot. He smirks and tries his luck. “Try not to attract any more bombs while I’m busy.”

She huffs, looks around, and counters, “Try not to blow up any more bases.”

Rex returns her smile. She nods, and in an instant, she’s gone. Rex tucks the holoprojector in his belt.

“Uncle Rex!” Shaeeh calls and tugs at his arm. Rex’s heart thumps hard in his chest, taken off-guard by the surprise attack. “Can I come?”

Suu tiptoes from behind and grabs her daughter by the waist and off the ground. “Ay, no, we need someone to watch ze base while we are gone.” She nuzzles Shaeeh on the cheek before putting the child down.

“They’re ready for inspection,” Howzer announces, gesturing towards the noisy airfield. The captains fall into step.

First up are two Y wings parked across from each other. Cham Syndulla climbs down from the cockpit of one while Cut Lawquane stands up from the wheels of the other. Their kids play in the space between.

“Ready and operational, Rex,” Cut reports, wiping his hands with an oil-ridden rag.

“As iz ours,” Cham adds. “Eleni iz ‘aving some trouble with ze turret, but—”

“All fixed!” The men look up in time to see a wrench fly in the air and land with a loud clink on the ground. Eleni appears from the turret, smiling and wiping her forehead. Hera laughs as Chopper rolls loudly, arms flailing, to pick up the wrench.

“Good work.” Rex nods at the men before moving on.

Several meters away is a Nebula-class freighter. An astromech speeds from under its chassis towards Rex, stopping too late and bumping into his shins. He grunts in pain but otherwise ignores the collision. He rubs the droid’s dome.

“Hey, R7. Where’s Rafa?”

“You can’t bank at that speed, Trace!” Rafa’s voice turns the captains’ attention to the left. “The motivators will—”

“You watch! The Silver Angel can handle anything I throw at her.” Trace sees the captains watching her and her sister argue for the umpteenth time. “Oh, hey, captains.” She gives a short salute.

Howzer crosses his arms and shakes his head, but Rex is amused. It reminds him of the first time they met, right after Padmé’s--

“Whoa, Wookiee alert!” Rafa stops Rex’s train of thought. He turns to see three adult Wookiees approach from the right.

Howzer still can’t contain his shock at their ship. “How did they get their hands on a gunship?”

Rex sometimes forgets Howzer had been stationed far from most of the action of the Clone Wars. “General Tarfful fought in the Battle of Kashyyyk,” he gestures towards the heavily-armored Wookiee, “with Master Yoda. And lucky for us, he’s no friend of the Empire.”

A protocol droid ambles from behind the Wookiee general and ahead to the clone captains. “Hello, I am C3-LT, protocol droid for General Tarfful.”

Rex nods. “Please thank the general for his help. We’re well aware of the trouble on Kashyyyk and know that the Wookiees can’t spare much in the way of arms and soldiers.”

The droid turns to the Wookiee retinue and belts out a mountain of Shyriiwook. Tarfful answers in turn, and the droid translates.

“The general says that he is happy to help the clones liberate their people. He says the clones are brave warriors who will always have the Wookiees’ help whenever they ask.”

Howzer continues to be surprised, his eyes wide at the show of loyalty. Rex nods, and Tarfful drops a heavy hand on his shoulder, shaking the captain and roaring in what the clone assumes is a battle cry. The Wookiees turn around and return to their ship.

Rex starts towards the clones’ fighters at the far end of the field when a freighter lands just outside the perimeter. Everyone stops to watch. The snow settles before the ship’s pilot descends from its platform.

“Afternoon, boys,” Phee greets the approaching clones. She stops at the end of the ramp when she sees blasters aimed in her direction. “Hey now, is that any way to welcome Tech’s—”

Rex sighs and lowers a clone’s blaster with his hand, signaling everyone to stand down. “Easy, men. Echo comm’d us about this.”

Phee walks up to Rex. “Name’s Genoa. Phee Genoa.” They shake hands cautiously. “You must be the one in charge.”

“The name’s Rex. Howzer here will catch you up.” He peers behind her and up into her ship. “Where are the cadets?”

Phee smiles and calls out, “It’s alright, boys. Time to play.”

Three clone cadets appear from the belly of Phee’s ship, running in a line down the platform and stopping in a line next to Phee. “Reporting for duty, sir,” one of them announces before saluting.

Rex kneels down on one knee and addresses the boys. “Alright, troopers.” The cadets snap to attention. “Can I count on you to make sure each ship is supplied with its maximum amount of fuel before sunset?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” They chant and salute in unison before running towards the hangar.

Phee chuckles as Rex stands back up. “Is that what you did when you were a cadet? Fill up fuel tanks and clean starships?”

Rex smirks but holds off on telling her stories of caustic chemicals and hazing rituals on Kamino. Instead, he offers, “You’d be surprised what a clone cadet can do at that age.”

Phee puts a hand on his arm and presses, “Are you sure this will work?” Her concern is genuine.

Rex seems to consider her question seriously for a moment before he shrugs. “It has to.” He gestures for her to follow Howzer.

Rex turns around and gazes into the distance. The sun is beginning to hide behind a line of mountain peaks to the west. The air starts to chill. Gregor will have dinner ready soon, and Rex knows that for some, it will be their last meal. But when he turns back to the airfield, all he can see and hear are smiles and laughter, determined faces turning into friendly ones and idle conversations turning into detailed ones. Rex smiles. For now, hope is still on the horizon.

[quill-of-thoth]

Due to a family game of telephone, my mom told me yesterday morning on the way to a family graduation that my cousin's in-laws' giant "service" dog is part wolf. Mom has always been kinda nervous around him, because he is the size of a small pony and extremely serious... and her mental picture of me is apparently of me at seven flinging myself bodily on every large dog I have the good fortune to see. In reality, this dog, who I see at baseball games sometimes, provides the "service" of obsessively guarding my cousin's mother-in-law. He assigned himself this job, and cannot be persuaded to stop. But it' genuinely helping the mother in-law, who is getting up there and starting to get frail. She got him the leash that says service dog before she recently got on oxygen, so people would stop asking to pet him because he's an abused rescue with a mouth large enough to do serious damage. And because he looks mostly like a german shepherd (size holy fucking direwolf,) and people are stupid. He also prevents crowds from knocking her over with her oxygen tank and cane, by dint of clearing a two to four foot wide halo around her with his glare. They're training him to fetch another human if she takes a fall, or at least trying to. It isn't going well, because he has an objection to leaving her unguarded. He will politely ignore other dogs, all preteen children, and the vast majority of women. Men are considered acceptable if they act calm and introduce themselves properly. Since I am no longer seven, my relationship with this extra large canine is that he arrives at an event, makes a growly little grumble at me to remind me that he is a bodyguard and I better remember it, then smells my hand and lets me pet him as long as he can keep an eye on his principal. You can bury your hand up to the wrist in his fur if he has decided you are an acceptable companion for his principal, so I did not necessarily question my mom's assertion that he was part wolf, because she said it came from a genetics test (so it could be a good few generations back) and also because after whatever trauma was in his previous life, someone hauled him to the animal shelter from fuck-nowheresville Wyoming. Where most people searching for a dog looked at him, staring at them, not wagging, and thought, like our prehistoric ancestors "If I'm gonna feed that thing, it's going to be strictly so he never gets hungry enough to bother trying to eat ME." My cousin's mother in law came in, in her bird-boned five nothing frame, and thought "he's perfect" and named him Panzer. Yes, she named him tank, but in German. (She also thought he was the Andre the giant of german shepherds.) Her husband looked at him walking out at her heel, and thought "it's been five minutes and that dog worships my wife and might be smarter than half my relatives" and gave in to the inevitable. Panzer treats him as the only acceptable substitute guardian for his principal, the queen of rescue dogs, which is the highest honor any man is gonna get from him. According to Panzer, her son and grandsons are mere servants of the queen. Trusted, but not sworn to her defense. Others (daughters in law, children, other old ladies with booze, assorted distant relatives) are allowed to petition the queen, with the strict understanding that bribing him with taco meat won't get him to change his vigil: He'll just take any bribe you're stupid enough to give him and get back to work. So at my cousin's kid's graduation party today, I sat on the stoop, nearly elbow deep in Panzer's ruff fur, thinking of gallusrostromegalus' wolfdog stories. I decided that Panzer's wolfy ancestor must be at least a couple generations back, and went back to chatting with the old ladies who were either gossiping, or heckling the teenage boys playing bags. One of my other cousins' kids barreled in, bearing a lizard for me to photograph, and Panzer inspected the lizard, found it harmless, and returned to his stoic watch. "Oh yeah," I said to the queen of rescue dogs, once I finished my duty as lizard paparazzo and the lizard was released from the red carpet, "My mom tells me you had a genetics test done on Panz. She said he was german shepherd and sheepdog and something else?" "Oh yes, he's German Shepherd, some kind of balkan sheepdog, and Czechloslovakian Wolfhound."

Needless to say, I teased my mother for confusing Wolfhound with Wolf dog half of the ride home. Before we left, Panzer reminded me that I should bring the queen food based tribute, and that he was her official food taster.

[found-in-therubble]

Entry One

Sebastian Hulls’ interview with The Eyewitness Report about his recent hires, published June 28th XXXX

Also mentioned: Jonathan Clarke

Demystifying Shaniko’s Most Reclusive Resident

Q&A With Sebastian Hulls

By Avery Perez

Sebastian Hulls, 62, is locally known as a man of mystery. After moving to Shaniko three years ago he’s been extending a lifeline to those less fortunate in the community. For a man so dedicated to helping the community you’d think he volunteers or donates to shelters, but that isn’t the case. Hulls will only hire those in desperate need of assistance to be his own assistants. Mr Hulls has a habit of always needing more staff to keep his isolated mansion up and running; for three years advertisements to be a part of his staff have overrun nearly every paper in town! The ads themselves add a whole new layer of intrigue, as no qualifications are ever stated; just that Sebastian Hulls of 13 Lookout Lane is looking to hire. Finally, after many inquiries, The Eyewitness Report was able to get the man of mystery himself on a phone call to ask him some questions. Even better, Sebastian Hulls offered to give us a tour of his impressive -and remote- manor, so be sure to pick up our next publication to see this story develop.

Mr Hulls, let’s start easy: what brought you to live in Shaniko? It’s such a quaint little town, how could I resist? I know my manor can be quite grandiose compared to the neighborhood houses but I’ve always enjoyed small communities. Everyone knows everyone, that sort of thing. It feels more connected, and it’s easier to navigate than a big city. 

More connected… I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but for someone who values connectivity you’re quite reclusive aren’t you? Ah, I’ve been caught red handed, I see. I admit I’m much more comfortable inside my home than in town, but I hardly think that’s a crime. Besides, it’s not as though I’m a hermit. I regularly explore town. That’s one of the ways I’ve found employees.

Oh? I know our paper, The Eyewitness Report, has run advertisements for you. Do you also scout potential employees in town? I wouldn’t call it “scouting” per se.. But I do admit that I’ve come across a few people on the street that are now a part of my staff. 

Would you be able to share a story about who you’ve hired after seeing them in town? Recently, the Shaniko Public Library was closed down. I’m not sure if there was a lack of public interest or simply a lack of funding, but it’s quite a tragedy. It must’ve been after midnight, but I was on a walk and passed it. I saw a man sitting on a bench hunched over in front of the building. And while I’m no expert in human emotion, I can tell when someone is sad. He seemed extremely sad, so I went to talk to him. He told me he used to work at the library before it closed down, and now he’s out of a job. Well as it happens, I have a very large collection of books; nearly enough to fill an entire library of my own. I extended a job offer to him there on the spot, I asked him to make sure none of my precious collection gathers dust. I even let him live on site, I have more than enough rooms for him to move in.

Oh. You have a personal library, sir? I do, quite a large one. Family and friends tend to give me books as gifts, I haven’t the heart to throw them away. Over time… I suppose the collection has grown larger than I anticipated.

I see. If I may, where is the library? The third floor, of course. The ceiling is made partially of glass. It's quite spectacular to relax inside during a rainstorm. Why do you ask?

It’s just that, during our research, we called the construction company that built your house. The forest around it has gotten much too thick to get aerial shots of it these days. They gave us some old photographs to print alongside this interview. Has another company been hired to do construction past the initial building in the past three years? Speak plainly. What are you asking, Ms Perez?

Sir, the photos only showed two floors, and no other construction company would be willing to make the commute to your home. I’m confident you haven’t had construction done in the past three years. Where did this extra floor come from? I see you’ve certainly done your homework. I’m not sure exactly what you want me to say, as my manor certainly does have three floors. It always has. Perhaps the blueprints you found were outdated. I’ll be more than happy to show you when you come to visit. 

[swallowedbyfandom]

My beloved son,

I must say the getaway you arranged for Portia was a splendid gift. She was extremely touched by your gesture. I would know, I was over for tea when your letter arrived. I was surprised you would go to such lengths to show your appreciation for your new mama as you have never done something so grand for your old mama.

I am sure you did not mean to slight me. You would never put me in the position of having the other mama's in the Ton gossip about how you fawn over your new mama. Of course not, you are too thoughtful a son to ignore the woman who gave you life. You would never disappoint me in such a manner.

I am sure you are arranging something equally as impressive for me. It must just be taking you a little longer to set up my surprise. Do not worry. I can be patient, so long as not too much time passes.

Expectantly,

Your mother

Mother,

How could you doubt me? I am your most charming son, of course I have something in the works for you. Please be at ease.

If you must know I just wanted to show my regard for Portia's struggles. I know she has been abrasive and cruel in the past. I am not justifying her behavior. However that cruelty, and the fearsome reputation she garnered kept them safe. She kept my wife safe from the less scrupulous men in society. Whom may have believed my tiny wife easy prey. Let us be honest Baron Featherington left his Ladies vulnerable even before his passing. That they managed as well as they did for as long as they did, can be attributed to how cut throat and manipulative Portia was.

Did you know shortly after my wife debuted, Lord Featherington meant to settle one of this many debts with her hand in marriage? Fortunately after he notified Portia of his decision he took a tumble down the stairs while intoxicated. He had an attack of conscience thereafter and promptly decided to leave the marital decisions up to Portia. I admire that, mama.

Also Mr. Finch, is the worst, I swear. He told on me! He ran off and snitched. He even sent a letter taunting me! He had the gall to claim he had stolen my title as Portia's favorite son. As if I could be displaced so easily. You know how competitive I can be. This is the perfect way to one up Albion and to allow Portia a chance to relax.

There is a code that gentleman must follow. A sacred part of that code is not repeating the tomfoolery that happens in a gentlemen's club. I must avenge my honor. I shall not be defeated by some cheese monger.

Yours always,

Col

Dearest Colin,

It is lovely to see you are bonding with your new brother. Do be careful not to overwhelm Mr. Finch. Most people(sane people) are not as competitive as you and your siblings. Do be careful that your freud with Mr. Finch doesn't get too out of hand. The last thing we need is sweet Penelope getting caught in the crossfire.

I shall be gracious and allow you to forego a grand gesture. In exchange you will send over my grand babies for the next four weekends. I need more cuddle time with my sweet darlings. You can use that time to pamper your wife.

Hugs and kisses,

Your mama

Husband,

I apologize for falling asleep midway through our conversation. I see you are out with your brothers and I will likely be sleeping again before you return. So here are my thoughts.

Colin you have 8 sisters, 2 mamas, 4 nieces, a wife, and a daughter and still you have much to learn about women. That is a trap. I repeat it is a trap. Do not walk into it. You cannot forego a gesture. You will purchase your mama an elegant cameo, with a disgustingly excessive floral arrangement. Then and only then, will you accept her offer for babysitting. It would not hurt to arrange an outing for just the two of you.

I can entertain my apprentice and Gregory while you both have a day out. It would be nice to plan an adventure for Gregory and Hyacinth before he goes off to Elton.

Yours always,

A sleepy wife

[innerpalaces]

The Life of a Cannon Fodder Mother-in-Law - 42

Chapter 42: The Step-Mother-in-Law 9

Hearing this, Ge Gen became extremely anxious.

"Manyue, return the deposit." After saying this, he realized that his tone was too harsh, and hurriedly slowed down. "Don't sell the shop. I've wronged you. I promise you that I will get your jade pendant back within three days..."

Liu Yuniang said calmly, "Do you know what a deposit is? "

Ge Gen is a businessman, so of course he knows that once the word "deposit" is involved, it means a decision has already been made. Neither party can go back on it. "We can compensate the buyer. At most, we can give him two taels of silver. He can only make so much money by buying a shop. He will definitely agree." Liu Yuniang knocked on the pillar: "Ge Gen, you have to understand something. The shop belongs to me alone. I want to sell it! It's not that I didn't give you a chance. I said yesterday that if you agree to get back the marriage certificate immediately, I would postpone the sale of the shop." Ge Gen: "..." "Anyway, it can't be sold!" He stepped forward and reached out to pull Liu Yuniang: "You go to the shop with me and explain it clearly later." Liu Yuniang raised her hand and shook off his grasp: "I won't go." The two faced each other and refused to give in. Liu Yuniang looked at him and suddenly smiled. "Ge Gen, for the sake of our two children, I will  remind you again. When I collected the deposit yesterday, I already told the buyer that you  mother and son did not want to sell the shop. He said that he could find a way to force you to move out." That was ancestral property, and most people are not willing to move. If the buyer was so sure, he must have some extraordinary means. Liu Yuniang understood this, and so did Ge Gen. He remembered that at this time in the shop, his son was usually out delivering goods, and only his elderly mother was there. He couldn't sit still anymore and glared at Liu Yuniang angrily. "If something happens to my mother, I will never forgive you." Ge Gen rushed to the shop and saw that everything was as usual inside. In fact, he was overly worried. The buyer took over the shop to make money. Of course, he would not choose a time when there were many people around to cause trouble and affect the shop's business. Ge Gen was absent-minded throughout the morning and made several miscalculations. Fortunately, the old madam was keeping an eye on him, so the customers didn't take advantage of his lapse. At noon, the number of customers gradually decreased, and she lowered her voice and scolded, "Be more attentive!" Older people were most afraid of being distracted. Ge Gen was afraid that his mother would be frightened, so he whispered, "I'm afraid that the buyer will come and use some extreme methods to scare you again." The old madam sighed, "It's really unfortunate for our family! She was fine before last month, but then she suddenly changed her temper." When it comes to his wife, Ge Gen was also very angry. "It's true that we were wrong in taking her jade pendant, but we were doing it for the sake of the children. Why doesn't she understand?" He said angrily, "She is really short-sighted." As soon as he finished speaking, four or five strong looking men arrived at the shop. The mother and son always kept an eye on everything when doing business, and they didn't miss the movement at the door while talking. Seeing this, their hearts skipped a beat. The leader entered and walked directly to the two of them: "We brothers were sent by Master Hu to deliver a message. Master Hu has bought this shop and the deposit has been paid. It will be transferred into the master's name this afternoon. If you stay, you will hinder others from doing business. The government will not sit idly by. If you are really kicked out, it will not look good. I advise you to move out as soon as possible." After saying this, he asked: "Do you understand? " The mother and son nodded. These people were really too fierce, they didn't dare not understand. Seeing the group going out, both mother and son looked unhappy. They had discussed last night that no matter who took over the shop, they would stay even if they were beaten.

However, when things really came to pass, they found that it was difficult. What those men said just now made sense. The shop was owned by someone else, and yet they insisted on staying... It doesn't make sense no matter how hard you try, and they might even end up in jail.

"Mom, what should we do now?" It seemed that there was really no other way but to move out. The old madam was breathing rapidly and covering her chest with her hands, a look of pain on her face. Seeing this, Ge Gen hurriedly poured a glass of water and handed it over: "Mom, don't worry. No matter what happens, it's not as important as your body. I will find a way." The old madam was also too anxious and couldn't breathe.  After drinking the water, she felt a bit better. She slapped her thighs and cried, "Why doesn't Zhang Manyue understand our good intentions?" She howled for a while, then thought of something and grabbed her son's arm: "Let's go and discuss it with her. We'll get the silver from her first, and think of a way to buy back the shop." When they really saw the person in question, especially her relaxed attitude, the mother and son suddenly became angry. However, they had to suppress their anger. The old madam forced a smile and said, "Today, a group of hired muscle came to the shop to make trouble. I heard that it was Master Hu who asked them to do it. Manyue, we are a family. Even if we, mother and son, have wronged you, you should not do things so harshly for the sake of Guangyu and her brother... I am not blaming you, I am just teaching you how to behave as an elder..."

Liu Yuniang glanced at Ge Gen and said, "You are getting old and have low energy. It is better to save these words to say to your future daughter-in-law."

Ge Gen immediately replied, "I have never thought of separating from you." "Bah!" Liu Yuniang spat. She said: "You only have Yan Songyu in your heart and eyes, and you leave me to work hard in your house. Who do you think you are?" Ge Gen was silent for a moment: "I've wronged you." The old madam also said: "Manyue, you misunderstood. We don't mean to blame you." Liu Yuniang looked at the groveling mother and son in front of her and said, "You said so much, do you want to coax me into buying the shop back with my money?" She hit the nail on the head. Both mother and son felt a little uncomfortable when their thoughts were revealed. "Manyue, the incident is already in the past, can you stop making trouble?" Ge Gen stepped forward.  "I admit that I made a mistake this time, and I will change in the future." He murmured, "I just hope, for the sake of our children, you can give me another chance." "If I hadn't sold the shop, you would have a different attitude." Liu Yuniang smirked. "After so many years of living together day and night, I can see clearly what kind of people you and your mother are. If you want my money, it's better just to dream."

The old madam was anxious. "That shop is the ancestral property of our Ge family. If you lend us the money, we will find a way to return it to you in the future..." "I can't lend it to you." Liu Yuniang said lightly before the uneasy eyes of the two. "I have just found a middleman to look at a house and paid a deposit. I will pay the full balance when I get the silver later."

Mother and son: "..." The old madam felt cold all over her body, and her head was spinning just like yesterday when she learned that the shop had been sold. The difference was that, at this moment, Ge Gen was standing next to her, subconsciously supporting his mother. "Mom, don't worry!" Liu Yuniang said leisurely: "Yes, the matter is a foregone conclusion, there's no point in being anxious." Ge Gen: "... ..." It's better not to persuade her? As expected, his mother became increasingly weak and unable to stand at all. He didn't have time to argue with the person in front of him, so he hurriedly helped his mother into the house to sit down, comforting her in a low voice: "Mom, don't worry. It's no big deal to change a house deed. As long as it's still in her name, I won't agree to a divorce. That house  belongs to our family. One day I can coax her and get the shop back."

After hearing this, the old madam gradually calmed down. At that moment, someone knocked on the courtyard door, and the mother and son listened intently to what was going on outside.

"Here they are." "Master Hu is here, let's go now..." This was their daughter-in-law's voice. They heard her ask: "Where is the Li family? I'm too lazy to run back and forth, let's do it together after we get the silver. I feel at ease exchanging a deed for a deed!" The middleman's voice came: "They have a carriage and are waiting outside the Yamen." Seeing that the house deed was about to be exchanged, Ge Gen couldn't sit still and whispered,  "Mom, don't panic. I'll go and keep an eye on things myself, lest she be cheated by others because she has never seen the world." The old madam agreed, "You go quickly." Several people outside got into a carriage and were about to leave. Ge Gen rushed out. "I will accompany you." He said sincerely to Liu Yuniang who poked her head out, "I have been in business for many years and have seen more of the world than you. I will not let you be bullied." Master Hu was full of ridicule: "There is a middleman here, and we are going to the Yamen. Who can we bully?" Ge Gen ignored him and climbed into the carriage on his own. The middleman knew the Ge family, and he thought there was no need to offend anyone for such a small matter, so he did not say anything to drive him away.

Ge Gen breathed a sigh of relief and thought he would have had to find a way to follow them to the Yamen otherwise. Then he realized that something was not right. This wasn't the way to the Yamen. He asked curiously, "You guys are going to pick someone up?" Liu Yuniang said casually, "We're picking up my mother." Ge Gen was surprised. "What is she going to do?" Mother Zhang was illiterate and spent her whole life cooking and washing for people. She was an honest person. If she was asked to do something, she would really just do it and could not help at all. Besides, Mother Zhang had work to do, and if she left for half a day, her wages would be deducted by a lot. No matter how he thought about it, he felt that this matter was quite strange.

Liu Yuniang turned her head and smiled brightly at him. "Because the house is going to be in her name, so of course she has to come!" Ge Gen: "..." In the name of his mother-in-law? Why? He had this thought, so he asked.

Liu Yuniang glanced at him. "I bought the house. I can put it in the name of whoever I want. As long as I'm happy, it's my own business even if I wanted to give it to a stranger. Besides, the house was exchanged for the shop, and the shop was exchanged for the jade pendant. The jade pendant was given to me by my mother. What's wrong with me giving the house to her?"

After thinking about it this way, it seemed to make sense. However, Ge Gen just couldn't accept it. The shop clearly belonged to him, but in the end it became the Zhang family's. If it was under Zhang Manyue's name, he would just keep the person and the house deed. But now it would belong to the Zhang family, so what he was forced to keep... was just a person who was unwilling to do anything and wanted to eat for nothing at home. Furthermore, he had always thought that even if he couldn't keep Manyue and the shop, the property would eventually fall into Guangxing's hands, which was equivalent to it still being in the Ge family. However, Zhang Manyue went against common sense and gave it away.

There were only a handful of married women who could return to their parents' families to share their wealth, and it would never happen to an ordinary family like the Zhangs. In other words, the newly purchased house would have no connection with the Ge family. Ge Gen blurted out: "Are you crazy to give away such a large asset to others?" He looked distressed and said, "Your son and daughter are almost grown up. It's time to spend money on their future. Don't you think about them?" Liu Yuniang said lightly: "I'm fine with it." Ge Gen said: "..." She'd had the idea to put the house in Mother Zhang's name early that morning. Just to cause trouble for the Ge family mother and son. As she expected, the effect was very good. Ge Gen was furious. "I won't allow it!" Liu Yuniang raised her eyebrows and smiled. "That's my personal property. I want to give it away. Why should I care whether you allow it or not?"

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[solottrpgchronicles]

1a. Nothing But Saltwater - The Last Tea Shop

Shop name: The Vagrant Tea Leaf

Supplies: sea salt, quartz crystal, ginkgo leaf

Days: 4

Visitor: an old sailor

At the border between the land of the living and the realm of the departed, a trail of mist leads the weary souls to a towering cliff overlooking the ocean.

There, overgrown grass sways violently in the wind; the sun is perpetually hidden behind heavy clouds, creating an illusion of impending rain that never actually arrives.

At the very top of the cliff is a somewhat precarious two-story structure made of brick and wood: a tea shop.

Worn wooden panels in a faded forest green shade frame the windows and the door. The sign says "The Vagrant Tea Leaf".

Inside, a few lights punctuate the penumbra, showing shelves upon shelves laden with an assortment of teapots, mugs, and jars holding all sorts of teas; however, strangely enough, there's only one round table accompanied by two chairs, ready for visitors.

Random phrases are scattered everywhere – on chalkboards, scraps of paper pinned to the wall, and even etched onto the furniture. Some of the messages say "Watch your step," "Savour the flavour of your memories," and "There's always time for one last cup."

---------------------

A sailor walks in, takes off his cap, and looks around confused. It's time to start brewing my special Draft of Recall tea.

I tell him to sit down at the table, while I throw my first question at him. "Hey there, traveller. What's the last thing you remember?"

He gives me a wide-eyed look, like he didn't expect such a serious question right off the bat. But we've only got time for a cup of tea, and I'm not gonna waste it.

"Uhm…" He starts, messing with the cap in his hands. "I'm not really sure about all the details, you know? It all happened so fast… got lifted in the air, then bam, fell hard into the water. I think I sank like a sack of potatoes. But how's that possible? I spent my life at sea, and I wasn't even a good swimmer? Was I wounded? And then, no one came to help, maybe they couldn't. I hope they realized I was gone, at least."

He pauses, his voice shaky; "My life was nothing but sailing, seeing lots and lots of saltwater everyday, with wind and sun and rain on my face. I followed the captain's orders, and it suited me; I never liked making decisions. But, I was always on the sidelines, never the main character, even in my own story.

Do the crew even miss me, or anyone for that matter? I hope so. But they'll probably just say a prayer for me and move on."

The tea is ready, I bring it to him and sit down, giving a friendly smile. "What are you proud of?" I ask, after he takes a few sips.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, even though there are napkins around. "I wasn't the brightest," he begins, taking a moment to think; "but I was a hard worker, and extremely loyal. The captain... Captain Farday, that's right. I knew his father before him, he was the one who first hired me when I was a young lad. I watched his son grow up. When he took charge of the ship, most people in the crew doubted him, but not me - I knew he had the heart and the brains to be an excellent captain, and I would have followed him to the ends of the Earth. Turns out, I was right - our journeys brought us a lot of fortune, and he never refused help to anyone, no matter who needed it.

Guess that's the one smart choice I made - I could've taken orders from anyone, but I picked a good one. I saw his potential, and I'm proud to have served under him.

I hope my service was at least half as good as all the life lessons I learned from him."

I let him finish his tea in silence.

When he's done, the sailor puts his cap on and heads out. Standing at the cliff's edge, he looks peaceful, as he spreads his arms and takes in the smell of the ocean, before the mists carry him away.

---------------------

This is a playthrough of a solo TTRPG called The Last Tea Shop, by Spring Villager.

You can check it out on itch.io: https://springvillager.itch.io/last-tea-shop

[willowreader]

Written by Don Ford based on the study listed below There's been a lot a talk comparing HIV and SARS2 but they also have some important differences...

And this affects how we interpret the chronic phase.

HIV affects a smaller portion of cells because it specifically binds to CD4 cells and makes syncytia from there but it gets bottlenecked into mostly just our immune system.

This will have very consistent deadly outcomes but it will need an opportunistic pathogen to finish the job. Fortunately we have developed treatments to manage HIV but we do need them to be more available...

Since most will ask, Syncytia is created when a cell is invaded and hijacked then it uses the cell's natural ability to fuse into neighboring cells in excessive amounts.

This is not unique to these pathogens, it's a thing cells can do but the pathogens do it to a destructive point.

With SARS2, this continues on in chains depending on each cell's access to other cells while still invading cells with ACE2 wherever this cell cluster finds it.

This happens because the Spike protein rotates to the outer surface of the infected cells. That's why we can detect spike protein but it's actually a sign of infected cells.

A secondary explanation is that when SARS2 invades and hijacks the nucleus of the cell it melts that cell into neighboring cells to create a multinucleated super cluster of YOUR cells and all of these cells are destroyed in the process but only after they are exhausted which includes releasing their cytokines and replicating A LOT of SARS2 virions.

This is what they mean when they say "COVID ages you."

Because it triggers a massive amount of cell death, which is described as physical damage in Dr. Iwaski's LC study, and cytokine inflammation which we call a cytokine storm, a process not unique to COVID.

SARS2 does not posses cytokines, those are released from a combination of the infected cells and the immune cells that are trying to destroy them to get at the virus inside.

When describing this process for SARS2 it starts with ACE2 and because this is so common, we use it to balance sugars among other things which is why this is all connected to diabetes, and each cell has additional access to other cells, remember it's invading and hijacking to replicate so it gains control of EVERY process, that gives it access to every type of cell eventually...

While HIV is limited by a less common cell entry access point which means everyone ultimately gets the same immune damage... That means SARS2 damage on the other hand is more widespread and while it can end up taking out your immune system it doesn't always.

But if it does, it will kill you.

This is why we have to change our conceptual understanding of disease in general because a SARS2 infection can affect so many things and extremely inconsistently muddying the water on traditional diagnostics...

We haven't really had something do such widespread damage in the modern era and leave people alive, but the big difference is that SARS2 is its own opportunistic pathogen while HIV is not... so when SARS2 wipes out your immune system...

You die, the end... And that's a terrible lottery to play over and over again but that also means there are limited patients with immune deficiency to monitor and track.

This is not a controversial statement, we've watched LC patients write their own obituaries and T cell apoptosis is already associated with severe COVID... That study is in my LC article from TWO YEARS ago.

So, if folks say "well... the immune deficiency isn't showing up in LC cohorts consistently enough"... well, I'd say...

Yeah, because they are dead.

So, when people ask me to say how close I think SARS2 is to HIV in risk...

It's airborne.

It's its own opportunistic pathogen.

Infection damage is cumulative.

Its Chronic phase is degenerative.

Treatment is extremely complicated.

It causes extreme cognitive dysfunction...

Or just ANY other type of dysfunction.

It almost certainly triggers cancer.

You can get reinfected constantly...

It creates new variants in every infection.

It is also recombinant and uses multiplicity reaction.

And you can die during the acute phase.

While the scale of infection tricks you into thinking it's mild and our leaders have all been infected multiple times.

...

It's probably worse.

[thekatebridgerton]

An AU with this:

Please.

This is obviously the 'wedding date au' that nobody asked me about.

Beautiful Cardiologist Kate Sharma. Is the maid of honor of her sister Edwina, who is marrying this super loaded guy that might as well be in German royalty. Friedrich Prince.

Now Edwina and Friedrich on their own are pretty cool people the problem the Sheffield's. Kate and Edwina's grandparents. And the rest of their patriarchical bigotted stuck up the family. Who happen to be paying for Edwina's wedding.

Kate and Edwina were raised by Mary in the Sheffield household after their father died, under the most archaic 'women should know their place' kind of regime, after highschool, Kate went off to med school in America to build a career for herself and Edwina stayed at home, went to a uni close to home and low key let the grandparents plan her life. At most Kate protected her from the worst of the men pushed her way. until Edwina met Friedrich and Kate was reassured that he actually loved her sister for who she was so Kate stopped interfering in her little sister's life.

Now Edwina is getting married and Kate doesn't have a date for that wedding.

So our girl has a big problem, she has spent the better part of the last 8 years focused on her career not dating anyone and she knows that the Sheffields won't be looking at her net worth. the only thing that matters to them is the fact that Kate herself is still single and is embarrassing them by just existing.

solution? she needs to show up to that wedding with the hottest date ever. Not only does this man need to be hot he needs to be educated he needs to be charming he needs to be the top of the top of the top aaaand yeah she's going to hire an actor.

Enter Michael Stirling the actual actor that Kate hired to pretend to be her date, Michael, the devil may care neer'do well wannabe actor, currently dating Anthony's sister Francesca has no problem taking the job. Thinking about it as his last wedding related gig before proposing to Francesca himself. Except that plans changed and he actually proposed to Francesca a lot sooner and now he's leaving on a trip to Bahamas to celebrate with Franny. So he needs someone to step in for the job because he can't exactly disappoint Kate. And his most grumpy brother in law owes him a favor. So he sends Anthony to fill in for him.

Kate Sharma is under the impression that Anthony is a down on his luck actor (possibly a gigolo with the way he is flirting.) She does not know he is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I mean look at that picture look at him those chinselled abs do not come from sitting in a boardroom all day. That guy has to be some sort of gigolo trying to branch out.

So Kate meets up with Anthony they have zero things in common except that they're both extreme workaholics with a high tolerance for stress and they hate the Sheffields.

Actually the more time Anthony spends with Kate the more he admires her for putting up with grandparents and extended family like that.

In the middle of the most annoying wedding preparations from hell they start getting to know each other and realize that when they're not fighting they actually make a pretty good team.

He knows this is supposed to be a job he knows he isn't supposed to like Kate. But she's a badass she is strong she's courageous she challenges him and every turn she doesn't believe his fake charm, calls him out on his BS and worse everything she does turns him on. He's supposed to be here pretending to be her long time boyfriend so that the Sheffield's can get off her back about getting married. But Anthony doesn't know when acting stop being acting and started being his genuine feelings for her.

For Kate this actor that she hired is actually incredibly good. He plays the part of a devoted boyfriend to perfection, he massages her shoulders he holds her hand, he dances with her, like he is extremely attracted to her, always stares at her lips, doesn't let her go more than two feet away from him because he always has to be touching her in some way. And he's ridiculously charming in front of everyone but also behind closed doors he's a complete idiot of the highest kind, like how can someone be so stupid, Kate had to teach him how to use a stove. This guy acts like he's never done his own laundry before. Which makes Kate laugh constantly. Also in wedding games he's so competitive he doesn't let her win at anything and that kind of irks her isn't he supposed to be pretending to be a good boyfriend don't good boyfriends let their girlfriends win at mini Golf?? Why does she feel so attracted to him?

And the thing is neither Anthony or Kate know if their feelings for each other are real or just part of the gig that she hired him for, once the wedding ends Anthony and Kate go to separate ways after having a very heartbreaking moment where Anthony's true identity as the CEO of Bridgerton diamonds comes to light, and Kate fear of commitment gets the best of her. And they decided that taking a chance on love is too hard.

Of course Anthony shows up at Kate's hospital one week later complaining about problems of the heart and that he absolutely needs Cardiologist Dr Sharma to see him. Because he thinks he's dying.

Kate knows that this is just Anthony tossing around his money so that he can see her and confuse her feelings more. so she thinks to mess with him a little bit, and brings out an official heart attack diagnosis which only makes Anthony panic in the worst ways but no, just kidding he's not having a heart attack....

Maybe he's just inlove.

And turns out that Kate is inlove with him too. And while she doesn't like liars she's willing to forgive Anthony and try again, this time with full honesty on his part and hers.

... and who knows maybe the next disaster wedding they endure will be their own ...