#PEOPLE WITH IT and i do not feel bad pushing that moral at other people because killing people

[cheetabites]

☆彡 peppers pt 2 ˳༄꠶

character: hwang in ho / 001 / the frontman

˳༄꠶ summary: five sfw and nsfw general headcannons for the frontman

sfw headcannons

★ as he proceeded as the front man, he acquired a fascination with betrayal within the games. it basically reinforced the belief that humanity would always choose the best for themselves despite the sacrifice of others, and deep down i think he gets off by watching the players kill each other

★ in some way he feels a bit bad for the players who vote to go home. he’s seen the process over and over again and knows that greed outweighs self-sufficiency and compassion for others; for him, these deaths aren’t as enjoyable to watch

★ he hates others that victimize themselves. it leaves him both simultaneously angry and stressed, because what do you mean you’re upset with the situation you got yourself into?

★ when he’s not in the games (as a player), the hierarchy and rules that he has for the staff is much stricter. he doesn’t allow barbarity; like guards threatening each other, fighting, or attempting to take advantage of another person. while he chooses to take players in and make them fight to win, he still has a moral compass

★ he HATES the vips. for him, sure he gets enjoyment of watching the games but he’s never found the need to bet on the players; if anything this further pushes the idea that humanity has lost it. because while others may view him continuing the game as psychopathic, he views it as demonstration to people

nsfw headcannons

★ as the frontman, he doesn’t really have someone that can please him. most of the time when he’s pent up, he’ll just use his hand and his imagination to get off

★ as the frontman, he likes to keep his sexual activities in private. but as a player, since he believes he has some sort of superiority over the others he wouldn’t mind fucking in public; not obnoxiously of course, but with the confidence, courage and no shame. late night sex with him would be so good, but since gi-hun suggests watch shifts it would be harder to actually participate in it (season 2 bathroom scene w/ the frontman when?!)

★ he doesn’t really like watching you ride him. he believes it gives you too much control. he wants to have all control over your pleasure; like whether or not you cum, how many times you cum, ect

★ he’d definitely make a sex tape with you if you were okay with it - but only when he’s not playing the games, so either after the revolt or if he’d never entered the games altogether. he’s the type to burn your sex tape on dvd’s. watching them on a video recorder or a mobile device is too tacky for him

★ he likes it when you whine for him; especially if you’re shy in bed. he’d go all gentle in the beginning, saying stuff like “come on sweetheart, you gotta tell me what you want” and “look at my beautiful sweetheart, so needy for me.” and when he’s finally inside you, he does degrade you, but it’s usually a mix of both praise and degradation

the end! i hope you enjoyed <3!

[lilreidgirl]

My boy

Summary: You have an affair with a married man and get the consequences and they are not exactly bad

Warnings: MDNI(18+), fingering, unprotected sex (don´t), cheating (Spencer is married to Maeve), religious talk kinda??, swearing, praise, storyline is a bit rushed!, NOT PROOFREAD, SORRY

WC: ~1.8k

A/N: ---

You knew it was wrong. Very wrong. Sleeping with a married man was something you swore you would never do. Every time it happened on TV you’d turn to your mother and say, “How could they ever do that?”, and shed answer with “Love is complicated. You´ll understand one day.” And you did, the fateful day you met Spencer was the day you understood. Although not really, more so that it was multiple weeks where you little by little realized that yes, love was complicated.

You had met Maeve a few times, team dinners and get-togethers that she attended, she was pretty, kind, smart, everything Spencer could ever even dream of having. Almost right out of the bat you started crushing on him, noticing how damn attractive he was and how kind hearted his personality shown on the people around him.

It wasn’t until he showed up at your hotel one night, tears staining his cheeks and manifesting in his eyes, that you saw a more vulnerable, honest side of him. He had had a fight with Maeve, again he had said. You sat crisscross on the end of your bed, facing his body that was slumped onto your mattress, legs hanging off the edge.

He expressed his feelings about how hard it’s been and how she can’t seem to even try to understand what he’s going through, your heart shattered at his confessions. As he lay there, in your hotel bed, staring at you in silence like you had the answer to all his problems, you couldn’t stop yourself from moving a hand to his solemn face, brushing a messy loose strand of his hair off of his forehead.

When you heard the way his inhales and exhales quickened and deepened, your hand stilled any movements. A silence took over the room, one where the world stood still, your eyes trained on each other’s. Then before you knew it and could truly processes the horrible moral sin of an action that it was, you leaned down and kissed him.

At first, it was only your lips moving but after a small moment where you were just about to pull away because your thoughts finally took in how wrong it was, he kissed you back. Large hands gripped the sides of your face, fingers dug into the strands of your hair as his plump lips skillfully lapped over your own. His tongue had made its way into your mouth as you moved to straddle his hips, holding yourself up on his chest with your hands.

And in the back of your mind, you knew: this was wrong. But for that fleeting, shattering moment, it didn’t feel wrong at all.

It was wrong when you both stripped all your clothes and left each other bare, it was wrong when he sank his length into you; making you moan out his name in pleasure, it was wrong when he pumped his cock in and out of you at a perfectly paced rhythm, hitting all of the right spots, it was wrong when you both came at the same time; muttering “ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod” as you did, it was wrong when the last thing you whispered to each other before you drifted off to sleep was “I love you”.

It was wrong, but it sure as hell didn’t feel wrong, it felt perfect. And every time you guys slept together after that also felt perfect. Of course, you both knew how horrible it was, you tried talking about it but it never really played out to even be considered a full conversation.

You pushed the door open, peeking through the crack you had created. Spencer sat on his couch, elbows held on his knees as he persistently ran his hands through his already unruly hair. “Everything okay?” You asked, not missing the irony of asking that question while you slipped out of the shared bedroom of him and his wife that was currently away on a business trip, and into their living room.

He looked up, eyes travelling over you as his brain lagged and took in the fact that you had spoken. “Oh uh- yeah…”

With a face that very clearly told him you didn’t believe him, you made your way towards him, crawling onto his lap, feet resting on the couch as you leaned the side of your upper body onto his chest and your head onto his shoulder. “Really?” You asked.

A sigh left him and a moment of silence followed before he spoke up. “I… I um…” You traced a line down his chest with your finger hoping to give him some comfort with the action and your words, “Don’t worry, you can tell me,” you tried to reassure. “Maeve and I…” Your skin prickled at the mention of her name, fear ensuing you that maybe he had decided to finally end things with you for her, “We´re getting a divorce. I told her.”

The shock you felt for a moment after his words was quickly flushed out by the excitement and joy you felt. You knew though that your happiness over his impending divorce probably isn’t what he needed right now so you forced back the smile that threatened to present itself on your face. “Oh, I’m… sorry?”

Honestly, you were very unsure of how you were supposed to react to that. He chuckled as he lifted you up enough to make sure your legs were straddling his own. “No being sorry, baby, you’re allowed to be happy.” As you settled on his thighs you smiled, leaning in to peck his lips repeatedly.

“So does this mean we´ll be like officially together now?” Your voice was filled with glee and hope. “Yes. I’m all yours.” Both of you grinned as you kissed him again, this kiss was longer, more meaning full.

His hands found their way to your hips like they had countless times before, moving you against him as you breathed heavily into his mouth. When your relentless grinding on his hardening length didn’t seem to be enough anymore, he encircled your waist with his arm and spun you both around, laying you on the soft material of his couch.

Your legs moved to wrap around his waist but he gently pushed them down, instead grasping the hem of the shirt of his you wore and pulling it over your head and onto the floor. “So gorgeous. You are so incredibly gorgeous, princess,” he breathed out as he took you in, only clad in a flimsy pair of underpants.

He ducked his head down, kissing all the way from your neck to your abdomen, the kisses weren’t to mark you as his or to prove anything, they were an expression of the absolute love and affection he felt for you. He came face to face with your covered core, pressing a teasingly soft kiss on where he was sure your clit was; eliciting a giggle and a squirm from you.

Soon enough, you found yourself staring up at him again, but that quickly died down when he claimed your lips in yet another passion filled kiss. His fingers trailed down your stomach, fiddling with the material of your panties for a moment before pulling it down your legs, leaving them to rest at the apex of your now bent knees.

Without any warning he plunged two fingers into your entrance, immediately curling them just right to hit that perfect spot inside of you. He moved his fingers as he stared in awe as you withered away from the kiss to release an epiphany of moans.

Once he was satisfied and sure that you were wet and ready, he extracted his digits, licking them clean before he pulled down your panties the entire way down your legs and his boxers along with them.

Your head, that was already thrown back, lulled into the couch even harder as he slowly and carefully sunk into your inviting hole and warmth. “I love you, I love you so much, such a pretty girl, my pretty girl,” he praised as he drew his hips back and snapped them forward, peppering kisses all over your collarbone.

Your head reeled as you spewed out whimpers and moans in return. This time felt different, different than any time before. It was the first time it wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t a distraction from Spencer´s shitty marriage and it wasn’t some comfort for you after a bad day, it was a profound, unfiltered declaration of your love for each other.

One of his hands founds its way between your bodies during the hazy love making, starting to gently rub circles upon your sensitive clit. “Oh! Oh god! Fuck, Spencer, I’m close! I’m close,” you squeaked, holding onto his shoulders tightly as he quickened his hips and his finger.

“I know, angel, I know.” Spencer wasn’t a religious man, under no means, but he was pretty sure that you were the closest thing to divinity he´ll ever be able to understand.

“Come for me,” he ordered in a soft tone. Just a few seconds after his words, you did as he said, your orgasms washing over you in a way that felt like both a small calm beautiful stream and a wild strong breathtaking ocean. Spencer followed quickly, the sensation of you clenching around him being as heavenly as he would image heaven.

After he had fucked you both through your intense highs, pulled out and carried you to the bathroom to pee and take a shower, you found yourselves resting on the terrace, dressed in comfy clothes and wrapped up in a warm blanket.

“Are you going to have to move out? Cause I only have a one bedroom. But I do want to move in with you. Or is it too soon? Do you think she told the team? They’re gonna hate us-!” You rambled nervously, leaving the hot chocolate Spencer had made you unattended in your hands.

“Hey, hey, calm down, honey, it’ll be fine. We´ll talk about this later, alright? Right now you have an extremely beautiful sunset In front you, an unbelievably attractive man beside you and a really tasty hot chocolate said unbelievably attractive man made you,” he reassured, grinning proudly as he spoke his last sentence.

“Oh, unbelievably attractive, huh?” you teased.

“Yes, incredibly, unbelievably attractive.” He smirked, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“Okay, I can get on board with that but my hot chocolate is 1000 times better than this.” You shrugged and gave him a smile before turning to take in the sunset before you.

“Honestly? You’re completely right.”

@emma-e-a

[emeryleewho]

For a couple years now, I've been struggling with reading Big 5 books because I realized that the majority follow a very specific formula, and once you crack the formula, every element becomes predictable and kind of boring.

Last year, as publishers started leaning hardcore into AI (especially my publisher who has been trying to force AI on us for years), it really clicked for me that the reason they don't think AI books suck is because they've already been forcing a sort of AI-adjacent storytelling on authors. "AI writing" is just language prediction. Put a bunch of words together in the order they'll most likely appear in based on previously established datasets, and in a lot of ways, that was how I felt writing books for trad pub to buy. It felt like every time I sat down at my computer, I was just plugging pieces into slots to fill in the formula, and any time I deviated from that formula, I would be told that every deviation needed to be removed to make the story "clean".

I don't know at what point so many people who claim to love books completely lost sight of what stories are supposed to do, but last year, I told myself that if I don't want to be replaced by AI, I need to stop letting trad pub force me to write like one. And frankly, this is why I think media literacy is so important.

Every human made book--no matter how good or how bad--has something to offer because when you engage with it, *think* on it, you open yourself up to another chunk of the human experience. You're communicating with other people like or unlike you. Even books you hate inform your opinions. Even books you think are problematic help you better establish your moral compass. Every book has something to offer.

But if you can't tell the difference between a real book and ai content with a book aesthetic, you also won't notice the difference as real art and storytelling is replaced by ai generated slop that has nothing to offer because it doesn't come from *anyone*. It's just the book-length equivalent of pressing the suggested next term on your keyboard while you text your mom. The words mean nothing, there's nothing to engage with, and anything it makes you feel is based solely on your own projection, the equivalent of getting into a fight with yourself over something that could never happen.

Now, I don't think all trad pub books are bad. Like I said, every real book has something to offer. But I think the prevalent mentality overtaking trad pub of what makes a book "good" is not actually about writing quality and is entirely about how to generate the fastest, most formulaic story on the misguided premise that this will make the most money. At some point, authors, agents, and editors will have to push back against this or we're all set to be replaced because publishers have established audiences that are looking for formulaic and predictable stories, so why not let them be written by predictive text? Saves them a lot of money and completely cuts us out of the picture. I'm over it.

[plurapony]

hi petalfluff here! just a warning this post is going to be quite meanspirited. this user has been doing too much damage to the system community and our system has come to the decision that this post is very necessary.

I have hated theinfernalcollective since I first learned of the blog, I hated his takes and he's always come off with "I have a formal diagnosis of DID so I'm better than you and know more" vibes. then he posted US!!! to r/systemscringe! which of course ruined our fucking day and reblogged our vent posts calling us anti recovery, but the thing! that gets me is he clearly wants to have his cake and eat it too.

@theinfernalcollective is the definition of a fence sitter, when suddenly i started to get more followers and my post started getting more traction?

He started constantly reblogging and replying to our posts! Even though, we don't fucking like him! oh and he deleted his post of us on r/SC so clearly he regretted his actions!! because we are one of the good ones!!! /s

IC oh so clearly wants the system community to like him! he defends his actions on the subreddit saying that "it's only endo's" (and people he finds cringe who aren't endo's) but even if it WAS only endo's... ITS STILL BAD!!! You're still providing content to a community based on bullying - it does not matter if you like endo's or not NO ONE DESERVES TO BE BULLIED!!!! I don't know if he realizes that he is building up a primarily negative reputation within the Tumblr system community but it doesn't matter if he reblogs and sucks up to people to be liked - they already don't like him.

And r/systemscringe DON'T LIKE HIM EITHER!! they only like systems when they're suffering, locked up in psych wards and shunned away from the world. Every system is a faker to them by simply displaying symptoms, they don't care and they will endlessly bully anyone. They have no morals in that subreddit. Someone made a post stating exactly that! and that IC won't be considered one of the "good ones" by posting other systems.

And what was his response? He disagreed and then posted screenshots to r/systemscringe to gain validation. What happened then?

Yeah... Surprise surprise... He's not considered one of the good ones because that subreddit hates systems... Like what we have all been saying....

Seriously not only is this behavior abhorrent because someone posted to syscringe is completely unable to defend themselves but doesn't it just make you feel bad? It's nice to be nice and it makes you feel bad to do bad things to others. You're hurting people and you're only sinking the community down more. Does it not bring you down that your mind is constantly invaded with thoughts if someone is or isn't faking? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Be kind to others and they'll be kind to you back, what goes around comes back around and all that other shit.

You're pushing yourself into a pit where neither syscringe or the tumblr system community likes you and then you will have nowhere. Is that the reality you really want?

[dogcodedcatboy]

the entire aaroman timeline from s1 to postcanon. in excruciating detail. the aaroman bible if you will. the texts. the tome. “its incredibly thorough” - bff + aaroman co-ceo tumblr user rowan mage/of/wolves

cws for brief mentions of abuse ! also mentions of nsfw stuff. and succ spoilers if you care.

((DISCLAIMER: aaron is an s/i. aaron is also an oc. aaron makes choices Morally and in general that are BAD and the author knows they’re BAD. his reactions and views do not wholly represent my own, Obviously !))

divider cred @/plutism

PRECANON

* Aaron is one of Logan's private staff. He has culinary experience and works in the kitchen but occasionally gets banished to serving duty. He has been around the Roy family (minus Roman) for a bit but really has nothing to say on the matter other than they should probably all be executed in the streets. S1/Precanon Aaron hasn't bleached his hair yet + doesn't have his neck tattoo yet so he is a bit more presentable. Aaron definitely considers himself a leftist, marxist, even, definitely hasn’t read a single word of theory and still engages in arguments on twitter. He’s not great, and it only goes downhill from here.

* Roman is in LA immediately before the events of The Succ start, working at Waystar Studios. Roman flies back to NYC for Logan's 80th birthday party thing. 

---

SEASON 1

Roman and Aaron technically meet in 1x01 at Logan’s birthday party

They don’t speak to each other, just stare a bit, make weirdly prolonged eye-contact.

Aaron suspects he’s found the “gay one” out of the Roy family. And he’d totally smash. But that’s besides the point + they’re deplorable + he won’t even be around that long it’s not worth it.

Roman thinks Aaron seems out of place. Handsome guy, someone he might have hooked up with when he was in LA and able to be a little…freer…away from Logan. He tries to ignore the homoerotic thoughts per usual.

Roman ends up staying in NYC, gets thrown in as COO, watch the show, it’s good.

1x04 is the first time they actually speak.

Aaron is working the RECNY ball, has to take a cig break after Connor comes back to the kitchen to scream at the staff about the temperature of the butter.

Roman also flees for outside after getting in to an argument with his then girlfriend/unsuspecting beard.

Roman is in an extra pissy mood and immediately starts shit with Aaron for smoking outside/not working. He’s used to service workers being intimidated by him/his wealth. It’s reassuring to trample on people when he can, it makes up for being the weak dog in his own social circle.

Aaron actually does not gaf. He’s recklessly self-destructive, doesn’t care if he loses this job. Also he thinks this guy is hot and quite enjoys being able to push his buttons so easily.

They go back and forth for a bit, Roman seems to cool down and get it out of his system. This flusters him, having had some kind of emotional outburst while the stupid waiter doesn't really seem to react.

He scurries back inside. 

Both parties think about this interaction later. Wow, that guy sucks.

1x05 is the Roy thanksgiving, Aaron is on waiter duty.

Roman isn’t sure how he feels about seeing this dude again. He still walks up to initiate a conversation once they have a moment alone. He accuses Aaron of following him, they banter a bit. He’s less agitated than last time they spoke and the conversation is relatively friendly by Roman standards.

Aaron is easy-going, he rolls with the shitty jokes, speaks very informally. 

He gives Aaron shit again, and again, repeatedly bumping into him throughout the evening.

It feels like flirting. Horrible flirting that will lead to something equally horrible. Roman’s girlfriend and her child are literally there at the function (Roman also breaks up with her at the family thanksgiving, so it doesn’t matter for long. This is canon and it’s for the funniest reason imaginable.)

Roman half-jokingly mentions that he’s looking for a new private chef after moving back to NYC. Aaron offers up his phone number, offers to put his name on the list of options. There’s a mutual understanding that the chef thing is a cover. Real discreet.

Aaron knows this is a bad idea, but it’s just stupid fun. He’s used to hook-ups, cruising, this sort of thing. He’s pretty unaware of the massive power dynamic, really how much money and influence Roman has. It’s all secondary to the fact that his guy is short and has doe eyes. He wants to [redacted] his [redacted] and that’s really all that matters.

Sometime in 1x06, Roman hits Aaron up to schedule an “interview” for the private chef thing. Drinks at a nice lounge, somewhere off the beaten path enough that it’s not too public but also not divey.

They drink, chat…mess around in a private room.

They part ways afterward.

Aaron thinks the experience was…good. Roman is hot and unfortunately very charming, but there’s an obvious amount of baggage. He’s done more googling of this guy’s name and it’s not great. Alternatively, he’s just getting his dick wet and 5’6 sub bottom puppyboys with access to generational wealth (which could possibly be used to buy drinks, nice clothes…a 1961 vintage Fender Stratocaster…) are hard to come by. Let’s be bad /just/ this once…or maybe a few other times.

Roman is…scared and horny, per usual. Doing gay shit in the city his father lives is much scarier than doing it in LA. He resents not having a girlfriend to keep the image up. Not that anything will ever come of all this. He can bribe Aaron or disappear him or whatever the fuck if things go wrong. That guy is hot, though. He’s not like any of the people Roman deals with. Aaron wears his heart on his sleeve, seems incapable of not saying what he’s really thinking. Very much a “real” person.

They don’t talk for a bit.

In 1x08, Roman texts Aaron for more information on the underground club he’s throwing Tom’s stupid party at. Aaron is a pretentious freaky hipster and might know about these things.

Aaron doesn’t know shit about the club. He’s surprised Roman reached out to him to just…text? Weird thing to do for a hook-up.

Speaking of which, Aaron propositions him for another “meet-up”

It makes Roman weird, it feels too real. He’s not entirely in control of this situation, is he? Aaron has his own wants and things he’s looking for from this…arrangement. He declines anyway since he’ll be out of the country for Shiv’s wedding soon.

Roman meets Tabitha at the club, asks her out. Maybe it’s an attempt to will himself Not Gay. She’s also tall, mean in a fun way,  has nice eyebrows, a strong nose. A handful of traits he found sexy about that stupid waiter. If he’s going to fall for any woman it’s gotta be her, right? He can absolutely suppress his true wants and needs forever and it will be totally fine.

They don’t speak for the end of the season. Roman /does/ blow up a rocket, his face is publicly on the launch. A guy loses his thumbs. Maybe it starts to sink in for Aaron that he’s batting above his league on a power and influence scale. He definitely has as much of a moral “crisis” as he’s capable of having. Roman is so capable of harm, but to Aaron he seems so…frail. It’s obvious that the cuntiness is a defense mechanism, it would be less of a problem if the cuntiness wasn’t backed up by the whole multibillion dollar net worth. Unfortunately, as is on theme, it is both sexy and exciting and Aaron decides to ride it out  and see what happens.

Season 2 apparently picks up only 2 days after the S1 finale! In that time, Roman has flown to Japan for a press conference on the failed launch and to visit the victims in the hospital.

-----

SEASON 2

Aaron watches the rocket press conference with his roommates. He tells his roommates that he knows that guy and he [redacted] his [redacted]. They assume he's lying and laugh at him.

2x02 Roman needs to schmooze with the employees of a Buzzfeed/Vice-esque company Waystar has bought out. He needs them to trust him, he’s good at schmoozing but feels like he needs a little extra something..

He rather impulsively invites Aaron along to act as a liaison between him and people who make less money than he does.

The text is a bit of a surprise. After some light ribbing about the rocket thing, Aaron agrees. He does not know the mission of this operation is union-busting, but he doesn’t really ask for any elaboration. Bad comrade.

 Roman is technically dating Tabitha but that doesn't really dissuade him from hitting on Aaron. It hardly counts because it’s gay and perverse anyway.

They go out for drinks, Roman lies and says Aaron is his assistant. Everything goes off without a hitch.

Roman offers to give Aaron a ride home. They fool around in the car, and then at Aaron’s apartment. Aaron kicks him out before his roommates get back.

Roman spends a lot of season two not in NYC. He’s briefly in Hungary, then Buffalo, NY for management training.

Roman sends Aaron an unsolicited dick pic. Aaron can match that freak and they start messing around over text, which turns to calls.

Weirdly enough, they start texting each other…normally? Aaron finds himself missing Roman’s bullshit, and vice versa. They get along like a house on fire, it seems. Aaron’s casual nature and the fact he doesn’t seem to expect much from Roman makes it easier for Roman to be personal.

Aaron finds himself REALLY liking this version of Roman. He’s a bit more sensitive than he would have guessed, thoughtful, funny in a cynical way but also funny in a deeply silly way. He asks about Aaron’s day, what movies he’s seen, how his cat is doing…something is starting to happen to him and he lowkey wishes it would go away.

Roman is also starting to get mushy, but again, it’s not real and it’s fine. Aaron is a gay person in his phone, they’re friends, they fuck nasty sometimes/a lot, he wishes they could talk everyday, etc etc etc. Bromance. Whatever. 

In 2x06 Roman calls Aaron after getting his tooth knocked out by Logan at Argestes. It’s a cold call, Roman is obviously crying/upset. Aaron is the first person he thought to call, he doesn’t even want to talk about it, maybe. He wants distraction, maybe comfort, he doesn’t know. Aaron picks up. They talk. It throws Aaron off a bit, the feelings of it all makes them both weird. He comforts Roman the best he can, making awkward jokes, opening up about his own shitty childhood a bit. He’s still earnest, not unsympathetic.

They don’t talk for a while after that. Feelings complicate things. Suspecting the other person may actually reciprocate feelings makes everything seem like a minefield.

No sexts/texts/check-ins for a bit. Aaron tries to explore some other options on his end. Roman tries to make it work with Tabitha.

They don’t see each other in person for a decent chunk of time. Roman travels for various reasons to London, then Scotland, then Turkey. Also, Roman is literally held hostage in one episode, so, he’s busy to say the least.

in 2x10 Roman comes back all weird. He tries to bridge the gap between him and his siblings a bit, maybe they can talk about the “big shit”? No. Laughable, really. No feelings talks and vulnerability for the Roy sibs.

He finds himself really really fucking missing Aaron. Stupid Aaron and his regular life, he may be a little closed off by normal people standards but in comparison to Roman he’s an open fucking book.

---

SEASON 3

Given the shitstorm going on with the cruises and the company, none of which particularly has to do with Roman, he’s slightly emboldened to hit up Aaron again and keep the secret gay fling alive. 

Aaron welcomes it, maybe things are a little weird after “doing feelings” but he shakes it off, as much as he can.

 Roman is in NYC for the first bit of the season, they text regularly. They meet up at a hotel in 3x02 after the whole sibling meeting at Rava’s apartment. Roman needs to blow off some steam, they end up staying up pretty late and talking after hooking up.

 Roman has caught feelings but can’t identify them as such. Aaron has caught feelings and knows it but frankly doesn’t want to deal with it. This already sordid affair will be easier to manage if it means nothing. Which it clearly does. Not like Aaron thinks about him every day and is starting to /worry/ about him.

In 3x03, Roman is extra twitchy when Logan calls him a faggot (for unrelated reasons, after Roman did an interview saying nice things about Logan), but there’s no way his dad could know. Roman’s out of the spotlight for a bit, with other issues taking priority for the time being. 

Waystar is on fire between the cruise scandal and Kendall’s whole deal. It’s all incredibly public. Aaron sees the news coverage of the FBI raid on Waystar. His friends talk about it a bit, as you do with current events. Aaron starts to finally realize there could be real social repercussions to his thing with Roman. He keeps it on the DL as much as possible, making excuses for his absences and the expensive gifts he keeps accumulating. It’s on brand for him to be a sugar baby for sure, just maybe not by the son of a conservative media giant.

Against all better judgment, they keep at it. Friends, lovers, worse, whatever you want to call it. No mentions of exclusivity, or addressing the fact that they are pretty much dating. Roman isn’t seeing Tabitha anymore, he spends most of his free time with Aaron. Aaron has even started making appearances at Roman’s penthouse. As his “private chef", of course. 

3x06 Roman is not in NYC he is off making bad decisions that the author nor Aaron endorse politically 👎. Roman /does/ fool around with Mencken at the convention, he is not immune to a nasty nasty man who is also a silver fox. Also it benefits the company/earns him favor with his dad for fostering a good relationship with the guy + backing him politically so. Win win. 

Roman does tell Aaron about it, which makes him incredibly pissy for the entirely wrong reasons. The author, me, is pissy about this because it is beyond foul and morally reprehensible to align with Mencken’s politics. The OC, Aaron, is pissy because this is the first time Roman has broken the sort of unspoken exclusivity of their thing. Aaron hasn’t been seeing anyone else, he hasn’t wanted to. He is also incredibly frustrated about the Mencken of it, too. Roman is making it harder to ignore how awful he can be.

They argue, about the poltics, mostly. Aaron storms off.

Roman gets /very/ drunk at Kendall’s party in 3x07, accosts his siblings, walks “home”, ends up calling Aaron to meet him at a hotel nearby. Aaron begrudgingly agrees, partially because he can tell Roman is shitfaced and feels bad leaving him alone. Roman tries (rather pathetically) to get Aaron to hook-up with him again. Aaron refuses, Roman is a) shitfaced and b) weirdly self-destructive and out of sorts. He gets Roman cleaned up and puts him to bed. They don’t fuck. Roman ends up passing out and Aaron stays the night with him. Awkward spooning. Roman mumbles out a sarcastic marriage proposal that Aaron ignores. Unfortunately Aaron is in love with this man and he cannot outrun it.

Aaron actually wants to talk about it now. Naturally, Roman fucks off for his mom’s wedding before they can really get time alone again. 

Aaron gets another teary phone call after 3x09, not tastefully weepy like the last one. Messy, ugly, crying. It’s the softest they’ve ever been with eachother, Aaron all but cooing into the phone as Roman babbles about his dad and how everything’s fucked. Roman is extra pathetic, it melts Aaron’s heart.

They both look forward to meeting up once Roman is back from Italy.

---

INTERMISSION

The seasons have all been pretty continuous, but there is a 6 month gap between S3 and S4

Roman worries his relationship with his father is already fucked after 3x09. He’s all in with his siblings, against their dad, for the first time as a unified front.

This makes him brave, he’s done something he never thought he would be capable of doing.

Roman is getting sick of the game of gay chicken he’s been playing. Aaron is patient but Roman fears it will run thin someday. He’s reached the point of no return anyway with Aaron. He’s the only person who has really been there for Roman through the past year, the only person Roman wants to talk to when he’s sad, or angry, or anytime, really.

He’s still a scaredy-cat at heart, they hang out a few more times until Roman finally tries to make it official. Not that they haven’t functionally been dating for quite a while, but Roman makes it clear he’d like to “go steady” with Aaron and only Aaron.

Aaron shares Roman’s sentiments. They’re officially in a real relationship, still in secret, though. 

---

SEASON 4

Aaron is at Roman's LA mansion in 4x01 while the sibs are plotting the next business venture, they aren't officially public by any means, Roman’s siblings are the only ones that really know that Aaron exists and that he and Roman are a thing. 

Roman still tries to lie and say Aaron is staff/Roman’s chef that travelled to LA with him, but nobody buys it. Roman’s closet has always been glass and neither of the sibs are truly surprised. They are surprised by the specifics of Aaron, though, who is now covered in more tattoos, piercings, has bleached his hair. Roman gets a thorough lighthearted ribbing from them.

Aaron is indeed at the rehearsal for Connor’s wedding in 4x02. Willa and Aaron have since hit it off after being introduced sometime in-between s3 and s4. She wants Aaron at the wedding, inviting him under the guise that he's one of her theater friends. He's a lot more casual looking now, nobody would recognize him as one of Logan’s former staff.

After Willa flees the rehearsal, Aaron, at Connors insistence, accompanies the sibs to the karaoke bar. It’s oddly fun, at least for a bit.

Once Connor mentions Logan is making an appearance, Roman immediately kicks Aaron out. He’s pissy about it, overprotective and worried. He ultimately does leave, feeling like hot garbage about it.

Logan tries to pull Roman back in a bit, it almost works. He meets with his father secretly after the whole karaoke bar thing. Roman considers the offer but doesn’t say anything to Aaron. It would mean giving him up, almost certainly. He also feels like hot garbage.

Aaron is at the wedding in 4x03 when the kids get the call from Tom that Logan collapsed and is likely dead, or certainly dying, and they should say goodbye. He's far away from the 'action' so to speak. not allowed to go be in the room with his partner and the siblings when everything is going down. He’s unaware of it, even, until he hears it from Willa.

He ends up staying with Willa and Connor at the wedding. He feels useless while Roman has to go through all of that alone. Even fucking Tom gets to be with Shiv, he’s stuck back in the penthouse waiting for Roman to get home from the airport where Logan’s body lands.

Aaron is not thrilled about Roman and Kendall being named co-CEOs in 4x04. He thought there was a chance for Roman to actually get out of Waystar, and now he’s dragged right back in. Any fleeting hopes of a normal, not-secret relationship are immediately squashed and he almost feels like he’s back at the beginning. Roman is busy, worried now more than ever about his public image. Aaron stays in NYC while Roman jets around to Norway and LA.

They get some time together before the election. Things are a bit tense, the love is obviously there but the circumstances all suck. Aaron is getting restless, Roman can tell. They both fear abandonment so violently that they sort of melt down at each other, the kind of pointless emotional outburst where you’re upset and you don’t want someone to leave but opposite-action makes you behave like an insane cunt. Thankfully they’re both used to each other's neuroses by now and just end up being wet and pathetic. Aaron promises he’s all in on Roman, he’ll follow him anywhere, as long as Roman will have him.

Aaron avoids election coverage like the plague, he doesn’t speak to Roman that night except for when Roman comes home. He doesn’t want to hear about any of it, he’s seen the results.

Aaron sees Roman off the morning of the funeral in 4x09. He’s obviously not allowed to be there. He happens to see the twitter edits and memes of his boyfriend absolutely bombing the eulogy. He doesn't see Roman until later that evening when he shows up early to the penthouse, all beaten up and with a gash on his head after purposely running into a crowd of protesters and getting trampled. 

He patches him up, doesn’t ask about the funeral. He already knows. Roman expresses how much he needs to get the fuck away from everything.

Aaron accompanies Roman to his mother's home in Barbados. Roman doesnt really give a fuck about keeping Aaron a secret anymore because its all almost Roever anyway. He knows deep down that he doesn’t even want to be CEO and the whole thing is stupid, he doesn’t want to live his whole life stuck in this stupid trap.

They hang out on the beach for a few days, Aaron meets Caroline, it’s deeply awkward but funny and it’s the first time in a while that everything feels like it’s going to be okay.

When Ken and Shiv hunt down Roman in 4x10 aiming to team up once again, Aaron prays for their downfall. He outwardly supports Roman but he really really hopes that this plan doesn’t work. Roman will never even begin to heal from his past abuse and the resulting trauma as long as he’s wrapped up in his father’s company.

The plan crashes and burns, The siblings lose control of the company, Roman is no longer co-CEO. He’s out.

---

POST CANON

Despite the freedom, Roman is completely out of sorts for a bit. It takes him a while to even entertain the idea of having ‘fun’ in his post Waystar era. He’s essentially no-contact with Ken again, Shiv is busy. His family is in shambles, his dad is dead, and he’s unemployed. Aaron basically has to scrape his depressed ass off of the couch and make sure he eats meals for a bit. 

Eventually the fog starts to clear. He’s still rich as fuck, has a hot boyfriend, and can literally do whatever the fuck he wants. He decides to flee to LA with Aaron.

Aaron attends a proper culinary school while in Cali, Roman tries his hand at funding and helping produce some really shitty sci-fi movies. Roman taste tests for Aaron, and Aaron offers his artistic input on what amounts of goo/slime/ooze are optimal for whatever alien/robot-related project Roman is working on.

After a year in LA, they move back to NYC. Roman enters his screenwriting era while working on some tech/social media start-up bullshit on the side.

They travel A LOT in general because of the disgusting wealth. Lots of trips to Europe.

A year and a half after returning to NYC, around 3 years since they met, Aaron finally proposes. Marriage scares the hell out of him, but Roman is his guy and even if it still freaks him out a bit, he wants to be with him forever.

They get married in NYC, a luxury venue for the ceremony and the reception at the Met. They honeymoon in France for as long as they can withstand the French, before returning to NYC to go live relatively normal lives I guess!

They stay together until the heat death of the universe. Aaroman forever. This is 9 Google Docs pages of selfship lore. There is something wrong with me.

(art cred)

[kurlik42]

(I reblogged my previous post to clarify a few things. Again, it's about proship, so I've also put it in "read more".)

Thank you for all the activity on this post! I appreciate your clarifications and patience, now I can see that some of the statements and formulations I've made were wrong. I can see that not everything in that text is comprehensible, so I apologize for my English — it isn't my native language. Since censoring words isn't necessary on this site, I won't use the censorship anymore.

I agree that fiction and reality don't work in the same way and I believe it is fine to explore dark themes in fiction for any reason, as long as it doesn't hurt real people. If certain ships make a person happy and bring them comfort, there's likely no harm in it due to the fact that it's only fiction. It's not always used as a way to cope and it's fine to enjoy fiction due to different reasons, as well as it doesn't necessarily reflect a person's morals and beliefs. Also, as I understood, attraction towards anything doesn't make a person bad, since they can't control the feeling of attraction itself; rather, the actions speak volumes: if they decide to act on the urge and consciously hurt someone real, then they should be held responsible for the illegal act. However, if they decide against it, there's no specific action to judge them for. I believe that these people also deserve help and a safe space, because harassment and oppression never made anyone better, but everyone deserves a chance for a happy life. And of course, any sexual act in reality should be solely performed from consent after every party reached the legal age.

And to answer the question of the user miranova23: although I'm currently not pushed into such beliefs by my close social circle, the topic of proship makes me anxious due to confronting my previous beliefs. I'm not officially diagnosed with moral OCD, however, I'm indeed prone to questioning my morality every so often. So all of the questions I asked are hypothetical — I'm strongly against CSEM and no real child deserves to be hurt (the thought itself makes me uneasy). In case that was the case for concern, the question about monetisation of r34 with underage characters was asked because I wasn't sure whether it's appropriate to gain money from such art despite the depicted characters not being real. But I suppose it's fair to say that it depends on the laws of my country; besides, pixels can't consent, which is why being concerned about this in the first place isn't necessary, so it's better to focus on real victims who should have support and help. Even if so, I'm not going to draw sexualised minors at any point. I'm not judging those who do, since they don't harass real children and, again, just draw pixels, and I definitely will not harass and threaten people over it. I'm only saying that this content makes me uncomfortable and I prefer to skip it respectfully, because your kink is not my kink but your kink is okay. I think that not all kinds of content are for everyone, but it's alright. And yes, I suppose I could use therapy 😅 Perhaps I should learn not to give a fuck about others's business. I hope I answered your questions.

Feel free to correct me if I might be wrong somewhere — I simply would like to have a better perspective on the topic, because I strive to be a better person. Anyway, wish you all a great day!

(It's about proship, so I've put it in "read more" in case someone finds the topic uncomfortable. Take care)

Without negativity, I have a few controversial questions which I'd like to see from some different angles. It's curiosity, but not an accusation by any means — I just question my moral beliefs, so I don't want to cause arguments but a discussion. And you aren't obligated to answer all the questions and aren't obliged to answer at all, of course.

With all due respect, what I'd like to ask is:

Can "proship" be considered a bad coping mechanism? Does the media that one enjoys reflects their morals and beliefs? Also, I'm not sure if that's okay to sexualise and fetishize underage people, even if it's fictional. I understand that it's often a way to cope with trauma, I don't mean to invalidate it in any way and I'm not a doctor, though I can't decide whether it's a healthy way to process it. I once heard an argument that it works in a similar way with gambling and p0rn addiction, as in indulging in fantasies and letting urges control one's behaviour, but I'm not sure if it's really so. Isn't it possible to see ped0phile inclinations in a person through the media they consume and produce? Also, is it okay to monetise drawn child p0rn? Because this content is created specifically with the idea to get turned on by drawn kids, which sounds not so far from getting off on real ones (with the difference that in the first case, it's fictional, so no real kid is technically hurt; however, the attraction is still caused by knowing the drawn person is underage, so the mechanism remains the same).

So all in all, I think there are concerning people on both the proship and antis sides. Which doesn't mean that every person in both communities is inherently bad or good, but I think it's important to acknowledge that there can and will be people who do questionable things from both sides. I also would like to clarify that I'm against threats and bullying over fiction, respect should be always prioritised.

Thank you for your patience, I apologize if I made you uncomfortable or understood something wrong.

[autisticrosewilson]

It's not that I hate fanon or that I think fanon is inherently less intelligent or morally wrong, but a LOT of fanon is based in racism, misogyny, and classism that I feel like a lot of you accept without question.

WHY is Duke (Daredevil, son of a god, has never once allowed himself to be defined by anyone's actions but his own) relegated to a background role, only characterized by reacting to the whims of other bats?

Why is Babs - Birds of Prey leader and backbone of the hero society, tells Bruce to fuck off and die 4 times a day and is constantly ruining her relationships by being biased and unhinged - Gotham bound, the mature responsible mom of the group who never argues with Bruce and never gets in trouble?

Why is Dick, both a tactical genius and master manipulator, a himbo only appreciated for his sex appeal? Especially when he is both Romani (group of people demonized and condemned as hypersexual by their nature alone) and an SA victim.

WHY is Damian "feral" and "uncivilized" despite being raised as a literal prince? Half of you treat him like a sociopath with no hope of redemption for an unfunny three second joke and the other half of you go full throttle into Bruce's white savior bullshit so that Damian can be "redeemed". Y'know when you're not villainizing Talia and acting like Dick is his other parent, actually.

WHY is Stephanie - extremely intelligent detective who can't stand Bruce and has a living mother she loves - lumped in as another member of the Batfam, a blonde ditz who only cares about prank wars and emotionally supporting Tim?

WHY is Cass - intelligent, a grown adult, suicidal perfectionist - emotionally intelligent, primarily existing to support the characters around her, immediately accepting of everyone she meets regardless of her own morals?

Why is Bruce the golden standard? Enough so that though everyone in the fandom could agree that he's an emotionally unstable wreck, being considered "the most like him" is seen as a compliment and not the HIGHEST insult? Everyone would agree if I said that Bruce purposely self sabotages his relationship half the time and the other half he simply does things without caring about the emotional impact it will have on people because he has to be the smartest in the room, but if I said that makes him a shit partner and emotionally abusive parent the fandom would bend over backwards to argue with me.

Why is Tim "the best Robin" when Dick Grayson invented the mantle, it is impossible for someone to embody the spirit of Robin better than him because he made it and he created what being Robin means. Maybe Tim is the best in Bruce's eyes, but what Robin means and who has the right to give it over was a significant thing they argued about. Tim the high school drop out, and yet also somehow the smartest? Tim "the most like Bruce" except no he's not, that's Cass. Poor neglected, abused, victimized little Timmy (the rich boy at the elite boarding school with loving albeit busy parents and almost every instance of him being victimized by another character has either been racist bullshit - The Al Ghuls and Rose Wilson- or a complete 180 for the character that made no sense when examined through the lens of prior characterization - Jason for instance.)

Almost every fanon trope that gets passed around like gospel seems to deliberately push POC characters and women into the background and strip them of interesting complex traits and stories, usually for the purpose of fitting them all into bite sized incorrect quote character types and uncomplicated narrative roles that are not only completely divergent from canon, but primarily exist to prop up the two rich white boys.

Also the insistence that Bruce, a 20 year old at the time, should actually be excused for how much he mentally and emotionally fucked Dick up because really they're more like siblings! While deciding that Dick at the same age was actually the perfect candidate to be Damian's new parent/guardian...have you lost the fucking plot you don't even make sense to yourselves.

Okay I lied at the beginning, I do hate fanon. You guys are so uncritical about the media you consume it is BEYOND just letting people enjoy things and have fun. I guess it's one thing if you KNOW this stuff isn't canon and UNDERSTAND why these tropes are problematic and you engage with it as such, it's fine read and write what you want, but just spreading the same nonsense around and parading it around as "better than canon" (version of the character so bland and boring you've somehow made the old white men at DC look like geniuses in the art of representation) is just infuriating.

[8km-2]

was the church always in charge of yharnam or was there like a mayor and then laurence came along and did something...?

[gibbearish]

truck drivers when you go 85 in a 70 rather than 150

[loveless-arobee]

Hey, cis women who say "I wish I was a man but definitely not a trans way, haha! I would never be a man :)"

I say this with all the gentleness in my heart: It is okay for you to be a man. If you want to be a man, you can just be one. You also don't have to stop being a woman to be a man. Multigender people exist. You can be a man and a woman at the same time. Or you can be just a man, or a non-binary man, or non-binary, or something entirely different. You can do and be whatever you want and whatever makes you happy.

Becoming a man is not a betrayal of womanhood and feminism. And everyone who makes you feel like it is an absolute asshole, and you should not ever listen to them. You do not have to push your own happiness aside for other peoples' comfort.

If you want to be a man, try it out! See where it gets you. Maybe it turns out that you really weren't trans, or not a trans man but something else entirely, and that's fine, too. Maybe it turns out you are a trans man. In any case, following those thoughts might get you to a happier and better place in the end. And if you turn out to be happier as a man than you were as a woman, that is wonderful.

Please don't feel forced to stay a cis woman for feminism - any feminism that mistreats or hates trans men and transmasculine people is bad feminism. Being a trans man or transmasc is not a moral failure.

Trans manhood and masculinity are wonderful, and you deserve happiness. And if you find that happiness in manhood/masculinity, you don't deserve to be shamed or harassed for it, and you should not be made to feel the need to put yourself down for it, either.

[spyroz]

if anyone needs help identifying things that can become moral scrupulosity OCD obsessions/compulsions, heres a list of some i've experienced:

rereading your posts/texts over and over

checking your notes and/or followers list frequently to "make sure" bad actors aren't interacting with you

checking OP's blog before interacting with posts

compulsively opening a social media tab to look at your notifs and then closing it, over and over

fearing ways that things you say/do (or don't do) could be taken in bad faith. being anxious that your words/actions will be misconstrued as morally wrong, bigoted, rude, or aggressive

feeling guilty or obsessing over whether you should or shouldn't have reblogged a post

feeling like you aren't "allowed" to disengage from online discourse or unfollow people who post it

fearing you're being stalked, talked about, or called out behind your back. fearing you'll never be forgiven and that people might even celebrate your disappearance or death, even though you havent done anything wrong

searching your own name/username to see if anyone is actually talking about you

imagining defenses you would make against nonexistent heinous accusations or arguments against you, to prove that you didnt do it

feeling like you have to roll over and become a doormat when others are cruel to you, because it could cause strife if you do anything other than grovel or apologize

having trouble enforcing your own boundaries out of fear that they are somehow "wrong" or unethical

ending up surrounded by people who have all the "right opinions" but are super mean and unpleasant, and make you feel like you have to walk on eggshells

fearing that just HAVING moral ocd makes you a bad person somehow (for example, i often fear that having moral ocd is somehow pushing a 'stranger danger' or misanthropist agenda, even though i actually have a lot of faith in my fellow humans)

some of these bullet points are not inherently bad on their own, but if you find yourself having this kind of anxiety very often, that's not normal, and it's time to get offline or even seek professional help if it's impacting your life

this list is catered to how online culture influences moral scrupulosity, it is not indicative of how everybody's moral scrupulosity functions, and it is not exhaustive

[suhkusa]

THE KISS BET.

PAIRING. Bakugou Katsuki x f!Reader

SUMMARY. Your friends bet you to kiss Katsuki Bakugou. Fortunately for you, they’re offering you $500 for it. Unfortunately for you, the two of you absolutely hate each other.

CW. third year, angst to fluff, light hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers, mature humor, feelings, language

WC. ~2.8k

A/N. enjoy :3

You and your group of friends had a running gig. Bets. 

The group would bet one person to do something, on a scale from normal to outrageous, and that person’s turn wouldn’t end until they complete that bet. Of course, depending on how crazy the bet is, everyone would put in some amount of money. 

The most you’d gotten was $100 total from accepting a date from creep in the business class. Worst date of your life, but Jirou felt bad so she gave you an extra $50. 

As the lot of you gather around the campfire, everyone offers up their money to Mina who had just done her bet to put laxatives in Kirishima’s drink. There were a lot of questions about the morality of it, but you ignored it and gave her a crisp $20. 

“Y/N~ it’s your turn!” Ochako gleed. 

You roll your eyes, “I feel like I just did my other bet, which by the way was shit,” the girls laugh at your words. “I feel like all of you get the easier ones,”

“Easy? I had to kiss Monoma, do you know how hard that was? He knows I’m lesbian so imagine how hard that was for me to convince him,” Yaoyorozu sighs with a palm to her face.

“Oh, whatever,” Mina says with a clap of her hands, “You want a hard one, Y/N?”

“I mean that’s the whole point of paying each other to do bets, they’re supposed to be hard,” 

“Be careful what you wish for,” Mina smirks before standing up and pointing at you. 

“I bet you $100,” your ears perk up.

“-to kiss–,” your eyes widen but listen nonetheless.

“Katsuki Bakugou,” your world falls apart.

“Mina, no,” 

“Y/N, yes,” she jumps up and down, “It’s too late, I already said it,”

All the other girls are hooting and hollering, but you just sit there in silence as you stare at the flames. Are you really going to try this?

As you consider your options the other girls start placing their bet offerings.

“$75 from me,” Tsuyu calls out.

Then from Hagakure, “$50,”

“$150,” from none other than Yaoyorozu. 

“I guess I’ll put in $80,” Jirou smiles at your misery.

“Hmm, I’ll even it out with $45, so $500 flat for you, Y/N,” Ochako smiles.

$500?!? You’d be outright stupid to deny such a big amount of money. But you’d even stupider to think Katsuki Bakugou would kiss you of all people. 

“I think that’s impossible,” you whine as the other girls poke fun at you.

“I guess only time will tell,” Mina grabs your hands and smiles, “Good luck, Y/N,”

—

You can hear the rambunctiousness of your class before you walk in. When you walk through the doors, your eyes scan the class before your eyes lock in on Katsuki Bakugou. You groan with a roll of your eyes before stomping your way towards him. 

“Hey, Katsuki,” you stare down at him, “You want to do me a favor,”

“For you? I rather eat shit,” he grumbles as he meets your gaze.

“You’re a freak,” you already knew this was going to be hard, “Please,”

“Mm, depends, what’s in it for me?” 

“I guess you’ll find out,” you say. “Kiss me,”

It feels like the class goes silent as the two of you continue to just stare at each other. He opens his mouth then closes it. 

“You– The fuck?” His eyes are scattering as the words continue to process through his mind, “What a weirdo, hell no,” then he’s pushing himself out of his seat and making his way to the door.

“You know class starts in 5 minutes right?” you call to him.

“Fuck off,” he grunts as he shuts the door behind him.

Yep, definitely hard. 

—

The next time you bother Bakugou for a kiss is when the two of you are paired up for combat training. Much against his will. 

“Katsuki~” you call out as you dodge another blow from him. “You can’t avoid me forever,”

“Yes-” another explosion, “I can,”

You go on the offense as you continue, “Just a peck, please. I’m a good kisser, I promise,” 

“You’re shit,” he’s grumbling between dodges of your attacks.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” you send him a wink before getting a hit on him. 

Bakugou groans, about to send another remark, when the training ends with a blow of a whistle.

The two of you meet eyes one last time, “Think it over, kay?” you smile before walking away.

—

Knock, knock. 

You stand at Bakugou’s door.

“Go away, perv,”

“Aw, how did you know it was me? You missed me?”

“I can just tell by the stench,” 

You laugh a little at his words, “Please, let me explain to you and maybe you’ll reconsider,” 

You can hear footsteps, and you smile. When he opens the door he’s adorned in his classic black tank and some sweats.

“You should put some clothes on, perv,” you mock. “Anyways, it was a bet from my friends and there’s $500 on the line, so if you would just–”

“I don’t kiss just anyone, princess,” the nickname causes you to fluster, but you shake it off as he continues, “You gotta earn it,”

He’s got a stupid smirk on his face, and you didn’t even realize it but he’s definitely leaning closer to you. It’s sending butterflies– well maybe more like moths– into your stomach. 

“What the– You’re definitely the pervert. I’m just going to ask to call it off,” you fake gag, “Later, loser,” 

“You’ll be back, nerd,”

You internally groan as you hear him shut the door, ignoring the intense heartbeat in your chest.

—

“No,” Mina says.

“What?! I told you it’s impossible,” you argue, all of your friends on the other side of the argument. 

“No it’s not, he said you had to earn it right?” Mina retorts, “So obviously there’s a way, you’re just stubborn,”

“You’re really not asking me to… You guys are crazy. Please, please, I’ll take anyone else, anything else,” 

“Sorry, Y/N, it’s the rules,” Tsuyu looks at you with pity.

“He hates me and I hate him! That’s all there is to it. It’s not going to happen,”

“Why do you guys even hate each other? It’s our third year, get over it already,” Jirou teases. 

“Because he’s a dick and I refuse to let him walk all over me! I just cursed him out one time for calling me weak. He’s the one who holds grudges because of his fragile, little heart,” 

“You should’ve known he’d hold that against you, but I honestly doubt he hates you because of that,” Mina says. “He probably thought you looked hot,” she laughs.

Heat rushes to the tips of your eyes, “Whatever, all of you are weirdos. But anyways-”

“No, Y/N,” Mina states, end of subject.

“You all just want me to kill myself,” you groan as you sink into the couch. “Whatever, but I’m going to force all of you to double your offering if I actually do this shit,”

The girls cheer. You cry inside. Anything for money, you guess.

—

It seems like the universe heard about the predicament you were in, because it felt like you were suddenly around him more often ever since the bet had been set.

“You know, I don’t want to be on patrol with you either,” you grumble, kicking at rocks as the two of you walk up and down the roads of the dorms.

“Glad we agree,”

Silence washes over you both. 

“Why don’t you want to kiss me? Am I ugly or something?” you ask, but it definitely comes off sadder than you intend.

“Don’t get all insecure because you don’t get a stupid kiss,” he looks the opposite direction of yours, “You know damn well you’re not ugly, so don’t piss me off,” 

He had a strange way of saying stuff.

“Aw, you love me, don’t you?” you tease, poking at his arm.

“Ah you dumbass, pay attention,” you snap back into place with a laugh, “‘M just saying you’re better looking than some of these extras,” 

You don’t know what to say in response to his words. Because they were surprisingly very sweet. 

Realizing he had said too much, he changes the subject. “Let’s go this way,”

You follow him with a nod.

There was definitely a certain type of tension lingering that the two of you walked in near silence for the rest of the patrol. 

You definitely were not repeating back his words in your head over and over again for the rest of the patrol. And Katsuki Bakugou was definitely not turning red because of what he said earlier. Definitely not. 

—

After that patrol, things seemed to sort of shift between the two of you. And to say it was scary was an understatement. 

Conversations wouldn’t always start off with the two of you insulting or cursing each other out. There’d be a hey or hello. If you guys saw each other in passing, he’d greet you with a nod of his head. Him being anything but passive aggressive towards you was terrifying because it was so not him. 

“Y/N,” a familiar voice calls out to you, you groan as you put your pencil down.

“I’m studying, what do you want, Katsuki?” 

“Come with me to the movies after school today,” it’s not really a question, more like a command. 

You put your hands to your mouth in fake(?) excitement, “You’re asking me on a date?! So kind, Katsuki,” 

“It’s not a date, idiot. I’m going with Ei and Denki later, they’re bringing Jirou and Mina. They were teasing me for not bringing anyone, so come,”

“If I don’t?” you muse.

“Be there or be square, nerd,” he doesn’t take your bait, but you can tell he’d prefer it if you go. He walks away before you can respond. 

Well, you guess you have plans later.

;;;

You meet up with the lot of them at the allotted time. The group walks together, and you thank God your friends have a questionable taste in men so you wouldn’t be stuck with some randos. But you also have half a mind to curse them out for leaving you to fend for yourself when you all arrive at the theater. 

They left you with no choice but to sit with Bakugou. Part of you really hates it, but not as much as you hate the rate at which your heart beats. 

For the most part, the two of you just sit there in awkwardness. The other couples indulge in that lovey dovey shit, and it makes you feel out of place. You zone out and get into your head. Was there a motive in asking you to come out here? He could’ve invited like… Midoriya… or Ochako… Or anyone, really. But, you? Does he like you? Or were you his last option to invite? Your head hurts from overthinking.

Your hand rests in your lap, picking at the material of your pants. At least that’s what it was doing. Until it happened. 

From the corner of your eye, you watch as Bakugou slid his hand into yours. His fingers finding a comfortable place between your own. You release a deep breath when you realize you were holding your breath. Is he out of his fucking mind?

Despite your efforts to try and justify how much you absolutely hate it. You didn’t even try to stop him. You didn’t pull away. You didn’t let his hand go. And even as the movie ended, you actually felt sad when he slid his hand away. 

The cool air of the night shocked you a bit when all of you made it outside. 

“We were thinking of grabbing a bite, did you guys want to come?” Mina exclaims. 

“Ooh, that sounds good, are you down, Jirou?”

“Sure, and you guys?” they all look at you.

“I- I have a stomach ache… Butter fucks with my stomach really bad,” the excuse is kind of weak, but still holds up as they all nod in understanding. 

“I can walk you to the dorm,” Bakugou offers, and you don’t really give him a yes or no, he just follows you.

Kirishima and Mina whistle and holler as the two of you part ways with the rest of them. 

Part of you regrets making up some stupid lie to go home. Because this was way more awkward than getting free pizza. 

The two of you are right by each other as you walk in silence towards the dorm. You wait. And wait. Wait for him to bring it up. Why did he do that? Why did he grab your hand? Was it all a front?

Why is he treating you so well?

Even as he drops you off at your room, he says nothing. Just a simple “Goodnight,” before he’s making his way to the elevator.

What an asshole.

—

So you take the initiative. The initiative in ignoring him. You weren’t some casual fling. Fuck the bet, fuck him.

When you saw him making his way towards you, you were quick to get up and rush out of the classroom. When he nodded your directions in passing, it was easy to just walk past and not acknowledge him. Whatever there was between you and him, was gone. Whatever “it” was, exactly. 

But you were okay. You guess. You were down $500 or $1000, but whatever. That game was bullshit anyways. You always got the worst bets. You kind of felt bad that you were the end of it, though. 

It was easy to avoid him. That’s what you thought. At least until one week later, you found yourself cornered by your dorm room with nowhere to go.

“What the fuck is up with you?” he’s angry, you’d be stupid if you thought otherwise.

You cross your arms and avoid his intense gaze, “Whatever do you mean?” 

He’s getting closer, and a tiny, like miniscule, part of you finds angry-him hot. “You know what the hell I mean, you’ve been avoiding me,” 

“Nuh uh,” you retort, still avoiding the subject at hand. “I’ve just been busy, sorry,”

“Like hell, Racoon Eyes said you’ve been in your dorm room everyday, so try again, asshat,”

Fucking Mina.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” you poke at his chest, “Now get out of my way before I beat your ass,”

“Yeah? I’d like to see you try,” he’s smiling with mockery.

“Oh, I’m sure you’d like to be touched by me, you little virgin,” you inspect your nails in nonchalance, “Too bad, so sad, now move,”

“No, not until you answer me,” he’s a bit more serious now, you can sense it in his tone. 

You groan, “Fine, not until you answer me, though. Why the fuck did you hold my hand and act like it didn’t happen? Am I like a joke to you?”

He straightens up and his eyes widen. He looks to the side, then back at you.

“You’re fuckin’ smart, why don’t you take a guess?”

“You’re not a baby, why don’t you use your words?” 

You got him there.

“Maybe ‘cuz I like you, or something, idiot,”

You laugh. Laugh. Because he really thought you’d believe a stupid joke like that.

“You’re funny, but seriously, why did–”

A kiss. Katsuki Bakugou has always been known for his speed and his wit. But now you see it more than ever. As he steals a kiss from you. It happens faster than you’re able to even realize you’re leaning into it. 

When the two of you part, it’s tense again. You don’t know if you should say something but he takes that choice from you.

“You think that was funny?” he asks.

“Well- no, but–”

“No buts, that’s that,”

“I didn’t even say I like you back! What if I didn’t-”

“Oh, so you do?” you jump up in realization you fumbled your words. “Good to know, princess,”

“Ugh, you’re so annoying. How was I supposed to know you liked me? You’re such an asshole, you know?”

“Really? Because this asshole just got you some cash,” he laughs referring to the bet, “But y’know, I don’t let just anyone call me Katsuki,”

You grit your teeth before throwing a punch at his arm, “Annoying! Annoying, so annoying,” 

Another hearty laugh escapes from his lips as he pulls you into a hug. You didn’t even know Bakugou gave hugs. But you don’t mind it. 

“You’re such a pervert, I bet you’ve been looking forward to that kiss,” he teases.

“Yeah? Well you’re a pervert for even kissing me in the first place,”

—

YOU: pay up bitches

YOU: i’m talking double btw

[164 new notifications]

You were rich and in love. What more could you ask for?

© all writings belongs to suhkusa 2024. do not repost or change.

[olderthannetfic]

I always see people reminiscing about the Good Ole Days and about how antis are a new thing but. . .is that really true? Or am I just being autistic and taking things too literally, and they just mean it's way more of a common debate now than it used to be before, and that the landscape of shipwank has changed?

Idk, it's like I constantly hear about fandom wank and shipwars and censorship from decades ago, and yes I know "shipping/doxxing/censorship has always existed" can co exist with "antis are new" but I think there's still a bit of a comprehension gap on my end.

am i just dumb? What am I missing here? FWIW - I do feel like the context of "anti" has definitely changed. Back in early 2010s tumblr (I cannot speak of other website/platforms) I remember that tagging something as #Anti Donkey Kong didn't mean you think DK is an evil abusive monster and that everyone who likes him/mains him is also an evil abusive monster and that Nintendo is pushing the evil abusive monster agenda. #Anti Donkey Kong would just be character bashing, wank, letting out your grievances about how ugly DK is, etc, but it was really just a tag used for your own personal opinions (and for DK fans to filter out). Whereas now #Anti Donkey Kong would mean please go die and delete all your accounts if you support DK.

So I definitely know that "anti" has a way more intense definition now than it used to - but for some reason I find it a bit hard to grasp just how new this whole anti thing even is in the firstplace. It honestly makes me sad that I've never seen a pre-anti internet, assuming there really was a time before antis.

--

Antis are new. Specifically, the "Conservative Protestantism in a gay hat" thing that that one tumblr post pointed out is new.

We had doxxing in the past. We had masses of shipwank. We also had "How dare you write that m/m ship. It's bad!"

The key is that the "Your m/m ship is bad" crowd used to openly be conservative Christian homophobes who objected to homosexuality itself. Nowadays, they're queer 20-somethings who like m/m ships but object to gay sex.

It's the anti-kink, anti-fantasy brigade coming from "our side" instead of the outside, essentially. It's respectability politics about "Sempai will love me if I just sanitize The Community and kick out the icky weirdos". It's personal disgust masquerading as morality where once it would have been masquerading as intellectual superiority.

It's a product of queerness being more public and tolerated overall. In the past, a lot of spaces devoted to m/m shipping had to be aggressively in favor of contentious fiction because the existence of anything m/m was itself contentious. There was plenty of "Well, my gay best friend said ___ is unrealistic, and my slash is good, unlike that of you plebes!" There was much less "Fujoshi means fetishizer".

Of course, I'm comparing the 90s internet to now or the mid 00s Livejournal fandom to Tumblr of this past decade. It really depends on whether Ye Olden Times was five years ago or twenty five.

The modern use of the term 'anti' did indeed grow out of the old habit of tagging your hate. As the default cultural mode shifted from "My NOTP is dumb" to "My NOTP is problematic", the usage changed. At some point, antis started getting offended by their self-applied term and pretending that the other side inflicted it on them. This is revisionism. Fiction-is-not-reality had some writeups with citations in the past.

The big shifts were happening around 2012-2016. The long slide into puritywankers being everywhere has only continued since then, but that's where the tipping point seems to have been. TikTok exacerbates this nonsense, and there are clearly plenty of people who are anti-queer and only weaponizing clueless queer youth.

The big shift is that liking m/m used to weed out most of the worst people, and now it attracts lots of them who will not fucking go away because they like the same ship, just the hand-holdy, no dicks can touch ever version.

They spend their time bleating about how AO3 should have been built for them and how anti-censorship activism doesn't matter... because they've grown up in a fandom world dominated by AO3, which shelters them from the reality that the "Ewww, all m/m sucks!" crowd is everywhere on other sites to this day.

That's probably why the shift is when it is. Certain aspects of mainstream queer acceptance were on the rise just as AO3 was getting big. But at the same time, the world is shit and everyone has anxiety they self-medicate through rage and security theater around sniffing out The Bad People.

[vigilskeep]

hey harker! very much enjoying the lucanis/illario/general crow posting, and im gonna encourage more: now that you’ve had some time to sit with the game i was really curious to hear more about your opinion on lucanis becoming first talon. i can’t help but feel like it’s completely glossed over that lucanis is definitely going to get chewed up by this job in most save states. i have mixed feelings about it personally - but setting those aside because i’m asking about yours.

i TRULY cannot express this enough: that villa is a tomb and if we do not get him out of there we are burying him in it

lucanis does not want this job. he has straight up canonically always avoided thinking about this by assuming he would die before it becomes something he has to deal with. he reacts with paralysed disbelief to being given it and seems to have barely registered it for the rest of the game. and even if he did want it, lucanis is not capable of this job. none of his skillsets are managing people, or making ruthless calls, or watching out for himself. the only driving force behind him being pushed into this is caterina, who will not be around to do the admin and protect him from external threats forever. and she only wants him to do it in the first place because she had a good heir—his mother—and has needed to project that dead daughter onto lucanis for his whole life, to believe she hasn’t already gambled and irrevocably lost her family’s future decades ago. but lucanis’ incapacity to ever say no to her, which is what lets him stay that eternal teacher’s pet, is one of the most obvious shining examples why he would be so bad for the job!

it would be an uphill battle for anyone to recover control of an assassin house that until last week was being run by your cousin who tried to kill you. it would be an uphill battle for anyone to lead the crows in the aftermath of the antaam occupation. it would be an uphill battle for anyone to cope with the fact that relying on viago and teia—which lucanis with his resources and skills has no choice but to do here, even if he didn’t simply like them and make choices based on liking people because he is not a strategist—presents them as an alliance that any other ambitious talon must cut down to get anywhere. three out of eight of the talons is such a ludicrously dangerous number. it does not take an overwhelmingly brilliant mind to notice that there’s more of us than there are of them

the best man for the job would still be fighting for their life, and lucanis is far from the best man. caterina was! and she still lost five children and six grandchildren holding it! that’s so many! have you guys ever seen that one post about people who kept getting a new outdoor cat every time the last one got eaten by cougars and it was pointed out they were basically just feeding cats to the cougars. that’s what caterina dellamorte was doing having kids

the points in lucanis’ favour off the top of my head are the weight of the dellamorte name and reputation, that his victory over illario was decisive and public, and simply the fear factor that he is a god slayer and, lest we forget, a fucking abomination. is that enough to keep him alive? for how long? under what level of constant anxiety and moral degradation for his very soft over-caffeinated heart? all for the questionable gain of several large and empty villas and the privilege of dragging out the slow and lingering death of a family that, you guessed it, you love it, it’s the thedas favourite: has no! next! generation! heirs! at all!!!

(unless illario has a bunch of kids somewhere. i think that would be objectively pretty funny, a sentence i managed to type most of before feeling ill. oh god we need to get them out.)

i apologise that my tone here is somewhat hysterical but i have been living in the mind of my rook, a character very aware of the realities of crow politics who loves lucanis very much. it does not surprise me that lucanis was once again incapable of even conceptualising saying no to his grandmother and accepted the title, or that the idea of abandoning her legacy and his family would seem insurmountable to him when he has been raised to believe it’s all he’s for and he is the last one shouldering the weight. but i am saying this with total and absolute confidence: this is another prison and he is going to die in there if nobody gets him out.

[butchvamp]

i finished Harding's quest... whew... i don't like Harding. or i should say i don't like how nice the game treats her. she gets all of the emotional beats around the lore revelations while the elves are left to go kick rocks.

i pointed this out previously in another post, but the dwarves (and Harding specifically, and thus by extension Andrastians, too) get so much more sympathy from the game than any of the elves. you can clearly see it just in these two screenshots-- compare dialogue choices when comforting Harding after the reveal about the Golden City (and also important to note that the game assumes my elf is Dalish multiple times before this choice, but for some reason i can suddenly make her Andrastian):

versus the first real discussion you get to have with Bellara about the truth of the elven gods:

Bellara implies that everyone is right not to trust the elves, actually, because the elven gods (the same ones that enslaved her people btw) are bad and we should all feel bad about it.

and Davrin is unfortunately distanced from the Dalish, remarking that they're too traditional and stuck in the past (a racist trope that Dragon Age really loves for the elves), and only seems to care about how the elven gods make elves "look bad." we do get to see Davrin reconnect with one of the members of his clan later, which is a sweet moment that shows us a new side of him, but it exists more so to push along the griffon storyline than anything to do with Davrin (a problem i find quite annoying when it comes to Davrin's writing... they care more about Assan and "turlum" than him or his feelings. but that's a different post)

when we finally get to Heart of Stone, Harding has her big, emotional confrontation with a titan, and gets granted the memory of the titan's loss and all of their pain. she says some Choice lines, here.

who is thriving? the elves that were enslaved en masse by the Evanuris? the elves that are still enslaved and live in alienages? that are wholly, systemically oppressed throughout Thedas? then to follow it up with both of these lines, spoken to an elven Rook:

and i understand that this is the titan speaking through Harding, and we can be generous and say that they are addressing the Evanuris, and not elf Rook personally. but. uh. why doesn't my elf get to Say Anything. it's repeatedly insinuated that everything is the elves' fault, that the elves should feel guilty and that they should be held responsible for what happened to the dwarves (and by extension, the blight and everything bad that's ever happened including what's happening right now), and that they deserve to suffer because of what "they" did to the titans.... and there's no option to challenge this line of thinking at all.

and it's really frustrating that none of the elven companions are allowed this kind of emotional catharsis with the Evanuris. up until that one (bad) dialogue with Bellara, all of Bellara's comments/her reactions to the gods are treated as comic relief. none of them get to grieve their gods like Harding is allowed to grieve the titans-- they're not even allowed to be as angry with Solas as Harding is in some scenes. even Andrastians, in that one single dialogue choice, were afforded more sympathy and grief than the elves in this game.

it's a baffling choice, considering the plot, that elves are given so little grace or consideration. and i do think part of it has to do with the way this game has tried to distance itself from previously established lore as well as scrub itself clean of anything morally dubious-- it's all black and white and the game needs someone to blame, so the elves are bad because the Evanuris are bad, nevermind all that other stuff, because see, the elves actually deserved it all along! i don’t even think it’s unreasonable that Harding may have these feelings (even if they’re racist lol) but the fact you just have to accept Blame and the narrative never challenges her or Bellara’s guilt or Davrin’s apathy and instead just agrees with all of them and forces Rook to agree as well is shitty and takes it from “this character feels this way” to “the game is implying that everyone feels this way, and also that they’re right.”

it's really unfortunate because i do think this reveal about the titans and why the dwarves can't dream or use magic is exciting, it could cause some compelling conflict between the companions (but that's not allowed in this game at all unfortunately and you especially Cannot be even slightly rude to Harding, ever). and i do like the idea of her quest and what they're trying to convey here-- confronting this old, repressed trauma, and finding a way to reconcile with it and move forward.... but not at the expense of the elves, who also suffered massively at the hands of the Evanuris (and continue to suffer. right now)

bioware has been criticized repeatedly about their depiction of the Dalish, their indigenous coding, and even the mages, too, and i really do not understand what they were thinking with this, because it's just racist (and exactly what people have repeatedly criticized them for). this is why a lot of "fantasy racism" fails. you can't write a marginalized group as being responsible and deserving of their own oppression, that's not how it works!

[cherrybomb107]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: forgiveness, or the way it’s often presented, is harmful. That’s one more gripe I have with season two. The way it frames “forgiveness”(the idea that you are obligated to forgive someone lest you be “just as bad as they are” is problematic.)

Because for one, having Jinx apologize for killing Caitlyn’s mom and vow to stop the “cycle of violence” doesn’t make any sense. One, that’s just not something Jinx would ever say. Two, the idea that Jinx killing some Councilors is anywhere near the same thing as Caitlyn becoming a dictator is laughable at best, and insulting to my intelligence at worst. Three, Caitlyn never apologizes or faces any meaningful consequences for her actions! Losing an eye was nothing! She should’ve lost a hand at least and we should’ve seen her reflect on her actions and pledge to do better for Zaun!!! Not just fuck off and ride off into the sunset after everything she did! And lastly, the “cycle of violence” literally isn’t a cycle, it’s just one city oppressing the other for centuries and the other city deciding to fight back! This “cycle” doesn’t begin and end with Jinx and her attack on the Council, so framing it like Jinx is the one who has to take sole responsibility for fixing everything is nonsense.

“But Arcane was never about heroes and villains, everything is morally gray!” You sound dumb. This is obviously a story with overt themes of oppression and revolution. I’m not here to critique morality, I’m here to critique its framing. Why are certain characters “justified” in their heinous actions but others don’t get that luxury? That’s what I’m talking about. Moving on, the problem with “forgiveness” implies that it’s necessary, and the way people conflate forgiveness with letting someone have access to you after everything they did is the problem. You don’t have to forgive someone if you don’t want to. That doesn’t make you “bitter” nor does it mean you’re “holding a grudge”. There is a difference between forgiving someone and just removing yourself from the situation and becoming detached, imo. That’s what should’ve been done with Caitlyn and Jinx. No one in Zaun should’ve been shown dying for their oppressors because “teamwork” nor should Sevika have been shoved on the Council to push this idea of “unity”. Why would Sevika, a Zaunite who has never had and never will have any love for Piltover, be forced to cozy up with the Council? Why is the onus on her, as an oppressed person, to make nice with her oppressors? Why does the institution of Piltover, and people like Caitlyn who uphold that institution and wreak havoc on the underclass of Zaun, never have to answer for their crimes?

Answer: Because they(the writers) want to convince us that Jinx and Caitlyn, and by extension, Piltover and Zaun are “just as bad” as each other, and that both sides need to work together to heal. Only problem with that is, the Piltover/Zaun conflict was not presented that way in season one. I’m sure the writers want us to think it’s one city vs another, when that’s not the case at all. In reality, it’s one city OVER the other, and now they’re trying to convince us “both sides are bad”. While it’s true that there ARE problems on both sides, the problems in Zaun literally wouldn’t be problems if Piltover wasn’t an oppressive institution. Why were the chem barons able to amass power? Because the systems Piltover set up left Zaun behind and allowed power hungry people like Finn, Margo, Chross, and Smeech seize their opportunities for control. Why is there so much crime in Zaun? Again, because of Piltover. The class disparity that Piltover set up means the economic divide between the two cities is a chasm that grows wider and wider every day. People are forced to steal to eat. They join gangs out of necessity, not because they have to. Why did Jinx kill all those enforcers?

That shouldn’t be the question. The real question is: Why does “Jinx”(as in, the persona Powder adopted to feel strong) even exist? Answer, once again, because of Piltover! Jinx is an oppressed person with severe mental health and self esteem issues that have been exacerbated as a result of the crooked system of Piltover. She saw her parents get killed by enforcers(militarized police force that carries out the will of the powers that be and is responsible for harassing, brutalizing, and over policing Zaun) right in front of her before she was even in the double digits. She was then adopted by Vander, but she had to struggle her whole life. Zaun doesn’t even have air to BREATHE unless Piltover decides they deserve it. And thanks to Caitlyn, we get to see how even THAT gets weaponized when Zaun steps out of line. So if they don’t have access to clean air, it’s safe to say that they also don’t have access to the same quality food, water, shelter, clothing, economic, educational, or medical services that Piltovans do, just by virtue of living in Zaun. So you take a severely mentally ill little girl, systematically oppress her, and then clutch your pearls when she becomes violent and lashes out? Label her a “psycho” and a “monster” for killing cops, gang members, and politicians while Caitlyn gets a happily ever after after everything she did? I thought “both sides” were “just as bad”. So why is Jinx the only one who meaningfully suffers? Why does Zaun as a whole always have to pay the price?

Lack of commitment. “Terrorist” is a loaded word that’s been weaponized against marginalized people for ages now. It’s another one to add to the list: angry, crazy, mad, belligerent, monster, savage, animal, etc. All these dehumanizing words are leveled at folks who get tired of taking shit lying down. I’ve never thought that Jinx was a “monster” for killing cops, Councilors, or politicians. Never will. But the show clearly WANTS me to, as well as simultaneously wanting to see Caitlyn’s actions a certain way. I’ve already made a post about why comparing or trying to equalize Caitlyn’s actions and Jinx’s actions is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest imo. Think of it like a bully vs bullied type of thing. There’s this kid and his asshole friends who gets to bully you for weeks, months, or even years and face no repercussions. Then, one day you get fed up, and start fighting back. Whether that be with words, feet, fists, or what have you. If you go down, you go down swinging. When the dust settles, BOTH of y’all are getting disciplined(detention, suspended, expelled, not allowed to go on trips, etc) for “fighting”. And there’s a very good chance one of you will be punished much more harshly than the other. Even though you started fighting back. BACK being the operative word. Every single time this kid pushed, hit, kicked, punched, started rumors about, and isolated you, nothing was done. The one time you start fighting BACK, both of y’all get in trouble because the school has a “zero tolerance policy”.

But you know that’s not true. It can’t be. You’ve been telling the teachers, guidance counselors, and vice principal about what’s been going on. But nothing was done about it. Or if it was, you were the one who was told to move seats. Or switch to a different classroom. Or just ignore them. Or “maybe they’re lashing out cause they have problems going on at home.” It was nothing but excuses when you were getting pushed around. Now when you fight back it’s a problem. Now take that metaphor and apply it to Caitlyn and Jinx. Caitlyn is like that fat rich asshole with parents on the PTA who make hefty donations to the school. Jinx is like the scrawny little nobody who has no one to stick up for them. Piltover is the school system. Caitlyn’s privilege isolated her from any meaningful consequences, while Jinx’s lack of privilege guaranteed she’d face hefty consequences, much more than Caitlyn ever would.

Jinx has lost: her birth parents as a result of state sanctioned violence, her adoptive brothers, her sister, her best friend, her adoptive father, Silco, her sister again, her adoptive father again, her new friend, her sense of self, her life(possibly) and she has to deal with being an oppressed person who struggles with mental health issues on top of all that. Caitlyn has lost: her mother, and her eye. That’s it. She’s never forced to give anything up. She never had to reckon with the reality of what it means to be not just a Piltie, but a Kiramman, and a dictator on top of that. We never see her be genuinely remorseful about her horrible actions in Zaun. Nor does she try to apologize to the people in Zaun or meaningfully make amends. No, Caitlyn gets to live in that big shiny house of hers with her father and girlfriend and the months she spent co-signing martial law will never be addressed. To bring it back to the bully vs bullied comparison, this means that Jinx would have been expelled for fighting back, while Caitlyn gets ISS(in school suspension). “Both sides are bad” yeah well you clearly believe one side is worse! And it’s not the correct one!

Piltover is an oppressive, classist, ableist, and brutal institution. Caitlyn was the head of this institution for months after she experienced a fraction of what Zaunites have experienced for centuries. At the end of the day, Caitlyn’s actions were brushed aside and she got her happy ending, though it wasn’t deserved whatsoever. Meanwhile Jinx, Sevika, Ekko, Isha, countless other Zaunites, and Zaun as a whole did nothing but suffer their whole lives and now they have nothing to show for it. “Both sides are bad” but the bad that the institution is responsible for is never called out, while the bad that the oppressed people did is blown out of proportion and they are severely punished for it.

And yes, I know I’m talking about a mainstream television show with white/non black people in the writers room. I knew I was never gonna get the pro revolution story I wanted to see, and I’ve made peace with that. But, if they wanted to have a “both sides” narrative so bad, then they should’ve stuck with it. BOTH SIDES should have equally suffered and had to reckon with their wrongdoings. The responsibility for doing so shouldn’t have solely been on the shoulders of the minority group. THAT’S the crux of the issue. I was always gonna think “forgiveness” was the coward’s way out. But they never show Piltover apologizing. Only Zaun does, and that’s not right.