#I don’t know how but two people found this before i even put the fandom tags on it

[ekingston]

Hello! So sorry to bother, but have you had any updates on the Word-Stream/Speechify situation?

Just one: like I posted on Xitter and Bluesky last night, as of yesterday afternoon, the links to individual works as they were listed on WordStream are gone from both Google and Bing. Hurray, right? Surely we’re all sick of this whole debacle and there’s far more important things to worry about. If all is well that ends well, surely there’s no need to still be angry.

Well, I am. Here’s why:

When I checked on Wednesday, the links to my own work on WordStream were still listed. So rather than it taking a week after Cliff Weitzman first hid the fanwork from view, it took a little over a week from the moment he first promised privately that they would be deleted. Which, fine. Perhaps Cliff didn’t really know what he was talking about when he gave that timeframe. Or maybe he told a little white lie to create the impression that he always intended to do the right thing. It seems more likely to me, though, that Cliff still believed—even after the backlash he received—that he would get away with honoring only individual takedown requests. Or worse, that he needed just a little bit more time with the stolen material to figure out an alternative way to profit off it—preferably without us noticing, this time.

But who knows? I certainly don’t! All we can do is speculate, because publicly, Cliff Weitzman has remained completely silent on his copyright infringements. All we got was the initial justifications he and his sockpuppet accounts used in comments on the original Reddit and Tumblr posts. After those were so understandably ill-received, Cliff only ever communicated with a few individual authors who contacted him directly and repeatedly, blocking people who addressed the issue on Twitter and quietly distancing himself from WordStream by deleting a blog he’d posted to Speechify.com dated December 20th—where Cliff promoted WordStream’s platform specifically to fanfiction readers. (See my enormous timeline post for details and screenshots of said posts before they were taken down.)

And this is why I’m still angry: As long as Cliff Weitzman faces no real consequences for his actions, he won’t see a need to own up to his mistake; and as long as he’s able to delay taking responsibility, this isn’t over. This didn’t end well.

After all, wasn’t this the next-best scenario for Cliff, second only to him turning WordStream into a (for him) effortless, infinite money-making machine? He took something we provided for free and fed it to AI so he could more easily put it behind a paywall; we found out and protested; Cliff quietly erased all evidence of his crime; and we went—almost equally quietly—away.

I want to make sure you know that I continue to be genuinely amazed and intensely grateful for how quickly the news about WordStream’s copyright infringement was shared—and continues to be shared—throughout fandom, on tumblr in particular. If it hadn’t been for our collective outcry here and on Reddit, WordStream would very likely still be up in its original form, and Weitzman would be reaping the benefits (those subscription prices were steep) today.

But it’s been frustrating to see that, with the exception of mentions in articles on Substack and Fansplaining (the latter of which is a particularly awesome and thorough read on fandom’s decontextualization) and a Fanlore listing, our outrage never really spilled out beyond the safely insulated, out-of-the-way spaces that are tumblr, a handful of subreddits and bluesky. And I believe that—unfortunately—we are collectively responsible for that part, as well.

Most of us seemed content to only spread the word by circulating the same two posts on tumblr. (Have we all given up completely on every other social media platform? Am I the only remaining straggler?) And soon after Cliff Weitzman hid WordStream’s fanfiction category from view, our interest in the issue took a sharp dive even there. Are we genuinely deceived into believing the issue has been fully resolved? Do we truly fail to realize that Weitzman’s refusal to admit that what he did was wrong left the door wide open for the next greed-driven tech bro to wander through? Or is the true naivety in thinking that, as a community, we can keep this kind of attack on fandom from happening again? Has our disillusionment already gotten that bad?

However the situation spins out from here, Cliff’s actions will set a precedent. If we fail to show Cliff and his ilk that attempts to profit off fandom’s unpaid labor have consequences, their tech companies will keep trying until something eventually sticks. They might be a little smarter about it next time; obscure their sources a bit better, maybe leave the titles and the authors’ names off. Or maybe they’ll go a bolder route: maybe next time they cross the line they’ll do it boldly enough for IP holders to take notice and stop tolerating fanwork entirely.

Doesn’t that make you angry, too?

There’s this whole other mess of thoughts I would love to be able to untangle about how commercial influence is contributing to the steady erosion of fandom’s foundations, but I’m tired, and other people have said it all much more eloquently than I ever could. Seriously, go read that article on Fansplaining. Or listen to the podcast version of it. Better yet, as long as you’re wearing your noise-canceling headphones, go listen to a podfic of one of your favorite fandoms’ works, and enjoy the collaborative joy and creativity of the people who Cliff Weitzman refuses to believe exist. (In one of Speechify’s other blogs, Cliff claims there are only 272 podfics on AO3. Would you like to run that ChatGPT prompt again, Cliff?). Honestly, much like Cliff Weitzman’s infuriating denial of the fact that fandom fucking has this covered, thank you very much, there’s so. Many. More. Things for us to talk about. There’s the connotations of WordStream’s dubious ‘upload’ button, for instance, or the fact that the app scraped (and in some cases, allegedly, still lists) copyright-protected original fiction as well, or WordStream’s complete lack of contact information, which is illegal for an internationally operating app. And oh! Has anyone reported more thoroughly on Cliff’s app’s options to ‘simplify’ or ‘modernize’ uploaded works, or—my own very favorite abomination—to translate them into something Cliff calls ‘Gen-Z Language’? Much like his atrocious AI book covers, it would be hilarious, if it didn’t make steam come out of my ears.

Anyway, there it is. I highly recommend you do all of that. And then, if you aren’t familiar with it already, go do some research re: fair use and your rights as the copyright owner of your works. A good number of people commenting on this controversy expressed stunned surprise or fearful hesitation about claiming any sort of ownership of their fanfiction. The more informed we are about our rights, the more willing we will be to defend them.

Please don’t stop writing or sharing your work. If you can’t bring yourself to work on your WIPs today (trust me, I get it), post about this situation instead. Tweets, skeets, whateverthefucks—about WordStream’s theft, about how this reflects on Speechify’s already shady business practices, about how Cliff’s actions and justifications have personally affected you. You’re welcome to share or copy my posts on these platforms, but since Cliff already blocked me, I very much prefer you post your own. If you do, call Cliff Weitzman by his full name and tag or include both WordStream and Speechify to ensure Weitzman will recognize he has both a personal as well as a professional stake in handling the situation with integrity. Leave your concerns in reviews on the Speechify app. (We weren’t provided with a more appropriate place to put them, after all!) Consider calling for a Speechify boycott until Cliff accepts accountability for his actions.

Do avoid making exaggerated claims, and don’t call for physical retaliation against Cliff’s person or his property. We don’t want to give him or Speechify even the weakest of grounds to claim defamation or threats of violence. Focus on the facts: they’re incriminating enough by themselves. Show Cliff that we’re determined to keep bringing up his company’s wrongdoings in public spaces until he demonstrates that he understands why taking these freely shared fanworks and monetizing them was wrong, and takes steps to ensure it won’t happen again.

One last thing—and this is really more of a general reminder—please stop suggesting I handle this situation for you. People have come to me asking for action items. The resulting flashbacks to my days as an office assistant were extremely upsetting. In all seriousness, casting me as some sort of coordinator or driving force behind this backlash actively hurts the cause. Not only does it downplay fandom’s collective efforts, it also makes our message extremely vulnerable. It would be all too easy for Cliff to silence one singular source. Wikipedia will not maintain mentions of this controversy as long as it leads only to Easter Kingston’s attempt to summarize what happened as it was happening. You only know my name because I stumbled upon WordStream’s theft and decided to get my friends involved. I am not more knowledgeable, more skilled or more angrily invested in this issue than you are (or can, or should, be). I draw pictures and I write stories and I worry about the shift I’m seeing in fandom after having been on this ride for even a few pre-livejournal rounds.

I’m not going to stop doing any of those things. But I am going to allow myself to step away for a bit, make my wife dinner, and catch up on our shows.

I trust you’ve got it from here.

[minty-sweet-art]

Absolutely no effort was put into this. It just shapes and blobs to resemble Kaufmo

5 minutes tiny sad Kaufmo doodle

[clarenecessities]

He-man.org will close in 5 days.

He-man.org has been a staple of the Masters of the Universe community since the early days, originating as an email list that worked to document episodes before anything (not footage, not lists, nothing) was available online. It grew into a sprawling, multi-faceted beast of a thing, including an encyclopedia (an in-house wiki), merch lists, a marketplace, forums, anything you could think of.

Several years ago now, the main site went down for updates/maintenance. For a few weeks, we were told, maybe months. The forums remained open for fans to communicate, and barring a period of downtime earlier this year things were going smoothly.

Yesterday, the owner of the site, Val Staples, announced the site would be closed on November 14th, 2023. Six days later. We are currently attempting to contact him, to see if he’s interested in selling, and if he means closed as in “no new posts” or closed as in deleted entirely. Regardless of its eventual fate, the archiving of these forums is essential to preserving the history of the franchise, the fandom, and the brand.

TO SHE-RA (and MotU) FANS SPECIFICALLY: I have personally used these forums to answer questions that could be answered nowhere else. Had I not had access to them, I would never have been able to prove that Purrsia was fake, or found so much unpublished concept art, or discovered that Scott “Toyguru” Neitlich personally wrote Catra’s MOTUC bio (even if he’s put off answering my questions about it for over a year now). Forum members have conducted interviews with the likes of Jon Seisa, Cathy Larson, Janice Varney-Hamlin—essential figures in the very foundations of POP, and those interviews revealed and recorded priceless information for future generations (me! you! us!) to find. Did you know Cathy Larson named Adora? That she originally pushed for “Dorian”, after her own daughter? We cannot let this treasure trove disappear into the ether(ia).

TO THE UNAFFILIATED: Please help. Pretty please. If you’ve ever liked my art or my writing or my haphazard blogging, ever, at all, consider archiving just one board. Just one page. Literally anything helps. I am spiraling into madness & this is my library of Alexandria. The mythical one that was totally unique and persevered nowhere else and was destroyed in a single cataclysmic event. Pretty pretty please help.

HOW TO HELP:

Archive.org has several ways to upload shit but most of them are longer term than “a few days” so we’re focusing on two (which can be run simultaneously): Save Page Now, and browser extensions. From their help page:

1. Save Page Now

Put a URL into the form, press the button, and we save the page. You will instantly have a permanent URL for your page. Please note, this method only saves a single page, not the whole site.

We want to keep outlinks and screenshots wherever possible. The Archive does not keep your IP address, so your submission is anonymous.

2. Browser extensions and add-ons

Install the Wayback Machine Chrome extension in your browser. Go to a page you want to archive, click the icon in your toolbar, and select Save Page Now. We will save the page and give you a permanent URL.

One plus to installing the extension is that as you surf around, when you run into a missing page they will alert you if we have a saved copy.

More extensions, apps, and add-ons:

Firefox add-on

Safari Extension

iOS app

Android app

I strongly encourage you to use these tools even if you aren’t helping with this project/after it ends. Documenting and preserving information is essential in this day and age & The Internet Archive is at the heart of it. Please support them however you can.

I’m serious about paying you, though I may need more communication with folks I don’t know so we can coordinate/verify shit gets done. I think this is a worthwhile pursuit in itself but I recognize your time is valuable & like, people gotta eat. DM me if you’re interested and we’ll talk. I may need to adjust pay depending how many people bite but I’ll do what I can

[cy6err]

Whoops — W.S.

Pairings: Walker Scobell x Actress!Reader

Warnings: kissing ? (On the cheek)

Summary: Your boyfriend Walker made a mistake whilst you were on live…

A/N: I kind of don’t like this one 🥸 but this is a part 2 of first look! (check that one out first if you want, but it’s not required to.) also, this is awfully short and I apologise for it 🙏🏻

. ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ . .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ . .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .

It had been a few months since you and Walker have been together for, but you two kept it on the down low. The people who knew were Aryan and Leah (of course), and they too kept it a secret. The only reason was because you and Walker didn’t want to try and start a whole bunch of chaos within the fandom about your guys’ relationship.

Knowing how the fans are, you both decided to not reveal anything between you two— Other than the light flirting and glances you give each other during small videos uploaded by your friends. It was nice having him as your boyfriend… texting and calling each other every day, unless he’s busy with work or school obviously.

He would also call you during his live streams with Brady Noon— but you stayed in mute because you didn’t want others to hear you talking, you just wanted to be in each other’s presence.

Due to him being busy with work, you barely had time to call or even text him anymore. Yes, he did text you, but they were mostly dry responses. However, he made sure to put an emoji at the end of them so you knew he wasn’t being dry on purpose.

The calls were brief as well, only getting around 10-15 minutes of talking before the, “I’m being called to set and retouch my makeup, I’ll call you later.” Only to find yourself waiting until the moment you fall asleep with no call from him.

He would send an apology text and tell you how much he still cared about you to ease your overthinking. You understood that he was gonna be busy a lot more than usual now that he was filming for PJO season 2.

Sure, keeping the relationship a secret wasn’t all that bad, but it was somewhat hard to take pictures together without making anything obvious (Leah was so kind enough to help you two); So, you posted the ones you found most ‘friendly’ looking.

It had been a normal Saturday when you were home, laying in your bed and rotting in your room. You didn’t need to film until the next month or so, giving you some time to relax after filming for 2 and a half months straight. Your mom was out for the day doing some errands, leaving you home alone for some time.

Walker was also busy today, needing to film for season 2, so he was going to be very distant with you until further notice— which you hated. After contemplating on what to do, you decide to go live for a bit on Instagram and interact with a few fans.

You got up from your bed and set your phone up on your desk next to your window, making sure there was enough light to show yourself clearly. You tap the ‘live’ button and waited a bit for some people to join (which was really quick). You had over 1,009 viewers already and you were pretty shocked at how many people joined the live in under two minutes.

“Hi guys! How are you all doing today?” You greet, smiling widely as you laugh at the flooding comments. Each one being: “are you and Walker dating?” “Where’s Walker?” “Do you and Walker have a thing going on??”

Shaking your head, you deny the comments. “No, we’re just close friends. And he’s doing well, just busy at the moment.” You sat there as you played with a few objects sitting on your desk, answering other questions from them.

You were getting really engrossed with the conversation that you didn’t even realise your mom calling your name until you heard your bedroom door open. “Y/n, you in here?” She asked, peeking her head in your room.

“Oh, hey mom. Sorry, I didn’t hear you because I’m live right now.” You give an apologetic smile, “did you need something?”

Your mom waved to the camera as the comments spammed “hi mrs. L/n!!”

“Just checking up on you, what do you want for dinner?” Your mom asked, moving a strand of hair out of your face.

“Uhh, I’m not sure. Surprise me?”

“Sure,” she laughs, “I’ll call you down in a bit. I invited some friends over and they might spend the night, clean your room please.”

“Okay, are they gonna sleep in here?” You ask, raising an eyebrow.

“Mhm! I’ll let you know when food’s ready.” Your mom then left the room leaving you back to your live.

You turn back to your camera and sigh, “well, unexpected guests I guess… and my room is not that messy!”

“Yeah it is.” A familiar voice said from behind, your head snapping toward the direction. Your eyes lit up with joy when you saw your boyfriend leaning against your doorframe, making you jump up from your seat to hug him.

“Walker! I didn’t know you were gonna be here!” You exclaim, embracing him tightly to which he returned with a chuckle.

“Yeah, got some time off for a bit and decided to surprise you. I thought it was obvious when your mom said she was inviting friends over?” Walker said, looking at you with wonder.

“I thought she meant the neighbourhood friends and their children.” You shrug, pulling away but not quite letting go of him.

It was a moment of silence when he finally spoke up in a soft, sweet tone. “I missed you.”

You felt your face get warm and your smile grew, “I missed you too.”

With that, he leaned in for a quick a quick kiss, making you mirror the action until you stopped and looked away, making him kiss your cheek instead. He looked at you confused and a little disappointed, “Why’d you do that?”

“Walker, I’m live. I completely forgot.” You quickly run to your phone, grabbing it as Walker immediately became red from embarrassment. The chat was filled with spamming: “OMG” “THEY’RE DATING!!” “WALKER X Y/N CONFIRMEDD” “MY SHIP HAS SAILED.”

“Im so so sorry, oh my god.” Walker groaned, throwing himself onto the bed as you laugh lightly. “It’s okay, Walker. I guess it’s one way of telling the fandom about our relationship.”

He buried his face into the pillows and ignored you, despite his big smile on his face. You quickly said your goodbyes to the fans and ended the live, joining him in the bed. “We were gonna tell them eventually, right?”

Walker took a peek at you and nods, “yeah. I guess so, I just hope it doesn’t ruin anything.”

You lie down and mess with his curls a bit, “Just ignore them. Being with you is all that matters, you’re my ray of sunshine”

He laughed at your comment, “you’re so corny.” Laughing with him, you got closer until your mom came in the room.

“Foods ready— don’t get too close to each other now.” She says, giving a pointed look making you roll your eyes playfully as she left the room.

“Come on, let’s go eat. Im starving.” You pull at his arm and drag him out of the bed, making him get up.

“Okay, okay!” He grins, kissing your cheek and following you downstairs to eat dinner.

—

(He surprised you with flowers 🤍)

—

HII IM SO SORRY IT WAS SHORT 😔 BUT NONETHELESS, I HOPE YOU LIKED IT :)) it was lowk hard to finish this. feel free to send requests !!

Tag list: @defnot-bri

[jeonscatalyst]

So something I have been thinking since the beginning of AYS. I think JM and JK give themselves away. How someone can look at their behavior and not realize these two have more than a friendship/brotherly vibe. Before I go on a tangent, what I am I trying to say again 🤔. Ohh right. In the previews, we see JK and JM have a pillow in-between them as they sit on the couch while watching TV. Why the damn pillow in-between like it's so obvious! That hug when JM wanted JK to feel how cold he was, I mean. Just go ahead and proper. They crack me up. It's too late. We already know you are together. If they just acted normal 😅. To be honest, I don't blame them it's hard faking not being in a relationship.

Ah I have found my person!

Anon, I have been in this fandom for over 7 years and spent about 5 out of those 7 years being a Jikooker and all through my years in this fandom, I have seen many jikookers give different reasons why they believe Jikook are a together but not many people started seeing them as more for the same reason I did.

I have mentioned before that for me, it was never about the GCFs, the soft looks, the touches or any moments that could be described as soft or romantic or beautiful. For me it was always those moments that many Jikookers don’t like to look at or even talk about. The first thing that made me do a double take on Jikook was fetus Jikook. You see, I wasn’t always a shipper and I was one of those people who actually thought it was silly as hell that people could even believe that any of the members could be in a romantic relationship especially because of things like skinship which is the most common thing among korean men but one day I watched a long compilation on Youtube of fetus Jikook and my mind began to change. You see, when I watched that video and read comments many people were either mad at Jk for being an asshole to Jimin while others felt sorry for Jimin and some were mad that Jimin had to put up with all of that from Jungkook but one look at it and I knew that wasn’t normal at all especially because when I joined the fandom at the beginning of 2017, I spent alot of time reading their interviews and catching up on old content (somehow I didn’t really notice the fetus Jikook bickering or push and pull alot) but one opinion I remember having was that Jk kinda liked being around Jimin and hovering. So when I watched that compilation showing Jk basically being an ass to Jimin, that was the first time I thought “maybe shippers are unto something” because what I was seeing Jk do in the compilation was very conflicting with everything I had learned about Jikook and the opinion I had about them as a duo. I didn’t necessarily think they were the closest but I didn’t think Jk had any ill feelings towards Jimin.

You see anon, one thing I understood while being in this fandom is that, how people interpret or perceive other’s actions and words depends more on them than the people whose actions they are interpreting. Without certain experiences, it is almost impossible for one to understand certain things. Your culture, environment, people around, personal experiences and basically what you are used to, shapes the way you see the world and that is why one person could see a 9 while another person sees a 6. Some people have grown up believing that couples are always soft with each other or with couples it is always smiles and rainbows and roses, you know watching a lot of romance movies or fantasy will do that to you or even only experiencing those first stages of normal romantic relationships will trick you into believing such things. Some people don’t understand context and nuances at all and so they could never understand Jikook even if they wanted to.

It never made any sense to me that we saw Jungkook pushing Jimin away or shoving him in walls or ranking him last in looks yet this same person would choose to put blankets outside to sleep with Jimin at night, or this same person’s would go to cuddle Jimin in his sleep or this same person would be seen hovering around Jimin alottt and wanting to touch him or feel him up (fetus Jk was not subtle). Jungkook already knew that he got his comfort mostly from Jimin. He already understood that the reason he teased Jimin alot was because he really liked him and I think Jungkook’s occasional “bitchy” behaviour towards Jimin was him panicking and not knowing how to deal with Jimin who was obnoxiously loud about how he felt for Jungkook. Jungkook never hated being around Jimin or being touched by Jimin like many people would like to believe because if he did, he would never choose to go spend his nights with Jimin. If he did, he would never go to hug Jimin in his sleep or pile clothes on his bed to go sleep in Jimin’s bed. He clearly loved being around Jimin so how else could anyone explain his behaviour infront of the cameras?

Watching Bangtan, anyone would quickly understand that these boys don’t understand the concept of personal space when it comes to each other. I saw this video on X the other day and it made me laugh…

This is not even the most accurate example I can use but you see how glued they are to each other? Like no care in world. They shower together, sleep together, eat after each other, that is normal for them so explain to me why on earth Jimin and Jungkook would have to put a pillow inbetween them when they sit even though we know for a fact that being glued is literally like second nature to the members?

This is how Jimin and Jungkook give themselves away everytime because you can literally see that sometimes they get overly cautious in a bid to not give too much away but they don’t realize that by doing this, they are actually giving too much away because we know that the members usually don’t have any issues sitting even untop of each other. It’s just like I had once said that when you have nothing to hide, you feel as free as a bird but when you do, you start doing even unnecessary things not to come off suspicious. Why would they need a pillow inbetween them to just sit on a damn couch? If these two are just friends or bros why on earth do they need a pillow? If it was normal to see the members respecting each other’s personal space then we could just see this too as normal but we know that these same people seated right here are the same ones who have had their mouths on various erogenous parts of each other’s bodies so why?

Like you said, if jikook acted normal then I wouldn’t have ever suspected or thought that they are more than friends but the truth is that they don’t act normal at all and this is something everyone can agree on, regardless of whether they see things in a negative or positive way, everyone can agree that Jikook don’t act normal at all and it’s been like this since they were younger.

I have mentioned before that I could never see what taekookers see in Taekook because there is just way too much comfort in their interaction for them to be closeted idols in a romantic relationship. You never see any panic, you never see them acting as if they have something to hide. I have seen some taekookers say that they know that Jikook are not together because their skinship is usually very short or abrupt while taekook’s take longer and I was like ofcourse theirs would take longer because those two have nothing to hide the same way Jk’s skinship with any other member who isn’t Jimin takes longer and they seem more comfortable doing it because they are not worried about how they would come off because those actions are completely innocent. With Jikook, there is a panic and when they start going on at, it doesn’t take long for them to snap out of it and then you see them immediately stopping which sometime makes their interactions come off as awkward.

Imagine yourself in a secret romantic relationship where you are almost always infront of dozens of cameras and staff, who would feel 100% at ease in situations like this? That is why Jikook’s interactions sometimes come off clunky or awkward because of this while you never really sense this with any of the other members interactions. I can sit through any other duo’s interactions without feeling second hand embarrassment, shy or slightly awkward but with Jikook, I go through about 20 different emotions while watching them and that is how I know they are….different. So because not everyone understands the contexts or nuances, they would immediately see this as something bad while someone who understands the context and nuances in this situation expects to see this kinds of interactions. Many people unfortunately are not very smart because if they were, they would really ask themselves why Jk seems to hate Jimin’s touches so much (according to them) or hates being around Jimin so much (according to them) yet this same Jk is the one who voluntarily goes to knock on Jimin’s door everynight at 1am. Why did this same Jk choose to sleep on the floors outside their rooms with Jimin instead of sleeping with Tae or some other member? Why did this same Jk choose to spend majority of his nights and downtime with this person? Why did this same Jk pile clothes on his bed to go sleep in Jimin’s bed? Why did Jk keep going to sleep in Jihope’s room everynight? What was he doing with Jimin at 4am on his birthday after they had already moved out of the dorm and were living in personal apartments? Which one of you knows anyone who would do this if they really didn’t like someone and literally loved being around them? Also, notice how each and everytime we “caught” Jikook in positions where they never expected cameras or weren’t aware of cameras they were always glued to each other and Jungkook especially had no issues being in Jimin’s personal space?

This is one of those cases where someone either gets it or they don’t because it is kinda hard to explain and the truth is, to really understand these kinds of things, you probably need to have experienced something like this or atleast know someone very close who has.

Jikook as a romantic pair was never meant to make sense to alot of people because not very many people have critical thinking skills, not very people know how to piece tiny details together to really understand a situation. So often, people form opinions after watching one single piece of content without caring to look at the history of things. I saw a taekooker say that Jk hated Jimin’s music style because Jk said their show will fail if Jimin sang the OST he joked about singing and you could clearly tell this person is one of those who literally don’t care about context or history because everyone and their mama knows how much Jk enjoys and has always enjoyed Jimin as an artist and a performer and he has made it clear on several occasions just how much he loves the music Jimin makes.

Like I said, Jikook is not meant to be understood by everyone. If everyone understood them then that would mean they weren’t doing something right.

[coline7373]

hi, so I kinda fell out of the codywan fandom for a while but I really like your taste based on your fic rec lists I've found. Is there any chance you'd share a couple of fics you liked from last year? Maybe ones that aren't so obvious (like the ones with thousands of kudos are pretty easy to find). If not sorry for bothering you it's not a must of course!

Missile Toes and White Banthas by Ace Raven of Clan Chaos (Music_is_life_2788) (1K)

Lifeday comes once a year, but the trauma of family gatherings is eternal.

A holiday gift exchange written for a holiday gift exchange - it's exchange inception XD

Light-hearted lifeday gift exchange. Rex is out of ideas. Codywan is around the corner and at the end. Sweet and fun!

You be my detonator by Saerus2665 (1K)

“I see they’re just letting anyone on rescue missions these days.” Ben says this as if he’s not currently lying crumpled on his side in a pool of blood in a cold, damp basement. Cody rolls his eyes and does one last quick scan of the room, before stepping around the two bodies on the floor. Or: Agent Ben Kenobi winds up in a sticky situation after a mission gone wrong. Luckily, Cody's there for the rescue.

Spies Modern AU Codywan!!! Not Mr & Mr SMith, they are working for the same side ;) Funny, witty and filled with action. The author makes the most of those 1K

Father War by prouvairablehulk (2K)

We’re damned, after all, through fortune and flame we fall - and if you can stay, then I’ll show you the way (In which 2224 is Cody is Kote is Kote, but more emphatically; or, the Cody-is-Mithras fic that came from being obsessed with my Masters Thesis and Clone Wars at the same time)

Funny. Lovely. And a companion in my mind of that fic in reverse, where it happens to Obi-Wan. But here, it is Kote who gets a little godhood. As a treat.

most things may never happen: this one will by jaigeye (2K)

Cody looks at the bombs bursting overhead. It's friendly fire, and he's beneath it. The heat spewing from it is swift and lacks remorse. It'll melt metal through your hands. Meat doesn't mean anything to light. It goes right through. 

This one isn’t codywan but, by God, if I’m recc-ing any fic, then I’m putting down this one as well. Cody-centric. Fantastic. And I do mean fantastic. About the clones and the droids in Star Wars, and the war and Cody and…

It made me crazy. Crazy.

Must . Read.

half-octopus stewjoni biology no-longer-WIP-now-published-HERE-on-AO3! by passeridae (4.9K)

"Say that again?" Cody pauses, halfway to armouring himself after his checkup, and looks over at Helix. Surely he'd misheard. Helix, eyes rolled towards the off-white ceiling of the medbay as if praying for patience, repeats, "I said, unless you've been having some exceptionally weird sex I don't know about, you've got a prostate tumour." "Weird sex," Cody parrots, his mind helpfully replaying the most debauched trysts he'd had with his General in the past few months. 

The fandom’s usual take for Stewjon is that it’s a hybrid of space!Scotland-Japan and its people are dualsex (even though it’s more often wrongly tagged intersex, which is not the same thing). Not here. Here, stewjoni are half-octopi. They aren’t(?) were-octopi, but half-octopi. Read to find out how. I promise it works. Don’t be frightened by the tags.

What I really liked (other than this little pearl of worldbuilding), is the change to the usual mpreg trope. It’s not Obi-Wan, it’s Cody who carries. It’s not a secret, the main parties involved know about it straight away. Cody is not having A Crisis, the idea makes him happy. Just very refreshing all around.

Medical practices done right. “Normal” pregnancy happening off-screen for a value of normal. “Normal” birth. Started as crack taken seriously then somehow veers sharply off course toward the last part as it becomes bittersweet and happy and joyful and philosophical. Reflection on attachment, the circle of life and all that. Future unknown but ends on a positive note. Loved it.

Dawn by Serie11 (7K)

Obi-Wan had thought of many possibilities, of what his and Cody's life after the war would look like. A child hadn't been among them.

Trans Obi-Wan. Unplanned Pregnancy. Tatooine AU. Heartbreaking. Good ending, though. You don’t stay heartbroken, even if you keep on crying.

Your Smile In Stone by ecarian (8k)

Wooley: can we arrest people for yelling this early? There were two figures standing at the foot of General Kenobi's statue with their backs to Wooley, an adult with a hood, and a child with light hair. The child was pointing at a puddle of Temple tookas who were curled up in General Kenobi’s lap, lounging in the stone folds of his robes, the bend of his knee. Wooley: belay that. Child nuisance.

Clones overthrow the Empire and then… Well.

New Republic and all that.  Sure. They are free, which is nothing to scoff at. But the Senate still voted for the end of the Republic and the jedi are still dead. Aren’t they?

The end… My heart, oh, my heart. Prepare handkerchiefs. By the buckload.

bell tower by smoosey (smooseys) (12K)

In gesture and word and deed, Obi-Wan had made it clear that he saw, in Cody, the same inpollutable, infinite thing that lit the stars. The same Force that had Obi-Wan supplicant his whole life long, luminous under daylight, luminous in the dark, luminous candle-lit, kneeling into the song of the Light. And Cody thinks a part of him has spent the long years since, too, on his knees – in grief, in penance, in duty, in love, and in his memory. But Obi-Wan is alive.

WIP, just once chapter, but what a chapter.

Between hallucinations and dreams, a real communication through the stars with the ghost of his former general or what the spirit of Cody, the purge soldier, concocted to protect himself, a poem, a delirium, a mea cupla screamed at the stars, a fantasy dreamed by a soldier eaten away by the horrors committed by his hands, the State he represents and the atrocities we undertake by ourselves, reality or imagination, metaphor of guilt and forgiveness or real and visceral torture.

PT-2224 made a mistake. Vader makes him pay. Cody is there and not there at the same time. An escape and a voluntary march of his executioner's body towards the final destination.

Incredible. Fantastic. A trip like no other.

Facile Felicity by br1ghtmouth (14K)

Primary functions are supposed to be useful: survive against all odds; shield one’s battalion; fight until the very last breath. Cody would prefer anything besides the bleeding heart he’s been dealt. Or: the General makes plans. Cody follows.

Very fun concept! Lovely characterisation! And, of course, my favorite No-O 66 AU!

True Plain Hearts do in the Faces Rest

by SpaceWall (21.9K)

“We won’t enforce whatever they put forward,” Adi said, “In fact, we won’t fight at all unless they guarantee the clones the right to pursue and refuse soulmate bonds as every citizen of the Republic may. (...)” “You could lose us the war.” “Or we could win it,” Obi-Wan pointed out, “and win it by deserving to, rather than by giving in to that which this order stands against.” Adi’s proposal to offer the senate a bald refusal passed unanimously.

I really liked this one and it’s partly because the codywan is not necessarily romantic. It’s not tagged as such and the connection only happens at the end so I think it’s up to the reader whether they imagine it happening later on or not. It wasn’t necessary for me. 

Cody and Obi-Wan connected on the level of their souls. Nothing, not even romance, can be more meaningful than that.

It was heart wrenching at times and it made me reflect a lot. Not everyone get their happy ending. It’s also a great new take on the soulmate trope and what The Sign is (colorblind vs colored vision, tattooed first/last words, dream/pain/sexual fantasy sharing, ect. And now, A True Smile!!! Because you smile with your eyes, which are the window to the soul. Get it?)

Turn it on to a new kind of bright by rolo_rulu, Saerus2665 (41K)

Someone rolls him over onto his back. “Hnnngh…” Ben blinks his eyes open. There’s a man looking down at him, haloed in the bright light of the sun. (...) “Are—are you an angel?” Ben finds himself saying. He doesn't know if it's the heat or his poor instinctive attempt at flirting that makes him say it. The man squints at him, brow furrowing, clearly caught off guard. “Uh—are you a banana?” OR: The one in which Cody is a hot surfer and Ben’s a biologist who just so happens to be filling in for his brother at his summer job at a perfectly normal, definitely not shady, beachside banana-stand.

Some levity in this recc list!!!! There is no great plot with the Fate of the Universe at stake. This is one of these delightful type of fic that are just… fanfic-y. I don’t know how else to describe it XD

The premise is crackish. The execution is hilarious. The author and artist who work on this (check their accounts out!) were obviously having a hell of a time on this LSD trip together. It also has its sweet moments, its aching moments, moments serious or sad.

Fox is there and amazing. Vos too, stealthily. Obi-Wan is A Nerd and so loveable for it. Cody is so freaking cool. The story keeps throwing you off and making you laugh. The art blows. Uncomplicated and yet rich and varied. Have a grand old time, without becoming anxious about the Meaning of Life Itself.

Just… a cute, funny love story. Happening in a Modern Setting. This is the king of stuff I’m on ao3 for. Gold stars.

Six Months In A Leaky Boat by passeridae (47K)

The year is 1998. Australia is fucked to hell and back, but its neighbour New Zealand is doing surprisingly alright. Well, if it wasn't for the supply shortages, persistent earthquakes, and the government's increasing heavy handed attempts at censorship. Cody, a presenter at Radio Hauraki, is particularly pissed about that last thing. And he knows just what to do about it, too — all they need is a boat. Radio Hauraki started life as pirate radio back in the sixties, what's stopping them from going back on the waves? Also, if his coworker, Obi-Wan, could stop making his life a living hell that'd be great, but Cody is pretty sure the world will end for real before that happens.

Modern Dystopia happening in a 90’s Alternative Universe. Activism. Civil disobedience. The author must be from NZ itself because how else would they have so much knowledge about the slang, the culture, the places? Historical accuracy used like a punch to punctuate the story’s point. Fail gay men. Gay love.

I love the idea of a couple uniting while they are constructing something. This story, though, is less about the boat itself, but the journey they take toward that point. It’s mostly from Cody’s POV while the world, society and democracy is slowly imploding around him. 

At first, he tries to obey the law because he doesn’t want to suffer from discrimination. But as the story goes on, he just can’t follow it anymore because to do so would be to let people die when he could have helped save them. And so he fights.

Various characters take this journey too, along-side him, in the background.

In an extremely vivid New-Zealand setting, with an original format (written, audio, pictures, links to songs…), a story all the more impactful by what we’re currently all living through, two men falling in love and many people rallying for Fairness and Justice.

Amazing.

|vidur viduvasario| by littlekaracan (76K)

There, peeking out from between the grasses, was the glittering and unmistakable head of a grass snake. Cody blinked. Twice. “I – “ he began, and realized he didn’t quite know what to say. “Forgive me, are you – the grass snake, there?” The grass snake’s head twitched – as if reacting to his voice. He saw a flash of its forked tongue, and – “That would be me, yes.”

Between fairytale, folks tale Shakespearean-flavored, and TCW medieval AU. Obi-Wan is not a were-snake or cursed or about to give Cody an apple. He’s just… a snake. And not. I cannot explain too much away without spoiling the story but it was great.

No big, galactic stakes. Just Cody living in a village with his many, many brothers and meeting a snake. That’s it.

Done so well I kept thinking about it for weeks afterwards. Lovely.

|slâfst du, friedel ziere| by littlekaracan (64K)

“Help me,” he whispered, desperate for something he could not understand, and could feel the dirt slowly trickling into the emptiness of his eyes.

A moment of silence, and the voice relented.

“Come to me,” it whispered, and he wanted nothing more. “Come to me, darling, and I will do my best.”

That author decided to slay their readers without mercy and I am here for it. Willing head on the chopping block. Chopchopchop.

2224 is starting to reach the end of his shelf life. Amidst a fevered dream (or a vision?), he embarks on a final mission. That he fails, of course, just like he failed at dying.

Past the reunion of two battered traumatized men, between a journey toward self-forgiveness and the acceptance of the horror of their past and present, a healing of the minds, while Cody’s body is hurling toward death.

Happy ending, of course. I couldn’t stand it otherwise. But boy, there was a knot in my throat the whole while. And that passage where Obi-Wan [insert spolier]... I had to stop to straight up cry.

|keep the wolves away| by littlekaracan (59K, so far)

They saw her around Mos Eisley, sometimes, lingering by the repair shop where her father worked or sitting atop the crates strewn about the street. She had strange eyes - aged and watchful and inquisitive, even more so perhaps than the other children around her, although all of them had grown up too early all the same. (...) There was something important that Reva Sevander had learned throughout the last hours she spent in what once had been a safe haven, lying atop her murdered clanmates and trying not to make a sound as the stench of their deaths grew more and more oppressive - nothing, least of all tomorrow, was ensured.

I have recc-ed this author and I will recc them again! This one is a WIP and it is announced codywan, which is why I gave myself permission to cheat by putting it there since where it stopped, it hasn’t happened yet. But, if it ever becomes finished, I know it will be as brilliant as the rest. 

For someone who had many, many, many, many critics about the Kenobi Show, how they created the character of Reva (who, by all right, should have been awesome) and that hasn’t found a fic where I was able to enjoy her, I was absolutely bowled over by how much it made me root for her.

Yoda and Obi-Wan go to the Temple, before they decide to split to fight Sidious and Anakin respectively. They find Reva. They pick her up. And then, of course, someone has to take her with them when they decide to hide. Spoiler alert: it’s not Yoda.

It’s told from the POV of Reva and Obi-Wan broke my heart as well as made me want to shake him until his teeth rattle. I would be hard pressed to find a child in a fanfic described and characterized so authentically. Obi-Wan goes straight on the Depression Train, like in the show, but he can’t just lie down and let himself starve and stew in his nightmares, because there’s a child who depends on him. Two jedi in a post-jedi world. One who should be starting their journey, but didn’t, and one who should be passing the flame to the next generation, but can’t. Jfc.

The End!

That’s it folks.

When I received the ask for a codywan recc list, I was in a waning enthusiasm period for codywan fics (not the ship itself!).

Because I’m very picky and I have dozens upon dozens of criterias for codywan “fics I loved so much I bookmark them and recommend them to everyone”. I could read literally all week sometimes and not find one fic that meet all these (very subjective and personal, mind you!) criterias.

It’s not ungratefulness for people writing fics (are you kidding?), it’s a matter of taste. Without new canon being produced, fandom/ship tend to stagnate a bit in terms of narrative after a while. It happens to literally every fandom I have been a part of and is no critic of anyone or anything. That’s just the nature of things.

But, well. Then, the number of fics that scratch all my itches and that I haven’t read yet start to get smaller and smaller until, to find new gems, I have to plow through hundreds of fics first.

But I considered it a challenge to myself and my habits and accepted it gladly! To shake things up and find actual new stuff, I put the restriction on myself to look only for fics last updated between 2023 and 2024.

Because I already made a recc list in 2022 and I wanted to give what I hadn’t seen yet a chance.

As you can see, some truly amazing stuff came out of this! If with this list I manage to make you discover new fics, I will consider it worth it!

At the time I am writing this, there’s still plenty of fics downloaded and waiting to be read on my e-reader. But we’re reaching the end of the year so I’m stopping it there so that people can enjoy the fics over the holidays.

If I find new things, I will edit it ;) As always, suggestions are always welcome too!

Meanwhile, enjoy, leave kudos for the authors, and happy reading!!!!

[justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms]

When They Know They're In Love ~ Frostheim Edition

I will be doing the other houses and will link them here once they're posted. I hope you like this and if you did, please feel free to send in requests for what you'd like to see.

Fandom: Tokyo Debunker

Characters: Jin Kamurai, Thoma Ishibashi, Lucas Errant, Kaito Fuji x gn! Reader

Frostheim | Vagastrom | Jabberwock | Sinostra | Hotarubi | Obscuary | Mortkranken

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How do the characters know they're in love and what will they do when they realise?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jin is not exactly the most in touch with his emotions. He knows he feels something around you. Does he think it’s some weird side effect of your ability or him using his stigma after so long? Absolutely.

It will take him a long time to figure out that what he’s feeling is actually love but when he does, it’s when you’ve finally snapped at his treatment of you.

You’re tired of being treated like a servant and you’re letting him have a piece of your mind.

And suddenly, his chest is tightening, and he’s got butterflies, and he realises just how beautiful you are.  How did he never notice this before?

It might take him a while longer to accept his feelings and pursue you properly but when he does, expect to be swept off your feet by the effort he puts in to making you feel just as strongly about him.

Thoma is a lot more observant than Jin. He’ll recognise his feelings almost straight away when he sees how hard you’re working both to get to know the ghouls and to break your curse.

He’s found a kindred spirit in your hard-working attitude. But he won’t act on those feelings for a while.

He’s busy with his own work and, if he’s being honest, he doesn’t think he could handle getting into a relationship with you, only for your curse to take you from him a year later.

I think it would take a life-or-death situation for him to confess. Something where he nearly looses you before the year is up and he realises he has to tell you how he feels before you’re gone.

Whether a relationship blooms from that is up to the two of you but Thoma’s a practical guy. Whatever you’re decision, he’ll make it work somehow.

Luca is an interesting case. I feel like he’s aware of his feelings about certain things but not others. Love is one of those things he’s not super aware of.

He knows how he feels about close family like his brother. But you? He just doesn’t register his feelings towards you as romantic at first.

He finally puts it together when he sees you asleep in the library, a book open in front of you with information relating to his brother’s situation.

The rush of affection he feels towards you in that moment is so strong, even Luca can’t misunderstand it as anything else. Now he just has to confess.

He won’t drag it out and will likely pull you aside next time he sees you. He’ll be perfectly gentlemanly and explain his feelings, as well as letting you know that any decision you make, he will accept.

Kaito is certainly in touch with his emotions, but I don’t think he would realise the depth of his feelings for a long time.

If you’re female presenting, he would just assume what he’s feeling for you is his usual affection towards women. If you’re male presenting, he’ll just assume you’re a really great friend.

He realises he’s in love with you when he gets a message from another person and realises the sinking feeling in his stomach isn’t a normal reaction.

Honestly, I feel like Kaito will be a bit freaked out by his feelings to start with. He’s not used to really caring about people and he’s not entirely sure where to start.

Once he does come to terms with his feelings and realises he wants to be with you as more than just a friend, he’ll do his best to up his game so you fall for him the same way he fell for you.

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Hey, did you enjoy this? If you like my writing, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi page! This will allow me to make some money off my writing, something I enjoy doing.

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Important Note: Please only donate if you are financially able to. If you are currently in a position where you can't donate, a like, comment or reblog will mean just as much.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

I have a couple of questions, the main two being: 1: what ships do you dislike/hate? and why? 2: are there any ships you enjoy/like? and why? I am an anti-shipper myself, so hearing other ppls opinions on ships is interesting to me.

Only ships I really hate are like, incest, pedo or zoophilia, and Killermare and Bad Sans Poly.

I hate Killermare because it is trafficker/kidnapper/abuser x victim/captive and that is just..baked so completely in their narratives I find it ridiculous to ignore it.

I hate the narrative that Nightmare ever genuinely saved Killer, he didn’t—Color was the one putting in hard work and tears trying to protect, understand, befriend, and earn Killer’s trust. He was the one being threatened with death and stabbed and attacked for trying to help like he was asked to— by Killer himself—to help. He’s the one constantly risking his life and safety and well being for Killer’s freedom.

I hate how certain shippers treat this ship, how they treat Killer, and how they definitely treat Color—like Color’s somehow the bad guy because they want to pretend that Nightmare is somehow good for Killer’s safety or that Killer would ever be happy with him. Or as if Color only has selfish intentions and motives for Killer. Even more so when they pretend it’s one sided and Killer doesn’t grow to feel the same eventually—even when they’re extremely rough and certainly not friends in the beginning.

As if Killer wasn’t the one asking Color to save him. As if Killer didn’t say he kinda likes Color, and Nightmare had to tell him to literally shut up—as if Color isn’t the only one besides Toriel Killer has admitted to liking before, compared to when he said he doesn’t like anyone when asked. As if Color wasn’t the only one Stage 1 Killer ever felt comfortable asking, pleading with, for help—trusting him enough to admit he wants to be saved.

As for ships i enjoy, there’s Colorkiller obviously—but I also enjoy them as a friendship, or queer platonic, or them in general. Lifeafterdeath most definitely. Reapertale Chara x Core!Frisk (I don’t know. if they have a ship name) is wonderful.

Epic Sanses poly, Delta x Color, Epic x Color, Ccino x Color, just other Color ships in general i like. Chromatic Crew poly could be interesting.

But honestly what I really want is more of Killer in platonic relationships.

Color is special to him and this is just an undeniable fact, and Killer doesn’t strike me as the type to be very interested in friendship outside of what he managed to build with Color—but i think he should have more social connections, even if they aren’t what he has with Color because he does not trust most people at all.

I’d love to see more of Ink and Killer. Not really as a ship, but as pals—I feel they’d understand each other. Ccino and Killer and Lust and Killer and Color too. I’d like to see Ink and Color content as well, and Color and Dream.

I feel I’d be interested in seeing more Killer and Horror content, but there’s barely any outside of Bad Sans Poly or MTT Poly—and even in those ships there’s hardly anything.

I’ve found myself turned away from most Killer and Murder dynamics because, similar to Kross and killermare, these two always have to have some sort of “sexual tension” or something and it’s actually just beating eachother half to death or being lovey dovey and so in love. (Or when Killer is portrayed as a desperate whore for dust’s attention and begging him to love him or something.)

I think I’d find them more interesting in fandom depictions if 1. It wasn’t always just about how “hot” they are together and how “hot” is it that they hate eachother or whatever, and 2. people focused more on how they’re different rather than how they’re similar.

[cute-little-fly]

Random thoughts about Octavia and Stolas after sinsmas

I trully hope Octavia doesn’t get any hate after this episode, and also, Stolas deserves to be happy beyond his daughter. This two things are true at the same time. I hope that more people understand this. We don’t need more division in this fandom.

Octavia thinks her father was the one who broke the family, that, even if it was in shambles the family could have been ok if Stolas was ok with them, if Stolas accepted them. She never realized Stella behaviour was not normal, and that Stella didn’t loved him at all since the beginning.

She thinks Stella resents him because of his cheating and that the family would be ok if he hadn’t done that with Blitzø, she thinks Stolas is guilty of breaking the family appart because Stolas sacrificing his emotional life was the only thing keeping the family together.

But she never saw it, and I think Stolas did well things by not putting that emotional load on Octavia’s shoulders… but she also needs to understand the complexity situation now that she is more grown up. Now she might feel guilty because Stolas was so unhappy…

She thinks Stolas suffered because of her, that he didn’t leave before because of her and that he endured suffering because of her, but what she doesn’t understand is that all of that was for LOVE and not for obligation.

Is natural that she is so hurt, and is also congruent to what has happened in earlier episodes. Where Stolas is always caught up about the divorce or Blitzø and leaves her behind. Is normal that makes her feel abandoned. Stolas never tried to talk bad things about Stella to Octavia, so, she doesn’t think that the cheating and Stolas suffering is mostly due to her mother. Now, Stella doesn’t care about talking shit about Stolas in front of Octavia, so is logical she puts the blame on him. That made me so angry, it is so unfair… This is something common for people that live under scapegoat abuse cycles.

“The family scapegoat is singled out and blamed for problems in the family. The burden of dysfunction of the group is placed on one member, regardless of the true causes of these issues. This person can be a child, step-child, troublesome uncle, or even a family friend. Being the family scapegoat can be a painful and isolating experience throughout a person’s lifetime.” Source: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/family-scapegoat/#:~:text=A%20family%20scapegoat%20is%20a,sibling%2C%20or%20another%20family%20member.&text=To%20put%20it%20simply%2C%20the,our%20own%20actions%20and%20mistakes.

Of course, from Via’s perspective this makes sense because she doesn’t understand a huge part of the situation and Stolas did fail her a lot of times and broke her trust. But I find interesting that Stella is not a good parent either, and she never wonders what role Stella had in Stolas unhappiness, or if there is something else behind everything.

Concluding remarks…

Octavia was just like Stolas in a lot of ways this episode. She confronted Andrealphus and looked Blitzø to give Stolas his pills, even if she is mad at him and thinks he doesn’t trully love her. The same way Stolas saved Blitzø even without knowing that our lizard loved him or cared about him at all or not. (Maybe this is a little bit off topic, but I found that poetic and shows deep down that they are the same).

Stolas has the possibility of recovering Octavia’s trust. He needs to build that trust again because he didn’t properly cared for it before, and now, Stella and Andrealphus took advantage of that. She would have heard Stolas if he did better things before, now he needs to make her feel he loves her. Not that she is just a responsibility, give her more.

Also, she needs to understand that Stella is the real source cause of most of the family issues, and Blitzø and how the cheating happened was just the culmination of all of it. That Stolas just couldn’t take it anymore; and just after experiencing a little bit of what he had been missing he got completely out of himself. Of course, Stolas could have done this better, but, he was very young when he married, and he didn’t had a proper social development.

I feel that a lot of people miss this, I don’t know if it is because Stolas is a dad. Even if Stolas at least had his stars, books and plants, he was emotionally neglected and lonely his entire life and that will always damage a person. Stolas needs someone to lean his shoulder on, to talk about problems and share emotions… that is a human need and Octavia as his daughter can’t do that for him, because he is the parent. He needed someone else in his life to do that and Stella failed in that.

We can understand both of them. Is tragic, but we know they will be ok :)

Sorry for the long rambling.

[cringefaecompilation]

DORIAN STORM, ROBBIE DAYMOND, AND THE CRITICAL ROLE FANDOM

because some people don’t know how to act when a piece of collaborative media they like starts getting people of color to add to it. a good amount of this are things I’ve already discussed on my blog, so if you’ve been following me for a while, consider this a more polished version of my complaining. obvious content warnings for racism, with explicit focus on whitewashing, pinkwashing, and cultural assimilation.

quick note before we start: we’re talking about racism, not how annoying you think xyz white character is or how much you want to punt all xyz shippers into a fire. keep your comments focused on dorian himself; it feels counterproductive when conversations about the racism experienced by actors of color and the fictional characters they play snowballs into shitting on fictional white characters and completely ignoring the former.

with all that said, let’s begin.

if you’re reading this, there’s a strong possibility that you already know who dorian storm is, but just in case if you don’t, i’ll give you a quick rundown.

dorian storm is an air genasi bard from campaign 3 of critical role. he made his debut a few months before the third campaign official started in what was meant to be an anthology series on the channel: exandria unlimited. after eight episodes in that series, a short 14 episode run establishing the new campaign, and two more episodes in a sequel to the first anthology, dorian remained largely out of focus for the remainder of the campaign up until episode 92 whereupon he returned and rejoined his party for the third act climax.

while he’s generally beloved, most of his fans haven’t seen or acknowledged his debut, and have only watched the main series campaign. it’s a shame, given how little he’s given to do in the main campaign asides reconnect with his elder brother cyrus. most of his characterization is found in the anthologies and gets built upon when he comes back, so the fandom’s aversion to watching it means they’re missing out on a lot of what robbie’s established for dorian. the more i thought about this aversion, the more it hit me as to why people might be put off it. for such a beloved fandom character, most fans have completely forgotten that exandria unlimited was largely dorian’s story, with opal picking up the slack whenever he took a break from being in the spotlight. by comparison, fearne, orym, and dariax had minimal screentime and vaguer backstory setup. 

dorian and opal taking up the vast swath of story in makes sense for two reasons: robbie and aimee were completely new to the hobby! let the new guys have their fun instead of letting the professionals try to backseat drive the story! the second reason is that ashley johnson, liam o’brien, and matthew mercer are 100% going to return to critical role. it’s their jobs! so they can stand to fight over the same 15 minutes of screentime where aimee and robbie have their fun in the spotlight. even not-so-new kid anjali bhimani got a massive swath of her storyline and backstory established despite only appearing for half the first mini-series!

the same thing happened with calamity, where the plot was primarily moved by aabria and luis. sadly, lou did not get to add as much as them (or the rest of the cast imo) but brennan understood not to give marisha, travis, and sam special attention because they’re always there.

and if we’re talking about calamity, there’s another thing we’ve got to talk about. why is the pre-campaign three series that is predominantly played and dm’d by people of color, treated as more expendable than the pre-history avalir series despite involving three fandom-beloved characters and two fandom-beloved ships? how come people complained about an episode and a half being dm’d by aabria because “they weren’t warned ahead of time” but were fine with brennan taking over critical role for an entire month when there was equally zero “warning” for him to do so? and thinking harder, i suppose i came up with our thesis question.

do people even really like dorian?

DORIAN/ROBBIE BASHING

edit: robbie pulled a pro gamer move and this section is now somewhat inaccurate. see here for an explanation.

since dorian’s vocal haters aren’t as numerous as his vocal fans, i’ll go through this part quickly.

i understand that any character can be grating to anyone for any reason, but some of their insults and insistences about dorian and robbie tend to get a bit loaded. we’re not racist! we just think robbie daymond is just uniquely annoying with crosstalk and his character’s backstory doesn’t mesh with the story the campaign is trying to tell! he’s not a real member of the group because he wasn’t there for all their important moments! he should just die offscreen so they’ll shut up about him already! the only reason people want him back is because they’re rabid liam o’brien fangirls that want him to kiss a man with tongue on-screen!

we’ll touch on that last bit later, but there’s always a weird pit in my stomach whenever someone insists that dorian doesn’t work with bell’s hells. the watsonian side of me wants to argue that a runaway/disguised noble is a perfectly common npc type. but the doylist side of me wonders if they think it’s because robbie does not fit in as a person with the cast of critical role because there’s just something too different about him. i wonder if you can tell what it is.

and this last one is more of a nitpick, but a few people joked about how robbie, christian, and utkarsh were all interchangeable or sound or look the same. don’t do that.

in full fairness, i don’t think it makes someone a racist automatically if they dislike a fictional person of color. after all, you can say “i think finn was underutilized in the star wars trilogy and had an unsatisfying character arc, so i cannot bring myself to like him” and still acknowledge that there was bigotry in the writer’s room that led to said poor character arc.

unfortunately, someone might agree with only the first part of your complaint and then add on that they fantasize about blowing up john boyega with their mind so that rey and kylo can have their perfect aryan babies in peace. not only that, but the insistence that a person of color having a minimal role compared to the white people in the story to explain why you can’t be a fan of them goes from explanation to excuse rapidly when you realize how many white background characters are given their own sub-fandoms built solely upon headcanons.

which leads us to our next point.

DOUBLE STANDARDS AND WHITEWASHING

this fandom seems to have a massive problem with headcanons, but it’s not for the reasons you’d think. they have to act as though the person is only making up headcanons to spite either the rest of the fanbase or the human actor themselves. i’ve no such compunctions about headcanons. give pike glasses! make laudna viet! say that caduceus is a cane user! but there comes a problem when you insist that your angsty trauma headcanons are more genuine than someone who has legitimately gone through the same in canon.

what do i mean by that? let’s pivot a bit to a comparison between two seemingly unrelated characters that made the rounds about a year ago: essek thelyss and bor’dor dog’son. don’t worry, this ties into dorian, i swear.

both men were jaded by religion and religious people in their lives and were led down dark paths when martinet ludinus da’leth entered their lives and attempted to sway them into his anti-god cult. bor’dor was fully sucked into the cogs of his killing machine and offed by bell’s hells, but essek fled into hiding after giving ludinus a holy item that belonged to his people, realizing too little too late the weight of his actions.

according to fandom, essek was manipulated emotionally into a bigoted movement and just needed to be deradicalized because he didn’t know what he was doing was wrong. the fictional man of color, bor’dor dog’son, as portrayed by the real-life man of color, utkarsh ambhukdar, for some reason is not given this grace at all. in fact, he’s been compared to delilah briarwood of all people because both of them were villainous sorcerers that felt slighted by someone, despite this comparison falling flat outside of the aesthetic where she is a broken bird crying out for her husband rather than a conniving unrepentant villain. or perhaps they see him as just as evil as her for harming and deceiving the white player characters.

it seems fandom is more comfortable with the illusion of a person of color as voiced by a white man, filtered through a fantasy species canonically discriminated against, and further filtered through headcanons, fanart, and fanfiction by their choice rather than having to interact with the indian man on screen staring back at them.

and if bor’dor is demonized for being a person of color, then dorian is liked for… being a person of color… that the fandom can pretend he isn’t because his skin is blue and not brown.

dorian is literally a person of color with his blue skin and hair, but he’s still also an actual person of color because of his player. compare him to sam nightingale and katja cleaver, despite having powder blue skin and olive-green skin and being fantasy creatures (triton and orc), they wasted no time in telling brennan lee mulligan that there would be no “carmelinda” nonsense; they were a black transfeminine woman and an indian woman just the same as them.

and if you’re going to say, “okay but assuming a person of color has to play a character that’s the same race/ethnicity as they are makes you the real bigot!”

again, must i refer to sam nightingale and katja cleaver. they made the active decision to depict their characters the same as themselves. they consented to it. this was not some sort of shallow corporate-driven plot to force two women of color into portraying diverse characters to capitalize off their identities.

and likewise, the same can be said for robbie and dorian. robbie daymond identifies as multiracial and is part apache. that’s straight from his twitter, so it’s very easily accessible to anybody that would be curious.

so going back to critical role, dorian comes from a nomadic people who keep mostly to themselves and provide wisdom to its diasporic people that come to them for guidance. they’re extremely secretive and even more so distrustful of outsiders, resorting to violence as a last-ditch effort to ensure their secrecy. they can’t risk anything about their people or their culture falling into the wrong hands and warn their children to be wary of the outside world. dorian and his brother reject being called princes a lot of times, and cyrus only picks it up because he likes the sound of it!

if you aren’t from the united states of america you might not know (and even if you are, you still might not know) apache tribes are known for being nomadic. being diasporic and wary of outside forces attempting to harm one's culture only further bolsters the coding. dorian’s backstory appears to be robbie attempting to reconnect with his culture, and good on him! but for some reason, the fandom hasn’t picked up on that. look, i love fanart that emphasizes robbie’s culture, but the number of times i’ve seen people reblog/retweet it without a second thought and then go back to ignoring the exact same cultural coding in canon is… something else.

if vandran can somehow have an accent (and fjord can mimic it) from the southern united states of america off the coast of a continent based on eastern europe, if byroden is somehow comparable with the real-life city of laredo, texas despite being smack dab in the middle of a continent based on western europe, if the air ashari’s culture is a weird mishmash of samoan, irish celtic, and pan-east asian (by way of avatar the last airbender) cultures, then i don’t think it’s an unreasonable thought that the silken squall would not have to be a one-to-one recreation to be coded as such, laurel crowns be damned.

this lack of attention to this detail in fandom is a bit strange, as usually every other (usually male) character has their backstories and everything that their players intended for them memorized to a t by the fandom. it’s almost a running gag at this point where if someone makes a headcanon that bends canon the slightest millimeter and begins to gain traction, you’ll have someone more popular than them instantly vagueing “crazy entitled fans” who “think they know better than canon”. so what makes robbie’s unstated intentions for dorian (outside his affection for his friends and possible romantic crushes) completely fly under the radar? doesn’t anybody think that’s weird? does he need to say out loud that dorian is coded as native so people will realize it?

but even this erasure isn’t the worst of bigotry with his character, that’s saved for the next part.

STEREOTYPES

the irony of dorian’s backstory being whitewashed but his role in fandom still heavily conforming to racist stereotypes about native americans is not lost on me. it’s like there’s a veil keeping them from fully realizing it, but it’s thin enough for them to latch onto unconscious prejudices. there are a lot of caricatures of native americans in media, both within and outside of north america, but only two of them apply to dorian’s treatment in fandom. the magical indian and the noble savage.

the magical indian, much like the magical negro and the magical asian, is nothing more than a paragon of perfection that exists only to prop up the white characters. they give sage advice and mentorship, but have little to no aspirations of their own or even a life outside their relationship with their white protégé. they may die heroically to spur the white characters into action and mourn how kind and perfect they were.

the noble savage gives similar bolstering to the white characters, but carries even worse implications. at the very least the former is seen as something resembling a person, deified and lacking all depth as they may be. the noble savage is treated like an entirely alien species, and a violent and dangerous one at that. he is handsome, in an exotic, othered way, but violent and unable to be reasoned with and only ever sated for a time. despite being “one of the good ones” he still needs to be “civilized” completely out of his culture or murdered to avoid tainting white culture.

obviously nothing in this fandom gets that bad, but the parallels are there. prior to dorian’s return, the vast majority of fan content that detailed his return made him into the de facto therapist for bell’s hells. because obviously dorian wasn’t going through anything himself with the solstice, magic backfiring, and opal being corrupted! he’d be happy to be nothing more than a shoulder to cry on without any traumas or tribulations of his own to worry about! they all got solved and dealt with offscreen, honest. and after his return, people who were either on the fence about him or disliked him entirely began to come around once he positively interacted with and bonded with the other white characters they liked.

the complaint of “i dislike that dorian is never allowed to exist outside of his friends” gets misinterpreted as “it’s out of character for dorian to care so much about his friends” either by well-meaning or willful ignorance, but at the end of the day, it’s ignorance either way. this would be different if he was an npc, but he has hours of content that doesn’t focus solely on his relationships with other people. yes, it is a massive part of his characterization that he will do anything for his loved ones, but why are we focusing on them and not him?

then again, maybe fandom shouldn’t focus on other parts of his backstory.

any mention of the silken squall that isn’t reskinning it to be a generic fantasy keep tends to make it a living hell. sure, the bits and pieces we’ve heard from it make it extremely clear they’re unhealthily secretive, strict, and a bit full of themselves, but it’s not as if they’re evil aristocrats that kick puppies for fun. the tale of a young man that’s going against tradition is hardly one that belongs to a single culture, but i’ve found people find it the most digestible when they strip it of all nuances. it’s the “no, dad, i’m my own man! individualism for life, baby!” power fantasy everyone’s always dreamed of where you can up and leave a situation and leave everything you’ve ever known behind.

so the silken squall is just homophobic, transphobic, and fantasy racist. dorian should completely abandon it and all its ways to go off gallivanting with the hells in perpetuity, which is the correct option. never mind that matt himself said that lgbtphobia in exandria is not the same or is far less common than it is in our world. never mind that in the previous campaign there was a massive story hook about prejudice and xenophobia that humans enacted on species they viewed as “monsters”. because why should the silken squall be anything more than a hive of bigotry and cruelty with no grey areas? everyone knows every flying city in exandria was pure evil and should be nuked from orbit! it’s true, brennan lee mulligan told me so!

i suppose i was wrong for expecting better. if two disney films meant to sell dolls to little girls that more or less looked directly into the camera and said “sometimes people do bad stuff because they were hurt real bad in the past, but that doesn’t make them bad people! racism is still gross!” could both get misinterpreted with zero nuance as being about an abusive matriarch forcing her family into impossible perfection, then i should’ve figured that people would do the same with a piece of adult media.

SHIPPING CONTENT

let’s finally get this out of the way. there is a very intentional reason i’ve been dancing around the subject of shipping with dorian.

i do not have anything against dorym as a ship. i do think that they like each other! they’ve got a lot of really sweet moments together! they just have a lot of personal things they have to work through to get there.

to say that it’s forced, or they’re “trying too hard” to make it seem like they’re about to confess their mutual love, or has had zero buildup can feel at times like a “gotcha” to mock its fans for being pushy. they’re both clearly trying to get back into the swing of things now that robbie’s returned and they can move forward with developing their relationship. i wouldn’t be surprised if it’ll be like late game beauyasha, which had a similar problem with not having a lot of content for it due to one member of the ship being absent from the table because scheduling despite being beloved by fandom until we got into the mid-100s.

that all being said, there is a tendency for dorian to be treated poorly in the ship by the shippers. all my complaints about it hinge solely on the fans. now, i don’t think all dorym fans are like this; i would be making the same complaints if dorian/laudna, dorian/imogen, fearne/dorian, doomstorm, or greystorm shippers did this as well. but since dorym is the most popular out of all of them, i will be discussing it primarily.

small mercies that dorian’s coding is largely ignored because that means nobody's making pocahontas aus with the dorym ship. (and if they are, please don’t tell me. we know its racist. you don’t need to show it to me to confirm that it is, indeed, racist. i don’t frequent ao3 for a reason). even without that, dorym still falls victim to the ship dynamic of the delicate white person and the strong person of color.

i’m already uncomfortable with how orym’s trauma is viewed by a vast majority of the fandom, but adding in the “dorian has no feelings outside his own and is only a machine to deposit in trauma coins until sex comes out” situation i described earlier, it gets bad really quick. often times dorian’s whole worldview is warped to focus only on orym and orym’s feelings. he certainly trusts and looks to him as a leader, but the constant insistence that orym is the only thing that matters in his life, orym is the only person he would trust unconditionally, orym is the only one he would ever truly be in love with, he must be the one to fix orym’s trauma and make him whole with no work from orym’s side at all and orym orym orym orym orym-

yeah it’s bad.

and now we come to braius doomseed, the newest bull on the block. sam riegel introduced his new character as an over-comedic flirt who went after everybody with a pulse... and laudna! provided you’re able to take a joke, a lot of people had fun cracking remarks about how braius confirmed that bell’s hells were just another basement away from having a real orgy instead of a fake. but then there were those who did not like the joke, and by that i mean, people who genuinely wished death upon sam, braius and the shippers ironic and genuine for daring to get in the way of dorym. because dorian is orym’s man, not braius’ man!

do i really need to say why it’s wrong to say or imply a white person owns a person of color? do you need an explanation for that? it’s bad! very bad!

i must reiterate: i don’t think every single dorym shipper acts like this or has never spoken out about this trend. i follow a good number of people that like the ship and a lot of them have no problem with shipping them with other people and treating them as their own characters on equal footing. it’s okay to like the ship and it’s okay to not like the ship.

or if you don’t like the ship, you could always make nazi jokes.

would you believe that this post actually made me want to make this one? there is a score of perfectly good reasons to dislike dorym as a ship as stated previously, but you made a joke about how a white guy is getting denied of his rightful claim to a relationship by a native guy? i take it back, maybe people do need things explained to them. you certainly don’t see laura/marisha pc shippers speak about aabria or erika this way.

speaking of, that makes for a terrific segue!

imodna tends to be bashed by both ashrym and dorym shippers in equal measures, partially due to misogyny and lesbophobia usually rampant in m/m shipping spaces, and partially because people still have lingering wounds from entitled beaujes shippers from campaign two. i think it’s safe to assume that a vast swath of the holdover from campaign two abandoned ship (heh) following episode 34, as that’s when i remember seeing a lot of angry imodna shippers complaining about how orym should have died instead of laudna and ragequitting the campaign. but what does this have to do with dorian, you ask?

well, i haven’t seen any fanfiction or aus where dorian is laudna’s abusive boyfriend that imogen must save with her sapphic mind powers (again, if it does exist, keep that shit to yourself because we know it’s racist) but i have seen some imodna fans utterly despise orym and anything that has to do with him. and if they hate anything that has to do with him, that includes dorian.

most of the “dorian is a useless character that doesn’t need to exist/only exists for crazy fangirls/should die offscreen” comments as stated all the way back there come from imodna shippers sniping back at a lot of the people being crappy about their ship. or in fanfic/fanart they’ll overemphasize his snottier or selfish aspects or make him out to be an impulsive dimwit as a “joke.” long story short, they aim at the white guy and dorian gets gored with the shrapnel.

SO NOW WHAT?

i think it’s pretty obvious where to go from here. do better. watch exandria unlimited and exandria unlimited kymal! acknowledge the story that robbie is trying to tell.  be respectful and ask questions if people are willing to give answers. and if you don’t find dorian enjoyable or interesting as a character, think about why you don’t and ask yourself if you’d extend that same indifference to a white character. it’s not that hard to simply say that a ship or a character just isn’t your thing without being bigoted about it!

hopefully this post helped people see things they may have overlooked in their analyses of dorian and thanks to @bam-monsterhospital, @fear-ne and a bunch of anons for adding their input!

[booksandabeer]

Stucky, Fandom Longevity, and "Primacy Bias"

There’s this post that's been floating around the past few days about how the Stucky fandom in its heyday produced fic and art masterpieces like they were all collectively possessed by an unprecedented spirit of creative insanity. It’s a good, fun post and I agree with the person who wrote it. (not rb'ing because I didn't want to hijack their post with something that's only tangentially related).

It was indeed a magical time and the creative output in both quantity and quality in the two-year period following the release of CA:TWS is—with perhaps a few exceptions—unmatched by anything that I’ve seen before and since. However, going through the notes on that post, I noticed something that left me a little irritated and quite frankly sad since it is in congruence with, and to a certain extent the confirmation of something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

For one thing, there are so many people in the notes expressing sentiments along the lines of “it was such a wonderful time; I wish I could go back; I miss these fics; I want to read these fics again,” etc., etc., you get it. And it feels a little silly pointing this out, but…you can just do that? Almost all of these fics are still right there, waiting for you to be (re)read. Yes, a lot of people left the fandom after The Great Devastation of 2019, but their stories didn’t just disappear. It's not like there is now a big, black hole where the Steve/Bucky tag used to be on AO3. So, if you miss these fics and you want to revisit them—just do it. Chances are the authors will be delighted that people are still finding and enjoying their stories all these years later. And—since apparently this needs saying, too, judging from the notes on that post: A lot of people seem to be very concerned with losing ‘coolness points’ for openly admitting that they still miss the ship and often feel tempted to dip their toes back into the Stucky pool. I don’t know how to tell you this, but if someone tries to shame you for simply enjoying or missing something, they are an asshole. Not to mention that all this is happening on tumble.com—'coolness' doesn't exactly live here. And that is a good thing, to be clear. Fandom is not about being cool. It’s about being as enthusiastic, as silly, as absolutely fucking unhinged about the things you love as you want to be. So, stop caring what other people think and enjoy yourself.

The other thing is that there seems to be a pretty widespread misconception that the Stucky fandom hasn’t produced any good fanworks after 2016.

First, that is patently and demonstrably untrue. There is so much incredibly good fanfiction and fanart still out there. Not as much as back in the day, sure, but it still exists. And more is being posted every day! Even some of the OG Big Names are still around. One of the most beloved Stucky series that started all the way back in 2014 was updated as recently as December of last year. The artist, who I believe the op is referring to as creating ‘baroque’ paintings, posted their latest Stucky art not even two months ago.

Second, I find this “primacy bias” more than just a little insulting to the many hardworking and incredibly talented people who are still putting their blood, sweat, and tears into creating for this community. And it’s one thing if people who have long left the fandom believe or say something like this, but it’s frankly irritating when I see people who are still very much active—and therefore definitely should know better—feed into that same false myth. Yes, it sucks that the Stucky ship isn’t as big as it used to be, but that doesn't mean there isn't any 'fresh talent' to be found anymore. I’m also not saying we shouldn’t still celebrate and recommend older works—I do it all the time! And it sure as hell doesn't mean everyone has to reblog absolutely everything all the time, either. Your blog, your rules.

But maybe we should put a little more focus on the good things, on the creators and the community we have now, especially if we want that community to still exist in another ten years. I mean, imagine you’re a person who’s just gotten into the fandom (because yes, there are indeed still new people discovering Stucky all the time) and one of the first things you’re being told is “eh, nice that you're here, but you’re about 7 years late; the big party is already over.” Does that seem like a fun space to hang out in to you?

So. Let’s all—and I do not exclude myself from this because God knows, I love to complain—spend a little less time mourning the ‘good old days’ that are never coming back anyway, and instead focus our attention on enjoying and appreciating both the incredible treasure chest of an archive we have AND the wealth of high-quality art and fic that is still being created by this wonderful community every single day. With this in mind:

🥳🎊Happy Stucky Week 2023!!! 🎊🥳

*I want to make it very clear that this is a general thing that’s been on my mind lately and that I’m trying to work through here—probably not very coherently. I'm not trying to tell anybody 'how to do fandom' and I’m most definitely not vagueposting about any particular incident, person, or group in this fandom. This isn’t a callout post. It’s an I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this and I don’t know what else do with them post.

[sh1-n0bu]

hii ☆

totally random question

which is your favorite hsr character and what headcanons do you have for them? :3

ITS THAT ONE JING YUAN LOVER HIII!!! HIIIIIIII!!!! HIIIIIIIII!!1!111!!!1!!1!1!!

but for now my favorite hsr character is blade (still). i really don’t have much headcanons unless it’s smt very popular the fandom agrees on. most i have for blade is

a found family trope with the rest of the stellaron hunters. kafka, silver wolf and firefly braids his hair, paints his nails and has weekly self care routine with him. at first he is grumpy abt it but learns to accept it

runs errands for the girls, hes an honorary girlie(●’◡’●)ﾉ has memorized their tampon, pad sizes, preferences and favorite snacks when going for emergency errand runs. tho sometimes calls them to ask “what size pussy is it again?” cuz hes an old man😔

the new recruits or rookies of the stellaron hunters are afraid of him bc he looks so scary and is always glaring at everyone. tho they all look on from the sidelines and gawk when they see traces of the girlies marks on him. kafkas pins, silver wolf drawing on his bandages, soft teal ribbons in his hair etc etc. maybe he isnt so scary after all?

hates anything to do with the xianzhou alliance, it makes his former lifes memories come back and with it, his mara flares up. refuses to accept any mission that has smt to do with the xianzhou alliance but sometimes accepts them if he can get to kill dan heng or be killed by jingliu

wants to fulfill silver wolfs wish and play games with her but his hand hurts whenever he tries to hold a controller. but the two managed and found games they could play together without putting strain on his hand AKA dance games etc

lets the girls choose his clothes when going for a mission that requires him a change of clothes. although he dislikes suits for it kinda takes away his mobility, he lets it be since the girls chose it for him

soft for kids!!! hopes that he doesnt seem too scary when one stands beside him. if the kids are brave and asks him for it, he will let them play with his hair. if it gets tangled, thats fine, hell just chop it off. thanks to his super fast regeneration, his hair grows very quickly too

isnt very keen on acting on his crush or romantic interest bc he will soon die and he doesnt want to leave his lover behind all by themselves. tho he is terrible at hiding his infatuation and the girlies has to play as the ultimate wingmen to set him up for a date with you

cant ask you out for a date for SHIT. he wants to ask you out for a date, any sort of date, but he just doesnt know if he can or what to say

“uhmm… [name]? dinner?”

thats the most you will get from him after a mission, surrounded by corpses the two of you just created. bro is bad with his words, hes more of an action speaks louder type of guy so keep a close eye on his actions instead

always looking out for you even before you got into a relationship. injuries? strange, there are painkillers and bandages on your doorstep. hungry? he has a ration bar in his pocket. and look, its your fav type too. shopping together? let him hold the bags. dw its not heavy, he holds a 1500kg sword on the daily after all

TOUCH STARVED!!!! wants to be close to people or to even hold you against his chest but is afraid that he might scare you away or his mara would ruin the moment. he wants to be soft, genuinely does, but at the same so scared of his own self. when it cones to a relationship, you would have to take the lead. hold his hand, give him a hug, kiss his cheek, but take it slow or you will spook him away like hes a scared cat

speaking of cats, a cat person. you will even find him playing with one of the strays or patting the felines gently

lets you put stickers into his scars at times. finds it adorable how he is such a scary and tough person but has hello kitty stickers decorating his scars and body. the type to let you draw hearts on the back of his hand and say that its childish but refuse to wash it out when in the shower. like that one meme picture where the person has his hand out in the shower

kisses your forehead or cheek after you fall asleep. hes still not quite comfortable with the relationship he stepped into but he is easing into it. just give him some time and maybe, one night when youre pretending to be asleep, you might hear him recite love poems from his home to you in the xianzhou language. is a bit old fashioned so definitely expect yourself to be called “qīn’ài” (my beloved)

[blackbatcass]

helloo :D

So, I keep seeing people saying that Jason is Bruce’s favorite child, and the only one that was actually like a son to Bruce. (aside from Damian) Also that just because Dick and Bruce were partners/brothers too, it means that Dick isn’t really like Bruce’s son. How Jason and Bruce are each other’s favorite and Dick wishes he could be Bruce’s son (basically it just gets worse and worse jekskenjske)

AND I DON’T REALLY GET THIS AT ALL.. I COMPLETELY DISAGREED

But then I saw SO MANY posts about this (just getting harsher and harsher LMAO) and I thought I’d ask someone who knew more. So, yeah, here I am!

Thanks for answering if you do, and have a wonderful day!

anon do you want me dead. is that what's happening here

JK JK my first fanon jason ask... what a historic day! basically you're completely right. I don't know where this frankly insane take comes from but whenever me, my mutuals, and pretty much anyone in this corner of the dc fandom sees a post like it we roll our eyes to the heavens. to put it simply the idea that jason is bruce's favorite and the only one he actually loved like a son is a complete fucking lie lol.

first of all to claim that bruce didn't love dick like a son is......I mean. let's just say people saying that have probably never read a comic with bruce and dick before. literally the number one thing to know about these characters is that the love bruce and dick have for each other can be seen from outer space. they have never been normal about each other. bruce raised dick since he was eight. they are thee og codependent father-son partners 'we saved each other we are pack bonded for life if anything happened to him i'd kill everyone in this room and then myself' duo. I mean... there is nuance to be had where they had a very complicated tangled up hard-to-label relationship that had elements of being father & son, elements of being brothers, and ofc partners as batman and robin but that is a function of their relationship being TOO crazy and close not the other way around lol. it is patently true that bruce and dick know each other better than anyone else in the world. it is pretty much true that if you're going to play the favorites game, it's hard to deny that dick is bruce's favorite. that's his eldest his most trusted his saving grace his person who understands him better than anyone. I could pull like an endless amount of panels as evidence that dick was bruce's favorite. there are so many 'dick is the only thing i did right' 'i only feel pride when i look at nightwing' etc etc. dick is his child in every way that matters basically

which is not to say that jason isn't bruce's son! he definitely is! bruce does love jason, but jason was his second kid lol. and it's...i mean jason was robin for a very short time in the grand scheme of things. you can blow through his robin run super fast because it's just not very long. the idea that bruce loved jason more or there's more of a father-son bond to be found in the few issues they were together for as opposed to the 10 years dick was robin is actually insane. bruce literally admitted that the reason he let jason be robin was because he missed dick. lol. lmao even.

basically yeah claiming that jason is bruce's favorite and dick was never treated as bruce's son is just a lie. it's not true. it's like that 'jason is tim's favorite robin' nonsense that was going around a few months ago; it completely ignores canon and essential character elements in jason's favor. I don't know why some jason fans are so obsessed with putting him up on a pedestal by bashing other characters on his behalf. and like...it is possible to have two sons? and love them both? lmfao? and that's not even getting into like tim and cass (also bruce's adopted children). I don't know why people just decided this was a thing but it is false<3

[baileypie-writes]

Hi! Can you do a fluff Velvet x fem reader where they are secretly dating and by secret? I mean, like NOBODY knows, like not even Veneer and Crimp, etc. I'm going to leave the rest of what you wanna do with this prompt up to you (ex: just basic stuff or say someone found out yk).

A/N ~ Sure! Love this idea! Hope you enjoy!(Love your pfp btw, Cure Lovely is great!)

~It’s Nothing!~

Velvet x Fem!Reader

Fandom: Trolls 3: Band Together

Reader: Female

Relationship: Romantic, but nobody knows you’re dating.

Synopsis: You and Velvet are secretly dating, and something happens that nearly gets you caught.

Warnings: Secret relationship, risk of getting found out

(Sorry for the low quality picture)

“You know, you don’t have to help us get ready? Especially since we don’t pay you. It makes me feel bad!” Veneer said as you put on his eyeliner.

“Oh it’s okay! I like hanging out with you guys, so might as well help.” You glanced over to Velvet, who was doing her hair. Truthfully, you mostly hung around to be with her. Not that you didn’t like Veneer, it’s just that you and Velvet had something going on. You’ve been secretly dating for about two months now, and it’s been great. Well, other than the fact that you have to be sneaky.

“Yeah. Just be thankful, Veneer. She does a way better job than Crimp anyway.” Said Velvet, not looking away from the mirror.

You laughed. “Oh, come on Vels, be nice. Crimp does her best!” Velvet scoffed, as if she didn’t agree with your statement. You playfully rolled your eyes.

Suddenly, one of the stage crew members popped their head in. “You’re on in three, guys!” He said, holding up three fingers.

Veneer let out a girlish scream, and hopped off the chair. “We better go! Thanks (Y/N)!” He grabbed Velvet’s arm, and dragged her out the door with him. Velvet gave a quick wave to you before vanishing, making you giggle.

It hasn’t been easy keeping your relationship a secret. Well, for you at least. Velvet seems to be doing okay. But you find it hard to hide your feelings. She makes you so happy, you can barely contain yourself.

You remember all the times she pulled you aside to give you a quick kiss. And all the times you barely caught yourself before saying “I love you” to her in public. You were so caught up in your memories, that you almost forgot about the performance! You yelped at the realization, and quickly sprinted into the audience.

~~~~

Velvet and Veneer exited the stage, waving goodbye to their ecstatic fans. Their performance left your voice, and many other people’s, nearly gone from all the cheering you’ve done.

You squeezed your way through the crowd, and made your way back to the dressing room. Velvet and Veneer weren’t there yet. You thought they were probably signing autographs, so you waited.

A couple minutes later, Velvet entered the room, but without her brother. “Where’s Veneer?” You asked.

“Still giving people unibrows. He might be a while.” She laughed. You did as well, imagining the line of people waiting to have Veneer draw on their face.

“Your show was great, by the way. As always.” You said, walking over to your girlfriend.

“I know, but thanks.” She said proudly. “I like how I can always see you in the crowd. It wouldn’t be the same without my number-one fan! Oh, and girlfriend.” She said that last part in a joking manner, as if she had forgotten you two were dating. You giggled, rolling your eyes.

“I love you, Vels.” You said, giving her a hug.

Velvet blushed. “You too.” She said, quickly. She wasn’t quite ready to say it back fully yet, but she still made an effort. Just so you knew she felt the same. When you let go of her, Velvet quickly pecked your cheek. You smiled at the gesture.

The door swung open, causing you and Velvet to jump away from each other. It was Veneer. “Woo, boy! My hand is tired! I’m sure I drew on, like, two hundred people’s foreheads!”

You laughed, then turned your attention back to Velvet. Her expression was not one you were expecting. She was staring at you, eyes wide, and mouth open, in shock. You gave a confused look, and mouthed a “what?”. She pointed to her cheek, then at the mirror. You turned to look at yourself, and what you saw made your face turn red.

There was a lipstick mark on your cheek, from Velvet. You slapped a hand over it, and whipped back around face her. You had a panicked look on your face, and silently asked her what you should do. Velvet put her arms up, gesturing that she didn’t know. Luckily, Veneer was still talking, so you had at least a little time to get rid of it.

You couldn’t go outside. People would see you leaving the twins’s dressing room with a red lipstick mark and would most likely put the pieces together. So instead, you shuffled to the vanity, praying to God that Veneer would keep on talking. Luckily, you spotted some makeup remover.

Velvet noticed, and walked over to you. She poured some on a cotton pad, while you kept your hand over the mark. She then moved your hand, and put the cotton pad on it, standing in front of you as you wiped the lipstick off. You then threw the cotton pad away.

Veneer had finished talking, and looked over at you. Noticing you and Velvet’s nervous expressions, he gave a questioning look. “Something wrong?” He asked.

“It’s nothing!” You blurted out, while Velvet nodded her head vigorously. Veneer shrugged, and moved to the vanity to remove his makeup. You and Velvet turned to each other, and let out a sigh of relief.

That was close.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~baileypie-writes

[saywhatjessie]

We Should Just Kiss Like Real People Do

Advent Calendar Day 6! (prompts by @raven-cincaide-words) Today’s prompts: Picking a Mistletoe | Secret Relationship | Jealousy  Fandom: D20: Misfits and Magic - Pairing: SamEvan 1.5k[Ao3]

Evan had spent three winters in the Uk, but this was the first time he was doing Christmas.

He and his friends had fought the variant of Tedershacourt that first Christmas, and he kind of figured all holidays with friends meant little adventures and slaying monsters. It’s what he was good at, so he didn’t really mind.

But living with Sam had taught him about other stuff he was good at. He was good at keeping a home if he knew he could stay. He was good at grocery shopping and finding the best deals, and he was good at drawing baths and remembering to take the trash out.

It turned out, Even was good at being kept. Which was amazing news for him since that was all he’d ever wanted.

He wasn’t good at keeping secrets, though.

“Hey, there’s my boy!” Jammer crowed, pulling Evan into a dap and then a hug. Evan hugged him back, clapping him on his shoulders  without hitting his wings.

“Hey, there Jammer.” Evan gave him a small smile. “How was the flight?”

“Oh, I’m getting real good at the albatross thing,” Jammer said. “I was worried when it got colder I wouldn’t be able to find that warm current to lock into but no I got it! It’s there!”

“I love that for you, man, never doubted you for a second.”

Jammer laughed, clapping Evan on the back again before going to greet Sam.

Everyone knew Evan was crashing with Sam. After their last adventure where they saved magic on spring break, it was universally decided that Evan couldn’t stay in his weird apartment full of tape marking a place for everything but himself. And Sam had offered and Evan wanted to live in a big treehouse with all his friends forever so if this was a way for him to get part of that dream, he’d take it.

That’s the part everyone knew. Everyone didn’t know that Sam and Evan slept in the same bed. And Evan was allowed to kiss Sam now – was in fact encouraged to kiss her. His friends didn’t know that they held hands on the couch and Sam introduced him to her celebrity friends as ‘my boyfriend, Evan.’

Not even “My haunted white boyfriend,” just “my boyfriend”. Evan felt like he was in a fairytale.

But it was a secret. Because of K. Because they were all best friends and Sam and K were best friends and Evan was a dirty homie hopper who just desperately wanted his friends to still love him even when he was selfishly letting himself be kept.

Sam did not think the secrecy was necessary. She thought K would be cool, Jammer would be supportive, and no one would be weird.

Except she was already wrong because Evan would be weird. So they were keeping it a secret for now.

Or trying to.

K arrived next and they all said hello and Evan was desperately trying to be normal. It was so much harder now: since he’d gotten the boon from Tadershacourt and decided to stop masking, it had become so much more comfortable to just be himself. To be honest and off putting and naturally Kelmp. And now he was trying to put on an act again and it fit like a school uniform he’d grown out of. Like pants he’d owned when he hadn’t had enough to eat. It chafed and made him sweaty: two things that would definitely give him away.

“Oh, I’m so glad you guys are here!” Sam said, her hands still holding K’s as she smiled at their friends. Evan couldn’t help but smile back at her. She had the most beautiful smile in the world. “Evan and I just walked past the Christmas market in town and I didn’t let myself shop around because I wanted to wait for both of you to get here but now I really want to go back because they had such cute stuff.”

“Ah, man, I don’t know how much shit I can fly with,” Jammer said, frowning.

“Oh, don’t worry about that! If you buy anything I’ll ship it for you! Or I can have my assistant ship it for you. Or, really, she's T2's assistant. T2 has found it so much easier dealing with business when she has a human to handle the one-on-ones for him.”

“Oh, T2 got an assistant?” K said, gripping onto Sam’s hands and bouncing on their toes. “What a little mover and shaker.”

“I know! And she’s really helped T2 and Evan reconcile.”

Evan smiled again, closed lips, as he shoved his hands in his pockets. What really helped Evan and T2 reconcile was Evan deciding he couldn’t have beef with a teacup pig who wasn’t even trying to be Sam’s dog and T2 accepted that Evan was going to sometimes sit at Sam’s feet and that was okay.

Evan wasn’t sure if they were friends, but Evan hadn’t had to threaten him with a tapout again.

They obviously went to the Christmas market because Sam wanted to go to the Christmas market and Sam was kind of the person in charge always. 

Jammer and K, not new to visiting London but still visitors instead of residents like Evan and Sam, quickly lost them as they ran around the market, other patrons having to duck out of the way of Jammer’s wings.

Which left Evan and Sam to walk at a leisurely pace through the market stalls. Evan would have normally taken Sam’s hand. He liked holding her hand and in the past few months she’d managed to convince him she liked it too. He was comfortable, now, being the one to reach out to her. And she was so happy and proud of him for it.

But he didn’t let himself hold her hand here. This was a secret. He didn’t want to upset his friends because he was selfish.

Sam took his hand, pulling him along behind her as she also ran off. This was a good compromise – Sam was so smart. He smiled at her, stumbling after her as she pulled him along.

She towed him to stall after stall, always buying at least one thing to support the business and having Evan carry it in his backpack. His backpack was usually mostly empty these days but he still carried it. For Sam.

They were at a holiday botanical tent when Evan felt the familiar whoosh of Jammer’s wings. He looked up, expecting to see Jammer hovering over them, and he was. Holding a sprig of mistletoe.

“Uh oh!” Jammer said, grinning and posing in midair. “Looks like some people havta kiss.”

Evan immediately started stuttering and Sam just smiled up at him.

“If you’re holding it, Jammer, does that mean we have to kiss you too?”

Jammer pulled his body up higher, reaching his hand way below himself. The flapping of his wings to keep him in place was causing a lot of chaos ont he ground. “I’m not below it! I’m above it! I’m not a kissee in this case!”

“Yup!” Called K and Evan whipped around to see her crouching like a gargoyle on one of the tents. “Jammer and I are safely above. You too, though?” They sighed, dreamily, beginning their clasped hands to their cheek like the Disney princess they sometimes were. “Caught under the mistletoe. One of the sweetest holiday tropes of all time.”

Evan gaped, slightly. “And you’re cool with that?”

K pulled a face like  ‘Duh’. “Why wouldn’t I be?” Then they seemed to realize. “Oh! Because we used to–? Oh, Evan! New season new pairings! Come on, dude!”

“Is that why you’ve been so weird?” Jammer asked, looking like he was gonna try to land next to K but thinking better of it. “Evan, man, kiss her! We want you to! You want to! She wants you to! It’s all good!”

K started chanting “kiss her kiss her kiss her” and it then other patrons started joining in “kiss her kiss her kiss her” and Evan looked at Sam who was smiling at him, beautiful as always, but a little nervous. Like she knew this wasn’t what Evan wanted. Like she was afraid he’d run away and leave her unkissed.

But Evan would never do that. As long as Sam was there, smiling at him like she did, and wanting him to kiss her, he would.

So he did. And the gathered patrons erupted before quickly losing interest and their friends applauded from above them and Evan bought the mistletoe. 

Because his friends picked it. Just like they’d picked him. And as long as Evan and Sam kept picking each other, it felt important to honor that choice.

And also because his shadow got in the habit of popping up with the mistletoe at random moments so he and Sam would kiss. Which was nice.

If Christmases could always be like this – no adventures or monsters to fight – Evan thought that might be okay.

[fictionallystable]

Rating: Mature

Fandom: Call of Duty (Video Games)

Relationship: Phillip Graves (Call of Duty)/Reader

Characters: Reader, Phillip Graves (Call of Duty), Original Male Character(s)

Additional Tags: Author Has Played Call of Duty, Childhood Friends, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, slight age gap, Civilian!Reader, Pre-Canon, Jealousy, Angst, Kissing, Time Skips, Slight OOC Graves, Brother's Best Friend.

Words: 1,348 | Chapters: 1/5

Summary:

Your older brother is best friends with Phillip Graves, and you always tagged along on their adventures. As a teen, you hid a fervent crush on Phillip, but it ends in painful heartbreak for you after one tumultuous summer. Many years later, you and Phillip are shocked to re-encounter one another, this time with your hearts fluttering again. But the heartache and broken trust of the past cloud your vision of the man standing in front of you.

A/N: this is a long time coming collab between me and @orphancains, and we finally posted the first chapter. stay tuned for later chapters. can't promise we'll be posting all the chapter each week but we'll try to get it out soon as possible. that being said, enjoy. the fic can also be found on AO3

tags will be updated!!

Chapter 1: The Pool

You ignored the bead sweat trickling down your temple from sitting under the Texas summer sun. There were only a few weeks left of summer break before 7th grade, and you were trying to enjoy it at the park, despite the sun beating down on you. Even your older brother Matty and Phil had wanted to enjoy the day even if they’d both already graduated high school. The two played some light basketball while you sat nearby sketching. After playing for a while, the two of them strode over to you, checking in on you as you quietly concentrated in your sketchbook. 

“I don’t know,” you said to them both as you stared down at your sketch, “I don’t know if it’s worth submitting.”

Phil tsked and took a seat beside you on the grass. He patted your shoulder and furrowed his brow. “Come on. You’re probably one of the best artists I know out of everyone in this city. You’re twelve but you’re better than some of the people in school I know who always brag about their art. Don’t sell yourself short.”

Matty sighed behind both of you. “It’s that our dad has been hounding her about focusing more on math next year. He wants her to be studying with a tutor for her pre-algebra class for this summer instead of this.” Your brother glanced away. “Or make friends…” he muttered quietly, but just enough for Phil to still hear.

Phil rolled his eyes. He was grateful to your dad for letting him linger in his home to hang out with Matty. The Graves family household, a few miles away from yours, was a little bigger, sure. But it was empty. With his parents always gone, his dad was either sending him texts from airports to check in on him every few days and his mom would mainly call him to say she couldn’t attend his football games and track meets because of another work conference. Matty and your parents were kind enough to feed him and sometimes let him sleep over. But he couldn’t help but want to sometimes roll his eyes at how much pressure he put on you and your brother.

“How is submitting a piece of art to a newspaper going to hurt her in pre-alegbra?” Phil looked at your brother unamused. “I don’t wanna be a dick, Matty, but your dad’s a—”

“I know, Phil,” your brother huffed. “You’ve told me before”

“It’s actually an art magazine. It’s MUSE magazine,” you cut in, wanting to stop talking about your dad. “They even said they’ll give us a scholarship, too, if we win. I mean, that’s gotta make dad happy, right?”

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, as he listened to you. He thought about it and shot you a grin hoping it would cheer you up. He couldn’t help but want to see you happy, wanting to see you get the praise and love for your art that you truly deserved. “See?” He glanced quickly at Matty before turning back to you to say, “Yeah, exactly! That’s even more of a reason to submit— even if my advice alone should be enough.” At that, your brother snorted.

At this you turned to look at him, your lips pouting slightly. You still felt unsure about your idea, and he noticed.

“Listen, as soon as you hear back from that magazine, I wanna be the first to hear about it, you understand?” 

You nodded and gave him a small smile. “I will, but what if I lo—”

“Not, gonna happen. I know it won’t,” he stated firmly, as his warm eyes beamed down at you.

Your smile grew more as you leaned your shoulder against his arm. “Thanks, Phil.”

‘ Holyshit… ’ , you thought to yourself as you ran toward the Graves’ home one afternoon. Your parents always reprimanded you for swearing but who cares right now . You clutched tightly onto the new copy of MUSE magazine as your feet hit the pavement. ‘ I actually won !’ You hadn’t bothered to tell Matty or your parents. You wanted to tell Phil first, but he hadn’t come over to visit Matty today—usually Fridays were when they played video games together. You thought it was weird initially but thought nothing of it.

You knocked on the heavy, wooden door, pressed the doorbell multiple times, but he never came to the door. You were confused. ‘ Maybe he’s out back ? ’ , you thought as you trudged over to his backyard’s fence. You were surprised to see it was left slightly ajar, when usually you and Matty always had to wait for Phil to unlock it if you decided to visit his home. Slowly, you nudged the gated fence door open, expecting to see nothing more than the Graves family’s pool, some towering, old trees, and maybe some overgrown grass. But instead your jaw dropped.

By the shining blue pool, Phil had another girl’s hands entangled in his light brown hair. At first you were confused, but you felt your chest tightened when you realized his lips were moving against hers and that his own hands rested on her hips. He was shirtless, his body still drenched in the cool pool water and she wore a light pink bikini. Her own dark red hair was also wet clung to the skin on her pale shoulders. That’s when it hit you: Phil had a girlfriend you didn’t know about, and you’d just walked in on them making out.

You felt your heart stop when from over the girl’s shoulder, you saw Graves’ dark eyes flicker and briefly meet your own. You let out a small gasp, your eyes shifting away quickly. You quickly turned away and your hands clenched tightly around the magazine in your hand, not caring anymore if your artwork featured in it was crushed now. You felt your stomach jolt as you ran back home, fearing you were going to vomit midday in the middle of the street. The red hair. Phil shirtless. The pool. His hands on her hips. The shadows in his eyes. Was that a smirk you saw? Or had you imagined it? It all kept flashing in your head as you jogged back home. You felt like your own brain was torturing you with the images now. 

Back home, as you strode toward your room, your throat tightened. Your lips quivered and you felt the few tears still clinging to your eyes begin to slip through. Matty walked out of his room, about to ask you where you were, when he saw the distress etched on your face. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

You clenched your teeth as you felt the tears begin to flow freely now down your cheeks. You stepped into your room, but turned around to face him. “Nothing’s wrong!” you growled out, before shutting the door loudly in his face and twisting its lock. 

As night fell, you clung tightly to your pillow, your tears staining it as you cried. Your brother continued knocking on the door from time to time, calling your name out in frustration. But no matter what, he couldn’t coax you out of your room. You also didn’t know why you wouldn’t let Matty in. You didn’t even know why your heart broke so much when you saw Phil and that other girl. But from then on, your view of Phil had changed. You didn’t want to face him anymore, to be his brother’s stupid kid sister always lingering around because she had no friends of her own. You were a burden on him. He probably just wanted to hang out with Matty, not you. You wondered, how many times did he want to talk to him about girls or sex, or anything else, and he couldn’t because you were there? 

As you drifted off to sleep, eyes puffy from salty tears, you forgot about the crumpled magazine laying on the ground. Your thoughts only revolved around one idea: You were going to do Phil a favor and avoid him at all costs.