#There are many ethical questions presented in the game that are just never answered and one of them is

[boredinagoodway]

Alice from Detroit!!!!!!

she was ADORABLE. I want to make her SMILE. I want to FEED HER PIZZA. Can the androids eat? Whatever, I'm feeding her.

[deviantartdramahub]

I'm not sure how often I've given this PSA to different people, but I may as well even if they're common, seeing as it's self-harm awareness month and the issue is through the roof with several people watching.

It doesn't matter who you are (whether you're a lowly citizen, someone with an infinite presence, a senior member who happens to like abusing their authority to go after people for things like tracing and be covertly ableist about it when she could just report it, or the authority somewhere who wants to jump on the enormous Triagonal-hate bandwagon and has clear influence from the other haters who you consider your ideological comrades), it doesn't matter who it's towards (be it towards someone like Triagonal, Club-Dreamiverse, Gellygirl, Monstermaster13, the friend of theirs who goes by Carol, or a monster-of-the-week as they say here), it doesn't matter how many people agree with you (whether it be none or everyone in a particular room), it doesn't matter how you do it (whether by attacking someone directly or trying to mockingly pose as them and/or their friends based on one's skewed/parodied version of their perspective to make it seem like people are hating on them when they wouldn't say the same thing about the accurately true story, also notice nobody is blocking/excommunicating the individuals), it doesn't matter how much you believe in your own actions (whether the answer to this is that you believe what you're doing to be right or if you have condemned the behavior before but then proceeded to carry it all out on other people you know you hate anyways, rules for thee but not for me I guess for the self-deletion advocate KSUniverse), and it doesn't matter what the end outcome is (whether it be their total demise or something like removing someone from a contest which is as uncalled for as Stalin airbrushing people out of photos due to not liking them), witch hunting, putting words in peoples' mouths via words or false documentation in typical style, mass reporting, and false appeal to police (who have never done anything), especially if you're only doing it based on association of an individual you hate, are perspectively wrong, especially without a game plan, and not just for aforementioned reasons.

If you have a problem with someone, and it's your opinion, that's not for you to force upon other people to share with you, as it violates their own right to have their own ideas. If you argue "it's based in ethics", either a proper debate/argument will prove them wrong or there's nothing wrong; and if you argue "it's based in fact", nothing you present should inspire any doubt whatsoever which is defined by any questions which remain without closure, though people constantly ignore that's exactly what it does (it must suck for haters though that "Lemmy" is federated which means the bans they're aiming for are comically powerless).

Funny how they'd try to get an authority to ban an authority in the same place (as well as Kat Katherine) and fail.

[yn-x-animeboy]

Jungkook x y/n (as a famous artist) Pt. 1

request: mine, my brain made me write this

pairing: reader x Jungkook

genre: fluff, romance, for entertainment purposes

BTS x Fem Reader

sinopsis: You are a popular artist in America, pretty famous, loved and well-known by the general public (actually you were one of the top 10 artists in the world but you are pretty humble and naïve to realize your popularity), one day during one of your fan meets you talk about how much you love BTS, and not only how you wish to meet them and work with them but how Jungkook is one of your celebrity crushes. During the meet you fangirled with other ARMYs in the crowd; video clips of you fangirling and talking about BTS at your meet where posted and reposted all over social media. This obviously broke the internet because you were not only a famous singer but you also were always accepted and loved by ARMY and this made a lot of people happy. Suddenly it felt like everyone wanted you to meet the seven handsome and talented idols and collaborate, but you could only wish, you believed they didn't even know who you were...or so you thought.

Pt. 1- Introduction. Your fan meet

Basically every couple of months you like to organize small get-togethers with your supporters as a way to have a closer contact with them, to get to know them, as a fanservice and to just thank them in a way. Lately you have been noticing one specific group of fan pages dedicated to you who have been really interactive and supportive on twitter; 

promoting your latest music video and the recent EPISODE of: y/n’s camera roll uploaded to your oficial platforms (your team uploaded a weekly video=episode to your channel; almost like Run BTS. Each episode had a different theme and your fans loved it)  this group of fan pages is constantly on your main page, so you decided to contact them and fly them out for a day in L.A. for one of your infamous meets so you could meet them.

You don't normally film your fan meetings, they are normally just a one on one gatherings between you and your fans,  but your team thought it could be a good idea to record today’s meet and upload parts of it for your weekly EPISODE, these were greatly appreciated by your international fans and other fans who wanted to see a little more into your personal life.

You were currently hanging out with the small group of fans you invited over. A group of around 10 boys and girls were currently sitting on the fluffy carpeted floor and some were sitting on plush chairs randomly spread in front of you. (a/n i imagine this setting like the Zach Sang Show, for the Ariana Grande interview episodes) 

You were sitting in front of them on a small white couch for two. Once everyone was comfortably settled in, you introduced yourself and invited the others to do so as well, one by one telling you their name, username, pronouns, age, and fun facts about them. You smiled wide, happy to be able to meet such amazing people and also making mental notes to remember their names and facts. 

After the personal introductions your camera crew was set up and ready to start, you told your fans sitting in front of you about how today's meet was going to be recorded and asked for their consent to upload said video; and then proceed to open for the camera; 

“Hello everyone welcome to another episode of…. f** I don't even know what we call these videos, jajajaja” 

Your fans sitting in front of you stated the name of the youtube series in a heartbeat;

“Wait what?... jajajajaja omg guys thank you, I'm so sorry, yeah you heard them, welcome back to y/n’s camera roll, I can’t believe I forgot that, anyway today’s episode is a little different……” you proceed to explain what the episode was about and thanking the future viewers for tuning in and watching the video. “Waw what a long introduction, so, before we actually go on and have the meet while you guys at home enjoy, I want to introduce you to the lovely group of people who I have invited here today….” Again proceed to introduce your fans to the camera by name, trying to not miss anyone and not butcher any name in the process.

After the introduction is done you porcede to carry out the fan meet like you normally do, you normally have scheduled sections of activities during your meets to make them fun; For today’s meet you all played games and did a couple challenges with your fans; then you recorded a couple of tik toks and instagram stories your fans asked you to be in, and casually all hung out. After a while of comfortable chatting and laughter, you wanted to hype up the mood. You turned down the lights, turned on some color  LED lights and had a dance party with everyone invited, dancing and going all out to popular music.

After being all drained from the heavy physical activities, you ordered a variety of food for your fans, like pizza and pasta, sushi, tacos, snacks, etc. and had a muckbang/eating section for the episode as well.

You were having so much fun, you looked around while eating and just by looking at their excited and happy faces you couldn help but feel complete and thankful for all of your fans.

After filling up on food, you carried out the Q&A section of the meet, allowing fans to ask you personal questions and conversing on various topics. The camera director gave you instructions to proceed with the questions, you nodded and thanked him and the staff for their hard work, turning on your heel and sitting back in your spot you tuned to the main camera: “Hi, quick update, sorry I haven't been so interactive with the camera in this episode for everyone watching at home, but I have been having so much fun and I am not used to having a camera crew for my normal fan meets, I’m sorry. Anyway now we will move on, I am going to answer some questions and hopefully this is entertaining enough  for the EPISODE hahaha” the crew and fans present chucked as you finished the small interruption.

And the questions began. A girl sitting in the back, raised her hand and spoke; “yeah um, I’m sorry I wanted to  see if I could start the questions, idk if the others are okay with that”. The rest of the group nodded sweetly at her, others replied with short “yeah’s”. She then proceeded nervously “thankyou g-guys, um I’m sorry before my question, is there anything we cannot ask you or..?

You sweetly smiled at her shyness and consideration, you tried your best to make her comfortable, “You are so cute, hahaha, thankyou for being considerate, but I really can’t think of anything that I am not allowed to answer or talk about, let me ask my manager...do I Sam?” you shifted your upper body to the side where the crew was standing, your manager Sam shook his head, you don't really have any tea to be spilled anyway so he is pretty confident and comfortable allowing you to be 100% in control. 

“Okay if Sam says it’s cool, it's okay  jajaja. You can ask me anything”

The girl then proceeded to ask her question, and waited for you to answer.

Time went by, and it was pretty cool to see what your fans were interested in learning about you, after some time the group continued asking you questions like “who is your biggest inspiration? favorite song?, favorite thing about being on tour? what would you do if you weren't a singer? etc.

One of the boys in the group spoke; “Hi, y/n, can I ask you another question?” you nodded and signaled him to proceed; 

“I saw that you liked an instagram post about BTS a while back uploaded by a fan account and I also saw that you actually follow their personal twitter account. ALSO in your behind the scenes video for your music video shoot you can be seen in the background dancing the Boy with luv choreo. So I wanted to ask if you were an ARMY and if you know them personally? and like should we be expecting a collaboration soon?”

You chucked at his talking speed, curious questions and great detective skills.

 Before you answered you mentally told yourself to hold back and not go all cRAzY fAnGirL on them, you inhaled and answered:

“OMG hahaha I love you so much, what an amazing question, Okay so first off no I don’t know them personally and sadly no plans of collaboration are on sight. Oh wow I have never been asked if I liked BTS before, I’m excited hahaha. Yeah I am an ARMY, I love them so much I am one of their biggest fans, and they are also one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to work ethic and professionalism, listening to them or watching them gives me motivation to keep doing what I love, which is this. 

anyway I am rambling I should stop; you guys can say y/n stop whenever I start rambling okay? hahaha''

The group in front of you laughed and added some extra comments on your response.

After a couple comments back and forth you realized something… and asked out loud, 

“Wait so, how many of you guys here are actually ARMYs?”, 

all of the sudden the 10 fans sitting in front of you raised their hands. 

“So you guys are telling me literally everyone of you is a fellow ARMY and didn't tell me until now?” everyone chuckled and looked around surprises at the coincidence 

You were already feeling shy after talking so much about yourself before so you redirected the activity, “Guys should we actually talk about BTS for a bit? hahaha” you asked your fans

This made a girl raise her hand and ask: “Can I ask you a BTS question then? Okay so, who is your favorite member?

You loved the new conversation topic. You answered truthfully: “Well first off, I don't have a favorite member. I really mean it when I say this. I love them all equally and I love them all as a group. I don’t prefer one over the other or like one better.  I really do support them equally. I mean there is nothing wrong with having a bias, as long as you also respect the other members, hope that all made sense lol” Everyone seemed moved by your support towards them and nodded.

“Y/n so you don’t have a favorite, but do you have a crush on any of them?, like if you could date one of them right now, which one do you pick?” A fan asked.

You looked at her and really thought about how to answer said question in the best way possible; “okay...well...Like I said just to be clear I don't have favorites amongst the group members, but I do have a type…. I consider one of them to be my celebrity crush” you answered, starting out slow and finishing by blurting out the last part.

Your fans in front of you went crazy, they leaned over their seats wanting to feel closer to you and not miss anything you were saying as you took a breath to continue speaking.

“So in that case, if I had to pick someone that I would date in real life...i would say…. Jungkook'' The room was filled with surprised remarks, small comments and squeals.

“Omg guys chill hahaha, breathe, it's just a crush I don’t know him and it's not going to happen. It's just that I find him really attractive and he is my type.”

The fans kept raising their hands to ask you various questions about BTS,

the camera director and manager signaled you to get your attention after you finished answering other questions and told you you only had time for one more question before the fan meet was over.

“Okay guys so apparently we have time for one more question, so make it a good one, it can be about anything, shoot” you said as you leaned over to reach for your water bottle, swung the bottle and pointed to someone on the corner of your eye who seemed to have one last question, as you drank some water they asked: “I have a last BTS question if you don’t mind y/n” 

Still gulping water you moved your hand indicating them that is was okay and to go on,

“okay, um I just thought about this, do you have like a specific fantasy or make up scenario about BTS that you could only dream could come true; like I wish i could walk into a café shop and suddenly meet V, realizing we were reading the same book and covering for hours”

That was such a deep and personal question, you had never once thought anyone would be interested in what your fantasies where; you thought it might be boring for your fans if you went on and on about  stupid make believe scenarios that live in your head rent free. But seeing everyones approving faces over the question and the intrigued eyes they were shooting at you, you spoke: “I love that question, and your scenario is so cute, you should write a tumblr post about it, (a/n wink wink) well yeah I obviously have created fake scenarios in my head about BTS, past crushes, fake arguments even hahaha, there are so many BTS fake scenarios in my head…. hmm oh I know which one, okay so this fantasy of mine is about how I would meet them irl and work with them, I will make it quick”

You kinda chuckled at yourself, playing with the cap on your water bottle, you felt as if you were about to say something really cringy and embarrassing. You took a deep breath and started the narration of the sinopsis of your personal fanfic created by you. 

“Okay so, my literal fantasy is to one day meet them at a talk show, you know how hosts like will surprise their guests with something/someone they like?, I believe Ellen has done it multiple times where she surprised a guest with their idol or celebrity crush, you know?” The group nodded, invested in your fake scenario “Well i would be invited to like the Jimmy Fallon Show, where he would just randomly surprise me with BTS. Then I would be given the opportunity to introduce myself and tell them how much I love and support them. I would also be able to show them my Korean speaking skills, I learned Korean and Spanish back in school and I have never been able to actually use either them, lol, anyway...well after that we would all become really good friends, and we would collaborate and put out one or multiple songs for you guys. I mean that's basically it, I wish I could meet them, and become their friend and write songs with them, even produce songs with Suga or RM if I could'' you sighed as you ended your mini narration.

You continued; “But well, that's just a fake scenario I repeat, it's not real and it's not gonna happen, EVER. For now I will keep supporting and loving them with you and the rest of ARMY. I really doubt they even know who I am, anyway” you closed the conversation at that. Your fans seemed like they wanted to say something but your camera director called you over before anyone could say something else. You excuse yourself and walk over to the cameras and lights set up where the staff is.

*your fans were really confused, and this you didn't know, but your fans knew for a fact that BTS knew very well who you were. The fans even knew which member has continuously admitted to having a platonic crush on you for years now, ever since you first blew up, back when you were 16 and he was 17. Your fans knew how you are one of BTS’s favorite artists, and this was no secret, you could literally look all this information up... 

They didn’t understand how you could have no idea how famous you actually are* They talked amongst themselves about this while you talked to your team.

Your manager and camera director indicated you to do an outro for the video’s footage and other instructions. You nodded your head and smiled, you took a step back and bowed your head towards the staff behind the cameras and thanked them for their work.

You then walked towards the group of fans and told them you had to do an outro for the camera if that was okay with them; you then sat with them on the floor while side hugging the two fans next to you, you directed yourself to the camera:  “Okay guys so sadly today’s meet is now over, I am really sad I wish we could hang out for longer, thank you so much for coming and making today so fun and special” you then turned to the camera “And for my other amazing supporters who are going to watch this on youtube, today was just a little scoop into my life like the other y/n’s camera roll EPISODES, in case you are interested in other videos like this one you can visit head to the channel where this video was uploaded and watch more! hopefully you guys had fun with us! I adore you all, thank you! Please Spread love always, y/n out” you waved as the camera director said “CUT” and the crew cut the cameras.

Your manager then stood up and directed everyone to get ready to leave, also thanking them for always supporting you and taking care of you, you smiled at your amazing manager and looked back at your fans while they picked up their stuff, smiling sadly.

You said your goodbye to everyone one-by-one as they headed out.

After lots of farewell hugs, kisses, selfies, and gifts, you went home with a smile on your face for the amazing time you had.

You went to bed, turned your phone on silent mode and looked at your ceiling,  reliving that fake scenario you talked about a few hours ago, oh how you wished it could become real (a/n hehe wink wink). Finally dozing off and resting for the work-packed day you had tomorrow unaware that your social media was currently going crazy and how they yearned for your new weekly EPISODE to come out.

Part 2- Jungkook’s POV --------> here

thank you so much, please interact with me to let me know if you like this :) Xx

[cdyssey]

Holiday

Summary: Grace and Frankie have a heart-to-heart after 7x03. | AO3 Link

—

Grace makes margaritas that night to celebrate Grankiekuh, the new holiday that she and Frankie just made up to celebrate the fact that Frankie doesn’t feel the need to make up holidays to avoid her anymore.

“You just squished our names together and threw the -kuh from Hanukkah at the end,” Grace accuses, chuckling. 

Light.

Playful.

Simply exuberant.

Just an hour ago, she was guzzling martinis on the couch with her ex-husband trying to figure out the quickest way to apologize to Frankie for a twenty-year-old mistake.

And now they’re planning a fake holiday together, and everything is somehow right in a world that also features her current husband sleeping in a jail cell.

“You have to admit—it has a certain ring to it,” Frankie hums determinedly. “We could be the new Shefani, the octogenarian Bennifer!”

“Well, don’t expect me to passionately hold your ass on a speedboat anytime soon,” Grace teases as she carefully measures tequila in a cylinder and then pours a little more than the recommended amount just to be safe.

“Nah,” her partner winks conspiratorially. “Just my hand across a candlelit table will do.”

And so they light a scented candle on the dining room table and drink incredibly boozy margaritas and eventually eat Del Tacos takeout that arrives half-an-hour late because the DoorDash driver couldn’t find the beach house. And Frankie laughs about Grace tearing the poor delivery kid a new one. And Grace quietly admires that Frankie still gives the twerp a twenty dollar tip anyway.

“At least he’s got a stronger constitution than Bugs Bunny,” Frankie snorts as she closes the door on yet another shell shocked human being who has encountered the wrath of Grace Hanson.

“That isn’t an impressively tall bar to surmount,” Grace replies, wrapping a fond arm around Frankie’s shoulders.

They talk, they eat, and then they talk some more when all that’s left at the bottom of the brown paper bag are tortilla chip crumbs. They talk a little bit about everything, really—the surprisingly pleasant weather these past few days, Bud’s apparent penis problem, Robert being useless at the dishes, and how delicious Del Tacos is. 

And between them, talking about everything is certainly not the same as talking about nothing.

Because even if they’re only talking about the weather or the dishes or the abysmal states of their children’s genitalia, it’s because they enjoy each other’s company enough to implicitly understand that it’s nice to just sit together at the end of a long, hard day and hear each other’s voices.

Because the little things are nice sometimes.

The day-to-day minutiae and routine of living with another person.

Sharing space with them.

Being present.

Being kind.

And in experiencing another’s unadulterated kindness, becoming whole.

When Grace gets salsa on the corner of her pink mouth, Frankie reaches over and thumbs it off with a kind of casual intimacy that was hard won between them, fought for and so lovingly, so painstakingly earned. 

They love each other.

They’ve surpassed the point where they constantly have to say it aloud.

I love you, Frankie says when she takes extra care to clean the dishes just the way that Grace prefers—something Robert Hanson never quite learned after forty goddamn years of marriage.

And I love you, Grace replies when she unthinkingly puts Frankie’s phone on charge because she realizes it’s on four percent, and her friend can’t fall asleep until she’s listened to meditative whale noises on YouTube for an hour.

And I love you, Frankie doesn’t say when she extends her palm to Grace and tells her that they should stargaze tonight because “Saturn’s vibin’ in the sky.”

And I love you, Grace replies when she threads their fingers together so snugly that their rings clink and replies—without sarcasm, without judgment, without weight, “Sure.”

And I love you, they tell each other as they slowly stagger their way out onto the deck, Grace assuming the right cushion and Frankie taking the left, arm in arm until the very last moment when it makes more sense for them to let go, to find their own equilibrium as the sea breeze sweeps gentle fingers through their hair.

The sky is star-freckled tonight, blushing purple and inky blue.

In the natural silence that follows, however, the moon and the stars and the supposedly vibin’ planets don’t particularly captivate Grace’s attention for very long, so she finds herself staring at Frankie, who’s staring off into space, her tall features bathed in amber porch light.

Something has shifted in her expression in the few elapsed moments since they’ve been outside, her thin brow furrowed, a frown threatening to tug at her lips where there had once been an easy smile. Her slender hands are clasped below her chin in a gesture that Grace has come to associate with introspective thoughtfulness, tinged with a kind of subtle melancholy that Frankie has always maintained that she detests and tries to consciously avoid. 

“Frankie… are you—?

“We only fought for two hours this time,” Frankie interrupts softly, nodding towards the outdoor dining table where the Hanson-Bergsteins had yet another disastrous brunch together. (At least no one broke a bone or got hit with a wiffle bat this time.) “Ha, that’s a new record if I’ve ever heard of one!"

But the joke doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and Grace’s heart sinks somewhere beneath her ribcage. It throbs in her uncomfortably full stomach. She had naively assumed that three margaritas in a piece, the two of them could just skip the part where they rehash the day’s events and openly reflect upon them—but she should have known.

These emotional reckonings are Frankie’s chosen form of healing.

She’s always processed better aloud.

“Fighting with you is the most uninspired pastime I can think of doing these days,” Grace tells her truthfully. “I’d rather resolve our conflicts in five minutes than five hours, so we can catch Jeopardy! together without sitting on the couch in passive aggressive silence… I think we’ve reached a point in our friendship where we can do that… yeah?”

The question comes out a little more vulnerably than she would have liked.

Open-ended and hesitant, it requests an equally honest answer.

And while she knows that Frankie has no qualms about being emotionally honest, Grace also innately understands that she has chronically shied away from honesty about all matters pertaining to herself. 

(When she initially told Nick that she wanted to redefine their relationship, she couldn’t have even told herself what the hell she meant either. She supposes she wants to have her cake and eat it, too—to be in a relationship with Nick and go home to Frankie. But maybe that means she doesn’t really love Nick, that she’s just using him for the ample entertainment he provides: the romance, the easy companionship, the sex. And maybe, at the heart of that unsettling hypothesis, she’s just as much of a stone cold bitch as everyone around her seems to think. Her husband is in jail, and she doesn’t lose any sleep about it. In fact, in her queen-sized bed in the beach house she shares with Frankie, she’s slept better than she has in all the many elapsed and miserable weeks since she said, “I do.”)

“Of course!” Frankie exclaims, her brows arching in surprise. “You say tom-ay-to, I say tom-ah-to, and then we kiss and passionately makeup. That’s exactly where we are nowadays.”

“Then why do you still look like a kicked puppy?” Grace asks shrewdly, folding her arms across her chest. “Or like Sol after his supposedly well-trained dog shit in his Birkenstocks.”

“Does being marginally tipsy on tequila count as an acceptable answer?”

“Nope.”

“Fine then and damn,” Frankie sighs, waving a defeated hand around the empty air. “But don’t hold it to me if I’m not making sense, Grace. I’m thinking rabbit trails tonight. And not, like, rabbit trails of criminally-tampered-with poop, but circles and other weird thoughts that don’t seem to be heading anywhere.”

“Hey, I'm not going anywhere—I’ve got all the time in the world to listen,” Grace replies easily, and this is love, too, without ever uttering the word.

Twenty years ago, she did everything short of making up a holiday to not spend a single moment alone in a room with Frankie Bergstein.

And now, she's done everything short of divorcing her husband to ensure that they're never apart.

Frankie's eyes briefly widen in pleasant surprise at this seemingly unexpected gesture, her parenthetically enclosed mouth curving into a gentle smile—tender and sweet.

Lord, she’s beautiful, Grace thinks to herself as Frankie mulls on her next words.

She thinks this at least twice a day and chalks it up to passive jealousy that someone can look so radiant without ever really trying, by just simply being herself.

“Mm, okay... so I was just thinking about how my thing might actually be worse than yours… and you killed my son’s beloved rabbit,” Frankie says bluntly.

And so clearly!

Like she already fully believes it.

Grace blinks rapidly, not entirely computing what she just heard.

“How the hell did you come up with that conclusion?” She asks, nonplussed. “Like you said, I killed your kid’s rabbit and lied about it for some twenty-odd years. You and Sol just played an elaborate game of hooky.”

Frankie looks torn on whether to laugh or shake her head in clear exasperation of Grace not getting it.

“But the ethical jury in the sky isn’t in on me creating a religious holiday just to avoid you,” she protests with a half-smile. “Or even worse, admitting that’s the reason after all these years. I hurt you, Grace, and I don’t wanna hand wave that away just so we can watch Jeopardy! in peace. I want to check in with you and make sure you’re really okay.”

Even after many years of slowly but surely becoming acquainted with Frankie’s uncanny sensitivity to her emotions, somehow, it’s always still a pure shock when Grace is met with the unadulterated and unconditional extent anyway. She’s still unlearning Robert’s idea of emotional care, which largely involved having a stockpile of generic gifts to placate her various moods and whims.

And frankly, she’s not the most empathetic woman of the year herself.

I hurt you, Frankie said candidly and made no attempt to defend herself, to excuse her actions.

I hurt you, she declared, and it was an I love you at the exact same time.

Grace can hardly swallow, her throat a hundred emotions thick. 

“Hey now,” she eventually rasps, “don’t go all revisionist on me now. I was so fucking mean to you. We don’t play wiffle ball anymore at waffle-and-wiffle brunches because I hit you with a bat.”

“You told me there was a bee in my hair,” Frankie rubs the back of her head wistfully. 

“There totally was,” she grins painfully, “but the bat was a highly unnecessary measure.”

“Grace!” Frankie groans. “Don’t get me sidetracked. I’m trying to be real with you here—I wasn’t a saint by any stretch of the imagination! I could be shitty to you, too.”

But Grace firmly shakes her head at this, her mouth pressed into a thin line, her rebuttal already locked, loaded, and innately known to be true.

“Not as often as I was to you, and rarely did you instigate because I’d already started it,” she insists, venom in her voice, raw and undeniable self-loathing. “If I’d been you dealing with me… God, maybe I’d have needed to make up a holiday, too…”

And even as she says it, the uneasiness in her stomach suddenly solidifies into sharp clarity and even crueler pain as she realizes what’s really been bothering her these past few days—a burgeoning feeling that she’s every bit as “harsh” and “vindictive” as Robert told the FBI lady she could be, even though she’s sworn she’s changed, even though she's wanted to be better.

God knows she's tried to be.

Because of Frankie.

Or maybe even for her.

The two reasons are interchangeable in her mind.

���I… I wasn’t like you, Frankie,” she eventually continues, glancing away so she doesn’t have to face the other’s expression—fearing confirmation of all her awful feelings, monstrously craving pity she’s sure she doesn't deserves. “Hell, I’m still not like you. The fact that my ideal marriage includes my husband being in jail more or less proves that.”

Grace Hanson doesn’t tip confused delivery boys thirty-percent after botched deliveries.

She doesn’t make up fantastical stories about magically disappearing bunnies for her kids so they believe in themselves.

She rarely apologizes for her mistakes.

And she makes a hell of a lot of mistakes.

“Robert called me harsh and often vindictive,” she chuckles humorlessly. “Well, I guess he’s got my number almost better than anyone.”

The ensuing silence following this proclamation stretches long and thin, like a tightrope strung precariously taut, and Grace is about to cave in to the temptation of looking at Frankie again when all of a sudden—

“Bullshit!” Frankie exclaims ferociously. “That’s a whole lot of bullshit, Grace Hanson.”

“Frankie, don’t defend—“

But she quickly reaches over and tightly curls her palm over Grace’s spiny knuckles, demanding her attention and getting it.

In so many years and throughout the span of them, she has been the only one to ever truly earn it.

Grace turns her head and finds Frankie’s oceanic eyes inches away from her face, storm-like in their intensity, piercing all over.

“Robert doesn’t get to use the present tense with you because he doesn’t live with you anymore,” Frankie insists when she knows she has Grace, when Grace can no more look away than a rabbit can actually disappear in a hat. “He doesn’t get to see you the way I do. And let's be honest here, I'm not sure he ever really has."

“And how do you see me?” Grace can barely breathe, only dimly aware that this is yet another needy question, one that can only engender a frighteningly vulnerable response.

Her heartbeat quickens.

She feels the exact striation of Frankie’s finger that is resting on the quarter of a million dollar wedding ring Nick bought for her in Vegas.

In the semi-lit darkness, Frankie’s sharply hewn cheeks feather themselves sunset pink. 

Grace blindly assumes it’s the humidity.

“As someone worth discovering,” she murmurs, “and by discovering, understanding that you’re a pretty darn amazing person to love beneath all those expertly erected walls.”

Frankie leans forward then and presses a chaste kiss on Grace’s head, quick and habitual, like she’s done it a hundred times before. Her floral perfume wreathes her like a warm embrace. Beneath the perfume, she smells like acrylic paint and sea breeze and strange but rich incense—complex and earthy and full of so many vibrant notes.

Heat rises to Grace’s face.

This must be the humidity, too.

“Some people don’t get that,” Frankie continues, moving back to her own cushion again, “and that’s their loss. They’ve never had to carve a pretty statue outta stone before, have never had to work on a relationship with you over time.” 

“So what you’re saying is that it takes work to love me, huh?” Grace raises a teasing eyebrow, even though she's not exactly sure that this is the appropriate time and place to make a joke. But the alternative to lightly joking is to internalize the words that Frankie just said, to truly contemplate what it means that there's at least one person in this world who'll wait for her—despite her many walls and damn them.

“It takes work to ever love anybody, really,” Frankie shrugs easily. 

It’s an unsurprisingly sage take—Frankie’s always been good at emotions and relationships and all of the other important and dauntingly human stuff—but it’s also one that gets Grace to thinking about Nick again, about his kindness and his persistence and about his dedication to wanting to make things to work.

She’s beginning to get an inkling of what it might mean that she doesn’t want to meet him halfway, kind and persistent and dedicated though the man might be.

That if she had to choose again between husband and home, there would be no contest.

There would be no hesitation.

So perhaps there are two people in the world who would wait for her, but of those two, Grace knows there's only one whom she would invite to stay.

“Happy Grankiekuh, Frankie,” Grace says, leaning her head against her best friend’s shoulder. “I like discovering you, too.”

“Well, you should! I’m a fucking delight.”

“Don’t push it.”

“Ha, never.”

But in the end, Frankie intertwines their hands together, and the silence of this action is its own unmistakable and resonant reply.

I love you.

Grace Hanson is loved.

[c-is-for-circinate]

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts about why P5R didn't quite land for you. I had the same reaction to it, but I've never quite been able to properly articulate why the last section fell so flat.

God okay so I've tried several times to answer this, and it seems like the answer is 'I still have way too many feelings, personally, to say this in anything less than thirty pages and fifteen hours of work', because Persona 5 the original is a game I loved a lot and care about a great deal. And most of the reasons I disliked Royal feel, in my head, like a list of ways it broke some of the things I liked best about P5--which means explaining them feels like I need to explain everything I loved about the original game, which is a book in itself, complete with referents to P3, P4, Jungian psychology, the Joseph Campbell mytharc, and fuck all even knows what. And that is too much.

But today I realized that I could instead describe it from an angle of, Persona 5 Strikers succeeds really well at doing the thing I think Royal was trying to do but failed at. And that I think I can talk about in a reasonable amount of wordspace, hopefully, behind this cut because I have at least one friend who hasn't played Royal yet.

Note for reblogs/comments: I HAVE NOT FINISHED STRIKERS YET. I got through the jail that pretended to be the final jail and have not yet gone into the obviously inevitable 'ohshit wait, you mean there's something more than simple human machinations behind all of this?' dungeon. (I got stuck on a really frustrating side quest, put the game down, and then dived into Hades to avoid throwing the Switch across the room for a while--and anyone around this blog lately knows how THAT'S been going.) Please no spoilers past Okinawa!

So, one of the many, many things I really appreciated about Persona 5 was its straightforward and unashamed attitude towards abusers and their acts of violence. Because, while yes P5 is a story about the use of power and control to make others suffer, it fundamentally isn't about those abusers themselves. It's about their victims, those that survive their crimes. And this shows up repeatedly over the course of the game.

We do not give a shit why Kamoshida wanted to beat and rape his students. We really don't. Kamoshida does not deserve our attention one moment longer than it takes to make him stop. Because, ultimately, that's the goal of P5, start to end. We don't know for sure if what we're doing is fair, if it's justice, if it's questionable. What we know is that people are being hurt, badly, actively, right now this second. What we know is that victims are suffering. What we know is that we, personally, us-the-protag and us the Phantom Thieves at large, are in danger. And in those circumstances, we don't care about the abuser's side any more. We don't. We don't have the space or time or capacity to care, because that is not the point.

The point is to help the weak. To save the people who need saving, right here and now. To give others the courage to stand up on their own behalf. We're not even out to change society, not really--that's a byproduct. We are reactions. We are triage. We are important.

There's something so empowering and validating about that as a theme, y'know? In a media landscape so full of "sympathetic villains", the idea that, you know, maybe sometimes you don't have to break yourself to show compassion that might possibly heal the bad guy--that sometimes you can just make the bad guy stop hurting people--feels both refreshing and satisfying. I really appreciate it as a message! I liked it a lot!

And yes, there's nuance to that theme, and the game is not without compassion. We save Futaba, because 'make the bad guy stop hurting people', in that case, means 'make this person stop hurting herself'. We give Sae a path forwards, help her fix her own heart. Yet it's worth pointing out that in both of those cases, while we were very glad to do those things, to save those people, we also went into both of those palaces for extremely practical reasons to begin with. We needed Futaba's help. We needed Sae's help. The fact that we chose to talk Sae into a change of heart rather than simply stealing her treasure, while ultimately a very good thing for her, was absolutely a practical choice predicated on the need for her palace to still exist to save our life. And yes, we wanted to save her, for Makoto's sake--yes, we wanted desperately to save Futaba. But Sae and Futaba let themselves be helped, too, and that doesn't change the overarching themes of the story itself.

Akechi (and to some extent Okumura) would not let himself be helped. Akechi's another interesting nuance to this theme, because of all our villains, we do learn the most about what drove him to the cruelties and crimes he's committed. He's at that intersection of victim and villain, and we want to help him, as a victim--but we also know that stopping him as a villain is more important. We'd like to save him from himself if we could, because we save people from their sources of trauma, it's what we do. We regret being unable to do so. But in the end, what matters to the story is not that Akechi refused to be saved--it's that Shido and Yaldabaoth need to be stopped, for the sakes of everyone else they're hurting now and may continue to hurt in the future.

The thing is, there's space and maybe even a need for a corollary discussion of those places where victim and villain intersect. It's an interesting, pertinent, and related topic. Strikers made an entire video game about it, a really good video game. It's centered in the idea that, yes, these people need to be stopped, and we will make stopping them our priority--but they're not going after us, and that gives us some space to sympathize. Even for Konoe, who specifically targets the Phantom Thieves--compare him to Shido, who actively destroyed the lives of both Joker and Futaba, who ordered Haru's father's death, who's the entire reason the team is still dealing with the trauma of Akechi's everything. Of course the game can be sympathetic to Konoe where it can't with Shido. There's enough distance to do that.

But right--Strikers is a separate game. It's a separate conversation. It's, "last time, we talked about that, so now let's take it one step further." And that's good writing. (It's something Persona has done before, too, also really well! Persona 3 is about terrible, occasionally-suicidal depression and grief. P4 is about how you can still be hurting and need some help and therapy even if things seem ok. Related ideas, but separate conversations that need to be separate in order to be respectful and do justice to either one. P5, as a follow-up to P4, is a conversation about how, ok, changing yourself is great and all, but sometimes the problem is other people so how do you deal with that? Again, still related! Still pertinent! Still alluded to in P4, with Adachi's whole thing--but it wasn't the time or place to base a quarter of the game around it.)

So one of Royal's biggest issues, to me, is that it tries to tack on this whole new angle for discussion onto a game that was originally about something else.

Adding Maruki's palace--adding it at the end, which by narrative laws suggests that it's the true point that everything else should be building up to--suddenly adds in about a hundred new dimensions at once. It wants us to engage with "what in this abuser/manipulator's life led him to act this way?" for basically the first time all game (we'll get to Akechi later). It wants us to engage with, "if the manipulator has a really good reason or good intentions, does that mean we should forgive them?" It requires us to reflect on, "what is the difference between control and cruelty?" It asks, "okay, but if people could be controlled into being happy, would that be okay?" (Which, based on the game so far, is actually a wild out-there hypothetical! Literally not a single thing we've seen in the game suggests that could ever happen. Even the people who think being controlled is safer and easier are miserable under it. Control that's able to lead to actual happiness is completely out of left field in the context of everything we've encountered all game so far.)

That's too much! We don't have time to unpack all that! We only have an eighth of the game left! Not to mention we are also being asked to bring back questions we put to bed much earlier in the game about the morality of our own actions, in a wholely unsatisfying way. Maruki attempts to justify his mass brainwashing because "it's the same as what you're doing", and we know it isn't, but the game didn't need Maruki calling it out in order for us to get that. We already faced that question when we started changing hearts, and again several times throughout the game, and again when we found our targets in Yaldabaoth's cells. The fact that we change hearts does not mean we think "changing hearts is fine and kind and should be done to everyone, actually." Changing hearts has been firmly established in this game as an act of violence, acceptable only because it prevents further systemic violence against innocents that we must prevent. The moral question has never once been about whether it's ok to change the hearts of the innocent, only about how far it's ethical to go against individuals who are actively hurting other people. Saying "you punched that guy to keep him from shooting a child, so punching people is good and I will save the world by punching everyone!" is confusing! and weird! and not actually at all helpful to the question of, how much violence is it acceptable to use to protect others! So presenting the question that way just falls really flat.

(And right, I love Strikers, because Strikers has time to unpack all that. Strikers can give us a main bad guy who wants to control the whole world for everybody's own good, because Strikers has earned that thematic climax. It has given us sympathetic bad guys who started out wanting to control the world to protect themselves and ended up going too far. It's given us Mariko Hyodo, who wanted to control the world to protect other people and went too far. It's given us a long-running thread about police, the desire to serve, and the abuse of power that can lead to. And since we are actively trying to care for the people whose hearts we're changing in Strikers, we can open the door to questions about using changes-of-heart and that level of control to make other people happy. We can even get a satisfying conclusion out of that discussion, because we have space to characterize the difference--Konoe thinks that changing peoples' hearts means confining them, but the Phantom Thieves think it means setting them free. We have seen enough sympathetic villains that we as an audience have had the space to figure out how we feel about that, and to understand the game's perspective of "stop them AND save them, if we can possibly do both." And that message STILL rests firmly on Persona 5's message of "it is Good to do what you have to do to stop an abuser so long as you don't catch innocent people in your crossfire.")

It's worth noting that the general problem of 'asking way too many new questions and then not answering them' also applies to how Royal treats its characters, too. P5 did have unanswered questions left at the end! The biggest one, and we all knew this, was Akechi, and what actually happened to him, and how we should feel about him, and how he felt about us. That was ripe for exploring in our bonus semester, and to Royal's credit they did in fact try to bring it up, but by god did they fuck up doing it.

Akechi's probable death in the boiler room was absolutely the biggest dangling mystery of the game. It was an off-screen apparent death of a key antagonist, so all of the narrative rules we know suggested that he might still be alive and would probably come back if the story went on for long enough. So when Royal brings him back on Christmas Eve, hey, great! Question answered. Except that the situation is immediately too good to be true, and immediately leads to another mystery, which leads to a flat suspicion that something must be wrong. We spend several hours of gameplay getting sly hints that, oooh, maybe he's not really alive after all, before it's finally confirmed by Maruki: yup, he really died, if we end the illusion we'll kill him too. Okay, at least we know now. Akechi is alive right now and he's going to be dead if we do this, and that doesn't make a ton of sense because every other undead person disappeared when the person who wished for them realized they were fake but at this point we'll take it. So we take down Maruki, and okay, Akechi really is dead! Probably! We're fairly sure! Aside from our lingering doubts!

And then we catch a glimpse of maybe-probably-could be him through the train window, and I just want to throw something, because come on.

Look, it is just a fact of storytelling: the more times you make an audience ask 'wait, is this character dead or aren't they?', the less they will care, until three or four reversals later you will be hard pressed to find anybody who gives a shit. Royal does this like four different times, and every iteration comes with even less certainty than the last. By the end, we somehow know even less than we did when we started! Did Akechi survive the boiler room to begin with and Maruki just didn't know? Or was Maruki lying to try and manipulate us further? Or was he actually dead and then his strength of will when Maruki's reality dissolved was enough to let him survive after all? Is that even actually him out the train window?

Where is he going! What is he doing! How did any of this happen! What is going on! We all had these questions about Akechi at the end of the original P5, and the kicker is that Royal pretends like it's going to answer them only to go LOL JK NO. It's frustrating and it's dissatisfying and it annoys me.

The one Akechi question that Royal doesn't even bother to ask, though, let alone leave ambiguous, is how does the protagonist feel about him? The entire emotional weight of the third semester rests on the protagonist caring about Akechi, Sumire, and Maruki. Maruki's the person we're supposed to sympathize with even as we try to stop him. Sumire's the person we're trying to save from herself. And Akechi is our bait--is, we are told, the one thing our protagonist wished for enough to actualize it in this world himself. Akechi's the final lure to accept Maruki's deal. Akechi's survival is meant to be tempting.

For firm Akechi fans, this probably worked out fine--the game wanted to insist that the protagonist cared for Akechi the same way the player did. For those of us who're a little more ambivalent, though (or for the many and valid people who hated him), this is a super sour note. Look, one of the Persona series' strengths is the way it lets players choose to put their time and emotional investment into an array of different characters, so the main story still has weight even if there's a couple you don't care about that much. It has always done this. The one exception, from P3 all the way through P4 to here and now, is Nanako Dojima, and by god she earned that distinction. I have never met a person who played Persona 4 who didn't love Nanako. Nanako is a neglected six-year-old child who is brave and strong enough to take care of herself and all of the housework but who still tries not to cry when her dad abandons her again and lights up like the sun when we spare her even the tiniest bit of time and attention. It is impossible not to care for Nanako. Goro Akechi is not Nanako.

And yet third semester Royal doesn't make sense if your protagonist doesn't feel linked to Akechi. The one question, out of all the brand new questions Royal throws out there, that it decides to answer all by itself--and it's how you as a player and your protagonist ought to feel about an extremely complex and controversial character. What the fuck, Royal. What the fuck.

In conclusion, I'll leave you with this. I played the original Persona 5 in March and April of 2017, as an American, a few months after the 2016 election and into the term of our then president. It felt painfully timely. A quick calendar google early on indicated that the game's 20XX was almost certainly 2016, and the closer our plot got to the in-game November leadup to an election destined to be dominated by a foul and charming man full of corruption and buoyed up by his own cult of personality, the more I wanted to laugh/cry. It felt timely. It felt important. It felt right.

I went through Royal (in LP form on youtube, not having a platform to play it on) in summer of 2020, with a hook full of face masks by my front door and protests about racial tension and local policing that occasionally turned into not-quite-riots close enough to hear at night if I opened the windows of my apartment. The parts of the game that I remembered felt as prescient and meaningful as ever, if not even more so. The new parts felt baffling. Every single evil in the game felt utterly, painfully real, from the opening moments of police brutality to the idea of a country led by a guy who probably would use his secret illegitimate teenage son as a magical assassin if the opportunity presented itself and he thought he could get away with it. Yaldabaoth as the cumulative despair of an entire population who just wanted somebody to take over and make things be okay--yes, yes, god, in summer of 2020? With streets full of people refusing to wear masks and streets full of people desperate for change? Of course. Of course that holy grail of safety should be enticing. Of course it should be terrifying.

And then Maruki. Maruki, who was just so far outside the scope of anything I could relate to the rest of the game or my own life. Because every single other villain in the rest of Persona is real. From the petty pandering principal to the human-trafficking mob boss. The corrupt politicians and the manmade god of cultural desire for stability. And this game was trying to tell me that the very biggest threat of all of them, the thing that was worse than the collective force of all society agreeing to let this happen because succumbing was easier than fighting back--that the very biggest threat of all was that the world could be taken over by some random nobody's misguided attempts to help?

No. Fuck no. I don't buy it. Because god, yes, I have seen the pain and damage done on a tiny and personal and very real level by the tight-fisted control of someone trying to help, it never looked like this. Not some ascended god of a bad therapist. All the threats to the world, and that's the one I'm supposed to take seriously? This one man is more of a threat than the fundamental human willingness to be controlled?

Sorry, but no. Not for me. Not in this game. Not in this real-life cyberpunk dystopian apocalypse.

[bedlamsbard]

Writing tag game -- tagged by @lessattitudemorealtitude

how many works do you have on Ao3?

Discounting podfic on which I’m listed as a co-author, 24.  My concept writing doesn’t go to AO3 and the vast majority of my Narnia fic was never cross-posted there.  (Or reposted there, actually, I think most of it pre-dates the AO3.)

what’s your total Ao3 word count?

1,050,810.  oh, huh, I didn’t actually realize I’d passed the one million word mark (probably with Crown).

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

all of these ended up being Star Wars, which is not a huge surprise.  Morning will probably reach Dirt in the next couple of updates, I’d guess.

Immutable, or, Five Times Obi-Wan Kenobi Compromised His Jedi Ethics for Anakin Skywalker -- this is not the oldest Star Wars fic on there, but I think it’s the second oldest. people just really like 5 times fic.

Wake the Storm - did you know that when I started Wake I assumed it was a very niche trope in what was, at the time, a pretty dead fandom? the kudos count on Wake actually outnumbers Gambit by more than 1600 kudos, so the number of people who go from Wake to Gambit is a lot lower than you might think.

Queen's Gambit - a significantly lower kudos count than Wake or Immutable.  Gambit’s such a weirdo of a story, tbh, I can’t be surprised by anything about Gambit anymore.

On the Edge of the Devil's Backbone - about 600 kudos less than Gambit, so less difference between Gambit and Backbone than between Wake and Gambit.

Dirt in the Machine - another older fic.  I’d rewrite this one if I cared enough to do so, because it’s not at my current standards (Immutable isn’t either, for that matter) and I kind of wince every time I get comments on it.  this is the first one of the top five to have below 1K kudos.

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I’ll usually respond to direct questions, but I very, very seldom respond to comments in general.  This is an old standing policy of mine that’s now more than a decade old -- it used to be I’d wait twenty-four hours before responding, then I’d respond right before the next chapter went up, and for a while I’d only respond to comments on the first few chapters of a story.  Now I just mostly do not.  The reasons for this are: (1) many, many years ago, I lost my temper pretty badly at a comment on a fic of mine (this was pre-AO3, this was back in my LJ days), and after that I moved to the “wait twenty-four hours” response so I didn’t say anything without thinking about it, (2) I do go back and reread comments but I hate rereading my own responses, (3) I prefer to know the comments numbers on my fic are all from actual comments and not from me saying “thanks for reading!”, (4) I can’t take that kind of responsibility for answering every single comment, man.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Of stuff I’ve written in the past ten years? (I can’t really remember before that.)  Maybe Backbone, because it ends on that pretty upbeat “yay team we’re going to be rebels now!” note.  or Devil’s in the Details (other side part 1), though I don’t really want to consider it a finished fic even though it’s technically finished; it has another “yay team we’re back together (minus Ezra)” ending.  I tend to end on complicated and reasonably open endings, not like...happy endings.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

probably Gambit for the “everything is super fucked up” factor and also the fact that I never wrote the sequel. plus it ended with the entire Wake trio split up in a whole new universe, plus back in the Gambitverse Amidala not able to go back to Naboo, Ahsoka shunned, Palpatine’s new empire, Rex trapped in the Gambitverse, etc.

do you write crossovers?

I did in my Narnia days. I don’t anymore. Working in widespread fandoms like Star Wars or the MCU is basically like writing crossover fic within the same universe, anyway.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

*hysterical laughter*

...yes. yes I have. it’s the reason every time I get a comment notification on Gambit or Wake I freeze in absolute terror. people HATE Wake and Gambit.  I hate to say never, but I will probably never write those characters or in that series again.

do you write smut? if so, what kind?

not really?  I’ve done relatively non-explicit sex but it’s not something I’m super comfortable writing, especially in recent years. I’m much more likely to do a fade to black.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think Gambit got scraped once when it was still in progress and my response was something along the lines of “good luck, bro,” given the whole “still in progress” thing.

have you ever had a fic translated?

I’ve gotten a couple of translation requests but I can’t recall if anything’s ever been translated.  (Or if I responded to them...I know a few I forgot to respond.)

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, back in my Narnia days.  Some SW concept writing and that ended so badly that I’ll never co-write again.

what’s your all-time favourite ship?

Kanan/Hera, of course!

what’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

gods, Dust in the Air, my Narnia Last Battle AU.  Back when I started it in 2008 or so I didn’t have the self-control or discipline I do now, even if I had a lot of the worldbuilding ability and the ability to conceive of if not execute long plot arcs, and I broke off more than I could chew.  If I ever went back to it I’d probably have to do a complete rewrite and it has the unique problem among my WIPs of being the last major fic I wrote in present tense -- I now write exclusively in past tense.  The bones of the story are good, I’d just have to go back to the bones and not just pick up where I left off.

what are your writing strengths?

Plot, worldbuilding/environment, action.  I also do genuinely think I’m very good at characterization too, but I think they’re all inter-related.  (Except the action, that’s me alone.  I love writing action and I generally get a lot of compliments on my action scenes.)  look, I know it’s conceited, but I’m good and I know I’m good, and I’m good in a pretty well-rounded way for the genre I write.

what are your writing weaknesses?

brevity. can’t do it.

honestly, there are others, but I don’t write stories where they’d come up.  I think I have a tendency to get to bogged down in dialogue in a way that I’ve never quite solved.  I also let my emotions take over too much and not in the good fannish way, in the “I’m having a fucked up relationship with canon or fandom and it’s affecting my ability to work” way.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

please stop having your Asgardians speak Latin for magic, man, that’s my feeling on it.

okay, my feelings on it for me -- I’ve sprinkled bits and pieces of Huttese, Twi’leki, and tee-tiny bits of other stuff here and there in fic.  I’d not be comfortable doing more than that because the only other language that I really feel comfortable doing anything significant in is Latin, and even then I’d hesitate. also, like, Latin! not a language that comes up in the fandoms I write in.  even then, like -- any extended dialogue should be intelligible to the audience, and I don’t expect my audience to be able read anything other than English; I’d rather just say “they switched to Twi’leki to say” or something similar.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

like, online? Harry Potter. for things that I didn’t post online because I didn’t know what fic was yet? probably either The 10th Kingdom or The Mummy.

what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

On the Edge of the Devil’s Backbone.  I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, I think it’s the most tightly plotted, I think it’s got the best worldbuilding, I think it’s remarkably consistent thematically, and it was, at the time, a fic that I was very devoted to finishing or dying trying, because I was going through it at the time and some of it was connected to the fic.

I don’t tag people, but please go for if you want!

[woman-loving]

minimizing and maximizing lesbian identities

Selection from “Identity Crises: Who is a Lesbian, Anyway?” by Vera Whisman, in Sisters, Sexperts, Queers: Beyond the Lesbian Nation, ed Arlene Stein, 1993.

This process of defining who is a lesbian is much more than a word game. It is a collective attempt to make sense of our history, figure out our present, and strategize for our future. It lurks beneath contemporary debates about bisexuality, butch-femme roles, and s/m sexuality. It haunts our discussions of political strategies, such as separatism and assimilation. And lately, this process of definition is posing vexing questions which seem ever more difficult to answer.

The theory of lesbian feminism once promised an alternative to patriarchal culture, where differences of race and class would disappear under the force of sisterhood, and where differences in sexual tastes would disappear under the force of consciousness-raising. But many women not only refused to ignored difference, they actually began to embrace it, and to rub up against boundaries. We haven’t all rallied around a shared identity as lesbians; today we don’t even agree on what the word means. Does that mean our movement is losing its base--or that the base is becoming broader and more diverse? [...]

Every definition has placed some lesbians in the blessed inner circle and some outside it. Is a woman who identifies herself as a dyke but who’s never slept with a woman a lesbian? Is a lesbian who sleeps with men really a lesbian? What about a lesbian who sleeps with women, but has had a primarily heterosexual past? If she becomes involved with a man next year, was she ever a true lesbian? [...]

Identities are often difficult to pin down. They are diverse and multiple. It’s impossible to identify with a single conception of a “woman” or a “lesbian.” For we can only believe in “the lesbian” by downplaying differences, by obscuring parts of our lives. in the 1970s, lesbians who would not ignore gender chose lesbian feminism over the gay rights movement. Today, a generation of younger lesbians, refusing to ignore differences of sexuality, are helping to construct the new queer culture. Women from both age cohorts are claiming the importance of their ethnic, racial and class identities. And, increasingly, we are all realizing that identities are multiple and complex.

As Shane Phelan, a philosopher, puts it, “The struggles of lesbians over the past thirty years should tell us that people are not ‘actually like’ anything.”[14] But if there is no timeless and essential lesbianism, what is the proper hook on which we can hang our political actions? What, in other words, are our common interests? What do lesbians really want? If “the lesbian” is nothing more than a shifting definition, is there any way to answer these questions?

If we can answer them at all, we may have to do so in a tentative fashion, specific to our time and place. That means dealing with contradictions. It means abandoning the search for consistency. To use critic Ann Snitow’s term, sometimes we need to “minimize” lesbian identity by constantly pushing against the borders; at other times we need to “maximize” it.[15] We minimize identity when we refuse to be controlled by it, when we expand the ways to be a lesbian. There are ways in which both lesbian feminists and lesbian queers dream of a world without sexual identity, a world where homosexuality doesn’t exist because heterosexuality doesn’t exist either.

But even the dreamers have to deal with the world, a world where it is at times necessary to maximize our shared lesbian identity, to proclaim our common needs and demand that they be met. Our politics must negotiate this duality; neither maximizing nor minimizing lesbian identities is sufficient in itself.

We have seen the problems of the maximizing approach--the construction of rigid, suffocating, and at least implicitly racist understandings of “lesbian” and her culture, ethics, and politics. But wholesale minimizing runs the risk of making us disappear before we’ve changed the world. If we deconstruct before they deconstruct, we end up in a situation where “the rich as well as the poor are forbidden to sleep under bridges,” where equality is defined as blindness to real difference. We have to minimize and maximize, create unities and simultaneously see them as false, build boundaries around ourselves, and, at the same time, smash them.

Years ago, I pried myself loose from a white, middle-class, vacuous culture and ran into the protective arms of the “lesbian community.” Now, as the basis of that community is revealed to be a fiction, I feel cut adrift. I ask my lover, “Where does all of this leave us? Out there?” But she cannot talk. She’s out on strike and is on her way to walk the picket line. In her union, she has pushed for domestic partner benefits, for a sexual harassment policy, and for the biggest raises for the lowest-paid. Through her efforts, I’m beginning to acknowledge that it is not uniformly ugly “out there.” But the path that once seemed clear to me has more twists and turns now, and I can only see what’s just ahead.

What is a lesbian? Who is a lesbian? One woman says it’s her lust that makes her a lesbian, even if she admits that she likes men, too. Another says that it’s her choice to surround herself with a community of women. A third talks in terms of her deeply felt sense that she is different, queer. In the end, a lesbian must simply be any woman who calls herself one, understanding that we place ourselves within that category, drawing and redrawing the boundaries in ever-shifting ways. For there is no essential and timeless lesbian, but instead lesbians who, by creating our lives day by day, widen the range of possibilities.

[rwby-redux]

Transcribed from a video uploaded by Talks at Google, of a presentation given by David J. Peterson on his book, “The Art of Language Invention.”

The following transcription is from part of the Q&A segment, where David Peterson addresses an audience member’s question of whether or not TV shows should use endangered minority languages in place of constructed languages. Because of how this issue pertains to both RWBY’s canon and the Redux, I chose to reference his answer in Worldbuilding: Languages, and provide readers with a written version of their exchange for ease-of-access.

-

Audience Member: So, every year, you know, we lose dozens, maybe hundreds, of human languages to extinction, and we lose the cultural payload with them. How do you feel about the ethics of conlangs going into—people running around, geeking out on Klingon, when we’re losing real human languages that they could be learning. And why do you not consider using obscure human languages for some of these shows? Bring them back a little bit. Give them a new life. Make people aware of them, rather than artificial languages.

David Peterson: Let me ask you this—how do you feel about people getting really, really excited about novels like The Hunger Games, which are stories about fake people, when we’re losing the stories of real people every day that are dying?

Audience Member: Honestly, I think that’s sort of false analogy. We have—and I admit I come from a very specific basis on this. But I guess I would say, how do you feel about ISIS destroying antiquities when we could make new stuff?

David Peterson: I’m sorry, say the last part?

Audience Member: How do you feel about ISIS destroying antiquities when we could make new stuff? That’s equivalent to yours. Is it—and I’m not saying what you’re doing is wrong—

David Peterson: [laughing] You’re saying that I’m destroying natural languages in order to produce—

Audience Member: I’m not saying you’re destroying natural languages. I’m saying, could we not use some of the energies that people go into learning conlanguages, geeking out about conlanguages, going to Klingon conventions. I’ll tell you, I got very annoyed when I see—I saw even here at Google recently, people talking about looking for Klingon resources to do something in Klingon, and it’s like great, but let’s put that effort to saving a real language because when we lose those languages—when the last speaker dies—it’s never coming back as a living language.

David Peterson: Yeah, so, of course—and in fact, if they weren’t going to be doing Klingon they would be doing the other thing, right?

Audience Member: That’s how it ends.

David Peterson: So let’s stop—

Audience Member: You could use real human languages for some of these—

David Peterson: You certainly could. Yeah. We could have found a—for example, we could have found some very rarely spoken language and given it to the barbaric Dothraki, who are ripping people’s tongues out. How would that have been?

Audience Member: I wasn’t necessarily saying Dothraki.

David Peterson: Okay. Okay, but that’s actually the issue that comes up. For example, there are a lot of languages that are dying out right now. Not the majority of them, but certainly a minority of them, that are dying because the speakers don’t want other people to use their language. They don’t want people to write it down. They don’t want foreigners speaking them. Do we respect that? Do we just kind of sigh and let the language die out and respect the wishes of these people who don’t want contact with the outside world? It’s a different kind of ethical question. But personally, there are two ways of looking at it. One, artistically, if you’re talking about a totally fictional reality, it breaks the reality to use a language that actually is spoken by other people on Earth. It’s kind of an odd thing. I always find it odd when people are speaking English when they oughtn’t to be, like Amadeus. I mean, it was a fantastic movie. It was a fantastic movie, but honestly why were they speaking English? Especially like, I don’t know. Well, it’s actually kind of a bizarre thing of movies that we think British English would have been better than American English.

[Audience laughs.]

David Peterson: I mean it wouldn’t, it’s the same thing, but I don’t know. So artistically, it simply breaks [the immersion], and honestly, there’s no alternative here. The alternative to using creative language in Defiance was English. They were never, ever going to consider using any other natural language, or the expense involved in finding somebody to translate into those languages. And then furthermore if you think about, especially some very—some minority languages that aren’t spoken very well—by very many people—and you start to translate some of the dialogue in Defiance. For example, this sentence that I showed you about the chlorine gas [from earlier during the presentation]. Odds are that Pirahã doesn’t have a word for chlorine. So then it’s a question of what you do. It seems doubtful that you could get a speaker up there [to a studio] who would have to learn and understand English well enough and perform on a deadline to be able to translate into it, so you need somebody else. And undoubtedly they would have to create words. They would have to create words either by working with native roots, or have a whole load of English borrowings in there, or worse, create words—they kind of look like the real language—and use them in those scripts. Which to me seems really offensive. Essentially you’re creating words to plunk down into somebody’s actually-existing language. You’re not a part of the culture, and you’re saying, “Well, we’re going to represent this as a word in your language for the purposes of this television show.” I just can’t see that being a good idea.

[Pause.]

David Peterson: On a separate note, if you just kind of remove the created language aspect entirely—the fact, of course, that there are dying languages is terrible. It’s a question of what can you do as an outsider in order to either prevent it, or to preserve those languages. I’m not sure how a lot of speakers of minority languages would feel if there were, say, a bunch of teenagers from southern California who started to learn their language just because they thought it was cool, and funky, and it was for these quirky people in this show. That, at least for me, would make me feel a little uncomfortable. So I think that the sentiment is well-founded. I don’t think that the solution you presented is a good one, or feasible, or necessarily respectful. I also think that for standard preservation of languages there are people that are trained to do that. It’s not an easy thing. And of course I know them, and in fact have studied under them coming through linguistics. It’s not just something that anybody can do. And it takes a lot of work with the culture, and having worked with Hollywood a bunch, it’s a lot of work that I know that nobody would be interested in doing. They wouldn’t be interested in paying for it, they wouldn’t be interested in taking the time with it, because they have deadlines and they’re doing what they’re going to do. I’m not sure if that answered every single aspect of your question, but if not, I’m happy to talk about it further because this is an issue that comes up every single time created languages are discussed. So thanks.

-

Talks at Google. “The Art of Language Invention | David Peterson | Talks at Google.” YouTube video. August 24, 2015. 47:59 - 54:32. [https://youtu.be/Z50T-tslrgs?t=2869]

[thtdamfangirl4]

Saying Goodbye to The Good Place

Tonight I watched one of my favorite shows in history end. I watched it live with freaking commercials and I tuned out the rest of the world. And I cried my eyes out so many times. And I don’t know how well I can explain that, or how exactly to put into words what this show has meant to me, but I’m going to cry.

I started watching this show when season 2 came on Netflix. I had heard good things about it online and a friend or two had watched it, so I decided to give it a try. (I had watched the first, like, 2 episodes months before but hadn’t kept going or given it a real chance.) I found myself completely hooked. I watched the first season in two days and had finished everything the show had to offer by the end of the week, diving into tumblr accounts, twitter threads, the cast’s social media pages. None of that is uncommon for me when I first become obsessed with a show.

But The Good Place was uncommon. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen, and remains so to this day. It had fabulous humor in many facets, from Jason’s lovable idiocy to Chidi’s relatable indecision to Eleanor’s perfectly captured selfishness to Tahani’s name-dropping to Janet’s cacti to Michael’s comments about humans and the dynamics between them all and so much more. And the show, the writers, balanced all of that with so much heart. With Eleanor’s drive to be better. With Chidi’s ever-present willingness to help. With Jason’s unexpected and loving wise advice. With Tahani’s desire to be loved. With Michael’s growing understanding of humans and our lives. With Janet’s evolution and coming to understand what it means to feel and to love. And it was absolutely beautiful to watch these characters go through whatever they might go through in a given episode. I would watch this balance of perfectly imperfect in any situation you put on my screen.

But the writers and creators put them in a situation I’d never imagined would be on TV: discovering morality and spirituality in the afterlife. These characters navigated dilemmas we all face in our everyday lives. They made jokes and went through ridiculous scenarios and reboots and they messed up and tried time and time again, and through it all, we the viewers were learning. To be good. To be better. Maybe not necessarily by copying these characters, and certainly not their lives on earth, but by inspiring us to think about these questions and the implications of our lives. This show was a lovely escape from reality for 22 minutes until the picture faded and I found myself contemplating the things Chidi’s ethics class had tackled that week, or thinking about my own actions, what my version of the good place would be. All in all, this show made me think about the kind of person I want to be. And it actually made me a better person.

I think a lot about the little speeches made on this show, which have been anything but little to me. (Don’t get me started on Chidi’s wave speech I’ll be crying about it every day forever.) And I find myself thinking about what Michael says to Bad Janet almost every day. That what matters is that we try to be a little better today than we were yesterday. That that’s where hope for humanity lies. And that thought, that simple thought which should not boggle the mind of any decent human being, is groundbreaking. Because these simple and profound truths about the universe and humanity were nestled in every single episode of the good place, right there between jokes about Jason’s dance crew and Janet’s void. And they found their way into our lives, and I know that even just watching this show once a week was one of the things that made me a better person that day. Which is why I’m so grateful to this show.

Eleanor taught me that it’s okay to make mistakes. That being a little trashy is always fun as long as you have a good heart. And she and Chidi taught me that love is out there. That soulmates are something you make, not something you find, and that even if you can’t understand why at first, people who love you are going to come into your life and the real ones won’t disappear. She taught me that the walls have to come down someday, and that when they do, the view is so much better. Most importantly, she taught me that nothing is ever set in stone. That people can change and get better and learn to love and care and be loved and cared for.

Chidi taught me that the little things can’t hold me back. I felt seen by his (albeit, exaggerated) indecision and anxiety. But he grew throughout this show and through his journey, I learned to move aside the little struggles to make room for the big joys. I learned that helping someone is always worth my time, because even if I never see them again, or I never get thanked, I’m putting a little more good into the world. And he would always do that. He taught me that it’s okay to come into your own and stand up for yourself and what you believe in. He and Eleanor taught me that there’s always someone out there who has your back, and that love means putting someone else first. I especially saw that in the finale.

Tahani taught me that it’s okay to know who I am. That confidence is something each person deserves to feel. She taught me that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be loved, as long as you remind yourself that it doesn’t determine your worth. She taught me that mistakes are a tool for learning, but they can’t be used if we pretend we didn’t make them. She taught me that it’s okay to be a little frivolous when frivolity brings you joy. She taught me that spite can be a great motivator, but the results are much more fruitful and enjoyable when you do things for other people.

Jason taught me that I don’t have to have all the answers. That there’s more to life than numbers and books and school and all the things that give a college student looking at the future anxiety. He taught me that it’s love that matters, and doing the things that bring you joy. He taught me that people are not always what they appear to be at first glance, and that everyone has something worthwhile to say. He taught me that words don’t have to be fancy or eloquent to be poignant and meaningful. He taught me that embracing who you are and what/who you love is what makes a person happy.

Janet taught me that knowledge isn’t everything. She reinforced the idea that emotions are not inferior or contrary to facts and knowledge, but rather something even deeper and more meaningful than trivia or information that could come from google. She taught me that life is a complicated mess full of millions of questions, and there are some that cannot be answered. She taught me that you love who you love, even if it’s unexpected, and there is zero shame in that. And she taught me that one of the noblest pursuits in the world is that of making people happy, especially the people you love.

Michael taught me that humans are complex, and sometimes they kind of suck, but they are still worth loving. He proved that people are not all good or all bad. He taught me that what matters is trying to be good and kind and honest and loving. He taught me not to give up on what I know is right. He taught me that it’s okay to change your mind when you learn new things, and that it’s more than okay to decide to do what’s right at any stage in the game. He taught me that people are worth believing in. He taught me that being wrong can be one of the most rewarding things in the world. And he taught me that the human life we have is a gift.

Together, these characters taught me that we are all capable of changing and improving. They taught me that it’s okay to be who you are, even if a lot of things change. You can still be loved for all of your little quirks and flaws and habits. You are worthy of being loved even if you aren’t the best version of you yet. And they taught me that we can all get there eventually. More than anything, they taught me that the love we have for each other, the bonds we build with the people in our lives, the friends, the family, the significant others, everyone, is what makes us human and what makes us whole. It drives us to be better and to make others happy. It supports us and holds us as we grow together.

So I just want to say thank you. To Michael Shur for creating this show and its characters. To the writers for making me fall in love with these people and stories. To Kristen Bell and Ted Danson and William Jackson Harper and Jameela Jamil and Manny Jacinto and D’Arcy Carden for bringing these characters to life and making them into people that I will never be able to let go of. To anyone involved with this beautiful show that I have enjoyed through the very end. Thank you for giving me a reason to laugh, cry, contemplate, and feel content with a show that was groundbreaking and stunning and hilarious and heartwarming with thousands of good moments and a perfect ending. These characters will always be a part of my heart, and I will always try to be a little better tomorrow than I was today because of them. Thank you, and goodbye to new episodes. I have a feeling I’ll be watching all the ones which are now old time and time again.

[ghoulgeists]

HEWWO I HAVE QUESTIONS.... flint: 1, 5, 19, 22, 25, 30, 33, 36, 41, 49, 51 / cadma: 3 8, 15, 21, 52, 57, 59 / feng huo: 9, 17, 30, 31, 67

KISSES U.... thank u for asking about my chilbren... answers under cut bc long :’D

Flint

I’m gonna answer theirs according the alternate story thing I have for them instead of their actual game self because those are. Two very different people lol :’D This is probably what you wanted anyway?! uwu

1. why did they choose their class(es)? their subclass(es)? Becoming a warlock was never in their intentions, it was done more so because both parties would benefit from the relationship. Flint’s patron needs to earn some favor with a higher power to accomplish their own goals and Flint needed to get rid of some undead, so a celestial patronage was a pretty painless deal. They need each other a little more than they might realize though :^)

5. do they follow a higher power? what are their thoughts on divinity? They don’t follow a higher power, necessarily. Because of their patron they do have to keep in mind that their power comes from being in someone’s good books, and they act accordingly to stay there. Otherwise they believe in the power of gods and all, but their relationship with divinity is generally pretty lax. They’re the kind of person who only prays when they need it, if that makes sense?

19. what haunts them? what doesn’t? All the mistakes from Flint’s not-so-distant past bite at their heels every now and then. What doesn’t haunt them so much is probably the fact they rob tombs lmao... As far as Flint is concerned, an angry spirit or two can’t touch them the same way a grudge from the corporeal can.

22. what is a promise they’ve broken? There’s a lot... but probably the one that ruins them the most is a promise they made to themselves not to hurt people.

25. what stories do they like to tell? what stories do they like to hear? Flint is an expert at spooky campfire ghost stories, mostly because they draw from their own experiences. As for what they like to hear... They like very classic “hero gets the girl” kinds of tales! Stuff you don’t have to take too seriously, and are just stories to be stories.

30. what do they seek out from others? Someone to watch their back while they pilfer jewels and to stoke the campfire when it’s their turn to keep watch at night. In a word, reliability!

33. what makes them cry? So many things... Flint acts tough but they’re a baby... To rattle off a few things, they get weepy whenever someone cares too much about them, whenever someone has to say goodbye (no matter how temporary), and whenever they hear something sappy and romantic. It is almost too easy to pull at their heartstrings.

36. what’s a secret they’ve kept? Probably the biggest secret they keep is what they were like in the past. They spent a lot of years doing some pretty... morally and ethically questionable things...

41. what are they attracted to in other people? It’s weird... but probably loneliness? Not in a sad way or anything (exclusively). Flint has ended up surrounded by people who know too much, so much so that it makes them unquestionably different from others. That kind of thing breeds loneliness and Flint likes filling voids. Being needed? That’s sexy.

49. what makes them smile? They will visibly light up when they get close to a certain town. Where a certain person lives. :^) But also they’ll smile in almost any relaxed situation, like while they’re playing music, listening in on casual conversations, or just drinking in nature.

51. what is the most beautiful thing in the world, for them? A tomb full of riches... polished gold... ah, it almost brings a tear to their eye...

Cadma

3. what is their goal right now? He’s kind of drifting through life, just with a lot of enthusiasm, so I don’t think he really has grand ambitions or anything. I suppose you could say his goal right now is supposed to be thwarting a lich queen’s evil plans for world domination, but honestly he’s just here to vibe.

8. what are three songs that suit them? Wait I don’t know anything about music- UH Soldier, Poet, King by The Oh Hellos, Here’s a Health to the Company by The Longest Johns, and Halcyon by The Paper Kites kind of fit Cadma’s vibes. Despite his personality he’s pretty mellow on the inside!

15. do they trust their party? why or why not? Cadma trusts his party more than anything, because he’s stuck by them for longer than anyone else. He used to be (and probably still is let’s be real) very flaky- the second something looks more interesting, or things start looking dangerous he’s GONE. So hanging out with the same crew for years, through thick and thin, has gotta mean SOMETHING at this point, right??

21. do they follow their head, their heart, or their body? Definitely his heart, maybe a little his body. Cadma just has no braincells.

52. from whom do they seek validation? People with more brains than him lol... His old captain (even though that ship has kind of sailed), his current party members, pretty much anyone who is perceivably smarter than he is is someone he wants to keep around and impress.

57. what makes them angry? Not a whole lot, but anyone who uses their faith as justification for keeping the status quo gets put immediately on a hit list. That, and anyone who disrespects a ship 😤

59. what is a quiet passion of theirs? Nothing about Cadma is very quiet, but recently he’s taken up whittling because he needed something to do while everyone else in the party figured out puzzles :’) He’s not good at it.

Feng Huo

9. do they care about their appearance? how much effort do they put into presentation? Not a whole lot! Feng Huo was kind of cast out of his village with nothing but the clothes on his back, so he does try to keep what he’s wearing tidy since he can’t exactly afford rips and tears. As well as that, he maintains normal upkeep on all his feathers and plumage just to keep healthy!

17. what do they dream about, when their dreams are their own? They dream about going home one day, seeing all the family and friends they were forced to leave behind. He’s a little afraid of how much might’ve changed in his absence, but his heart really aches for his village. He’s super homesick :’(

30.  what do they seek out from others? Nothing! Feng Huo is the kind of person who gives without asking anything in return. I guess what he wants the most is someone who will just be nice to him, or won’t treat him differently? He gets a lot of looks because he’s a phoenix, so being near people who don’t think he’s weird would be very nice!

31. they’re given a blank piece of paper–what do they do with it? At first he wants to write a letter home, but then he decides against it when he realizes no one will know where to deliver it so he just makes a paper crane instead. Not in a sad way though!! It’s more like... an “oh well! plan b!” kind of way :’D

67. what makes them laugh? Literally anything... Corny jokes and terrible puns especially!

THANK U FOR THE ASK THIS WAS FUN!!! ilu ♥

[pass-the-bechdel]

The Good Place season four full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

92.3% (twelve of thirteen).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

50.67%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Twelve, eight of which are at least 50%, and two of those are 60%+.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-six. Thirteen who appeared in more than one episode, five who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-three. Thirteen who appeared in more than one episode, six who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Solid as it’s ever been; though this season did exhibit the one and only time in this show that I ever felt they had a truly bad take on things, altogether it is not really diminished in its feel-good quality (average rating of 3.07).

General Season Quality:

Spotty. As with all other seasons after the first one, it doesn’t really know what it wants to do, let alone how to get there. It’s at its best when it is just settling down and telling its story with close character focus instead of being in a hurry to get nowhere in particular, and while it gets almost tedious towards the end, it finishes with unusual aplomb. 

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

As per usual, I’m not going to linger too long on this one, because final-season reviews always end up intersecting with full-series discussions to a significant degree, since both conversations are about culminations and endings. What I am going to talk about here - relevant to the full series, but most notable for this season - is the issue of drama for drama’s sake, ever-increasing stakes, and not actually planning out your fucking plot in advance. I’m referring (mostly) to the utter ridiculousness of the centrepiece of this season, the ‘delete the Earth’ thing.

All of these things have been discussed before, and we know the basics: drama for drama’s sake is cheap and empty, you can only increase the stakes in something if your audience is invested, plot requires cohesion in order to matter and make sense. These things all feed into one another, since nonsensical plot creates empty dramatic spectacles in which there are no genuine stakes because the plot doesn’t matter, etc, etc, and the ‘delete the Earth’ distraction really encapsulates all of it: we the audience aren’t foolish enough to think the whole world is about to be wiped out, so the stakes are too high to be believable, and even if the world WAS wiped out, it wouldn’t matter to the characters because they’re already dead and there are no fundamental ties to the material world which will be missed by a bunch of souls that aren’t around to miss them anymore anyway. The idea of the Earth being rebooted is way too hypothetical to have any impact as plot; the drama has no emotional value because it has no connections, and the ever-escalating stakes game has gone too far, and become as empty as it is ludicrous. 

And then there is - as discussed in the relevant episodes - the fact that the show got so caught up in the escalating-stakes game, and so disconnected from the idea of an overarching plot, that the whole conclusion to the experiment which prompted ‘reboot Earth’ as a solution had...little if anything really to do with the problem that seeded the experiment in the first place. This is the thing that really, truly baffled me; how do you, as a creator, lose sight of your own story to such an egregious degree? How little idea must you have of the story you’re trying to bring to a close, that you could end up throwing in a Final Hurdle that is not only this ridiculous, but also this irrelevant? Honestly, I can’t offer an explanation. This is in no way the worst show I’ve ever seen, but this particular element is one of the most colossal narrative blunders I have ever heard of.

I will float one theory though, which doesn’t really explain how the writers forgot the intention of the experiment but does, perhaps, relate to how their discussions on where to take the plot may have ended up so severely diverted: it’s about ‘The Answer’. As I said in the relevant episode post, I don’t think that the audience (by and large, there are always outliers) truly expected the show to come up with a Single Immutable Truth About The Universe, and I feel as though the writers backed themselves into a corner all of their own making in order to avoid providing such an answer. The result seems to have been an effort to focus in on individualism above all else, and in doing so, the narrative allowed systemic criticisms to fall to the wayside. Moral concerns in the real world are rendered meaningless when you’re going to go off to a specially-tailored afterlife that’ll teach you how to be Good Now, allowing endless time and space for blunders and no ultimate consequences, and so none of the ethical concepts the show had toyed with matter anymore. Evils of Capitalism? Who cares! The swamp of inter-generational poverty (and all related conversations about privilege)? Shut up, Jason! Literally nothing matters anymore, you can come into the afterlife having suffered or made others to suffer all kinds of privations and disadvantages and cruelties, and we don’t care about questioning circumstances, we’ve got a handy-dandy twelve-step program for your soul! I’m, ah, a little cynical about it. In hand-waving the fact that the Afterlife Points System failed to account for a changing world and the difficulties it presents, the show also kinda shrugged off moral living in favour of nihilism (’never mind, we’ll fix it later’) in order to avoid letting any serious criticisms of real-world social or economic structures colour its final statements. Again, I wasn’t expecting them to lay out a plan for how to solve all the moral ills of the real world, but I also was not expecting this weak avoidance which kinda begs the question: if you had nothing to say about morality, why did you start the conversation in the first place? It’s not like any of the ideological concepts they had brought up were too radical for them to use to make a point, instead of just a noncommittal reference. Anyway. My point is this: I think the creative team had so little vision of where they wanted this show to end up, they scared themselves out of their own plot. The rest, is full-series talk.

[chickennoodlesoupfortae]

Angles deserve to die

A/N- ahahhahaha its gone for a month author rats. I missed my page so im back and with an update on that piece i said i was going to post last august.

Summary- People would like to think of the higher beings as ethical and moral in all their actions but sometimes even they get bored. Yoongi is assigned a task by the overlord to see how far love could push a mortal. Jimin is tasked the same by the “good” side to see if love can save the souls of those vulnerable. What happens when you’re caught in the crossfires of a cosmic bet.

Word count- 2.8k 

Warnings- Since it is based on a higher being religion is under defamation and question.

Namjoon sat babysitting a drink next to the lord of the underworld. “I don’t get what you’re getting at Jungkook. Why should we care about the mortals and their thoughts. Our job is to get them to believe what they have and then let them wander around till they disappear.” 

“That’s so boring though.” the god groaned chugging the rest of his drink. “All I’m saying is that we’ve been doing this for them for the past hundred thousand years and I’m bored out of my mind.”  

“You’re bored out of your mind. You get the interesting souls. I have to talk to the “good” people. Do you know how many different types of gods I have to pose as so they don’t freak out.” he swirled the liquid inside the cup.

“You choose to do them. When we were choosing what we’d do your words were,” Jungkook began to laugh. The small room was dark and gloomy only filled by the two of them and a maiden who came and occasionally refilled their glasses. It was warm and dry inside making it uncomfortable but the two had gotten use to it as the year melted together.

“Don’t say it” the god warned

“ ‘I believe that these savages can be good and therefore I want to lead their souls into a better place’” he imitated his partner in the afterlife scam “Well look how that turned out. You still get shitty people but they pretend to be better than the ones you send “down under”.”

Namjoon rolled his eyes “What’s with that right? I mean who thought of one, the word hell and two, that it would be down. You literally work ten miles away from me.”

“Stupid humans I guess.” his hand shoot up beckoning for the maiden who appeared next to him within seconds. “Yes dear can I get another one of these please with an extra shot of vodka” his head turned away from the servant  “So back to what I was saying oh heavenly one. As I was “punishing” my run of the mill serial killers, as one does. I thought. ‘Now why do these humans love to hurt each other?’ Me being a god and all, determined quickly that it was emotion.” 

“And?” he rolled his eyes listening to the devil himself.

“What if we sent one of your angels and one of my demons to try and see what would happen.” 

“How would that work the human would have two people pressuring it and we wouldn’t be able to see the results clearly.”

“What if we sent them in disguise as one of them and see who the human chooses emotionally and how far it would go.”

Namjoon finished his drink thinking the proposal through. It had been years since he visited the mortal world and seeing clones of the same personality pass through his office was getting boring. “We need to set goals and a prize.” The devil's eyes lit up with excitement Joon had only seen when he realised his first plague.

“My goal is for the human to kill itself.” he responded

Namjoon choked on air as he heard Jungkook’s suggestion. “That seems awfully cruel.”

“I am satan no?” he joked “It doesn’t matter if your sides gonna win right?” 

Again “the savior” of humanity looked for the answers in the room eyes blanking on a wall. “Fine but my goal is the same. The human must end it’s own life in a selfless way.”

“Oh that’s interesting Namjoon.” his head raised at the use of his real name.

“Yes Jungkook it is, but this is an interesting game we’re playing.” he replied with the use of his  real name. There names were used mostly by their own angels and demons but rarely between the two “If I win we get to switch positions for the next millenia.”

“And if I win you have to do both jobs for the next century and I live a life amongst the people showing them what bad really is.” he extended his hand. Namjoon grabbed it feeling a slight burn on impact. 

“Deal.”

Yoongi’s eyes opened and he groaned. “So we’re doing this again.” he asked himself at the realization he was still alive or better phrased not alive but still working. He stood up in the overly large dimly lit room walking over to the closet to start his daily routine. Everyday he followed the same actions. Closet, clothes, brushing his teeth, and going to the court to hear whatever sob stories his clients had. One would assume that a demon in charge of the highest cases in the land of the heartless would have an exciting life but after  tens of thousands of years it became a bit tedious. He put on a white tee shirt and a pair of black skinny jeans. To call it business casual he threw on a plane black blazer. Looking in the mirror he checked his figure giving himself a smile. He walked closer to the mirror examining his black hair patting down a couple fly aways. His eyes were cold and dead. Perfect for his profession. He stepped back looking at himself one last time before opening the door and saying goodbye to his penthouse apartment in the nicest district of the bad side. 

The elevator as always remained pack for all seventy levels stopping at every other floor. It was quite fitting to what was called hell in the mortal world. Finally at the lobby he walked out of the building into the cloudy atmosphere. His car was parked in a no parking zone and ten tickets stuck out of his window wipers that he had never bothered to take out. He smiled at the sight of a boot on his black luxury vehicle. His favorite hobby was seeing how angry the meter maid would get watching him zap off the boot and burn the tickets. He was waiting for there to be fifteen tickets so he could beat his record. He stepped into the small sleek car and like every morning rode in silence to the office.

Jimin’s eyes fluttered open a small smile already present on his soft face. He stood up slightly yawning slipping his feet into the slippers that found a home beside his king size bed. He walked through his large bedroom to the closet. The room was bright due to thee light coming in from the open window. Everyday Jimin did the same thing enjoying the routine it gave him. “Hey baby can you get me a cup of coffee?” he asked his “girlfriend” grabbing a button up white shirt out of the full closet. 

“Sure thing.” she responded from another part of the house. He walked into the bathroom examining his face. For an angel he fit the description, a clear skin smile reflecting back. His hair was a platinum blonde almost gray shade which matched his outfit. Although loving the style of white he wore a dark metal watch on his wrist and a black necklace. He checked his figure smiling and leaving his all white bathroom. 

“Here’s your coffee dear.” A tall woman stood in front of him handing him a to go cup. In the “next world” as the highest liked to call it,  there was no such thing as love. “Girlfriend” was a term coined by the demons which slowly traveled to the good side for a companion. Although there were no genders in the next world the beings could choose what they presented as and most of the time it was a mortal form some resembling women and other men and some just balls of light. A “girlfriend” here just meant a companion to give support. 

“Thank you.” he gave her a small peck and left the townhouse he owned in the best district of the good side. What Jimin did was different than most angels. Most were tasked to help the souls fade and give them hope while his was to defend the good side from the souls trying to get in. It was a stressful job but it kept him busy. He walked to his white car. The vehicle shined brightly in the sun parked neatly in front of his house. He drove to the office with the windows open letting the air flow through.

“Min Yoongi?” his office telephone paged. He groaned looking at the old fashioned piece of technology, now only used in his profession. His hand slowly raised pressing the intercom button. 

“Yes?” he asked annoyed.

“Sir, the CEO seeks your presence upstairs.” he threw his head back at the static sound that now filled his office.

“Tell him I’ll be up.” 

It wasn’t a bad day but he hated meeting with his boss. His position was the highest next to the CEO meaning he didn’t interact with anyone except his clients, secretary, and occasionally his doorman and he loved it that way. He let out a loud groan walking outside his office and to the elevator. He got inside the cabin pressing level one hundred. As he passed each floor he pressed the numbers making it so by the time he got to his floor the elevator would stop at every level. 

The doors opened to the dry and hot office of the CEO. He strolled out of the elevator clearly unamused by being called here.

“Yoongi what a pleasure to see you again.” Jungkook smiled sitting behind his desk in the almost dark office. All the blinds were down and the room was empty except for the servant he always had on hand for drinks. 

“What do you want?” he asked tired already of the interaction. 

“Do want anything to drink?” the god asked

“No.” he responded 

“I don’t know why I love my alcohol so much. To us highers it has no effect but I guess I’ve always loved the burn.” he let out a dry laugh. 

“So why did you call me up here satan.” he stated blandly

“I hate that name. Where do they come up with these names?” he took a long sip from his glass before placing it down and changing his demeanor. “I have a job for you.”

Jimin smiled at his client giving her a box of tissues. “Yes, I know this must be a lot for you honey. You made it! You’re on the goodside. Why don’t you go with Jan and she’ll explain this all to you.” 

The soul nodded her head and walked out with the assistant selected for her case. Jimin let out a sigh of relief as his first case of the day walked out. 

“Park Jimin?” he heard is telecom go off. He pressed the button to speak.

“Yes?” he responded

“The CEO needs you.” 

“Thank you for telling me.” he stood up and walked to the elevator pressing the up button. He looked over at his secretary.

“Did he mention what he needs me for?” he asked her kindly

“No sir. He just said he needed to see you.” she smiled at him.

“Oh that’s unfortunate. The weathers been quite nice lately hasn’t it.” he politely conversed with her. 

“Yes, the light has been shining lately. I heard it’s cloudy on the other side though.” she added

“What a shame. I hope it gets brighter.” the elevator opened “Well I’ll be back soon hopefully.” he waved while pressing the hundredth floor.

The doors opened into the bright room surrounded by windows and chairs. The god stood looking out of one of the farther one. The windows gave a perfect view onto the bustling city of the good side. Cars drove through the streets and angels walked on the sidewalks. The god wasn’t looking at the city though. He looked beyond it to the fields of grasing souls waiting to fade away. 

“Hi Namjoon what can I do for you?” he asked walking to stand beside him 

“I have a job for you.” he sighed still looking forward.

 “I’m sorry what do you want me to do JK?” he asked now more interested than he had been before. Jungkook slide the file across his desk to the side of the chair yoongi was sitting in. 

“Here’s her case buddy. (y/n) she was especially chosen by me and mr. sunshine.” 

Yoongi sat up to grab the manilla folder. He looked at the picture of the mortal girl and began to read her file. “What about her though? She seems pretty average to me.” he continued to scan the transcript.

“You see I knew you were the man for the job. Ms. (y/l/n) is a perfect example of a decent human being, she isn't good but she isn’t bad. She would get into the other side but she wouldn’t become an angel. She’s the perfect example of a vulnerable soul.” 

“I still don’t get why you want me to seduce her into being bad.” he asked closing the file and sliding it back.

“I don’t want you to make her bad. I just want you to make her lose herself. Drive her insane make her you know?” he elaborated overcome with joy.

“No Jungkook I don’t know.” the demon responded the red in his eyes flaring up for the first time in months.

“To end it all. I want you to make an example of her. If you can get her to go insane then I’ll win my bet.” he stated smiling and leaning back into his chair.

“You’re doing this as a bet. That seems especially cruel even for you.” Yoongi cracked a smile starting to get convinced.

“I mean I’m sure it’ll be fun for you too. You’ll get a break from routine and free reign on a mortal. All I need you to do is to take her life and what she knows and flip it upside down, make her emotions overcome her and lead her to dumb descisions. If you think seducing her will do it than go ahead.” 

“Fine. I’ll do it.” he sighed standing up.

“This seems like a bad idea.” Jimin pleaded to his superior.

“I know but if I don’t win then they will and that’s worse.” 

“Why would you make a wager like this.” the angel pleaded feeling defeated knowing he would have to go through with it. He was looking through the file. “She’s so average. She doesn’t deserve this. She would be a normal soul on this side. What if I can’t convince her and the other side wins?” he was rambling but surprisingly at a loose for words in his mind 

“I don’t know Jimin but I trust that you’ll be able to sway her in the right direction.”

“I still don’t understand what I need to do.” he ruffled through the papers in the file.

“You need to find this girl and get her to change and,” he paused disappointed in his part of the deal. “ give the ultimate sacrifice for another.”

Jimin’s head shot up “The what?” he was in denial “You want me to get her to kill herself for someone else how is that...I don’t.” he couldn’t bring the words in his mind to come out.

“I know but in a selfless way. Like a mother dying for her child or a firefighter saving a person from a fire.” the god walked away from the windows and sat down at his desk.

“I can’t do this.” Jimin threw the file up in the air, letting the papers fall around him.

“You have too.” Namjoon stated giving him the watch. Every angel knew of the watch but very few ever saw it. The small timepiece allowed for highers such as angels, demons, and gods to visit the mortal world. He took the time piece and left the office.

Yoongi stood in his empty apartment packing a suitcase filling it with his most casual clothes. He looked back into the home and twisted the watch's dial transporting him to the mortal world. 

Jimin went home and packed a bag filled with his clothes. He forgot about his “girlfriend” until she stopped him at the door. At almost all times angels were expected to be kind beings above drama and emotions but this was a rare occasion. “Get out of my home. I won’t be back for awhile and I thought the new trend of companionship would be for me but it wasn’t so I expect you to be gone.” he moved her aside and left his home. On his porch he turned the dial on the watch transporting him to the mortal realm.

[gunnerpalace]

When ever people analyze bleach and its flaws everyone always seems to convinetly leave out Kubo getting really sick, his injury to his arm, the Voltile relationship he and Shonen had, him runing out of time and missing deadlines because of said injury anf constantly being sick. Shonen telling him he had so much time to finish stuff.

I’m awake right now because I have mild heartburn, and I saw this. And it pissed me off so much that I decided to get up to go to my computer so I could answer it properly.

What a miserable pile of fucking excuses.

He was sick? Who gives a shit. Here’s a list of famous writers who dealt with crippling illnesses. You might recognize names such as Dickens, Updike, Wharton, Proust, Orwell, Milton, Joyce, and Melville. His arm was injured? Boo-fucking-hoo. You want painters? How about Frida Kahlo, a true badass? Here’s a list of famous painters who dealt with physical disabilities. Do Michelangelo, Van Gogh, and Matisse sound familiar? Hey, how about Peter Longstaff, a contemporary artist who is missing both arms and paints with his feet? Or Mariusz Kedzierski, who was born without arms but still paints? You want to go into other arts? How about Beethoven, who was deaf? We can go on!

A truly passionate artist creates regardless of their circumstances, because they want to or, more accurately, have to, in spite of their health.

“Hey, it’s really not cool to suggest that artists should put their work ahead of their health!”

I agree! And that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying in general that a truly committed artist will do so regardless of what you tell them to do, because they can’t stop themselves. And more often than not, that artist will also takes steps to mitigate the damage to their health in the process.

Let’s talk actual manga and mangaka. There’s Berserk, which has been running since 1989, and is frequently on hiatus because Miura focuses on other things. Maybe you think that’s not a fair comparison because it’s seinen and appears in a monthly publication. Okay, are you familiar with Hunter × Hunter? It’s been running since 1998. It’s published by Shueisha in Weekly Shounen Jump and is constantly on hiatus, sometimes for years, because Togashi deals with illness.

Hmm. Why does Shueisha treat Togashi so differently, I wonder?

Here’s the thing: That Man explicitly chose not to take a break. You’re telling me he couldn’t have? He clearly could have. Togashi proves it. Maybe Shueisha discriminated against him, you say. Okay, so whose fault is that likely to have been, and why? It clearly doesn’t have to do with taking your time.

Bleach went inexorably downward in popularity following the conclusion of the Soul Society arc. Its volume sales plummeted. It was consistently at the bottom of Weekly Shounen Jump’s ratings. Aizen was defeated in chapter 423. The manga ended on chapter 686. That’s 263 chapters, or 38% of the manga’s runtime, to wrap things up with rock-bottom ratings. 263 chapters published across more than 5 years, because chapters 424–432 were released in a volume on April 11, 2011, and that happens many months after their original publication. And you’re trying to tell me that he was on a deadline?

What the fuck did he spend all that time doing? Because it sure wasn’t answering most of the questions he’d posed or explaining his manga. 

And when they finally said “No more,” what did he do with his remaining chapters, pray tell? Draw shit like Mayuri Kurotsuchi fighting a literal fucking giant hand, like Kenpachi getting a bankai that did literally nothing and advanced his fight not one jot, and spend his last 5 chapters very deliberately and very methodically producing the shittiest ending possible that assassinated all of his characters. Bleach would’ve ended with more integrity if Yhwach had literally just killed everyone.

Could there be a little more nuance to his relationship with Shueisha? Sure. Every story has two sides. But the truth is not always somewhere in the middle.

The evidence is pretty clear that Shueisha gave him plenty of time, and he pissed it all away on completely self-indulgent and frivolous shit that essentially nobody wanted.

It seems evident to me, if less substantiated, that he became embittered and burnt out at the lack of embrace of his grand vision by both his editors, publisher, and audience, and decided to cut the nose off the face of his work to spite all parties in the end. 

From where I sit, Noriaki “Tite” Kubo was a primadonna whose bad working relationship with his publisher stemmed from his own arrogance and hubris. I think that is self-evidently clear from what he chose to spend his time focusing on and how it was received. He was not ever interested in exploring his work. He was interested in giving the appearance of depth through the shallowest of means, of designing ever more characters, and in focusing on “cool fights” (none of which were actually particularly good compared to many of those of his peers).

“But shouldn’t an artist show integrity?”

Yes. To their work. That Guy showed integrity to himself. The two are not the same thing. The former is passionate creation. The latter is masturbatory self-indulgence. Individual artists or assemblages of artists will often do stupid shit that is poorly received and try to say that they were being “true to their vision” ex post facto to excuse it, when even a casual investigation will show that their “truth” was a betrayal of the premises, tone, themes, or characters in question, which is precisely why it was stupid and poorly received. Bleach is no different in that regard than say, Mass Effect 3.

I have talked before about how he betrayed his creation in an aesthetic and ethical sense. I stand by that completely. We were presented with what he thought was good, not what was true to the work itself. He put his ego ahead of everything else, and in my opinion that is reflected in his bad working relationship with his publisher, in his refusal to take breaks, in his refusal to plan or plot ahead properly, in his refusal to properly pay-off his story, and in his refusal to provide a proper conclusion. 

He blew his property up, dumped his notes on Narita, and promptly fucked off.

To compare to another mangaka, look at Gintama, where Sorachi was shuffled from Weekly Shounen Jump to Jump Giga, and then finally to his own app when he just couldn’t finish it in time. That is passion and dedication in being true to one’s work.

Fuck Noriaki “Tite” Kubo and fuck his fucking excuses. Less privileged people have done vastly more, vastly better, with vastly less.

And don’t even get me started on that almost certainly bullshit story about the anonymous sick child who told him to stay true to his “original vision.” Fuck that. Fuck that in detail, and fuck it in general. That kind of tunnel-vision bullshit is what leads to train wrecks like the endings to How I Met Your Mother or HBO’s version of Game of Thrones. Art evolves and grows. Courage is not desperately clinging to your original vision in spite of your work having taken a different course than you imagined. Courage is allowing your art to blossom and bloom naturally.

I said I could call him much worse than just Noriaki? I can. He’s a fucking Art Criminal. I hope he legitimately never makes another creative thing again for the rest of his miserable life. I will never forgive him and in my opinion he is the ultimate example of how not to conduct yourself artistically. He is The Donald Trump of Art. He is Anti-Artist One. He is the Art Antichrist. If I wanted to show my real feelings regarding him I would call him The Shitlord instead of Noriaki or That Guy. He deserves the epithet.

Fuck him.

[jacksjoke]

For the ask game: Namtarn, Mon and Punn. Hope you have a wonderful day/night!💚

thanks so much for playing anon!! i hope you have a wonderful day too 💖

namtaan: if you could only choose one, would you relive the past or look into your future?

i don’t know actually dfhdkghklj like i don’t think i would want to relive my past because if i do with the knowledge i have now, doesn’t that mean i would want to act differently and therefore change my present? tho there’s also the concept that the past can’t be changed so no matter what i did, the present could be unaltered which is a relief but also frustrating........as u can see, i have so many thoughts At All Times fkdhlkhgkljd but i don’t think i’d want to look into my future bc then it would feel even more like things i can’t change etc blah blah so i respectfully decline to answer dfjkgklghkjdfhkj

mon: how well do you think you'd do in a zombie apocalypse scenario?

bro im dead lmaooooo ain’t a chance im surviving. bugs are a no go let alone blood and guts n shit!!!!!! and weapons scare me and in most zombie stories guns or axes are like the only way to put em down and then there’s the ethical issue of like what if they could be cured???? fdkjghlhgkjd i can’t do thiissss i’d be dead end of -- tho on the OTHER hand im Scared of D Word and i might want to live just to avoid dying. and if there are people i want to be with and also keep alive, then i’d likely do what i could to survive. my duality kjdjklhfk

punn: if you could have any potential/superpower, what would you choose and why?

SHAPESHIFTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DUDE if i could be a guy i would so fast and i would just go back and forth depending on my mood. esp if it takes no effort and i can just do it???? forever that’s been my answer to this question and i don’t see it changing ever hgkldjg if i had to choose from among the gifted gang’s potentials, i LOVE ohm’s power because my room would never be messy ever again and it would make moving house insanely easy LMAO i also love namtaan’s because being able to see the history of things would be so fuckin cool!!!!!!!

thanks again anon! im sure you got far more in these answers than you bargained for lmaooo

✨ send me a gifted character and question ✨

[yeoldontknow]

Enough (M)

Author’s Note: uhm...i felt this in my soul today and im going to say up front this is not a usual reader insert. as an adult plus size woman, sometimes i want to read about a larger OC/YN who struggles with body image. so i wrote that because i imagine if i want to read that, someone else must want that too. im not trying to tackle anything huge with this, i just want to fill a different kind of need. if its not your thing, you dont have to read it. i love you as much as i love chanyeol, regardless if you read my work or not <3  Prompt (from the followers milestone drabble game): 99 - “You’ve got a cute butt.” Pairing: Chanyeol x Reader (oc; female) Genre: light smut; fluff; light angst; romance; au Summary: You’ve admired your co-worker for a long time, often to the point of viewing him as someone unattainable. The morning after you slept together, you think about self-worth, beauty, and remind yourself of your power. Rating: light NC-17 Warnings: light sexual references Word count: 2,096

When you wake, your body still feels him.

The morning burns, seeping through the linen of your curtains to cast irregular shadows on the walls, adding to the difference of the day. This moment, this new outlook on life  is different - not bad, not good, just different.  Irrevocably changed by hands that have somehow learned to hold you. Beneath the sheets, your body feels warm, handled in a way you forgot was possible. Lately, men have kissed at you, curled around you either too much or too little - wanting you, all the while reminding you that you are unneeded.

Last night, Chanyeol touched you, felt you, pressed himself against and inside you deep enough, hard enough, that he lingers now as an enduring echo. Your skin tingles with him, with the press of his fingers into your hips, the shuddering breath he left against your collarbone, still making you tremble, even as the dawn urges you to let him go.

You knew it would be this way with him. You did not expect anything less.

For months, you watched him in the office, studied him and all the things he sometimes tries to hide, or does not know how to hide. He’s hard to miss - tall and laughing louder than anyone else in the room; asymmetrical with ears too big for his head and legs that bow out, but you would not fathom him any other way. He’s hard to miss, but his soul is.

In meetings, he fidgets - not because he’s bored, but because he’s created answers through and around the problem and has been told to wait. In silence, he is pensive, frowning at himself and the magnitude of his thoughts, anxious to give and give until someone allows him to receive. In work ethic, he is diligent, so unlike the noise of his personality, dedicated to correctness, to perfection, and often exhausted from the pressure of achieving both.

And he’s beautiful - too beautiful to truly perceive, wearing his complexities as though they are badges of honor and too self-aware to truly be proud. On him, proud is a pretense, the knowledge that he can and will win, but unsure if he truly deserves the prize. On him, pride is empty, shallow, and presented only because someone told him it should.

For months, you watched him, eyes tracing his but never truly meeting.

For months, you watched him, and only with four drinks in your blood were you able to tell him this was so.

But now, as the memories of the night before flood - the way he spread your thighs, groaning that he was hard enough to hurt for you; the way he licked at your center, thirsty for the clench of your walls against his tongue; the way he thrust into you, one arm wrapped around your waist to keep your chest on his, desperate for your heart - you did not expect him to stay. At the sight of him beside you, wetness grows at your core, remembering how it felt to be full of him. You crave him there again, stretched full and showing him just how powerful you are when the sun gives you wings, and know that sex and lust feel different when light does not let you hide.

You crave him there, but he may not crave you.

People don’t want you this way. Not enough to take their time and certainly not enough to stay. You are a transient thing, someone who experiences sex as though it is an eclipse, and watches bodies move towards and away from your body. If you’re honest, you’ve grown accustomed to being the moon, with waxing and waning against someone’s orbit until they no longer look to see if you are full. You are comfortable and you’ve accepted it.

Everyone has a season, and yours glimmers just like gold.

Turning over in the bed, your cover yourself up to your neck with the sheets, and watch the mess of his hair shiver gently against your pillow with the rhythm of his breath. In the sunlight, he is glorious and glowing, seemingly unaware of the control he has over your heart, aloof in all the ways you find endearing. It’s hard to know when you fell or how for him, somewhen in the days spent watching and waiting, suddenly no longer being able to discern the difference between the two. It only matters that you did, that you have, and that it’s important you remind yourself you are not unworthy.

It doesn’t make sense that he should be different, someone whose hardness contrasts so harshly with your softness; someone who grows muscle, and not marks. Someone who cannot wear his clothes in the morning or appear small beneath the fabric of a hoodie; someone whose breasts only just fit in the palm of his hand and remind him that he is large only because you let yourself see him this way. It doesn’t make sense, but the world has never truly been comprised of logic or motive, only of actions that bleed into reactions, an endless course of collisions that birth new modes being.

Today, you think you are majestic.

Today, you know you are the only one who could properly hold the totality of him.

Today, you are aware that you deserve someone who hungers for the totality of you.

And so you pull yourself away from him, letting your fingers card through his hair one last time, knowing that you do not need this to remember only that you want it and are letting yourself have it. You pull away and head for your shower, knowing that the pressure of water against tile is enough to rouse anyone from slumber, and this is his opportunity to leave and still offer your dignity.

The hardwood is cold against your toes, and you take the top blanket with you, covering your body as you quietly make your way to the bathroom. Leaning out to check on the bed, you find he has not moved from the slight change in temperature, content as though the side of the bed belongs to him alone.

Shutting the door and turning the shower on, you regard yourself in the mirror as you let the water get warm.

You are not unpretty.

In truth, there is no one on earth who could not, would not, be beautiful. Beauty is an indeterminate thing, an impossible thing to hold and something that often comes down to actions. It speaks for itself, in bounds, and while you are not, and will not ever be small, slim, conventional, you are full, and joyful, and welcoming. The heart in your chest speaks in the sound of your voice and you are glad you let yourself be heard, though often you wonder who it is that listens.

You are not unpretty. And you are not unworthy.

You are magic and power and fortitude, a reckoning force that creates what you choose to make and this is why you are deserving. It is not for him to choose you, you tell yourself, only for him to learn to receive.

Stepping into the shower, you smile and sigh.

Beneath the warm flow of water, you let yourself get drenched.

By thoughts. By the way the light can change things. By the impatience that comes with waiting for answers.

Light changes things - this is your primary thought. Light makes things glow, bloom, shine; but it also exposes. It sears its way into corners that cower away, neither ugly nor foul, simply raw. In the dark, where all things are equal, it is easy to take what you have earned. And in the light, it is easy to say you do not want it because it hurts.

The light plays with you like this, and you think you are best in the full rays of the sun.

The light plays with you, and you are glad for the power of choosing how you gleam.

You’re pulled from your thoughts by the sound of the door opening, the shuffling of feet against the tile muffled beneath the sound of water. His shadow lingers behind the glass, shifting from foot to foot, uncertain, before sliding it open and greeting you with a smile.

Eyes still bleary with sleep, he offers you a small, boyish smile as he steps inside. He’s awkward with the placement of his limbs in the small space, and for a moment you giggle, never having had someone with such a wingspan shower with you. For a long moment, you simply look at him, marveling at how he holds your stare, unhurried for the rest of you the way so many partners are. He luxuriates in seeing you, smiling at you, stepping closer until he pulls you to his chest and rests his forehead against yours, contented by the bliss of your touch.

‘I was lonely when I woke up,’ he murmurs, lips moving against the tip of your nose. ‘You should have told me you were going.’

It’s difficult not to giggle at the pout that tugs on his expression, softening his cheeks and lips until your skin hurts from not touching his face. Sliding your fingers up his arms, you watch the way your hands leave smears of wetness against his veins and tattoos, mystified.

‘Did you sleep okay?’ It’s an absentminded question, even though you mean it. Permission has been granted to lose yourself in him, and you choose to savor feel of his palms against your back.

How odd, you think, to truly, finally be held. How odd, and how extraordinary.

He nods against you momentarily before stepping back to grab your shampoo. ‘Best I’ve had in ages, to be honest.’

Gently, he turns you in his hands, and you hear him gather some shampoo in his palms before his fingers move through your hair. Electricity walks down your spine, sending spark along your synapses that make your toes feel numb. It’s hard to say if you’ve ever been taken care of this way, if you’ve ever let yourself be nurtured, but he takes to it with as much diligence as anything you’ve seen him passionate about, and you bite the inside of your cheek to fight off words of thanks.

You deserve to be treasured this way, you think. It’s just impossible to believe it would be him.

Silence befalls you both as he continues to wash your hair, shaping the strands into irregular objects just to make you laugh. Frenetic as he is, it’s not long until he begins to hum, an unidentifiable arrangement born of pleasure overflowing from his chest and washing over you like honey. You could die this way, you think, wrapped in ecstasy and held by hope.

But then, with a reverence that borders on paradise, he moves your hair from your shoulder and gently, lightly, presses a kiss to your neck. You lean into it, hands seeking his as his arms wrap around your waist, certain that you will slip, weakened by the affection. Running his nose along your skin, he sighs, kissing what he can until he reaches your ear.

‘You’ve got a cute butt.’

Laughter erupts from your chest, body molding to liquid fire as you turn to face him.

All boldness disappears from his features as a blush stains his cheeks, teeth coming to bite his bottom lip in shyness. Blinking away water, unsure of the reality, you gently reach a hand to cup his cheek, and sigh as it’s his turn to lean into you, both of you feeling exposed.

‘You make me feel vulnerable,’ you admit, surprised that your voice does not shake.

‘I mean…’ he begins, voice trailing off into the distance. He pauses momentarily, idly shifting to press a kiss to your palm before he continues. ‘Me too.’

Stepping closer, you wrap your arm around his waist, trailing your fingers over his spine. ‘Why did you stay?’

Chanyeol pouts. ‘Did you want me to leave?’

‘No,’ you shake your head, shrugging. ‘I just didn’t know what you wanted.’

Moving to hold your face in his hands, he presses a light kiss to your forehead, nose, and lips. It’s brief, altogether too chaste for the way his mouth explored your folds the night before, but it’s enough to know he’s serious.

‘I want you,’ he says, firmly, searching your eyes for slivers of rejection. ‘I’ve wanted you. I wanted to stay.’

‘I want you to stay, too.’

Today, you think, this is enough.

You are always enough.

[marculees]

🌼 Tag 🌼

Tagged by @pikachulein to answer ten of her custom questions, thank you 💖 💖

1. What compliment you've received meant the most to you?

I don’t really believe people when they compliment me rip. Only a few months ago, one of my professors told me I wrote at Masters level during a private meeting and it made me smile for three hours straight. I’ve been considering a career in third-level teaching and research and I hadn’t told him this but he started telling me I would be perfect for it and it was really motivating ;-;

2. Would you rather meet your favourite celebrity/group/bias and realize they're not at all how you imagined them to be like (maybe they're not as kind as you thought, for example) or never meeting them in person but it turning out that they're actually the amazing, kind, sweet, generous, etc. person that you thought they were? (I hope that makes sense hhhh I think the ethics of this question are really interesting)

I’d rather not meet them and have them be lovely. I haven’t met them yet anyway and so I wouldn’t lose anything by not meeting them.

3. What's your current favourite song you always use to get hyped up to or a song currently stuck in your head?

Boss Bitch - Doja Cat

4. If you had to write the book of your life, what genre would it be and what would you choose as a title?

I’d write it in the format of diary entries, very much a ‘slice of life’ type, with illustrations and doodles on the pages for metaphor and viewing pleasure. I think the title would be something simple too but with some depth to it, like a significant date in my life; almost like the ‘climax’ of the book, I could work the reader up to that entry and they would know something is coming up but not what 👀

5. Name your top 5 musical artists and your favourite song of each of them?

mxmtoon - Feelings are Fatal

Hozier - Movement

Kim Petras - Personal Hell

Conan Gray - Comfort Crowd

Kodaline - Ready

6. If you were invited to a big humanitarian event and had to give a speech on a topic you'd want to bring about a huge change for the better, what topic would you choose to speak about and voice your opinions/ideas? (Assume public speaking is one of your strongest assets and you'll ace this no matter what)

Okay so this is literally one of my aspirations in life, no joke, I’d love to be able to speak to a crowd and try to inspire and motivate them to achieve great things! I just really want to see people succeed and realise their potential regardless of who they are :( There are so many topics I would like to address but I think I would go for mental health in development. I study international development so I’m very familiar with humanitarian issues but often times, mental health is ignored when looking at healthcare regardless of where you are in the world.

7. What is something (a skill, personality trait, or something appearance related, it can be whatever) you wish you had and/or you really admire in other people?

I really admire team-players in leadership. People who are genuinely concerned for those around them and want them all to succeed together. They don’t leave anyone behind and remind everyone of their strengths and what they contribute to the team and actively push them to succeed. I try to do the same but sometimes I can sometimes be a bit of a pushover and not strict enough, instead just taking on more work myself rather than trusting a team member to do it... group projects, anyone??? :’)

8. What's your favourite anime/show/youtuber (you can answer whichever you got an answer for, it can be all three options of course :D)?

I don’t watch anime anymore but I enjoyed Ouran High a lot!

I’m waiting for the new season of Line of Duty to come out soon, but my guilty pleasure TV show is Bondi Rescue dsjvkdhlvjhfb I’ve also been watching that new show Five Guys A Week with my mum recently and its such good craic omfg 

I tend to flock towards gaming and commentary channels most but Dashie is my fave istg there isn’t a video of his that I don’t wheeze along to 😂

9. In kpop, are you more into vocalists, dancers, rappers, maknaes, leaders, or visuals (or maybe a mix of some/all :'))?

I’ve noticed I like the rappers most!

10. What's your most beautiful/favourite memory?

This is hard...I literally had to answer this question last because I wanted to have a proper think about it. Its been hurting my head for days trying to think tbh and is it bad that I actually can’t pick a particular moment?.I’m genuinely stuck but a recent-ish one I can think of was this time last year when I had to give a presentation in front of my class of 250 people. I was presenting with two groupmates and I remember how hard we practiced and rehearsed for the days coming up to it. We wore coordinating outfits and had our lines memorised and I remember walking up on the stage and immediately feeling ‘powerful’. I don’t usually feel powerful at all but once I started speaking and performing our skit with my groupmates (who were lovely btw it made me really happy seeing the more nervous one do so well!), I seen how the faces of my classmates lit up and it gave me that warmth I had missed for so long. Random people I had never even spoke to before came up and complimented me later and it made me really proud because its what I love to do and it was so lovely knowing they enjoyed it too ;-; The lecturer we had for that class was known for being really intense but she took a shine to me and pulled me aside one of the days to compliment me and then referred to me as “her powerful speaker” in front of the class when we were receiving assignments back weeks later. It was the highlight of my whole semester and second year tbh. I’m really hard on myself but for once, I felt genuinely and I mean TRULY proud of myself and it had been a long ass time since I had felt that way 😭 

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Okay, now I tag @wheezing-pterodactyl @jbemin @jenoscity @starryseung @seventiddies @thegirlthatsdancingintherain @leechan-babyboy @angelwonho for the following questions:

1. What comment appeared on your report card most often as a schoolchild?

2. What’s your guilty pleasure?

3. You find a magic lamp and now a genie is here to grant you three wishes! What are you gonna wish for? (you can’t ask for more wishes though lol)

4. Imagine you have the power to control time. Would you rather pause, rewind or fast-forward?

5. When you shop for clothes, what’s the first thing that catches your eye? (could be the colour, pattern, style, price, fabric, etc.)

6. What’s the strangest dream you have had recently?

7. What is your MBTI type?

8. Do you have any unusual talents or party tricks? If so, what are they?

9. If your life were to be recreated through a form of art, which medium would you choose? (examples: painting, film, book, music, video game, etc.)

10. If you could be any mythical creature or figure, what would you like to be?