#Is This Offensive And Loud? (2020) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hournites · 1 year ago

Note

for the best friends to lovers prompt- "did that kiss mean anything to you"

hope you are doing well!! i love your writing 🫶🏻

Soundless Spin

“You start.”

Doja Cat blasted through Cindy’s speakers, fancy chandeliers overhead shaking from the noise as Rick eyed the offensive Bud Light in front of him. It pained him that Blue Valley, Nebraska couldn’t shake the 20th century out of its roots–Somehow, even amidst 2020 billboard charts, Jackbox games, and Tiktok trends, the only activity collectively agreed upon tonight was spin the bottle.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes,” said Cindy, already bored at how long he was taking. Why was she facilitating this nonsense–she hates half of the school. That said, Rick also didn’t understand how they scored invites to her party. Or why the girls wanted to go. They might have not been at each other’s throats anymore with the ISA discontinued, but it wasn’t exactly like they were close friends. Since the JSA recovered the true Sylvester’s pickle brain, Rick stopped applying logic in his life when he didn’t need to. Crowded between drunk teens sat in a seance approved circle, everyone waited on Rick to start the game he had assumed was a joke.

“No, you don’t have to,” said Beth reassuringly from across the room, though Rick suspected the second it was her time she’ll nope out. She looked around the group of classmates, sober as a judge. “Please remember that kissing should always be consensual!”

Cindy rolled her eyes. “It's not that serious, Dr. Chapel Jr.” She shrugged in that nonchalant way before she stirred the pot. “Rick might land on Cameron, for all we know.”

Yolanda facepalmed. “We’re supposed to be encouraging Rick, not giving him the ick.”

Cameron shot Yolanda an icy look. She raised a brow in retaliation. “I said what I said.”

Courtney, nestled beside him, placed an ineffective hand on his knee. To Rick, she chanted, “C’mon! Spin, spin, spin, spin!”

Everyone joined in.

“Spin! Spin! Spin!”

“Fine. Fine!” he shouted loud enough to be heard, blowing hot air out of his mouth. “I get it!” He raised both hands in the air to get some of Cindy’s cheerleading friends to stop hollering, their enthusiasm giving him minor concern. “I’m doing it. I’m doing it.”

The empty beer bottle spun tightly around their sitting circle–Rick anticipated disaster, regretting his cave to peer pressure the second his hand lifted away. Anyone but Mahkent. Anyone but Mahkent, he nearly prayed in mounting desperation. It whirled around Yolanda on his right, Becky Sharpe, Cindy and the cheerleaders, tipped past Jenny Williams, slowed by Courtney, and crawled past Cameron until it hesitantly landed on Beth.

Rick jerked his eyes up, meeting her gaze. His heart stopped for, like, a minute. He’d been so caught up in who would be the worst option, he hadn’t had enough time to think what would happen if the bottle landed on one of his friends.

What the hell should I do?

Courtney covered her mouth to hide her giggles. “Wow! Must be fate.”

“Girlie,” Yolanda whisper-mimed, shaking her head and zipping her lips. “Shut up.”

It didn’t matter–Rick easily ignored Courtney cajoling them six ways to Sunday because he couldn’t hear her. The music distorted around them as he tried to pick up on Beth’s cues.

He almost asked her, should I spin again?

Then her lips lifted into a small cheeky smile. Of course, Beth wouldn’t have let herself play if she minded getting a few kisses from this game considering she was the one reminding everyone about consent. And, he came to realize, this would be his first kiss sober. It scratched an itch in his brain to think it would be with Beth. They could laugh it off later.

“Well?” some dude huffed, impatient. “Are you kissing or not?”

Rick cleared his throat. “Beth, are you sure…?”

But she was already making her way towards him, answering his question.

Okay. Welp. We’re doing this.

Instead of shuffling into the middle of the circle like a circus act, Rick let her come to him. Once she was in arm’s reach, he reached forward, hauling Beth into his lap to move her away from a sticky beer spill. It was easier, more comfortable—Less of a spectacle, this way.

“Oof.” She laughed breathlessly as he rearranged their limbs. “Hi there. This is close.”

“Sorry,” he said, embarrassed, ready to shove her off him if she didn’t like it.

Beth touched his hand. “Don’t apologize.” She was right, this was so close. He could count every curly eyelash of hers behind those dark frames. “Did you know this only had a 7% probability of happening?”

Rick inwardly rolled his eyes at her math brain guzzling out computations at a time like this. Why wasn’t she nervous? “I did not. It’ll just be a peck, okay?”

Her brown eyes brightened in the dim party room and she nodded. “Sure!”

Rick cupped her jaw, cautious to be gentle, then tipped her chin up so he could lean down and kiss her.

She was ready for it. She closed her eyes and looped her arms around his neck, meeting his quick peck with another kiss before he could end it. It caught him off guard when Beth let out a tiny sigh.

It felt good. Right. Rick couldn’t pull himself away.

She pushed herself up in his lap and then there was more. Rick’s thumb pressed against her cheek. He hadn’t had anything to drink since they first walked in, but his mind went warm and fuzzy, like that first sip of alcohol down his throat. Everything slowed around them. He didn’t know what they were doing or cared where they were, he just wanted the soft way Beth’s body pretzeled against his, her hand now moving, exploring down his neck to rest over his chest. It wasn’t rushed, or unsure, Beth was taking and he was giving or maybe it was the other way around. She let out another hum, and then there was another long lazy kiss, hypnotic enough for Rick to nearly believe that he had a soul she could’ve kissed out.

“Woah, okay! Ew? Too much.” Jenny W clapped her hands. “Time’s up! Spin again!”

He blinked out of the trance. “What?”

She gave him a shy smile. “That was nice.” Beth slid herself out of his lap seemingly unaffected nor aware of how she had just turned his life upside down.

Nice? That was—Okay. Apparently the most intimate moment in his 18 years was just “nice.” Rick was fucked.

“Yeah,” he croaked out, scared that if he spoke further his voice would crack, the tension between them was still palpable. Say something. You have to say something.

He focused on forming a coherent sentence out of his mouth. They should leave. To do what? He had no idea (yes, he did–her lips, that touch, the perfume on her neck, he needed it memorized). He also needed to process what the hell just happened, and, not surprisingly, Beth was very good at analyzing weird shit that happens to them–but not usually to both of them at the same time.

“You heard me, right? It’s your turn now.” Jenny W thrust the bottle into Beth’s hand, not giving Rick the option to get a word in.

“Oh,” Beth said. “Sorry!”

He watched in stunned silence as she returned to her spot and wordlessly spun again. It landed on a guy from Ms. Woods’ calculus support group and jealousy took a hold of him with an iron fist.

He got up and left, announcing he needed a piss, though the terrible excuse was luckily drowned out by the latest remix. Unable to stomach Beth kissing someone else, the rest of the night blurred like watercolors on a canvas.

Nothing except the bleeding dark pinks of her lips dripped into every corner of his mind, the browns of her soft eyed stare, haunting his sleep. He suffered through the blue phantom-pain of Beth in his lap. The way she moved in it and how boldly he pulled her to him without second-guessing what he was doing.

What was he doing?

~.~

“Assuming the calculations from the goggles are correct, we would have six hours in the pocket dimension.” Beth wrote notes to follow her thinking on the Pit Stop whiteboard with a green marker, her goggles projecting a diagram. “That’s one hour in our dimension, meaning hypothetically your hourglass won’t time out.

“Got it,” Rick agreed without understanding, miserably distracted by the fact this was his first moment alone with Beth since Spin the Bottle. Thick tension returned with a vengeance. He could taste how bad he wanted her to like him. Every time she caught his eye Rick was certain he’d need a fire extinguisher to douse his hot heart within him. He sat on the table, his fingers tapping anxiously against the wood surface, really wanting to kiss her again.

She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head like she didn’t quite believe him. Rightly so. He didn’t believe him, and that posed a risk for the JSA tomorrow. “Any questions, then?”

“I don’t think so.”

Beth folded her arms. “Really?”

“Fine. Yeah. One.”

She looked relieved. “Let’s hear it.” She turned around and wrote QUESTIONS on the board and set out to underline it.

“Did that kiss mean anything to you?”

Beth’s impeccable marker line careened to a crooked left. Slowly, she turned around. “That has nothing to do with our pocket dimension trip.”

“You asked if I had any questions.”

“Yes, you did. Fair enough.” She sighed in a way Rick couldn’t tell was wistful or annoyed. “Our kiss, you mean?”

“Yes, our kiss.” Even calling it a kiss, as he had in his brain the last few days, was very modest. There was not just one kiss. There were several kisses. It was an experience.

“Of course it meant something to me,” she said primly. The marker cap pressed into her inner-palm. “That was my first kiss.”

“That’s it?”

She glanced away, fixating on the antiquated mugshots of Per Degatron’s goonies, finally starting to look as nervous as Rick felt. “What more do you want me to say? It was nice.”

He almost winced—There she went again. It was nice. For a girl with her vocabulary, that wasn’t promising.

“It was a nice kiss,” she continued in his stretched silence, “and I’m glad I had it with you. I didn’t think the bottle would ever land on me, or that I would want to play until they made you go first. I’m pretty sure I went into it wanting to watch.”

He furrowed his brows, trying to read between the lines. If she didn’t want to play unless he went first, then why did she continue with her turn afterwards? She must’ve used him to boost her confidence and practice kissing, not realizing he’d read into it so much. Now Rick felt stupid.

“You’re hurt,” she said. He was about to argue, but there really wasn’t any point. Not when his voice would probably crack as he denied it. He cursed the accuracy of the mood reader still embedded in her goggles. Sensing his lingering wariness at the object above her hair, she took the goggles off and laid them aside. An offering that she wouldn’t leverage her emotional advantages in this conversation. She used the stool to step up onto the table, taking a seat next to him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you how you feel.”

“It’s okay.”

“It doesn’t have to be okay. Wasn’t it just a game?”

His hand inched closer to hers until their fingers brushed. She leaned against his side. He felt a strange catch in his breath as the warmth of her closeness untied some of the knots in his stomach. Beth was beautiful and sweet, and always bursting with compassion. How could he pretend he wasn’t falling for that? “It was supposed to be.”

She looked up at him.

“But..it wasn’t.” He met her stare and swallowed hard. “It wasn’t for me.” He dragged a hand over his forehead in disbelief he managed to say it out loud. He summoned the strength to keep going. “It wasn’t a game. It wasn’t just nice, it was…I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want it to stop. I felt like we clicked in that moment and I woke up from sleepwalking through feelings I have for you.”

Beth didn’t say anything, like his confession knocked the wind out of her. “You like me?”

He groaned softly. “It’s embarrassing, I know.”

“No! No, no it’s not,” she objected, squeezing the hand nearest to hers, but Rick didn’t think he could handle her breaking his heart so softly.

“Can you just tell me if I need to get over you?”

“I’m not doing that.” Beth sat up straight. “I called the kiss nice because I didn’t know how else to explain how I felt. I was inexperienced and surprised at myself. I won’t lie, the thought of kissing you excited me, but I thought that was because I trust you, so it would’ve been an easy way to get my first kiss out of the way.”

Rick started to smile, thinking back on what she said. “You calculated that 7% chance.”

“I did, and then that happened. I didn’t know if that’s how kissing always felt like or if it was because it was you. So I kept playing and I had a few more turns after you left, okay, but none of those kisses were like ours. But I knew you hated the game, left right after kissing me, and intended to only give me a peck,” she repeated the last fact with fake quotation marks. “I was the one that got carried away. I was the one that was embarrassed. It was easier if I pretended it didn’t happen so I wouldn’t make things weird.”

It was such a relief to hear her say that they were on the same page. “So what do we do now?”

“Well, first, we need to go over the pocket dimension because I know you were not paying attention, which I thought was because you were feeling uncomfortable but now I think it is because you were staring at my skirt.”

“Holy shit.” Rick scratched behind his neck as heat crawled up his face. This was perilous and exhilarating new ground. He liked Beth and she knew it. He was attracted to her and she could feel it. “Uh, I plead the fifth?”

Beth laughed and flashed him that same flirty grin from the party. “But as for right now?” Rick knew he was either in for trouble or a really, really good time. “I can think of a few ideas.”

She unearthed the green marker from her pocket and gave it a spin.

#stargirl #hn talks #hournite #dctv #ask #hn fic #fluff #rick x beth #I am so glad I can post this because I had that spin the bottle scene in my drafts since 2020 probably

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princesssarisa · 9 months ago

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Autism headcanon: Runt (Animaniacs)

Maybe this is cheating. Maybe this is less of a headcanon than it is canon in all but name, because Runt's voice and verbal tics are based on an explicitly autistic movie character: Dustin Hoffman's character Raymond Babbitt from Rain Man. This is probably why he and Rita were left out of the 2020 Animaniacs reboot, since it's not very PC to have a goofy cartoon dog caricature an autistic movie character's speech patterns.

Still, I've always liked Runt and I still do. Until I saw someone else point it out, it never occurred to me that his autistic-seeming mannerisms could be offensive. As a person on the spectrum myself, I've always found him relatable.

Here are the reasons why:

*He compulsively repeats sentences and words – especially his favorite word, "definitely."

*He often talks out loud to himself.

*His physical actions can be compulsive too. For example, when someone throws a ball, he has to chase it. Or when he sees a dangling tablecloth, he has to charge at it and tug it with his teeth. And almost every time he hears the word "cat," he goes into a wild, snarling rage, threatening to tear it to pieces... yet never once realizing that his best friend Rita is a cat.

*While he doesn't usually show the savant skills of his Rain Man counterpart, he does show a hint of them now and then. For example, when he points out that a rock pile contains 147 rocks, or when he instantly identifies a dish of fish as Mahi-Mahi.

*He's very literal-minded and doesn't understand sarcasm. This causes headaches for Rita, since he constantly misunderstands her sarcastic remarks.

*He tends to be oblivious to the world around him, and he often doesn't recognize danger or notice when a seemingly friendly person is behaving suspiciously. This is why Rita needs to look out for him. That said, he's not completely clueless, and rises to the occasion whenever Rita or someone else he cares about is threatened.

*His debut episode implies that he's never responded to normal training methods. Despite being an adult dog, he's still not housebroken and still chews things, which is why his owner abandoned him at the pound.

*Despite his sweet nature and devotion to Rita, he sometimes shows an innocent lack of empathy and obliviousness to Rita's discomfort. For example, when he shakes rain water onto her, or eats food that she was about to eat, or doesn't notice when a human is mistreating her as long as he's being treated well. This is all naïve and unintentional, however, and in the rare moments when he realizes he's upset Rita, he's always contrite.

*Sometimes in scary situations, when the obvious thing to do would be to spring into action, he freezes up instead. For example, the first time Rita fights the Nazi dog in "Puttin' on the Blitz," or when Ross Perot almost falls over the waterfall in "Icebreakers." That said, he always comes through and takes action when it matters most – namely whenever Rita is in danger.

*He seems to particularly like music and find it comforting, especially Rita's songs. He can even hear the word "cat" without going into a berserker rage as long as Rita sings it. But then, who wouldn't be soothed by her beautiful voice?

#animaniacs #cartoon #autism headcanon #runt #runt the dog #rita and runt #frank welker #rain man #tw: dustin hoffman #autism #autism spectrum #headcanon

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 10 months ago

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I read Lee Mack's autobiography in 2020, when I did not have the knowledge of comedy to have recognized the person he's talking about in this passage. But a friend of mine is reading his book now, and has reminded of this very nice passage from the book:

I actually vaguely remember reading this passage in 2020, and vaguely thinking maybe I should look that guy up, and then not doing that. Did not get into Kitson until two years later. But I'm glad I got to read that story now that I can appreciate it more. The last line of the second last paragraph, about wishing he could say that even more now that he knows how offensive it would be, made me laugh out loud.

He was talking about this, by the way:

youtube

The 1999 BBC New Comedy Awards, with finals that were shown on TV and are now on YouTube, featuring Lee Mack and Daniel Kitson as finalists, Barry Cryer as a judge (as mentioned in Lee's book), and (spoiler alert) Julian Barratt as the finalist who ended up winning. It's a pretty fun watch if you're interested in any of those things.

And we do, of course, know that Lee Mack would go on to get to know Daniel Kitson better. Due to The Greatest Video On All Of YouTube.

youtube

The video doesn't even actually feature Kitson because he seems to have not been there that day, but it is of a league that he organized (and it was filmed in the sports complex just down the road from where Kitson was living at the time, don't worry about why I know that or how many locations that were frequently referenced in old stand-up shows I've looked up on Google Earth), featuring Lee Mack hitting soccer balls with his head.

Hang on, I have another piece of evidence of Daniel Kitson and Lee Mack technically existing in the same universe, despite being wildly different people. According to this clip from The Bugle, they were still playing soccer together by the day Obama was inaugurated in 2009:

This post has devolved into any excuse to post vaguely Chocolate Milk Gang-related content (Lee Mack was very much not Chocolate Milk Gang, but I enjoy finding tiny morsels of his crossover with them as it seems like an unlikely combination), but the point is that that story about Kitson from his autobiography is quite funny and worth reading. That was the point.

#Youtube

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mikasa-stan · 2 months ago

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Im piggilybacking off of the sukufushi anon's post but i do want to talk about how most of the english fandom likes.megumi over yuuji (which fine to esch their own) and the only way they can show it? By shittalking.... not actually creating anything for megumi just.... shittalking yuuji.

Its the complete opposite in the japanese and a few ither asian communities, ive heard they love yuuji and dislike megumi. But ive never seen them shit talk nearly as much as westerners do.

Likw you'd think theyd go and create an au or a fanfic to live their fantasies but they dont even do that.

Ive been in all dofferent types of fandoms since the early 2000s but this trend of just dissing other characters happens alot more nowadays, it makes me not want to interact with fandoms, and its almost always either normies who got into anime during covid.

It sucks because people just feel entitled to bitch about anything they like instead of focusing on what they love.

Hello, sorry, this is a late answer but yeah it sucks. I'm mostly on the Eastern fandom and I just can't meet on the same line with the Western. It just hurts me to see their opinion about Yuuji. Like, nooo.. he's the sweetest character. But it's also funny how I'm the opposite with Megumi. I don't hate him tho but he's just fine. I don't like some of his fans tho lol. And if they're gonna ship skfs, why don't they stay there instead of batshitting Yuuji? Their opinions about him can be so disgusting.

And yes, you're right about the new phase of the fandom culture. It's less sensitive way back on 2015. I was 10 at that time and there were less criticisms and people were just having fun. But now, people are just dissing each other and what I don't get with the Western fandom is that they feel the need to slander a character. I don't like how some Westerners that are vocal on things that are unnecessary and worse is the misconception of the characters. Like, okay, people have different interpretations, but how they voice them out like facts is so irritating to me. And yes, I absolutely hate the drastic change of fandom culture in 2020. A lot of people have time on their hands and the fandom fell into the normies that people forget how to have fun without criticisms. Like, no offense to the normies, but I hate them having to call out literally unnecessary things.

I like the Eastern fandom more bc they are more chill. While the Western fandom is so fucking loud lmao. Tho, I like Westerners who have the same perspective as I am.

#sukuita #fandom

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joslincox · 3 months ago

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The Bratty Teenage Daughter Trope in Cartoons

Max Goof from A Goofy Movie and An Extremely Goofy Movie, as well as on occasion on Goof Troop, qualifies as a male example. He cares about his popularity and image, loudly complains about minor inconveniences, and is somewhat materialistic, as shown when he expresses envy for his friend who has cool stuff but not a good home life. Most of the time this shows up, however, he learns to appreciate what he has... for now.

Kootie Pie from The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World (1991) is the only Koopa Kid to make "King Dad" sweat via tantrum.

Angelica in All Grown Up! after being a Bratty Half-Pint in Rugrats. In the 1st show, there was Susie's sister Alisa, especially in "The Last Babysitter".

Katie Ka-Boom of Animaniacs. She was more short-tempered and impatient than particularly bratty, though, and was sweet and cute when she wasn't angry.. The 2020 reboot also has one, Cora, who is shown to be upset at having her sixteenth birthday ruined.

Catherine from Arthur in her first appearances. She matures in later episodes though.

Caprice the goth teenager from The Crumpets is into fashion and liking boys, but she does remarkably rude things, gets frustrated, and can extravagantly gush when she can't get things the way she wants. She may hate "this world" or herself, the latter case maybe going into suicidal territory.

Quinn Morgendorffer from Daria, as well as Sandi Griffin, who is also an Alpha Bitch. Quinn, at least, grows out of it a bit.

Candy of Dave the Barbarian. Dave and the other lampshade her many attributes with incredible familiarity.

Judy Funnie of Doug is this sometimes, when she's not being a Cloudcuckoolander or Cool Big Sis. Beebe Bluff too, in the Disney version, anyway.

This was the original characterization of Meg Griffin from Family Guy, which was justified by the desire to gain acceptance from her high school peers.

In the short-lived God, the Devil and Bob, Megan qualifies as one, which her mother revels in when Megan, over her objections, tries to adopt a disobedient dog, complaining about it behaving the same way she tends to.

Trina Riffin of Grojband is an exaggerated take to the point of being downright evil in her self-centered, overdramatic attitude. In fact, Grojband gets the inspiration for their songs' lyrics from her angst-filled diary entries. However, it's been hinted that she wasn't always this way.

Judy Jetson of The Jetsons. She sometimes acts much like a typical rebellious American teenage daughter whose interests include clothes, hanging out with boys, and revealing secrets to her diary.

Discussed In The Legend of Korra episode "A Leaf in the Wind" when Tenzin expresses frustration with his teenaged live-in Airbending student, Korra (the fact she's the reincarnation of his father Aang provides a very odd family dynamic). After his daughters witness a particularly bad bout where Korra insults Tenzin's teaching skills, Tenzin tries to avoid the inevitable.

Lori Loud of The Loud House tends to get uptight when things don't go her way. Justified, given her Valley Girl tendencies.

For a non-Valley Girl example, Lynn Jr. She's a Passionate Sports Girl who will often resort to Tantrum Throwing over the pettiest of offenses like losing a board game.

Miraculous Ladybug: Chloé Bourgeois’ father André is not only Mayor of Paris but also a hotel owner. It’s no surprise she’s spoiled and used to getting what she wants, throwing tantrums, or doing petty things out of revenge when she doesn’t. She gets it from her mother.

Serenity Zilla from My Dad the Rock Star, who's spoiled by the rich lifestyle of being a famous rock star's daughter. However, she does have her moments showing she's not quite as shallow or self-centered as she seems.

My Life as a Teenage Robot: Downplayed, but Jenny occasionally acts like a bratty teenage delinquent towards her mother Dr. Nora Wakeman if she doesn’t get her way.

Ozzy & Drix (2012): Ozzy was this as a teenager, as he only cared about shopping for clothes, idolizing artists like My Chemical Romance (Gerard Way in particular) and Avril Lavigne, swooning over his girlfriend Leah Estrogen, delivering comebacks to his popular Mayor brother, Paul Spryman, and arguing with his police chief dad. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to turn a bratty teenage cell into a cop just because of his family's legacy.

Peppermint Rose has Rose start out as this, and she learns to put others' needs before her own.

Candace Flynn of Phineas and Ferb. High-strung, to boot. Though she's a more minor example. A more major one from the show would be Vanessa, but having an "evil" goofball for a father would do that to any girl.

Martha DeBoar in Pig City is concerned solely with things that benefit her, and takes pleasure in things that negatively impact her brother and cousin in any way

Becky Detweiler in Recess at times. By the end of the movie, she gets better, and is back to the way she was for the DTV movie "Taking the Fifth Grade".

On South Park, Stan's sister Shelley has been this, but it has become progressively less and less covert.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Mr. Krabs' daughter Pearl often falls into this category. She's regularly crying about mild inconveniences and has little patience for Mr. Krabs' weirder quirks even beyond his greed

Gems in Steven Universe are The Ageless, but some of them certainly look and act like teenage girls:

Amethyst is the "rebellious teen" of the Crystal Gems and is frequently at odds with Pearl, the "mother" of the team.

Flashbacks show Pearl acting rather petulant when she was younger, mostly towards Greg, especially for things involving Rose.

After Lapis Lazuli is defused from Malachite, she has a consistent attitude of apathy and untrusting aloofness. She shows a warmer side toward Steven and, eventually, Peridot.

A flashback dream in "Jungle Moon" reveals Pink Diamond to have been a mix of this and Annoying Younger Sibling to Yellow Diamond, with Yellow Diamond acting like an Aloof Big Sis who gets fed up when her bratty fellow Diamond gets in the way of her work. Pink Diamond, clearly trying to get Yellow's attention, whines that she deserves her own army and colony since she's a Diamond and thus just as important as Yellow Diamond. Yellow Diamond snaps that Pink Diamond sure isn't acting very important. The dream ends with Pink Diamond smashing a window in hurt frustration. And by the way, Pink is about twelve feet tall, but still completely dwarfed by the other Diamonds

Molly from Taz-Mania is Taz's younger sister, who despite being more refined than him, often shares his vicious nature, though in a more Sibling Rivalry sense. She loves the boy band New Chips off the Block and worries constantly about her image.

Kitten from Teen Titans (2003), daughter of the supervillain Killer Moth, who forces her father to threaten Robin into taking her to her junior prom.

Amanda Duff, Elmyra's older sister from the Tiny Toon Adventures episodes, "Take Elmyra Please" and "Grandma's Dead".

Debbie Thornberry from The Wild Thornberrys, who would be anywhere except travelling the world to film wild animals with the rest of her family. Though she's at least a little smarter than the average.

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nokingsonlyfooles · 11 months ago

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I'm staring to get scared...

I've been scared, but let me unpack this for people who don't understand me as well as my spouse...

Oh. Good. Yay. Right? Justice?

No.

Biden, in a statement, said his actions would help make the "promise of equal justice a reality." ...The pardon also does not apply to those in the U.S. unlawfully at the time of their offense.

Here's the thing: If the law is unfair (and it is) is it fair to say, Well, only #Real Americans deserve to have that unfairness addressed? Is "equal justice" the intent here?

Justice isn't a goddamn bag of Oreos. It is good for you. You don't have to seal up the bag and go, "Ya know, that's enough for right now. Don't want to eat the whole thing in one sitting! Let's save the undocumented immigrants, who are also disproportionately punished based on race and class, for later." No! You're not done yet! You're not allowed to pick out the ones you don't like and call yourself fair and just! And, btw, the unopened bags of Justice have been piling up around here for quite some time. You have a lot more to do.

And, if we're going to look at this in the spirit of bipartisan compromise (between two parties who keep saying the other party is trying to destroy democracy?!?) I'm not comfortable with who has been assigned the consequences of the compromising. Neither are a lot of other people who share my heritage. The US government is looking to legislate more people into illegality even as we speak. I think the decision has been made on who's going under the bus so that "democracy" can continue. It's (among others) the folks fleeing political unrest and violence fomented by the US out of anti-communist paranoia, social scapegoating, and a desire for cheaper fucking bananas.

It is possible to legislate "these people don't belong here" without banging on a podium and screaming about ultranationalism and polluted blood. That's the way we've done it for generations, only Trump started saying the quiet part loud and some folks got nervous.

I'm pretty fucking nervous, too, but for vastly different reasons.

This is a cold equation. This is being pushed through and publicized in the runup to the election. Biden is a friend to American Voters and let's define who those are and who they should be concerned with.

My fiction-based musing on trolley problems and who we're willing to throw under the bus to save someone who matters to us is still unpublished. Probably will be for a couple more months. But it has been on my mind because I'm seeing it play out in real life, again and again and again. We are exhausted from pulling levers and deciding who dies. A lot of us don't even consider it anymore. We accept the premise that politics means somebody has to die, and we pick a victim who bothers us the least. But how are you deciding who bothers you the least? And is that okay? And why do we have to keep doing it?

I will accept that we can't save everyone. The decisions come fast, and the decision-making process is slow. But this thing where we create law-breakers and then shrug and go, "Oh, well. They have less value to society," is some bullshit. And if you didn't notice that before, the messaging of, "It's no longer expedient to do this to marijuana-users, so let's do it to border-crossers - but, shhh, don't report it that way," should hammer that home. It's just another dog whistle for a racialized minority, one that apparently didn't turn out quite enough for the Democrats in 2020.

You don't have to wait for Trump to see politicians taking it out on their enemies while in office. It's just that the professional, civil ones confine their retribution to whoever the American public is willing to throw away. It's not personal. It's political. YOU get to decide who we kill next November! Well, we've already reached an agreement on immigrants, Palestinians, women, and Blacks - but you can raise or lower the volume on their screaming, and decide whether the folks in charge are gleeful or disapproving. And is there anyone else you (the majority of voters) are willing to lose? We're always listening! Just let us know! We may need to kill a few more people in the spirit of bipartisan compromise and we'd like to upset you as little as possible.

I can't accept that this is the cost of doing business anymore. I'm fucking ashamed I accepted it for so long in the first place.

And... And I'm terrified of sitting up here and watching voters mechanically make choices between ever larger groups of potential victims as the only options on the ballot conspire to rack up the price.

#us news #politics #i have got to stop reading the goddamn news before bed #haha but this headline seemed so positive!#bam! right outta left field! oh they've decided “illegals” are the problem now #and they're not going to give me a box to check to say “no they're not”#now what?

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coralsgrimes · 1 year ago

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I know we knew this but it’s incredibly offensive that Ben thinks people are stupid enough to buy that Bulianne is over when he is continuing to follow her closest friends on IG even though he unfollowed her and made the effort to unlike posts dating back to 2020. It’s also pretty insulting to her, tbh. The way his fans are only worth the $$ they give him (in his POV) is an unfortunate truth but I guess he’s going full asshole and saying the quiet part out loud now lol.

I mean like he made his life out of his fangirls and finding them stupid and beneath him is part of the transaction soo...

It was always like so but ye know since they led him to believe they can sponsor his vanity music projects he just stopped pretending altogether

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haleigh-sloth · 2 years ago

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Dabi and endeavor for the duo bingo

Extra emphasis on the wasp nest, because youch.

It is very, very, VERY complicated.

They absolutely do make each other worse. Endeavor is too scared to face what he’s done which makes Touya worse, Touya is burning to a crisp and causing mayhem which makes Endeavor too scared (ashamed, idk you pick the word) to face what he’s done, which makes Touya worse. It’s an awful cycle that desperately needs to be broken. I think that moment is coming soon.

Discourse because it’s hard to outright say out loud that Touya is jealous of his little brother and that was the focus of his pain for why he didn’t return home without people taking personal offense to that. It’s a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people but, man, that’s definitely what we’ve got. And ignoring it—which a lot of people do—isn’t gonna make it go away? Lol.

It also gets misconstrued when I say like “Touya wants his dad’s attention and that will help him stop in his suicidal tracks” to “Touya shouldn’t NEED his dad’s attention to move on 🙄”. No fucking shit, but he’s a character on a page and I didn’t write the damn manga.

Touya was written in a way that’s not…catering to everybody. He’s certainly written well though. Imo his character was so easily sold to me in the most minimal amount of chapters. Combine the two hospital chapters and chapter 350 and 351, and I got it. I understand who he is, what he wants, why he’s hurting. God damn.

I’m excited for the conclusion with these two. I’ve been waiting since *checks watch* November 5, 2020 for Endeavor to play his role and for all the bullshit his character comes with, to fucking pay off finally.

#bnha #anonymous #bnha asks #character bingo #ask game #Todoroki touya #dabi #todoroki enji #endeavor

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dykecubes · 9 months ago

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@le-tiny-tato basically back in 2020 or so there was this big meme about Tommy’s content being for the lesbians (this was during the woman loving era in his content) which then sort of morphed into people calling Tommy himself a lesbian as a joke, it was a popular meme which was created by and for other lesbians who liked his content but it did still cause a lot of discourse, this came to a head in one stream where people in his chat started jokingly saying he was gay, to which he responded that he loves women (of course), then someone in the chat said “can’t believe Tommy’s a lesbian” and he paused for a couple minutes after reading it out loud before ultimately deciding he wasn’t going to play into the joke

This spurred a TON of discourse which, in all honesty, was really silly, people got pissed at him for a “offensive” joke that he didn’t even make and it resulted in a lot of people spewing a lot of borderline or just outright terf rhetoric

The same thing later happened again during a stream where Tommy made a joke about loving women again, then after it said “I get lesbians” (meaning, he understands their attraction to women), iirc right after this he realized what it sounded like and corrected himself but it was already clipped to hell and back and there was just. Soooo much discourse. On one side there were people who knew he meant that he understood them saying “you can never understand lesbians because you’re a man” (that terf rhetoric coming back) and on the other hand you have people who saw the clip fully out of context and thought that he meant something along the lines of he can “turn” lesbians (which would be an understandable thing to get angry about but again. Context)

Tommyinnit inadvertently collecting every LGBTQ+ identity for himself despite being a cishet man is the funniest thing in the world, first he gets cancelled for being a lesbian, then he gets gay married to tubbo and writes fanfiction about how sad he is that he won’t kiss him with tongue, now apparently terfs think he’s trans because he got ball surgery??

“‘This [person] is LGBTQ+’ what, all at once” is about him, he’s the final boss of allyship

#i thought everyone knew abt this but luckily I love talking abt old stupid mcyt discourse so here we are #/lh #I hope this was helpful!#fae.txt

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arpov-blog-blog · 10 months ago

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Hopium Chronicles

Stocks In Record Territory, Trump Is An Extraordinary Risk For GOP Part 2, Loud and Proud, People

Our Monthly Hopium-Wide Gathering Is Wed, 8pm EST - Tom Suozzi Is The Special Guest!

SIMON ROSENBERG- JAN 23, 2024

..."All Three Stock Indices In Record Territory, Dow Breaks 38,000 For First Time Ever - The run of remarkable economic news continues this week as the Dow broke 38,000 for the first time, and all 3 major stock market indices have now been in record territory. It’s worth recapping what we’ve seen in recent weeks:

Best job market since the 1960s, stock market setting records (401Ks are happy), best recovery in the G7, consumer sentiment rising

The inflation fueled by COVID/supply chain disruptions, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and OPEC price hikes has ended, and we are now in a place much closer to historic norms. Prices for many items are falling including groceries, gas, rents and mortgage rates

Historically elevated wage growth, new business formation and prime-age worker participation rates. In the last few months we’ve seen some of the most robust real wage growth we’ve seen in decades, and Americans at all income levels have seen sizeable increases in their overall net worth

Lowest uninsured rate in history, record ACA signups this year

Renewable and domestic oil production set records in 2023, US more energy independent than its been in decades. In 2023 the US produced more oil than any country has in any year in history

The investments Biden has made will creating prosperity for America and opportunities for American workers for decades to come

The annual deficit is trillions less than when Biden came to office

For young people the job market is the best since the 1960s; more young people have health insurance today than ever before; the President has forgiven more than $130b in student debt; by some measure home ownership rates are higher for Gen Z than Gen X and Millennials at this point in their lives; and rising minimum wages in states and cities across the US have created higher floors for new and entry-level workers than in many years.

The US economy is taking away the Republican Party’s central indictment of Biden. In my new With Dems presentation I show how much better the economy does when Democrats are in office, for we are far better at this capitalism thing than the Rs. In this post I show that Americans are remarkably content with their lives, work, and incomes, and��a new Axios poll finds broad satisfaction right now with people’s own finances.

Need to go on offense here, peeps, be loud and proud. Joe Biden took over the country in a time of COVID, a deep recession and insurrection, and his central promise to us was that he could get us to the other side, successfully. He has kept that promise; we are far better off today; the Democratic Party is the party of growth, opportunity, fiscal responsibility and progress; the Republican Party remains the party of recession, higher deficits and American decline. Let’s be shouting all this from the rooftops people, working all this through our networks and work together to drown out the poisonous pessimism and never ending BS coming from the other side.

The national chatter has been dramatically over-discounting Trump’s historic negatives and misdeeds in their assessment of 2024. He is a weaker candidate than he was in 2016 or 2020. He is far more degraded, extreme, dangerous. His performance on the stump is far more erratic and unhinged. He keeps making deeply consequential unforced errors like coming out against the ACA and admitting he ended Roe. He is a historically bad man, the worst to ever run for President in our history. He is also in my view a historically bad candidate, and Republicans are making a huge mistake in nominating him this year.

Donald Trump is not strong. He is weak, unfit, a disgrace - and we are going to kick his ass, together, this year.

A Reminder About The Polls - Donald Trump Does Not Lead Nationally Or In The Battlegrounds, The Democratic Coalition Has Not Fallen Apart, It Is Very Unlikely Isreal-Hamas War Plays A Major Role In The 2024 Election - Ok, going to do this as quickly as I can - one can only say a trend is a trend if all or a large majority of polls show the same results. Where many went wrong in 2022 was they made conclusions about the election based on what some but not all polls were showing. In 2022 Tom Bonier and I showed there was a lot of data challenging the red wave theory, and that it would be a close, competitive election. However many analysts dismissed that data and stuck to the data that confirmed the red wave. And they were wrong, and where their mistake lay was not in acknowledging this other data out there which showed a different outcome in the election than they had forecast. Not all the data pointed in the same direction in 2022, and it is not all pointing in the same direction now. So caution was required then, and it is required now, too."

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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Meduza's The Beet: The fall of Nagorno-Karabakh

In today’s dispatch, we’re turning to Nagorno-Karabakh, the mountainous enclave in the South Caucasus that, until two weeks ago, was home to the breakaway Republic of Artsakh. Although internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, the region and its predominantly ethnic Armenian population had been under a de facto separatist government since the 1990s. This resulted from a bloody war — fought from 1988 to 1994— that saw Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia pitted against Azerbaijan, coinciding with the Soviet Union’s dissolution. (However, the region’s disputed history stretches back much further than that. You can read more about it here and here.)

The First Nagorno-Karabakh War, as it is now known, killed around 30,000 people on both sides and displaced more than a million others as Armenians left Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis fled Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and seven adjacent territories that came under Armenian control. In the decades after the 1994 ceasefire, intermittent deadly clashes continued along the line of separation, escalating into intense fighting in April 2016 and then all-out war in September 2020. The hostilities lasted just six weeks but resulted in more than 7,000 military and around 170 civilian casualties. More than 130,000 people were displaced from their homes, mostly Karabakh Armenians who returned by the thousands after a peace deal was reached.

Three years on, we are witnessing a mass exit once again — one that marks the end of the self-declared Artsakh Republic. It began on September 19, when Baku launched a lightning offensive that forced Stepanakert’s surrender overnight. In the days after, nearly the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh fled to Armenia in a 100,000-person exodus that the European Parliament says “amounts to ethnic cleansing.” Truth be told, this week’s story was in the works well before Azerbaijan retook the breakaway region, as a follow-up to our March report on the humanitarian crisis brought on by the Lachin corridor blockade. Of course, the events of the last two weeks called for additional reporting and rewrites, as the hypotheticals we set out to discuss with experts became a reality. And so, for The Beet, journalist Teresa Di Mauro recounts how the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh happened slowly, and then all at once.

Lusine Hambardzumyan was at her office in Stepanakert when Azerbaijani forces began attacking Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19.

“The children were at school, and I was sitting at work. Suddenly, we heard some loud, intense sound of bombs. It was horrific,” Lusine recalls.

The strikes were a frightening disruption to Lusine’s already fragile daily routine. The Nagorno-Karabakh region — an enclave internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but home to a self-governing and predominantly ethnic Armenian population — had been under an Azerbaijani blockade for more than nine months. The resulting humanitarian crisis was dire, and months of contending with shortages of food and other essentials had left Lusine and her compatriots exhausted.

As Azerbaijani troops blitzed the regional capital with drones and artillery, videos showing damage to Stepanakert’s residential areas slowly began appearing online. Widespread Internet outages were hindering communication, leaving locals cut off from each other as the offensive unfolded around them. Within hours, Azerbaijani troops had broken through the front line and encircled several of Nagorno-Karabakh’s strategic settlements.

A store damaged by shelling in Stepanakert during Azerbaijan’s offensive on September 19–20, 2023

AIK ARUTUNYAN / IMAGO / SNA / SCANPIX / LETA

Children in a shelter during shelling in Stepanakert. September 20, 2023.

SIRANUSH SARGSYAN / AP / SCANPIX / LETA

“I don’t know what is happening. I am at the university. They’re bombing us,” Larisa Nersisyan wrote in a message that reached The Beet’s correspondent hours after the attack began. Larisa, a student, was in class at Artsakh State University at the time and couldn’t get in contact with her loved ones. “I don’t know where my family members are. There is no connection here,” she said.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s unrecognized government, the Republic of Artsakh, capitulated within 24 hours, announcing on September 20 that it had agreed to a ceasefire.

In a televised speech, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev declared that Baku had restored its sovereignty with an “iron fist.”

‘A humanitarian catastrophe’

The fall of Nagorno-Karabakh didn’t actually happen overnight.

The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the region, which goes back decades, escalated into a full-blown war in the early 1990s and again in the fall of 2020.

The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War lasted 44 days, ending with a Moscow-brokered ceasefire that saw Azerbaijan regain part of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories it had lost in the 1990s. To maintain the ceasefire, Russia deployed peacekeepers to the region. But this didn’t prevent intermittent skirmishes and tensions were rising again by 2022. That September, renewed hostilities along the border with Azerbaijan spilled over into towns in southeastern Armenia and left hundreds of soldiers dead.

Bursts of explosions during fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces near Shusha. Nagorno-Karabakh, November 5, 2020.

AP / SCANPIX / LETA

A man kisses the walls of his home in Karvachar, Nagorno-Karabakh, before abandoning it. November 12, 2020. (The Karvachar district was ceded to Azerbaijan under the 2020 peace agreement with Armenia.)

ALEX MCBRIDE / GETTY IMAGES

Just a few short weeks later, however, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held talks with Azerbaijan’s Aliyev in Prague, after which they released a joint statement recognizing the territorial integrity of each other’s countries. According to Ahmad Alili, thedirector of the Baku-based Caucasus Policy Analysis Centre, this signaled to Azerbaijan that the recent flare-up had “paid off.”

Then, in December, Baku-backed activists blocked the Lachin Corridor — the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. The blockade left Karabakh residents stranded without access to essential supplies and services, paving the way for a humanitarian crisis. International calls to end the blockade poured in from the European Union, the United States, Russia, and the United Nations. But Baku ignored them, arguing that Nagorno-Karabakh was an internal affair.

After Azerbaijan installed a checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor in April, Pashinyancondemned the move as part of a “policy of ethnic cleansing.” Nevertheless, the prime minister continued to reiterate Armenia’s readiness to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan — with the caveat that any peace agreement must ensure the “rights and security” of Karabakh Armenians and provide “international guarantees” for direct talks between Baku and Stepanakert.

Russian peacekeepers block a road outside Stepanakert. December 24, 2022.

DAVIT GHAHRAMANYAN / AFP / SCANPIX / LETA

Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanyan, reported the first death from starvation on August 15. In an interview with The Beet about a month later — coincidentally on the very eve of Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive — Stepanyan said Nagorno-Karabakh was experiencing “a humanitarian catastrophe.”

“People are not able to find food for their families,” he explained. “We also face huge problems in the healthcare sphere [...] All pharmacies are completely empty. All surgeries are suspended.”

Humanitarian aid supplies through the Lachin Corridor had also resumed that day for the first time since June 15. But Stepanyan warned that the deliveries were woefully inadequate. “The 120,000 people of Nagorno-Karabakh, including 30,000 children, cannot rely on humanitarian aid for a long time,” he underscored.

A woman and her son have dinner by candlelight at their home in Stepanakert. January 18, 2023.

EDGAR HARUTYUNYAN / PAN PHOTO / AP / SCANPIX / LETA

Empty shelves in a Stepanakert pharmacy. Winter 2023.

NANA MARTIROSYAN

‘Leaving would be like betrayal’

A month into the Nagorno-Karabakh blockade, in January 2023, President Aliyev suggested that anyone unwilling to take Azerbaijani citizenship should leave the region. “The road is not closed; it’s open,” he insisted. “They can leave. No one will hinder them.”

At this juncture, the prospect of leaving Nagorno-Karabakh was unthinkable to most local Armenians. And this remained the case even as the humanitarian situation deteriorated in the spring and summer of 2023. “Most of these people want to live here,” Stepanyan told The Beet on September 18. “They want to live in their homes. Everything they have is here.”

When interviewed in early September, both Lusine and Larisa said they and their families intended to stay. “The bodies of those who lost their lives in the 44-Day War are here,” Lusine said. “Leaving would be like betraying them. They gave their lives for us to live here. After the war, this place became like a sanctuary.”

Stepanakert. October 2, 2023.

AZIZ KARIMOV / GETTY IMAGES

Larisa said she dreamed of buying an apartment in Krkjan, the Stepanakert neighborhood where her mother grew up. “I have so many nice memories there. I used to have so much fun [there] as a child. That’s probably why I would like to live there,” she mused.

A week before Azerbaijan’s 24-hour offensive, political analyst Tigran Grigoryan, who heads the Regional Center for Democracy and Security in Yerevan, described the prospect of evacuations from the region as a “worst-case, catastrophic scenario.”

“That's one of the reasons nobody's talking about [evacuation] publicly. Nobody wants to legitimize this narrative because, for some actors, this might be like the easy solution,” said Grigoryan. “If this happens in the 21st century, with all the international principles, it would put an end to any notion of comprehensive goals in the South Caucasus,” he added. “It's impossible to talk about peace at the cost of one side.”

‘Violence, not diplomacy’

After the ceasefire announcement on September 20, Stepanyan reported that Azerbaijan’s offensive had killed at least 200 people in Nagorno-Karabakh, including at least 10 civilians, and wounded more than 400 others.

In turn, Azerbaijan’s Health Ministry said that 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 wounded, adding that one Azerbaijani civilian also died in the hostilities. “Overall, it's around 200 people — 200 young people in 24 hours,” Alili said, referring to Baku’s losses. “It shows that the [Azerbaijani] government wanted to finalize it as soon as possible.”

“Violence, not diplomacy, has always determined key outcomes in the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh,” wrote Thomas De Waal, a Carnegie Europe senior fellow, in an article for Foreign Affairs. He argued that Azerbaijan’s gains in the 2020 war had tilted international negotiations in Baku’s favor. Then, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine again changed the power dynamics in the South Caucasus.

“When the war in Ukraine started, one local observer told me Azerbaijan was [like a] young lady everyone wants to marry. And that was the case,” said Olesya Vartanyan, Crisis Group’s senior analyst for the South Caucasus region. “Azerbaijan has become more important, not just for the European Union or some leaders in the Middle East, but also for Russia.”

Coffins placed outside a morgue in Stepanakert. September 24, 2023.

DAVID GHAHRAMANYAN / REUTERS / SCANPIX / LETA

This shift was on full display in the aftermath of Azerbaijan’s 24-hour offensive. While the U.S. and E.U. expressed concern and condemned the attack, Armenia’s purported key ally, Russia, demurred. Rebuffing accusations of inaction, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman pointed to Yerevan’s recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, adding that Russian peacekeepers in the region were working “night and day” to help evacuate civilians. Kremlin press guidelines (obtained by Meduza) even instructed state-controlled media to shift the blame for the assault onto Armenia and its Western “partners.”

Meanwhile, Armenian officials were sounding the alarm over the consequences of Azerbaijan’s actions. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan described it as “the final act of [a] tragedy aimed at the forced exodus of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Indeed, despite Azerbaijani officials pledging to treat them as “equal citizens,” Karabakh Armenians feared reprisals and started fleeing the region en masse.

Vehicles carrying refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh queue on the road leading towards the Armenian border. September 25, 2023.

DAVID GHAHRAMANYAN / REUTERS / SCANPIX / LETA

‘They lost everything’

On September 28, officials in Stepanakert announced that the Republic of Artsakh would formally dissolve itself as of January 1, 2024. By that point, more than 65,000 refugees had arrived in Armenia.

In the days that followed, this number swelled to more than 100,000. And Armenia found itself dealing with a humanitarian crisis for which it was completely unprepared — despite earlier claims that the country was ready to accommodate 40,000 displaced families.

“Most refugees we spoke to either had a temporary host family arrangement or nowhere to go at all,” Eurasianet reported on September 29.

“There are people spending days and nights on the streets, and the hygiene conditions are really bad,” said photographer Eugene Shalnov, who was covering the situation in the border town of Goris. “They lost everything they had, and many blame Armenia for not supporting them,” he added.

Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh in Goris, Armenia. September 30, 2023.

MILENA AVETISYAN

Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh in Goris. September 30, 2023.

MILENA AVETISYAN

Kornidzor, Armenia. September 25, 2023.

MILENA AVETISYAN

Earlier, the Armenian government had announced that it would offer a one-time payment of 100,000 drams (about $256) to each displaced person and allocate 360 million drams (just under $1 million) to regional governors to purchase humanitarian aid for refugees.

A U.N. mission arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh on October 1. But journalists were already reporting that the Stepanakert was a “ghost town.” According to Stepanyan, “the last bus from Artsakh” reached Goris that same day.

Larisa and Lusine, meanwhile, had both made their way to Yerevan. “The last days in Stepanakert were so chaotic. Everyone was waiting for fuel to be able to leave,” Larisa recalled. (Amid the chaos, a massive explosion at a fuel warehouse near Stepanakert had killed at least 170 people.)

“Thankfully, my family and I are together. We are all healthy, and that is the most important part,” said Lusine. “I am living with my mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, their eight-month-old child, my two sisters, and our grandmother. We are in a small apartment.”

A damaged vehicle and furniture outside a house in Stepanakert. October 2, 2023.

EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP / SCANPIX / LETA

A wreck of a van that was abandoned on the side of the road on the outskirts of Stepanakert. October 2, 2023.

EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP / SCANPIX / LETA

‘The end of Nagorno-Karabakh as we knew it’

On October 2, Azerbaijan’s presidential office presented its reintegration plan for Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenians. But according to the U.N. mission’s report, this population has dwindled to “between 50 and 1,000” people.

“I think there’s little doubt that we have seen the end of Nagorno-Karabakh as we knew it,” said Laurence Broers, an associate fellow at Chatham House, in an interview with Meduza. “The question now is whether there will be any Armenian presence left in the territory at all.”

Several international experts have suggested that the exodus of Karabakh Armenians constitutes the war crime of “deportation or forcible transfer” or even a crime against humanity. However, Azerbaijani officials have rejected any and all such accusations.

“We cannot accept accusations of ethnic cleansing or genocide,” Hikmet Hajiyev, a diplomatic advisor to Azerbaijan’s president, told AFP. “We opened the gate and respected their [civilians’] freedom of movement, freedom of choice.”

“Azerbaijan emphasizes that it is a civic nation, a multicultural nation that has cordial relations with different ethnic and religious minorities. But I think it’s a stretch to imagine that Karabakh Armenians could feel safe,” Broers told Meduza. “There is a very distinct and specific history the Karabakh Armenians have been through. And that’s why we have this discussion about security guarantees.”

The hills along the road from Shusha to the Lachin Corridor. October 3, 2023.

EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP / SCANPIX / LETA

According to Azerbaijan’s reintegration plan, Baku pledges to ensure the rights and security of Karabakh Armenians who accept Azerbaijani citizenship. But after years of official rhetoric propagating dehumanizing stereotypes and hatred, experts remain skeptical.

“Armenophobia legitimized Aliyev’s regime for decades because the image of the external enemy is what creates unity and neutralizes [internal] contradictions,” said Bahruz Samadov, an Azerbaijani political activist and doctoral candidate at Charles University in Prague.

“Peaceful coexistence can only be possible if this deep hatred is changed, but I don’t think official discourse needs this,” he continued. “In Azerbaijan, nationalism is the basis of the regime’s legitimacy.”

“They could not force us to live there,” said Larisa. “It would have been inhuman.”

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ordinarytalk · 4 years ago

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We just got an announcement that they're making Juneteenth a paid county holiday and the fox-news-watching lady at work has been ranting about it all day.

Subjects of rant have included:

- Why don't we have Flag Day as a paid county holiday anymore?

- Why don't we have Good Friday as a paid county holiday anymore?

- I'm triggered, this is triggering, hahaha

- Juneteenth isn't even a real holiday

- If we get this new paid holiday we need the old paid holidays back

- We shouldn't be giving the rioters anything they want, that's rewarding violence

- You can't say anything anymore because people get offended

- Everyone's getting triggered and no one has a sense of humor

- Why can't we have Flag Day back? (round two)

- The song Barbie Girl by Aqua is going to be removed by Democrats because we can't say anything offensive anymore and that song says "Come on Barbie let's go party" and the Democrats think that's offensive

- Hey, why is this order signed by only one county commissioner? Why isn't this signed by (second county commissioner who has said horrifically racist things about the Black Lives Matter movement)? This shouldn't be legal if it's only one commissioner.

- We should get paid triple for Juneteenth to make up for the other holidays the county took away

- Why can't we have Good Friday back, that's more important!

- Flag Day (round three)

At this point I tuned out and started playing animal crossing during my downtime, but she was still going as of my last break.

#I'm trying not to make eye contact with her #She likes saying wildly offensive stuff to me and laughing when I try to calmly explain how that was wildly offensive #I swear it's like being in middle school with my damn bullies again #Personal stuff #2020 #In other news good for the county #And I had to stop myself from laughing out loud at the Democrats-Hate-Barbie-Girl section of her rant. For reasons.

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lets-steal-an-archive · 1 year ago

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What specific actions would you have the Board take to 1) fulfill its commitments made in 2020 to reduce racism on AO3 and across the OTW and 2) continue to expand anti-racist efforts in the OTW? How will you support Black fans, Indigenous fans, and fans of color in feeling welcome on the Archive of Our Own and in avoiding harassment? How do you feel about #EndRacismInTheOTW?

Some of the actions addressing these issues within the strategic plan include individual committees reviewing and identifying ways to decrease bias in the recruitment process, forming volunteer coalitions, and implementing procedures to deal with interpersonal conflict. We should also review the comms style guide to ensure offensive language has been properly identified and contextualized. (This would be a conversation for the board to have with the communications committee.)

Regarding #EndRacismInTheOTW (henceforth #EOTWR), the impetus for the movement is valid; there are clear concerns that need to be addressed. That being said, no one from #EOTWR recruited existing volunteers to the movement, nor encouraged their followers to volunteer and eventually run for board. Instead of taking steps and involving existing volunteers and board members to genuinely make change, the only coordinated effort has been to disrupt a board meeting. It feels like the movement expects change to be done in their way on their terms.

I am offended by their demand that candidates go to their platform to make our voices heard, as if our own platforms and the work we have put in is not enough. We are addressing this formally, as a professional organization should, while acknowledging the limitations of being entirely chat-based and volunteer-run. The timelines for these changes move quite slowly because we are, again, run entirely by volunteers.

One of the most important things I learned on the campaign trail was this: it does not matter how loud your voice is if you don’t have a seat at the table. My advice to #EOTWR is recruit and/or run so they can get a seat, and find ways to involve the people currently in the positions to make change.

The central paradox of modern witch hunts is that those who claim to be the victims are often the ones most enthusiastic about carrying them out. [Tweet]

Elections Committee Statement on Harassment

OTW’s Elections Committee makes a statement on the recent harassment of an OTW Board Candidate. Read more at https://otw.news/fa6c6b

#harassment? more like people read what she said #and used google to see what popped up for a former congressional candidate #and went da fuk #i could have picked so many things she herself said in the four q+a posts #this one tho #what a dogwhistle #ao3 #otw #wtf

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gayerthanevertbh · 2 years ago

Text

songbird

pairings | scarlett johansson x fem!reader

summary | you fell in love with your father’s best friend throughout the summer in spain until she breaks your heart as well.

warnings | smut/angst themes - 18+ MINORS DNI. heavy angst, slight fluff, explicit language, first time sex, rough kissing, sex in public (sort of), age difference, and more.

word count | 7.0k

notes | this is a completely different turn bc i thought it was like cmbyn but it’s really not? i hope you still enjoy this angsty one-shot lol x

navigation.

When I was a kid, I used to remember that I was sort of a hopeless romantic. I’d fall for anyone who would treat me with tenderness and kindness and the next thing you know it is that they would leave you and yet you would still feel that I’ll find my true love kind of scenario when honestly that’s never going to happen. You could say that I’m a negative person, I think wholeheartedly I am one. Although you can’t blame me if you’ve been in love with a person for so long that you might as well think you’re delusional. I think I’m still in love, I do deeply think and feel her love for me. But what she did was no excuse, I try to repeat that to myself every day since she doesn’t deserve an ounce of my forgiveness. I can never forget her stupid blonde hair and her green eyes, especially her tattoos that got me so annoyed because they were all over her body. Well, I’m sort of exaggerating there.

I hate her, I want to hate her. Oh, I love her. I love her so much that I’d kill myself for her, that I’d hurt myself for her so that she could notice me all over again. I wanted her to look at me and touch my skin, make me feel alive again. I still remember her deeply strained voice that calls out my name each time we make love, how she would tell me that she was immensely in love with me and that the next summer we would run away together.

We never ran away together, we never held our hands together in public. We never did that stuff.

2020.

I was casually reading my book on my chair with my feet prompted on the table when I heard loud laughing voices from downstairs. They sound feminine, familiar, and intimidating. I quirked an eyebrow and threw a cardigan all over my upper body to see what was going on. Usually, it’s quiet in our house–it’s a big house to be fair, that’s why there were no loud sounds most of the time except for my record player. I closed my door behind me and treaded myself down to the main floor when I saw a tall figure man with a woman beside him. I realized it was Chris and Scarlett that came by to our villa, as my dad teased.

“Y/N, why don’t you say hello to our guests?” my dad calls me as he makes his hand a motion for me to come forward and say hi to them. I gave them a quick smile before hugging Chris tightly, being comforted by large arms and a thick beard that was itching on my cheek; it didn’t feel nice no offense. I pulled away and was surprised when Scarlett gave me the initial hug, god she felt nice around me. Her arms and her chin on my shoulder felt a little too homey for me, I almost thought that it wasn’t that awkward.

“You’re all grown up,” says Scarlett with a huge smile on her face, her teeth pearling nicely. “Weren’t you just a baby the last time I saw you?”

“I think I was fifteen,” I corrected her politely as she shrugged her shoulder; her smile never faded away but then it got smaller. I added, “You look very nice. I’m happy that you’re here.”

“Oh, I’m happy myself as well Y/N,” she responded while squeezing both of my hands with her soft ones. Her thumb caressed the back of my hand, it felt too nice for my liking. “You look very pretty if I may add, does that bother you?”

“No, it doesn’t,” I say truthfully–maybe I was being honest. I did like how she called me pretty, like it felt so casual, too casual. She smiles again and I decided to bring them upstairs since I insisted. The house was big, but the rooms were mostly occupied with our storage. The good thing was there were two rooms left and that I showed them the first room, assuming that they were together. But Chris quickly dismissed that, he said with a laugh: “Oh me and Scarlett are not a thing, I don’t think I’m her type at all.”

“Oh?” I asked with a scrunched look on my face while I set up the first room by opening the curtains to feel more of the air outside. I hear Scarlett responding: “Yeah, Chris is definitely not my type. We’re just best friends.”

Now, I was genuinely curious at how Chris wasn’t Scarlett’s type. The man was a tall, quirky, and very lovable person. He looked like a lovable kind of guy where you could fall in love with him with a bat on an eye–at least that’s how I think. But Scarlett seemed to be not interested, which was a little confusing.

Unless she’s a homosexual like me.

That couldn’t be true, she has dated men in the past. I know that because she’s an A-list Actress, of course, I’d see her on the news and in articles on the internet. So it was impossible for her to like women, right? I was just assuming yet again, I always assume things.

When Chris decided he’ll take the first room, I showed them the second room to see if she ended up liking it. It was small but not in a cramming way, you could still walk and do many activities in the room. There was a vanity table near the door and a bed beside the balcony area; a long bookshelf on the right side of the room.

“You could take my room if this is too small for you,” I offered. My room was bigger than this one, so I had to check if she liked it. “I mean, this room is quite big if you remove the bookshelf. Other than that, you could take mine if that’s what you prefer.”

She shakes her head and sits on the edge of the mattress with her hands planted on each side of her thighs. I heard her say, “No, I think I like it here. Thanks for the offer though, Y/N.”

Why did I assume that she knows the inside of my room? Silly and poor me, I was being delusional once again. I smiled at her for one last time before heading toward the door to give her some space. Before I even closed it, I heard her asking: “I’ll see you at dinner?”

I nodded with a duh look and responded quickly with the heat overtaking my body. “Yeah, you will. Have a good time, Scarlett.”

I’ll see you at dinner. What does that mean? Was she being friendly? Flirtatious, perhaps? No, I can’t think that she was flirting with me, that would be too much. Besides, she probably has no interest in younger people. Or even me if I had to include myself, which began me to think that I might have a slight infatuation with her. I shrugged it off and walked back to my room where I continue to read the book that doesn’t make sense to me, just for me to be distracted from my interaction with Scarlett.

It’s just some silly crush, nothing more.

Until it wasn’t, it has become an obsession of mine once we had dinner that night. I was sitting beside her and whenever we would have a conversation about moving to new places and all that, I could feel her elbow brushing against my skin without her eyes looking at me. Of course, I noticed that. We were sitting so close to each other that you might as well think we are a couple. I tried to shake it off and continue to eat my soup, but I was so focused on her elbow that it was the only thing I thought about the whole night. She would occasionally ask me if I was going to college, and I’d tell her that I was applying to two universities. I remember her saying: good luck, I know you’re a smart girl and I might take that as a literal sense when she told that to me. I will never forget it.

I kept writing her name on my notebook that evening, cursing myself when I remembered how she smiled at me, how she touched my hands that felt so innocent but with intention. We were the same height, but she could be a few meters taller. I wanted her to do something about this or even tell her that I’m having a strange crush on her that felt so surreal. Would she laugh at it? I was probably just a kid in her eyes. I had no chance, I had no hope.

Eventually, I fell asleep that night and woke up without even thinking about her.

—

While I was at the small coffee shop, I saw something so familiar that would’ve wrecked me if I stared more. Instead, I stared a lot. Scarlett was with this girl but they weren’t holding hands or anything intimate, they were just casually walking along the sidewalks. I was far from sight but I could feel the jealousy creeping up on me like a virus. Was it her friend? How did she make friends here so fast? I had a lot of questions in my head that needed to be answered but instead, I looked down at my plate and continued to eat my sandwich with an iced coffee that the barista gave a few minutes ago.

I walked to the nearby bookstore and grabbed and searched for new stories that I wanted to read, maybe I should read something philosophical. Or maybe something about murder so that I could be prepared. I realized how creepy that sounded and decided to buy another book from Sylvia Plath. When I finally made my purchase, I turned around to see Scarlett standing a few feet away from me with sunglasses that covered her bright green eyes. I was startled–even almost fell from the ground–but I stood there and gave her a quick smile.

“I didn’t know you were stalking me.” I joked, laughing but realized I was doing that with myself. But then she laughs and takes off her glasses, I could finally see her beautiful eyes. She wore a long floral dress that matched her khaki hat that looked like Yankees. She had few necklaces on her and now it felt like I was sort of taller than her. But she was still a few meters taller than me.

“Who said I was?”

“Well because you’re in the same bookstore with me.”

“You sound like you don’t want me here,” she stated with her mouth twitching with a smirk. I could’ve sworn I almost died from that look she gave me. “I was finding an antic store until I saw you here, I wanted to say hi.”

“Oh,” I breathed out and licked my lips together–not really knowing why I did that for. There was a short pause before I added, “Hello to you too, I guess.”

“Now I’m convinced you don’t want me here.”

It was probably how I spoke to her or the way my posture was. I was surprised and thought about how I should reply so that she gets to stay and maybe walk with me home, but I felt like a prude in front of her. Now she’s probably going to talk to me for the rest of the summer because of my response. I sighed and shook my head solemnly to disagree with her assumptions.

“Sorry, I was just surprised that you’re here,” I answered, she quirks her eyebrow in confusion. “Like–I mean, well you kind of scare me.”

“Ha-ha,” she faux a laugh and places a hand on her chest as if she was laughing very hard. “Come on, why don’t you bring me to this antic store? You’re an expert with tourism, right?”

She must’ve implied of me showing her around the house almost a week ago, and I chuckled softly because of it. She was witty and knows how to charm you–which is in fact true. Scarlett was a very charming person with a calming personality, probably also the kindest woman you’ll ever meet. But those were the fans that say about her on the internet, she is nice. But she can be a pain in the ass. I remember this one afternoon when I was taking a swim and all so suddenly she throws an untouched apple on the ground, never looking back. You could consider that an accident, but I saw it as if she was littering. I picked it up and it felt soft on my hand, perhaps it was so soft because of the heat of the sun. Anyway, I remember placing it in the basket and wanted her to know that she shouldn’t do that a lot.

“I don’t want to be your personal tour guide.”

“Ouch,” she fakes a hurt look on her face as she readjusts the cap on her head. Now, she was standing in front of me and I realize how close we are–how our face is almost three inches away from each other. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll buy us ice cream along the way.”

My heart starts to flutter with the pet name that she gave me. Sweetheart. God, my legs are about to tremble from the way she says it with her soft sultry voice that you’re convinced that she was flirting with you. She probably wasn’t, maybe that was her being nice. I nodded and walked alongside her quietly. I would listen to her as she tells me about her new movie that she’ll be in, teasing me to keep it a secret. Of course, I would keep it a secret. I wasn’t that kind of person who would disobey someone, let alone myself disobeying Scarlett–which I did not want. I brought her to the antic store and I watch her dreamily as she buys loads of stuff from the store, keeping the store owner happy. God, she was so happy to see an actress buying her shop. I mean, I’d be happy too if someone would buy a lot of objects from my store.

Scarlett and I continued to walk back to the house, our feet treading onto the soft gravel as the sun is about to set down slowly. I was holding the ice cream in my hand that she bought for me and she was licking hers while her eyes were all over the place. It’s like she has never been to Spain before, specifically Oviedo where they are all staying at the moment. Maybe she has never been to any cities in Spain, only Madrid.

“Have you ever dated someone?” I asked Scarlett with curiosity in her voice; I cringed from her question that I almost dropped my ice cream.

“N-no,” I say with a stutter, cursing myself inwardly at how stupid I sound. “I did have a short fling with someone though.”

“Nothing is called a short fling, little one.”

“Why are you calling me that?” I asked, trying to change the subject–but also curious on why she called me a little one. Did she see me as a child? I was starting to get annoyed when that nickname started to swirl all over my head relentlessly. She just laughs and shakes her head, muttering something that I don’t understand.

“Because you are little.” she stated, as a matter of a fact. I was not, we were literally of the same height–practically the same!

“I’m not,” I grumbled down my breath and I was jotting out my lower lip like a baby. She looks at me then laughs again, god her stupid laugh makes my lower stomach flutter with affection.

“Anyway, nothing is called a short fling. It’s either you were in love or it was nothing, there’s no such thing as a fling.”

“You sound so sure about that.”

“Because I am,” she responded as she ate the edge of her cone. “Come on, tell me about this story.”

“It was this girl from my school and we were sort of crushing each other,” I tell her with a shrug of my shoulders. “Well, we were. Until she liked this boy named Tom and I broke up with her. Or at least you can say it was a breakup, we had no labels.”

“You children these days,” she chuckles and I felt her knuckles brushing against the back of my hand. I realized how utterly close we were and somehow I wanted her to hold my hand and bring it to her lips, kissing it–

“There you guys are! I was starting to worry for both of you.”

We both turned and saw Chris and my mother walking toward us. Suddenly, Scarlett kept her distance and walked to my mother to give her a small peck on the cheek–of course in a friendly matter. I felt my body deflating when she walked away from me; her knuckle was no longer touching mine. I walked back to the house alone, locked myself in, and listened to some angsty songs that I don’t normally play. But right now, it felt like a mood to play it from my record player.

—

Do you like me? I wrote down in my journal viciously like a barbaric person. Tell me, shout at me, do you like me? Can you please just tell me that you do? I sounded desperate to know if she did, maybe not in the same way as mine but at least as friends. Do I want to be friends with her? No, maybe. I don’t even know at this point. Sometimes I think that my infatuation with Scarlett has become ridiculous like it’s becoming a joke to me and my head. But I can’t stop thinking about her whenever she gives me small gestures that mean nothing. I want to rip myself in half, I want her to look at me and kiss me on the lips despite the consequences that are going to occur. I wanted her to be passionate about me, I wanted her to chase me.

God, I do sound desperate.

It was the second week of July and we were all supposed to go swimming at my father’s private resort. But Scarlett decided that she’ll stay at home since she didn’t feel like she was interested in swimming. And as stupid as I was, I told my father that I’ll stay too.

“Why? You like swimming–”

“Not right now,” I cut him off with a nervous smile as I leaned my back against the chair, playing with the strand of cloth from my shorts. “I don’t feel very well.”

“I guess it’s just me, your mom, and Chris for today.” he laughed and continued to talk about the structures from the main city where they should visit soon. I was not interested in their conversation. I hoped that my father won’t figure out that I have an infatuation with Scarlett, so I just kept my mouth shut and continued to eat my bagel with cream cheese on it.

After that long breakfast, I was sitting alone under a tree to listen to my music and read a poetry book by Emily Dickinson. Our house had a huge garden that almost looked like a forest, so I stayed there for almost thirty minutes. I was so enticed by my book that I didn’t realize Scarlett was approaching me with her hands in the pocket of her shorts. I quickly looked away and pretended that I was still reading my book.

“You were staring,” she stated and sat down beside me and took one of my tapes to the ground. I groaned and tried to take it from her hand, but she was teasing me. God, why am I infatuated with this woman? If I wasn’t, she would be a menace to me. “Fiona Apple? You have good taste.”

I dropped my book on the ground and put the earbud from my headset back to my ear, trying to think of something else other than her. She was so close to me, our hips were sort of touching at this point. I tried not to mind it but god–she was too close that I was about to suffocate. We sat there in silence, admiring the view of the house that pleased Scarlett’s eyes.

“I know something that you don’t know,” Scarlett quirked, looking to the side of her shoulder to give me a quick wink–the constant fluttering in my stomach starts to act up like a piece of machinery. I gulped and felt my throat very dry as I thought about what she was trying to imply.

“What do you mean?”

“You stayed here because you wanted to spend time with me.”

Most of it was true, and none of it was false. I tried to hide my cheeks away as I was blushing a little too hard, but she was laughing–not in mockery, but in a fond way. Or at least that’s how I think. She pulled my cheek and our eyes made contact. God, we were so close to kissing one another but I was afraid enough to do the first move. I felt her thumb caressing up and down on my cheek as I try to think of something else other than those stupid soft lips that I want to feel. She could possibly know how desperate I was.

“You’re really beautiful when I could see you so close,” her voice starts to strain as her nose touches mine. I was, sure enough, that she’ll press her lips against mine but instead, I felt her warm breath on my lips. I moaned very quietly that you can barely hear it and she whispered, “I want to know if you want this.”

“If I want what?” I know I was teasing, and I was doing it with so much intention. I wanted to see if she was as desperate as me and if she truly wanted me. I opened my mouth and let her breathe into me, to let her control me whenever she would like to. She blows slowly into my mouth and then so suddenly–our lips connected. I felt both of her hands under my jaw as she gives more feelings into our kiss, I was in oblivion. I wanted to pull away since I felt like it was too surreal, but she kissed me well. And if I was being lame, this was my first kiss.

Scarlett pulls away with the sound of our lips pulling away and whimpers, “You know we can’t do this.”

I already knew that. I responded with a convincing tone, “No one has to know about us.”

“It’s not that,” she takes a gulp and holds my neck close while peppering kisses all over my face. My eyes, my cheeks, my nose, and my forehead. She kisses my lips again but this time I could tell she was desperate for it, she wanted to feel me. Then she says, “I’m–oh fuck it, I really like you.”

I don’t know if she’ll ever continue what she has said, but neither did I care. I let her kiss me passionately, her tongue sliding itself into my mouth. She was so gentle with my mouth as well as my body that I felt like I was treated with care. No one has ever kissed me the way she does, nor even touched me like she does. Our kiss felt so poetical, something so peaceful and unrealistic. I let her other hand roam on my stomach until she cups my core softly. I grip her blonde hair with my hands as she palms my core, finding my clothed clit to make my body electrify with her touch.

“I want you,” she breathes as she gives me one more deep kiss before she whispers hotly: “I want to kiss your body, your breasts, and your cunt. I want all of you, so fucking bad that I think I might be going insane.”

“Then do it,” I said with a quiet moan coming out of my trembling mouth. Scarlett looks at me with her hooded eyes as she slips her finger into my shorts, feeling my wet panties. I was embarrassed by how wet I was–she could see that and even chuckled deeply when she felt it. “Scarlett, please–”

“I’ll take good care of you,” she assures me as I feel more of her kisses on my neck–then to my chest, and continued to massage my covered cunt with her bare fingers. “I promise I will. I won’t hurt you, baby.”

Scarlett touched my clit for the first time and all I could remember doing was staying quiet while biting my lower lip, trying not to whimper so loud that anyone could hear our actions. She gives open-mouth kisses on my neck while finding my hole with two of her fingers, she sighed into my mouth when she felt my wet folds that made contact with her skin. I was holding her face while she was kissing me with her eyes averted to my shorts; her fingers making circular motions onto my welt open folds.

“Push them inside of me,” I begged as my eyes rolled back to my head when I heard her groaning from my ear. “Scarlett, please push your fingers inside of me–I can take it…”

She pushed in and I gasped loudly, the feeling of irritation and tightness was profound yet it was painful that her fingers were only half inside of me. She continues to kiss me on the corner of my mouth, saying: “It’s okay, you’re okay baby. Is this okay? Am I hurting you?”

I shook my head in response and replied with a mewl, “You’re not hurting me–Oh god, I promise you aren’t. Keep pushing them in, Scar. Please, I need you.”

“As you wish, my love.”

Scarlett spent her time trying to loosen me up so that she could thrust inside of me swiftly without hurting me. She kissed my neck, chest, and lips to keep me away from the pain–and it worked. Once I was used to her fingers, she starts to thrust in and out of me with her eyebrows scrunching; letting out each grunt as she keeps pounding me with her fingers. Her mouth was on mine as she slowly curled her fingers to hit that spot and I was moaning uncontrollably like some slut I am.

“You’re my pretty girl,” Scarlett moans softly as I keep clenching around her fingers; giving her this sign to become a little rough with my body. “Taking my fingers so well, you’ve dreamt about this haven’t you?”

I have indeed. I wasn’t ashamed of it, I’ve always wanted her to take my virginity and she happily took it–she looked proud taking it even. She nuzzles her face in my neck as her rapid thrust becomes more sloppy, rough, and out of control. I nodded furiously and started to hump her fingers with my hips, finding more of that pleasure. When the tip of her fingers started to hit the edge of my walls, I was gripping her hair tight as the orgasm in me was about to come out.

When I finally came, I was screaming at her mouth. It looked like she came as well from the way I clenched her fingers tight as if she couldn’t pull out. We were both kissing while I had my orgasm, my body twitching from my immense climax. I could see stars behind my eyes, as well as my sweat, dripping down from my forehead. She smiled down at me and whispered: “Tell me now, am I better than your girlfriend?”

She was far better than her.

—

We’ve spent another week being together and holding hands in private. While my parents were taking a swim, drinking beers and wine, Scarlett and I would be up in my room as she makes out with me like she couldn’t let me go. I would have my hands all over her shoulders while hers were on my bum, occasionally squeezing them until I slapped her collarbone with a faux cry. This was ecstasy, this was euphoria. I’ve never felt happier before, and I could say that this is something burnt in my memory until the day I die. She took care of me and acted like I was a fragile little girl in front of her. I’d constantly let her know that she can’t treat me like a child all the time, but she would just kiss me away and tell me that she liked the idea of taking care of my stupid self.

I knew she was joking, of course.

“You know, we should run away.”

I felt stunned when she said those two words. Run away. Was she being serious? How was that ever going to work out? I stopped kissing her and pulled away with a confused look on my face, responding with a small voice.

“How will that work out for the both of us?”

“Well, you could simply apply to a school in New York,” she says while shrugging and pulling me into her arms. I could feel her lips kissing my temple twice. “I live in Manhattan anyway, sometimes in the Hamptons. Maybe if you study there, I could always just pick you up.”

“I don’t think my parents would allow me to go to NYU.” I responded with a pout, but she just shakes her head in response and continued to kiss my lips–as if she couldn’t get away with it.

“We’ll figure that out, my little one.”

“You gotta stop calling me that,” I giggled and lay on her chest while I stared at the window where the skies were so blue that it looked like an ocean–although it wasn’t as sparkly as the sea, of course. She just hums and hugs me closer to her, our clothed bodies connecting.

“I like it,” she says. “It has a nice tone on it.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure baby.”

She just smiled and we continued to hold each other for a while before we had to go back down to spend more time with my family and Chris. And usually, whenever that happens, we keep our distance. We were afraid that my parents would find out and they would keep me away from Scarlett, which is something I’m not fond of right now. My summer couldn’t be ruined by that scenario.

Instead, something else ruined my summer that felt unexpected and surreal. I can’t even count how many times I cried that night when I found out.

I was casually going to the patio when I heard something so faint from the background. I got closer to the wall and hid there while I listened to Scarlett and my father talking about something involving marriage. My eyes lit up with the thought of her proposing to me, the imagination of being married to her. Although that talked when to another turn and I could feel my heart ripping apart when I heard what she had said.

“I’ll marry Delilah if that’s the case, I already bought the ring for our wedding.”

“Then, wonderful! I’ll be the one who’s going to arrange the reception,” I hear my mother say with a bright voice as they laugh like it was such a happy moment in their lives–while mine was starting to end. How could this happen? I was so confused and conflicted. My stomach was churning so bad that I rushed back to my room and shut the door that shook the entire house. I buried my face against my pillows and sobbed angrily, punching my fists against the sheets, and felt my knuckles burning because of the contraction. I hated her, I wanted to never see her again–I wanted to leave, I couldn’t face her. I loved her, I think I was falling in love with her and I thought she felt the same way. And apparently, she never did.

“Y/N?” I heard the sound of Scarlett’s voice behind my door and I tried not to mind it, letting myself cry hard into my pillow. When she never got my response, she had no choice but to come inside and lock the door with a click. I turned around and gave her an angry look before I stood up and stomped my way to my balcony. Instead, her arms wrapped around my torso as she kisses the back of my head.

“Let me go–”

“No,” she says with a hushed whisper and continues to kiss my head with a soft sob. “No, please don’t. I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have heard that–”

“Go fuck yourself!” I pushed her away from me and turned around with tears streaming down my eyes. She looked so small and delicate that it was easy enough to break her, and I think I was at that point that I did want to break her. Scarlett shakes her head as she tries to grab my hands, but I slap them away.

“Baby girl, you have to let me explain–”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re going to get married?” I whispered as I slapped my hand against her chest. I wish she could fall onto the ground in pain, I wanted to see her in pain. But she wasn’t. Instead, she stood there and took my hurtful gesture against her chest. “What is wrong with you? You tell me that you love me and then go marry someone else? What is wrong with you?!”

“Baby, I love you,” she whispers and cups my face with her cold hands. I tried pulling away from her but she was so strong, I kicked and I pushed her chest away from me but god her grip was tight. She pulls me into a hug and sobs violently against my ear. “I was going to tell you, okay? I was going to. But I fell in love with you, I fell so hard for you that I forgot about the whole marriage that was going to happen.”

“Let me go,” I begged and continued to punch her chest twice with my hands, curling them into fists. “Just let me go, please.”

“I love you, my baby.”

I was finally freed from her arms and I felt my whole body collapsing. I sobbed and covered my mouth with no energy, I felt weak. It’s like when you pick out a fruit and then all so suddenly you get stabbed by those little horns. They hurt, they sting you. And that’s how exactly what was Scarlett doing to me, she was stinging me like those thorns. I watch as her eyes turn darker as she tries to reach for me, but then she decides to stay in her place and let her give me that space that I really needed.

“You can’t just say you love me then marry someone else,” I said with an unmelodic voice that I’ve never heard from myself before. She was sobbing as I was. “Y-you can’t do that, Scarlett. Not when–God, not when I realize how much I’m in love with you.”

I finally let those words out. I was in fact in love with her, in a way that can’t be explained. I thought that it would work out, that one day I’d tell my parents and show them how much I was in love with my father’s best friend. How deeply wrong I was, how incredibly stupid my entire being was. She looked at me with sorrowful eyes and wanted her arms to wrap around my body to calm me down, but I stayed in my spot until I heard her breaking apart.

“I can’t back out on this, Y/N.”

“No one’s asking you to.”

“But I want you to fight for me, god damn it,” she hissed and pulled my hands to her chest as I could feel her heart beating relentlessly. She whimpers with tears, “I want you to stop me from marrying her. I want you to, but you know I can’t. It has to be done.”

“Well, I don’t beg Scarlett,” I responded with a stiff tone and dropped her hands, walking away from her until I was holding the knob of my door to keep my strength together. It seems like the knob was my only support. Scarlett looks at me with pleading eyes that I stared at them for too long until I felt more tears coming down from my puffed eyes. I whispered for one last time, “I don’t beg. You did this, not me. I hope you have a nice wedding and–I hope you realize that I loved you like you were mine.”

I walked out on her and never saw her again after our fight. And when I was walking so far from my house, I realized how much I was in love with her. I wanted to tell her–no, I wanted to command her to leave the girl and instead be with me. I wanted her to love me as much as I love her, but apparently, it doesn’t work like that. Was I not lovable? Am I not worth it? I felt so used, I felt all alone again. When I walked to the city, that’s where I began to think how much I’ll miss her once she’s gone, how much I’ll miss the times when she would come inside my room and hold me with no sexual need, we were just cuddling until the sun came up. I’ll miss her, I know I will.

And that’s how I hated myself because of how much I’ll miss Scarlett.

The next day, she was gone with Chris. She didn’t even bother to come up and say her goodbyes, never even told my parents that she wanted to say goodbye to me. Instead, she just left. And I think I cried more than any summer that I cried on, I cried a lot. I felt pathetic and stupid for falling in love with someone who wasn’t available in the first place. I began to wonder if she was in an arranged marriage, and maybe she was. But she could’ve had the guts to tell me that she was going to get married. And most of all, I wouldn’t be getting into a relationship with her if that was going to happen.

I felt alone all over again, I felt so sad. The word felt typical, but I don’t know how else to explain how sad I was.

Eight years later, I still remember my first love. It felt like yesterday I’m not going to lie, but I had no grudge over Scarlett. Whenever I go back to Spain, the memories of us being together are all over my head. Whenever I go back to that antic shop, I remember her rummaging herself with the objects and buying most of them. I remember the time when she bought me ice cream and that was the first time we got personal with each other, it felt like yesterday. I remember her telling me that fling never existed, so maybe me and Scarlett never did exist then.

I do think it was a fling, our summer love was just a short fling that you could forget. But not for me, it will always be grained in my brain like a tattoo. Everywhere I go, I’d see her on billboards and posters and it was like she never did leave me. Instead, we never talked again. And if she decides to text me to this day, I think I’d reply.

But maybe in a friendly matter, I can’t show that I’m still in love with her. Because she never was in love with me, she couldn't say that she was when she married someone else. Or maybe, I was just some stupid girl who fell for an older person that could easily manipulate me. You can’t blame me, I was just a kid when I first met her. Eighteen, for Christ’s sakes. And whenever I do remember those beautiful memories, my heart falters when I realize that Scarlet and I had a history that she had forgotten.

It all suddenly changed when I saw her at a bookstore with a tote bag slung around her shoulder blade, wearing sunglasses to hide those beautiful eyes. I was a little far from her and I wanted to make a move, to say hello for the sake of good times. Instead, I stood there and watched as she picked out a Sylvia Plath book that was never recommended. I knew she was thinking about me, who else would read Sylvia Plath? She knew that I read her books and once told me that the author was heavily racist. I stopped reading her when I found out about that.

But she was holding a book by Sylvia Plath and purchased it with a blank expression on her face. She turned around and we both made eye contact for so long that my legs started to strain in pain. She took her sunglasses off and offered me a smile as if she couldn’t believe that I was in front of her after those years of not speaking to each other. I smiled back and we continued to stare for a long time.

“I think our world is connected,” she says casually. “Look at you, you’re in front of me.”

“No shit, Scarlett.”

She managed to let out a small laugh and nodded, clinging the book to her stomach, and continued to stare down at me with adoration.

On the way home, she was holding my hand–acting as if nothing had happened. And I happily let her, even for just a small amount of time. Even if it’s just bringing back the old times to make us feel good. Either way, I didn’t care. I was just glad that I saw her again after so long of not seeing her beautiful face.

Maybe it was never a fling, maybe it’s just that we met at the wrong time but we were definitely right for each other.

thoughts? i hope you liked the story!

#natasha romanoff x reader #scarlett johansson x reader #natasha romanoff x you #scarlett johansson angst #scarlett johansson x you #natasha angst #black widow x reader #black widow x you #a's oneshots!

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