#This debate is so multifaceted lol

[helpwanted-queerversion]

Nico is pretty. He's ethereal. He's beautiful. He's otherworldly. He's an angel. He's so sweet and kind.

Nico is also a little fucking rat. He bites. He hisses at people. He's a menace and petty as hell. He has killed a person before.

He's the crazy one AND the pretty one in his relationship.

Will is handsome. He's hot. He's so kind. He's always worried about his friends and family. Everyone at camp has liked him at some point.

Will is also a fucking creature. When someone doesn't listen to him he makes them, whatever from that takes. He'd kill and has killed for the people he loves. He's a Freak. He's into the macabre and occult.

He's the pretty one AND the crazy one in his relationship.

[majorbaby]

they did go off with s04e10 Quo Vadis Captain Chandler (directed by larry gelbart). i think this episode could land very well with staunch atheists and equally staunch christians, which is impressive.

[thrashkink-coven]

Hello, I am the anon from that large post where I asked about demonolatry in regards to Judaism. I've read a lot of the reblogs and stuff, and I want to say that yes it was my fault for not reaching out to a Jewish blog about it.

However, I also want to point out that regardless of whatever I am told, demonolatry is going to offend someone anyway. I don't think religious people care if I'm worshipping the Mesopotamian or Sumerian or what-have-you roots of an entity that they have demonised, they are going to be offended either way. I've kind of understood what a lot of the reblogs are saying, and I've formed my own opinion on it. Though, I will continue to do research so that I can strengthen the foundations of that opinion and correct it should I discover anything new. But the basis is essentially just…that it was a stupid question for me to ask. Obviously people would be offended if you worship an entity their religion has regarded as negative, regardless of whether or not you are actually worshipping the demonised aspect of that entity.

These entities have many faces. They are multifaceted. They have survived through the ages, changed shape and form. It does not matter if you call to Lucifer as the fallen angel of the Bible, or to Iblis as the rebelling djinn of the Qur'an. They are the same, under different faces. Now, whether you choose to call to Iblis or to Lucifer under either name is your choice. You'll offend a religious community either way. But does worshipping Iblis mean the same thing as appropriating Arabian culture? It does not. I give this example specifically because I am ex Muslim.

In any case, thank you for answering. Thank you to the Jews who reblogged with their opinions. I apologise for my mistake, but I have a base to build on now. I apologise for the debate it caused. Have a nice day.

Thank you so much for writing this because I literally just deleted that post like 2 minutes ago lol. I’m not the type to do that, and it’s not because I was receiving too much criticism (I’m a Luciferian… I love criticism) but the long threads were taking up so much of my page that the conversation itself was getting backed up and hard to follow. The original post also doesn’t have any ��hey I’m not Jewish so take this with a grain of salt” disclaimers, so no real productive conversations could be had with that considered.

You and I were both out of line, I’m glad you acknowledge that the question should have been directed at a Jewish blogger, and I acknowledge that it wasn’t my place to comment. I sought to share my opinions as a demonolater but my word choice conveyed that I was speaking on this with some kind of authority, which isn’t true at all.

I don’t think your question was stupid at all, it’s something many beginners have a lot of anxiety about. But yeah, you and I have basically reached the same conclusion. Demonolatry is offensive to religious people in general. People are always going to have a problem with it.

I genuinely do go out of my way to make my practice as harmless as possible, which is why I’m willing to go to the lengths of actually giving these demons with Hebrew names new names so we don’t have to keep using their archetypes as they were described by the Jews. They can have ownership over their own words, that is completely fine by me. But even then, they’re still not going to be happy that I’m worshiping demons, regardless of what I call them. there is no way to practice demonolatry without offending religious people.

I think your decision to use your discretion is wise. There is no one answer that is going to satisfy everyone. Decide what matters to you, and don’t let the rest bother you.

[meimeimeirin]

meirin!!! hope you're doing well!! i was wondering if you could indulge me in sharing some thoughts you have about zhongli's personality (strengths and weaknesses, in particular), even if it's smth super small or niche! i'd love to hear your interpretations of his character!!

no worries if not lol btw i know this is a long and arduous question,,,

anyway, catch!!! 𑁍ࠬܓ

wahhh hello carrot!!! i'm SO sorry this took quite some time for me to answer hsjdjsjd i think he's a very multifaceted character that can be interpreted in various ways... but to me he is:

stubborn. in both a good way and a bad way. on the top of my head, the whole havria quest showcases this most i think. thankfully he has a good head on his shoulders and has accumulated a good deal of wisdom throughout his life. but i still. i still fear. *glances at my geo dragon sovereign idea*

with that being said, he is not merciless or apathetic to other people's feelings - he may have his principles, but he doesn't try to mindlessly enforce them to people willy-nilly.

i think hoyo also likes to paint him as this 'father' figure of liyue, and i love that. he grew up to become a leader and i think aside from the simple things like tea or leisurely walks, he does get his joys from seeing people succeed and grow (i mean the whole point of his archon quest is him being the mama bird who's trying to nudge this baby bird of a nation which he has raised so lovingly, out of the nest). whenever he appears in events and such, he's always giving advices, helping, encouraging people to pursue their interests and be better (poetry event, lantern rate with gaming, etc). i think he genuinely loves humans and just wants the best for them.

his patience is also a big core of his personality, i feel.... maybe it's a given considering the amount of time he's lived. but he's just... he's just a grandpa enjoying his retirement. it's so endearing to see.

also, we can't forget his mischievous side. so cute. literally instigating a discussion/debat about himself to the historians? absolute comedy. to this day i still can't believe how he made us go through the whole spiel of finding rex lapis' favorite perfume scent... like, sir.... ffs.... i will bite you /aff

also my headcanon is that he could be a little bit ocd, especially when it comes to specific routines (i want to say he's still doing regular training on his own and the habit never really goes away) and tidiness (like how specific things should go/be in specific places). he seems like the type shfhshd

tldr, this man is the epitome of a beautifully weathered yet sturdy pillar of stone. i just hope hoyo treats him right when it comes to the end game, because he clearly is still holding out on us about himself.

[rouge-fauna]

Ok, so I think part of what you're feeling is very valid. I also think people tend to just have more to say about things they may disagree with. In analysis spaces, most people approach it as open to disagreement and debate. That's how a lot of things have been hashed out in analysis and especially here in Dreblr going back. So if you're posting publicly in Dreblr most of the older members will assume you're open for disagreement. It's not you, it really isn't. It's just how the space has always been. Back in the day, there was always a ton of back and forth and people defending their points, that was the fun of it. It's not for everyone, though, but a lot of people probably wouldn't see it that way.

lol... all of what I'm feeling is valid that's how feelings works :) and that is a irrefutable truth for all people across the board. However, whether all that I am feeling is reasonable or aligns with the facts of the matter or makes sense, is a point to be made. Something can be valid even if it isn't reasonable, but that's a discussion for a different day... again it's a multifaceted thing that I've expressed, which has to do with more than just people going back and forth defending their points. And if you look back, I have in the past been all about the open disagreements and such, so I'm not entirely sure where the shift happened from me having fun proving my points to less so. Again something I'm trying to decipher for myself. The fact that I am not the only one new or older who has felt this way recently was part of the reason for my observation in the first place. Because clearly I'm not the only one who feels this way, making me think there has perhaps been a shift of some kind or something. That's not to accuse dreblr or any of it's members or any one who has disagreed with me of anything, but I think some of us can see there is something broken at the moment and I'm just trying to determine what that is (could just be me lol), because this time last year I would have been stoked to write an essay defending what I said, vs now I just feel tired to the point I don't care anymore. And that's not necessarily anyone's fault that just is how I am feeling at the moment, reasonable or not, and from what I've gathered, how some others might be feeling as well.

and I'll go ahead and respond to you anon as well, because I think this is where I'll lay this topic to bed. I have discussed in more detail with more anons below and said my peace, so hopefully something down there clears things up more.

You are of course right, they can do however they please, that's fine. I'm honestly just expressing how I feel, and this isn't meant to be an accusation or to say people are doing something wrong, or whatever, just me recognizing how I feel and possible reasons why. I've talked more about the talking behind the back thing and I think I've said things better there, so probably best to go read those posts...

[wetcatspellcaster]

I debated reblogging this (mostly bc I hate putting my thoughts out and being perceived) but I have been thinking about it since I saw it yesterday. so tbh wanted to give OP credit where credit was due for being genuinely Thought Provoking, and give their hard work more reach.

I think some equivalences in this table work better than others and there's nuances a graphic by necessity can't capture: many people headcanon Orin as related to Durge vs. Gortash, and gaining Minthara required killing refugees before the patch - I think maybe Larian realised they were doing her character and Emma Gregory's work a disservice, and that's why they patched it out. "Is it ok to commit murder in the name of best feminist praxis? Discuss." (This is a joke, as murder in a videogame is not a moral reflection of the player it just sounded funny in my head.)

... but BG3 does have racism/misogyny problems and it's silly to pretend otherwise - and I think that's why the 'minor' character equivalences work better than others. It also made me think about the number of 'single' male NPCs encountered in the game, versus the number of female NPCs that are then placed in relationships (Aylin, Isobel, Alfira, Lakrissa), not to mention a number of the female NPCs with detailed interactions with Tav (like Arabella and Mol) who are literally, children.

The reason I wanted to reblog however (and I'm not disagreeing with OP, merely externalising some thoughts) is bc I think many of these character focuses are so influenced by Tav and people's choice around the writing of their Tav. all the examples I give above link to that (is the charater related to Tav/Durge, is the character a reflection of the Tav's moral choices, is the NPC free for a Tav/NPC pairing).

BG3 is a very OC and OC/canon character heavy fandom, and I think a lot of those OCs are women rather than men. In other news, water is wet.

OP's work doesn't necessarily have to cover this, but I was thinking about it, and the more I thought about it, the weirder I felt. Bc discussing misogyny in this fandom is hard, when you ignore one of the most major ways that women are written into the game, which is via Tav/Durge. I think a lot of the time, when fic authors write incredibly detailed, interesting female OCs, that work isn't seen as feminist, it's seen as ... self-insert, wish-fulfilment, author avatar, blah blah blah, and rarely, if ever, acknowledged as creating a nuanced and multifaceted female character... which feeds into the misogyny OP is talking about, right? Rather than having written a woman, or even a queer woman in the case of bi/pan female characters, an author is dismissed as 'writing a 2D insert/nameless body to get railed by Halsin/Astarion/Gortash/Raphael' etc... even if that's not the work that's happening? And even if that person has put a lot of thought into that woman, AO3 tagging will not reflect that.

I realise I just sound like I'm covering my own ass, as someone who writes 'female char/Astarion'. Maybe I am. But I've literally done this to myself - I remember receiving an ask saying 'did you write a deliberately feminist fic by giving your Tav agency?' and my reply was 'lol i'm queer, woman stepping on evil man hot'. I dismissed myself??? But the truth is I write OC fanfiction bc my OC is one of my favourite and most interesting parts of the story I am writing. and particularly in BG3 fandom and it's overlap with D&D, where character creation/insertion is an integral part of the experience, I feel like dismissing all female Tavs/Durges as only giving more attention to male characters or not participating in the writing of women is also frustrating... just bc it's another layer of misogyny/comphet wildness, to assume authors of female main characters aren't using that woman as a vehicle for anything other than lust for a pixelated man.

Anyway, that's not what i think OP is doing, and I think their points are totally fair, this is more just a post that provoked a lot of my own thinking that I then wanted to share. TL;DR I think a lot of the attention and nuanced writing female characters get in this fandom is actually centred on Tav/Durge, for a multitude of reasons, and yes that can still be frustrating but it's not actually something that should be dismissed. A lot of people are writing some really interesting women with a multitude of different strengths/flaws, moral compasses, backgrounds, sexual orientations, etc... they just also happen to be a romance with Astarion or Gale, for instance.

And yes, there is still a bias there towards NPCs, and that's not even touching on the racism behind the canon and in-game writing of the companion romances. But reducing this veritable plethora of female main characters down to 'just another annoying Astarion/Gale-mancing Tav' is itself sexist and misogynistic, if that makes sense.

(Again, this is nothing that OP has done or is perpetuating, more just a frustration I have inside my own brain that reading this post helped me to articulate. I'll shut up now lol.)

A common issue in fandom spaces is female characters ignored in favor of their male counterparts, and one of the biggest reasons I see given is that the women just aren't as interesting as the men. They're placed in lesser roles with less story impact, less personality, less character development, so of course the men get more fan interest.

With that in mind, here's 9 sets of characters who DO have comparable characterization, plot relevance/presence, and personal development -- and how many tagged works each character has on Archive of Our Own. Spoilers: it's pretty bad.

[bluewinnerangel]

Regarding the term proofs, I also feel iffy about it. I think for the newer fans it's their way of figuring out whether H&L are together or if all the stuff they're seeing is just coincidences/ obviously an iphone conspiracy. Then you have those fans (twitter and even YouTube recently) who just need constant reassurance that they're still together. Because if they don't see any new 'proofs' they assume they broke up or are actually with the beard they're currently stunting with (lol). And then on tik tok there's a lot of people who do see it as some kind of game, they try to accumulate 'proofs' and I feel like it's often because they want to argue with antis.... But like why? And they're constantly having 'weak larry moments'. Oh and don't get me started how they take things that actually happened but remove the context to make it look like it was a 'proof' when in fact it wasn't, just to get their video to go viral. And when people point out their 'mistake' in the comments they just ignore it.

I'm not trying to shit on anyone who does anything of the above expect the last one lol <3 I just think that looking at things from that way (if x happens y amount of times then they're together) is like disregarding the fact that they're human beings who are in a real relationship where they have to make difficult decisions regarding their music, personal and public life due to the homophobic and capitalist industry.

But in my opinion the way that you and tumblr in general approach it is much more open minded and grounded in facts, context, and the broader harsh reality of the music industry. And supportive of H&L in general.

(I know you don't love the discourse so feel free to not post if you like ✨)

yeeeeeeeeeeepyepyepyepyep

I could ramble on about this for way wayyy too long but you summed it up pretty well already.

.....Shit still did here's a cut

I think the way some uh larry resources are presented (youtube and all that) further enables that behavior, that looking for "proofs". And at first when you're brand new here I get it, you're looking for things that are going to convince you whether they're definitely or definitely not together, you wanna have clarity and 'proof' is a very clickbaity worthy word that's promising you you're gonna find what you're looking for. But it's not. Not to mention the only real "proof" would be them coming out so what are we even going on about. But ok let's consider "proof" a bit more loosely... none of the individual "proofs" are going to convince you they're together, not until you take that massive pile of debatable perfect middleground of plausible deniability did-they-or-didn't-they stuff, take a step back, and view that mountain for what it is, a mountain. A fookin massive amount of coincidences. And there's your pattern, there's your convincing factor. And if you can't see that you're gonna keep treading those insecure waters forever. You're gonna keep on having weak larry moments (there's a lot of twitter language in here lol) if you don't try to make it make sense why Harry/Louis are doing what they're doing. Why these "coincidences" keep on happening and why they make certain decisions. And we ~here on tumblr~ don't have the answers either but at least we're trying to make sense of it, trying to gather as much context as we (not everyone and we're not a cult lol, we're all individual people, but I mean in general the people I think in the same bubble and as compared to other platforms, plus while I don't wanna talk for others I also don't wanna keep saying i i i me me me lol) can, trying to view it from their (H&L's) perspective, trying to understand where they're coming from as multifaceted humans. And after a while you kinda.. start getting who they are and what they are and aren't capable of. Yeah of course we don't actually know these people but after 11 years of them (not) doing cetrain things? Sorry I think I got a bit of an idea and so far it's not been smacked in the face in any way whatsoever. So unless the prove me wrong I'm gonna keep assuming I'm """onto them""" (what a horrible way to put it asldkjasklj)

And yeah loads of people aren't looking for the truth, they're just looking for that rush you get from seeing your fake internet points rise and rise lol. I mean it's a good feeling to see your shits being seen but it's not worth it when the content is misleading? (not opening that can of worms of ~the internet~ and ~fake news~ in general askldjalsk) What bugs me isn't not necessarily the fact that people are using their relationship for hits on any platform because I do think they(H&L) want that, I mean to a certain extent, and beyond that it indirectly helps expose the fucked up system and homophobia and so on, what bugs me is when it's worded in such a way it's clearly a game to the poster, like "haha look at ME, iiiii cracked the code! hahahha I'm right and you anti you are wrong!". And I know there's a fine line (huehue) between what I'm doing here with yelling with memes whenever they're being gayvinci coding lil shits and that but there is. Context is key. Considering why is key, I'm meeting their chaotic messy energy with my own to cope because I think they're doing the same and want us to pick up on these things. I don't need to be right, hell I don't even want to be right because what I think is the raw truth is devastating. It's not a game, it's relentless closeting and a fucked up society. And their dorky lil shit behavior wouldn't be here the way it is if that wasn't the case. And it's important to acknowledge that. And I think here on tumblr we do that. But in the middle of that I also think they're in some kinda neverending bluegreener daring contest (who is winning???) and totally are insane lil shits that totally gain loads of energy from being like this in the middle of all that AND want us to point it out and I love that for them lol.

Idk how but managed to ramble again still. I'm just gonna post this idk where the it went asasdkjalskj that's enough there. Ahwell. Oops.

(context)

[benjiwyatt]

👀if you’re up to it could you elaborate on your anti shules feelings? I’m assuming it’s the years of lying lol

i debated answering this directly mainly because i feel really bad if this ends up in the searches i don't wanna seem mean but i just wanna say in advance if it does: i’m sorry! i have no feelings of personal malice or anything against anyone who ships them! here goes:

i used to really like shules! i thought they had great chemistry and potential! but then season 7 happened... and i just... couldn’t anymore. the fact her main hang-up is liars and frauds and shawn knew that and still chose to date her for 2 years and move in with her without telling her is so shitty and cowardly and selfish. then after she found out (fantastic scene btw mwah i love it) shawn never really apologized or did anything to try and make amends besides just being a dick and almost acting like he had done nothing wrong and she should get over it? and then she just? forgave him? off-screen? with no explanation? how could she be okay with that? it’s so hard for me to wrap my head around and goes against a foundational part of her character.

my second issue is that i really don’t think shawn has the emotional bandwidth to handle a relationship in addition to his relationship with gus. shawn makes it clear that he cares more about gus than jules and goes behind her back to spend time with gus instead of her on numerous occasions which is weird. i think his relationship with gus is way too codependent and time-consuming for a full, multifaceted, mature relationship with anyone else, jules or otherwise.

i also hate that they just randomly got married at the end of the first movie but i have so many issues with that movie so i’m just gonna ignore that!

now that i have said my piece, i will cite some shules scenes that i love because i’m not petty and i can appreciate them:

very close talking

i’ve been thinking about getting a car (this is peak classic shawn spencer bullshit that i love)

i think you’re swell

they’re mostly grey and they’re money

the proposal

[celestie0]

ouuu my dear flowie. i am long overdue in responding to this reblog, but just know that i read it when you originally posted it and it made my entire day, my entire week, my entire month, dare i say my entire YEARRR...your reblogs give me enough serotonin to last a lifetime. singlehandedly add years to my lifespan

live picture of me reading your reblog reviews of my fics:

I would let him give me a hundred thousand, even a billion headaches. Kickoff! Gojo deserves everything. Trust me. I would let no harm come to him.My man is a puppy in love with how he’s following reader around, tell me ellie, what do i need to do to manifest him? He’s so adorable aaaaaaahhhh my heart is bursting.

PLEASE A PUPPY IN LOVE IS SO ACCURATE THATS P MUCH KICKOFF GOJO. and yess his ways of charming are so unconventional :''') he got that pretty boy privilege and has never had to charm a woman lolol

but please all he needed to enter a bush was a little sound, he has 0 survival skills.

OMG NAMING THE CAT MEGUMI PLS THAT WOULDVE BEEN CUTE AND ALSO SO CANON. but yea kickoff gojo has zero survival skills how he hasn't been kidnapped yet up until this point is a miracle

Why do acting like you found them fucking publicly 💀😭 (is it the effect of seeing two pretty people together? Must be) i understand him.

girl yes anytime i see a hot guy in public just staring at him feels like having public copulation xddd its sumn ab the hot people

Especially with how she feels Gojo wouldn’t really understand her situation because he has never faced it, it’s the disguised-kinda covered element of helplessness mixed with embarrassment for me when i want to convey the social anxiety but cannot because people expect otherwise of me.

aww bb i'm sorry ab that, yea it's kinda crazy how we have attributes we associate w ourselves but then because of that, we're not able to give ourselves grace to differ from those attributes. but i totally think ppl are multifaceted and we can surprise ourselves w straying from our norm. like ig reader has stage fright but she also slapped tf out of a man at a bar in ch9 LOL...but anywho yes i hear youuu

The best part about kickoff is the sheer realism and relatability that readers feel when reading it. You write about stuffs that university students deal with, and you aren’t just making us live our dream of dating a man as beautiful as gojo but also giving us a voice and lending us an ear. You are hearing us and making sure we feel validated. Especially when you talk about insecurities related to career, that is something not a lot of fics do, they make us perfect, but you perfect our flaws, you let us shine through them. That’s a huge thing to achieve I believe. Like nothing in kickoff feels superficial even with those glowing blue eyes and white hair of the freak. Sorryyy!!!!

AAAAAAA flowie thank u so much i could cry fr :''') i'm so glad the realism comes off. yes i think...hmm i think career is so difficult to navigate in college, esp along w romance. in my romantic experiences in college, i always felt like they went hand in hand w my career stress. like wondering if i'm spending too much time thinking ab boys lol, or being w guys that didn't really value my career goals or even care about them. i miss my college campus clubs and my fellow club board members sooo much, i had sm fun organizing events w them and i think writing this chapter really took me back to that time. like idk just doing fun stuff w someone, like reader n gojo in this chapter, those moments are so priceless to me than something that might be an actual date or sumn, if that makes sense. but i'm so glad the story makes you feel validated, ik you were also in debate clubs in school so i think it's so cool how despite all the different careers n niches n interest (like idk anything ab film clubs lmfaoo) we all can still kinda relate to that feeling of ambition paired w insecurity

I love it when people praise our abilities by honouring our actions, that’s very meaningful and appreciative. Like he could have just told she’s all that, but him adding instances added much value to his sentiments.

YAAASS PREACHH i love it when people mention specific actions when they state a positive character trait xD makes me feel seen. kickoff gojo def sees reader in ways she doesn't see herself. also awww yes his dad would be so proud of him :'')

ihm! Reader and kickoff! Reader will have a great time together as the two gojos play golf together while one tries to pitch the other in to buy a house as the other one argues that soccer is the better sport.

LOLOL wait that's so cute i need to see this happen bahahah. i feel like ihm reader & kickoff reader would like not have much in common while kickoff gojo and ihm gojo would have a younger bro older bro relationship where they're just bickering all the time pls. and then the girls can relate to how annoying their boyfriend/husband is

i think as students we have all cried over missed opportunities or the lack of them, it’s feels nice to have that representation over here, and he ensures everybody feels seen and doesn’t take away from reader’s shine as she doesn’t from her juniors, again very endearing.

yes yes yes :'') i've def cried before because i felt like all my hard work wasn't going to bigger places like i wanted it to be. but like in the words of emma from one day: "it's not about changing the world, it's about changing the little bit around you." i think gojo using his influence for good in this chapter was my favorite part to write, yknow he's not just a dumb frat dude that gloats about partying and winning games n stuff on his social media, but he knows that he can help make a difference w it too! i def think kickoff reader really fell in love w him a little bit in this chapter. and omggg bb sorry for the TEARS!!! but i hope it was comforting happy tears <3 i'm so glad you feel seen! that's all i want to accomplish w my writing

AHH THANKS SM FOR YOUR REVIEW FLOWIE BB THEY MEAN THE WORLD TO ME <33 i look forward to them soooo much, i get so giddy to see them!! much love from meee to youuu

gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]

kickoff ch.10 a fresh start

ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying & drinking while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem reader, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot, marijuana use, sexism, sexual harassment (verbal only)

ᰔ chapter. 10/x (probably 18)

ᰔ words. 10.5k

a/n. hiii!! welcome to ch10!! if you’re confused about the word count, i decided to split up the original ch10 of kickoff (which was 31k words) into three installments (read more here) and sooo this is the first installment :0 i really hope you enjoy! i think this is a pretty chill chapter so no warnings or anything hahha. i’ll see you at the bottom :”)

nav. masterlist

☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1 :: ♬.*ﾟplaylist

“Let me take you out on a date.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m busy.”

“You look like you could use a break.”

“You look like you should go bother someone else.”

“I don’t want to bother someone else, I want to bother you.”

You sigh, sitting back on your heels in the chair that you’ve been balancing yourself on for the past hour or so within the business building, room 202, not sure if it’s the paint fumes coming off the brush you’re holding in your hand that’s giving you the headache or if it’s the incessant pestering of the man sitting beside you.

It’s a Tuesday afternoon and you’re working on painting a poster for the Film Club photography showcase that’s happening later tonight, and what you thought would be a peaceful moment to yourself turned into what it is now since you ran into Gojo in the hallway as he was making his way out of class, and of course he decided to follow you around like a duckling after that.

You glance to the right. He’s still got his backpack on as he sits slumped in the chair beside you, with his presentation of washed out black jeans, a hoodie that’s a shade of void darker with UTokyo Men’s D1 Soccer heat-pressed printing across in jock lettering and he’s got the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hair looks thoroughly kempt for once, and not slick with sweat like it usually is on the field, or tousled from the amount of times he runs his hands through it when he’s concentrated or frustrated. But he might start now, given you’re not budging at all to his advances.

“You know how nice it would be?” he says to you with his own version of a blissful sigh, resting his elbow on the conference table and setting his chin on top of his palm, and the way he leans into your space makes you subconsciously lean into him too. “We could go out for dinner, maybe by the beach, order dessert, you wear something nice–”

You raise an eyebrow at him.

“N-Not that you don’t always wear nice things–” His eyes briefly sweep down your form, in which you’re awkwardly sitting still with your paintbrush pinched between your fingers in mid air, and then he vaguely gestures to you, “I just mean something nicer,” this time, you feign an offended scoff, “wait, no, that came out wrong, I mean–”

“Satoru,” you interrupt him, bending over the table to dip your bristles into some blue paint in the palette at the other end, “I'm actually very busy right now, so I don’t really have the mental real estate to deal with your sales pitches on why I should let you take me out on a date.”

You can see in your peripheral vision that his eyes are on you, and you only flick your gaze to his face when you notice it’s the longest he’s been silent this entire time, and you find that he’s taking in the sight of you bent over this table. He snaps out of it when you sit back into your chair.

“And you constantly staring at my ass doesn’t exactly charm me, either.”

He glances over his shoulder for a brief second, as if to confirm the emptiness of this room, then grabs your chair to roll you towards him in between the space he’s created by the obnoxious amount of spread to his legs, and you wobble a little due to your seated position on your heels. A gasp leaves your lips at how close his face is now, and his hands hold onto the armrests of your chair to make sure it stays that way. “What do I have to do to charm you?”

You blink at him for a few, startled as you take in the serious expression on his face, and his eyes are so captivating you have trouble finding words. You know why he’s asking—because he’s teetering on an edge of desperation that’s evident in the way he can’t seem to tear his gaze away from your lips, like he’s just one slip of self control away from refusing your denial of him and closing this distance between the two of you that you seem so intent on torturing him with.

“I–” you start, and you grab onto his forearm with the excuse of gaining balance, the texture of a vein pulsing felt underneath your palm, “...I don’t know, figure it out.”

It’s a lame response, but you just can’t explain it. One week of him pining after you didn’t feel like enough, not after all the suffering he put you through after he rejected you, and maybe it was a little petty but you just liked seeing him chase after you because it felt like you finally had the power, the control, and that’s exactly why you don’t have an answer for him. But also, in your defense, his attempts to charm you so far have been………….rather unique and odd, and you’re starting to wonder if he’s ever had to “court” a woman before. Actions that have you realizing pretty privilege might really be a thing since he’s gotten this far despite his strange decision making.

Like earlier this week when he showed up to your apartment with flowers, but of course it wasn’t one of those sweet bouquets you’re always eyeing from the check-out line at Trader Joe’s, no–this man had pilfered an arrangement of roses and marigolds and tulips and dandelions from the park downtown near the city library while he was on a morning run and then showed up at your apartment with them in his hand. It annoyed you, because it was six in the morning, so not only did the ring of the doorbell wake you up but you also became annoyed at the early-morning reminder about how you’re not someone like Gojo who wakes up at the crack of dawn to casually go on eight mile runs (your biggest fear is marrying someone that wakes up at 5am on a Sunday to go on hikes and he unfortunately seems the type). But when you fluffed up those flowers in a vase at the kitchen counter a few hours after you shoo’d him away all in the name of getting a few more minutes of shuteye, you noticed the softness of the stems on the roses, and you realized he plucked each of the thorns off one by one before giving them to you.

He also showed up to your door yesterday, with twigs and leaves in his ruffled hair, a tear through his nylon shirt, and a small tuxedo kitten in the palm of his hand. When you asked him where he found the tiny thing, he said he heard something crying in the bushes while he was walking somewhere. And you figured that’s all the sensory input he would’ve needed to walk through ivy and thorns to find it. Something about I don’t know, I thought you’d think it’s cute and you’d wanna keep it, and you took it from him, the tiny thing so adorable and just a little puff ball in your hands, and most definitely covered in fleas. And then you started crying, because you remembered you can’t keep animals in your apartment. And then he started panicking because he didn’t know why you were crying and he tried to comfort you and that only made it worse and you kicked him out of your apartment with the tiny fluff baby too so as not to get attached, and you’re sure he still has absolutely no clue what he did wrong.

That’s how you would describe his efforts, in all honesty. But a part of you knows that he’s trying. You’re not entirely sure why that’s his definition of trying, but you haven’t thought a lot about what dating him would look like. You were so caught up in how you felt about him, and whether he felt the same, but you never thought a step forward after that. But you’d be lying to yourself if you said you could handle staying away from him any longer.

By the way, Gojo kept the kitten. He’s still working on a name but he’s thinking Grand Theft Auto just so he can say ain’t no way got GTA cat before GTA6.

“All you are is pain and suffering,” he says. “You know that, right?” He rolls your chair even closer, to where the momentum has you threatening to fall right into him, so your hand moves from his forearm to his shoulder, and you're starting to get suspicious he’s trapping you in his personal space.

“You’ll learn to manage it,” you say to him, voice hushed, and you see it in his face that your words excite him.

It’s hard to think straight when those eyes are on you, and after a solid minute of just staring at your lips, he moves his gaze up to level with yours to prove some level of restraint. But what he can’t keep himself from doing is placing a hand on your thigh, pressure soft as his fingers press into the fabric of your jeans, and the movement is slow when he slides his palm up to grip your hip but with more intent.

Your hand that was grasping onto his shirt starts inching towards his neck until it settles on the curve where it meets his shoulder, and your fingers lightly brush against the texture of the hair at his nape. His eyes are still on yours, even with the test of your tongue swiping across your bottom lip.

“Let me kiss you,” he says, and it would sound like a demand if he didn’t say it so breathlessly. His other hand also reaches out to grip onto your hips, urging you more towards him. Another shift forward and you’d be sitting in his lap.

“Oh, we’re asking for permission now?” you chastise, thumb pressing into his neck. He sucks a breath in through his teeth, and now his gaze drops to your lips.

“Yeah, ‘cause last time you were pissed about it.”

You almost roll your eyes. “Wow, my audacity,” you comment sarcastically.

“Just give it to me,” he says, face tilting, the perfect amount to kiss you if you just gave him– “the permission.”

Your breathing picks up when he leans forward, your eyes hooded slightly on reflex, and you’re both staring at each other's lips like it was stupid you’re not kissing right now.

The slam of the door startles you, and being one inch away from him turns into a foot of distance as your head turns to face the entrance of the room. Gojo’s still gripping onto your hips, keeping your chair close to him, and you’re shifting your body weight on your heels as you try to pull off his hold of you until he finally relents and releases.

There’s a student standing at the door, posture slumped as he holds a binder to his chest, and you can tell he’s probably a first or second year with the way he’s wide-eyed and just staring. When he realizes you’re waiting for him to speak, he jumps a little. “Oh! Uh, is this…where the Film Club showcase is happening?”

You straighten your posture, in a way that means business, and struggle a little to untuck your legs from your seated position on your chair to then stand up onto your feet with a bristling sensation of nerves in them when you realize they had fallen asleep. “Yes! Yes, it is. B202, you’ve got the right place,” you say and manage an awkward smile.

The student’s gaze shifts to Gojo, who you see in your peripheral vision is leaning back in his chair, knee swinging side to side and arms crossed at his chest. You want to tell him to sit up straight and not look so nonchalant in the presence of a stranger, but there are some things about a person you can’t really change.

You see the moment in the student’s eyes when he recognizes Gojo, and those wide eyes somehow become even wider. “Woah,” is all he says with a few blinks.

“Um,” you say, taking a step forward, “I’m sorry, what’s your name?” You feel eyes on your back as Gojo watches the interaction.

“Haru!” he says, “I think I messaged the club’s Instagram page last week…not sure if you’re the person I talked to.”

“Oh, yes, I remember,” you say and introduce yourself to him again. “Thank you for coming, but the event actually doesn’t start for a while…”

“Oh, my bad,” he says, “I’ll…” his gaze flickers to behind you, “...come back soon then.”

You purse your lips together and politely nod before he exits the room and you let out the breath you were holding, face wincing a little from the awkward interaction.

You turn on your heel to head back to the table, and you see Gojo still slumped in his chair looking at you with curiosity.

“Okay, seriously, please stop distracting me,” you say as you take a seat on your chair again and pick up your paint brush, “I need to finish this now, because I won’t have time before the event tonight.”

“Why won’t you have time before?” he asks, tapping on his phone screen to check the time. “It’s at six, right?”

“Yes, but I have to finish this poster, and then rehearse my presentation. And then I have to get the supplies from my professor’s room, and also need to go get the pizza and refreshments, and–”

“And why are you doing all this by yourself?” he asks, setting his elbow on the desk and leaning his cheek against the knuckles of his curled hand. He pulls the hood of his hoodie over his head.

You sigh. “The other board members were busy this week. With midterms and stuff. I mean, I’m busy too, but this is a really important event.” You sneak a glance at him, and his earnest attention is suddenly making you feel nervous. “It’s the freshman & sophomore students’ chances to show off their works in a large capacity, and talk to some people about their photos, even book some shoots if there’s a decent turnout.” He nods at you thoughtfully. “Anyways,” you say, directing our attention back to your poster, “I didn’t want to cancel it, so I just figured I’d take on the job. But I wasn’t expecting any distractions.” You regard him with an annoyed flick of your eyes in his direction.

He hums softly, and you use his silence to get lost in your thoughts for a moment. You still need to rehearse the presentation slides, and it could be the exhaustion you’ve faced in the past week that causes you to shake a little from the anticipation of speaking in front of people, but you realize that you’re nervous. Nervous to publicly speak. Nobara usually does these sorts of things as the president, you’ve always opted out to do more of the behind-the-scenes as vice, but there’s this feeling you’ve got that makes you realize if this event doesn’t go smoothly, there’s no one to blame but you.

You glance over at Gojo for a second, who has been watching you this whole time, and he raises an eyebrow in question. You blink, and shake your head slightly, as if to say oh, nothing and then your eyes slowly travel back to the brush in your hand.

“Are you nervous?” he asks you.

Your eyes widen slightly. “Huh?” you squeak out before looking at him.

He uses a jerk of his chin to point to your hand. “You’re shaking.”

You look down at your hand, and notice it is indeed trembling slightly, and you're about to hold your wrist with your other hand to keep yourself from shaking, but his hand beats you to it when it falls over your own. You look down at the sight, and then slightly tilt your palm upwards so you can loosely hold onto his. He squeezes it once and you look at him.

“You’ll be fine,” he says.

It all feels a little silly. I mean, you can imagine the last thing in the world he could empathize with is stage fright. He plays in front of thousands of people in stands every week, of whom you’d say half of which are showing up for him exclusively, and even if the team’s down during the half or stakes are insanely high, or if the chants are so loud most people could hardly even hear themselves think, he always pulls through in the end. Something as simple as presenting in front of a handful of students in a media room wouldn’t have his hand trembling the way yours is right now, because there probably isn’t a fearful bone in his body.

“Do you ever get nervous?” you ask him. It comes out faster than you could think, but curiosity is killing you.

His eyes study your face, brows dropping a little.

“I mean, on the field,” you clarify, “when you’re playing.”

He relaxes a little bit. “Oh, no, not really. I mean, sorta, but it’s not really a feeling I can afford to give much thought to when I’m out there, so I guess not?”

“Mm…” you hum, accepting his answer, and his fingers curl over your hand to hold it a little tighter. “I see. I wonder what that’s like.”

“What what is like?” he asks.

“Not getting nervous.”

“I get nervous sometimes. Just not really on the field.”

“When do you get nervous?” you ask him.

“Usually when I’m with you.”

Your eyes study his intently and your cheeks feel warm.

“Are you just messing with me?” you ask, with a half scoff, to prepare yourself to play it off as a joke.

“No, I’m not,” he states, “I get nervous around you. Cause I’m always scared I’m gonna fuck shit up somehow.”

“Oh,” you say, shoulders slumping a little, “I thought it was a different kind of nervous.” Like a love sick, can’t breathe around the person, heart about to give out kind of soul crushing adoration-filled nervousness.

He looks at you puzzled. “What other kind of nervous is there?” he asks.

You sigh. “Nevermind.” You pull your hand out from under his, and he flexes his fingers a little, like he’s getting used to the absence of your hand underneath his, before he withdraws it back to his side.

Your hand is still shaking.

“Hey,” he says, leaning in a bit closer to make sure you hear what he has to say, “I saw you slap the shit out of a guy at a bar for disrespecting you and then telling that other fuckface to go take it up the ass. Which is probably the most badass thing I think I’ve ever seen anyone do, so I know you’ve got no reason to be nervous right now.”

You take in a deep breath for confidence and nod.

“Okay,” you whisper.

He leaves you alone for the most part after that while you work on your slides, except for his occasional loud shouts when he messes up some mission in the combat game he’s playing on his phone. And you remember he’s someone who’s supposed to be extremely busy, and probably has shit to do right now, but he’s essentially killing all day here with you.

“What are you doing?” he asks when he peers over at your laptop screen once you come back from a bathroom break.

“Oh.” You stretch your fingers out and close them into fists over your keyboard before going back to one of your open tabs. “I need to submit my grad school application.”

Gojo places his elbows on the table and leans his weight onto them, watching your laptop screen from beside you as you navigate UTokyo’s grad school application portal. You can already tell he’s dissociating.

“It’s done?” he asks as you click through the webpage.

“Yes. It’s done. Officially. I just need to–,” you take a deep breath in, “I just need to press…submit.”

Your cursor hovers over the blue button, in the same way your finger is hovering over your mousepad, and you’re stuck frozen.

Gojo leans in closer to your space to where you can smell the soft fragrance of his detergent, “then press submit.”

“I…I will.” You blink at the screen.

But you’re the queen of stalling, in all aspects of life.

He takes his elbow off the table and reaches his arm over to your laptop before pressing down firmly on the right-click cursor button, and you watch in a panic as the loading circle appear on the screen as he calmly retreats his arm, and then you see Congratulations on submitting your UTokyo Graduate School Early Admissions Application for the 2024-25 School Year!

“What–” you look at him with shock.

“You were taking too long,” he says with a shrug.

You slump into your seat with a small pout and watch your phone light up with a confirmation email as well.

“So how should we celebrate when you get in?” he asks.

“We? And when as in if.”

“Yes, we. And when. Now answer.”

You sigh. “I dunno…”

“Is there something that you really want?” he asks, nudging your arm with his elbow before he lays his cheek down on his forearm on the table so he can see your face better. And he looks so cute and boyfriend-ish with the way his hair sprawls over the sleeve of his hoodie and his cheek is plush from where he’s resting it.

You lean all the way back in your chair. “Mm…to end world hunger. Cure cancer. Bring peace and prosperity to all my friends and family.”

“Yes ok, very kind of you,” he responds, voice scratchy like he’s tired but his leg is bouncing impatiently underneath the table, “I meant something you can buy.”

“Like happiness?”

“Just be serious for a second.”

You laugh. “Hmm…I mean, it’s not really a tangible thing…but I’ve always wanted to take a roadtrip to Mt. Fuji,” you offer.

He lifts his head up off his arm with interest. “Ok, then, when you get in, I’ll take you on a trip to Mt. Fuji. All expenses paid.”

“You sound like one of those travel advisors at the mall that scam families for debit card deposits,” you snort, “also, why do I feel like it’d just be an excuse for you to annoy me in forced proximity over the span of five to seven days.”

He drops his head to rest it on his arm again with a small grumble leaving him. “You’re so cynical sometimes.”

Just a bit jaded since last week, is what you think to say. But you’re not in the mood to explain the existential dread within you since Kai’s whole posse of ultra lame losers stirred the unnerving pot of career stress within you, but maybe you just need a bit of time to come down from it.

“Ok fine. If it’s all paid for, then I guess I shall accept the offer. Er, the prospect of the impending offer.

There’s a grin on his face, kinda drowsy and sick with some sort of glee, and he uncrosses one of his arms from the surface of the table to hold his hand out to you, pinky sticking up in the air.

“Alright then, it’s a promise,” he says.

You blink at him, eyeing his pinky, but he just wiggles it in the air like get on with it. You sigh, curling yours around his firmly, and your signature addition is the press of your thumb to his in security of sealing the deal, which you realize by the slight furrow to his brow that he’s never seen it before. You shrug.

“Pinky promises are never to be broken,” he says, kinda cheekily like he knows it sounds silly, and for a second there’s a glimpse of juvenile innocence on his face. His words sound like something a parent would echo to a child, like words from his own. Your pinkies are still coiled. “You’ve gotta say it too.”

“P-Pinky promises are never to be broken,” you repeat after him.

“Sweet.” He pulls his hand from your and then he turns his face so his forehead is resting on his arm now instead of his cheek, breathing slowly as he’s silent for a minute.

“Are you–...are you sleeping?” you ask.

“Yes.” He muffles into his crossed arms.

“Tired?”

He sighs heavily. “Very.”

“Um…I need your help with some things, though.”

“...okay.”

—

“Who are we going to see again?” Gojo asks, using a shake of his head to get some of his fringe out of his eyes hands-free as his fingers spread in his hold of the box underneath them, and it’s hard not to admire the way his hands look. Large shades of pale pink where they were slightly strained, like at his knuckles and joints, and those cool toned veins that valley from the grip that he has. There’s something way more attractive about his hands when he puts them to earnest use.

You two are walking down the hallway on the third floor of the building. “Our faculty adviser for our club,” you say, reaching into your pocket to make sure you still had your keys with you, “oh, he’s also the professor I asked for my reference.”

“Ohhh, interesting,” Gojo comments. “You said he’s a fan of soccer right?”

You’re taken back to that first night you met Gojo at that frat party, and you mentioned your professor to him. Feels like forever ago. But at the same time, like yesterday.

“Yes, UTokyo’s team in particular,” you comment, “honestly I think he might faint when he sees you.”

“I wish you would faint when you see me,” he sighs.

You roll your eyes and then finally arrive at your professor’s office. It’s slightly ajar, as it usually is, and you take a small peek inside to see that he’s sitting at his desk, window open and illuminating the room with golden rays of the setting sun, and you’re made aware of the fact that night is coming soon.

“Hi, Professor,” you say after knocking once, and the man jumps in his seat when you pull the door open to step inside. You always forget he’s easily startled, and make another mental note to not scare him anymore because if he gets a heart attack and dies from shock, you wouldn’t be able to afford the lawsuit.

“Hello, hello, y/n,” he greets, sitting up in his chair by grabbing onto the arm rests for leverage, and you can feel the edge of the box push against your back as Gojo makes his way into the room too.

As predicted, your professor nearly faints and dies from shock when he clocks the sight of Gojo, and you briefly wonder if Gojo would be able to afford the lawsuit, and then your professor is running up to him and shaking his hand with a vigor that has the younger man wincing a little in discomfort, but by the short amount of time you’ve finished looking through the storage room for projector cables & supplies, then re-emerge to your professor’s office with filled up boxes in your hands, Gojo’s typing his number into your professor’s phone and apparently he’s going salsa dancing with him and his wife this weekend?

“You should come too,” Gojo says, adjusting his grip on the boxes he took from you as you two meander down the hallway back to the media room.

You dust your hands off. “To what? Salsa dancing?”

“Yeah, apparently there’s gonna be spiked brazilian lemonade,” he coos, like he’s pitching a pyramid scheme to you.

You sigh. “How often do people just randomly invite you to things?”

He glances up at the ceiling like he really needs to think about it. “I dunno. I just accept, don’t always go.”

“So you’re, like, a selective people pleaser,” you note. “Save face in the moment but then run away from the commitment.”

“Relax. I was having a good evening.”

You two make it back to the media room with no more unsolicited psychoanalysis, and you’re scrambling around to get things in order for the event while Gojo tries his best to be helpful wherever he can, but he mostly just looks like a lost puppy.

“Okay so I ordered four pizzas,” you say, holding up four fingers in the air, “and then you also need to get, like, maybe two family size bottles of Coke from the store?” Now two fingers. “A pack of napkins would be nice too since apparently we ran out.” You look through the box you got from your professor’s storage room. “And…I think that’s it. Keep the receipts so I can reimburse you.”

Gojo nods at you after every command, eyes wide and brows furrowed in concentration like he’s really trying to picture the list of tasks in his head so he doesn’t forget any of them, and you feel a bit bad for ordering him around to do all of this for you but he was here anyway so you might as well put him to use.

“And then can you also get some stuff from the trunk of my–er, Mina’s car. I parked it by the Literature building in Lot 16.” You pull the car keys out from your tote bag and hand it to him. He stands there like a statue before his fingers curl around the cold metal keys. “Please be back here a half hour before six!!”

“So I guess I’m a member of the club now?” he muses, throwing the keys up into the air a few feet to then catch them.

“Mm, no, you need to fill out a form to be an official member,” you say as you make your way to the podium and open the drawer to pull out one of the microphones.

“Send me the form then,” he says.

“It’s on our Instagram.” You tap the head of the microphone and are satisfied when you hear thumping across the room’s speakers. “LinkTree in bio!!” you chirp in club advertisement reflex.

He pulls his phone out from his pocket and half leans back/half sits on one of the tables and taps away at his screen. You’re standing at the podium computer scrolling through your logged-in Spotify account to figure out which ambient playlist to have playing for the event.

“Alright,’ he says before slipping his phone back into his pocket, “I just filled out the form.”

Your phone chimes with an email notification right after he says it. “Yay! Congrats! Welcome to UTokyo’s Film Club!” you exclaim, again, in practiced club advertisement reflex.

He smiles at you and crosses his arms. “Are there any cool perks?” he asks.

“Uhh, a chance to enter into a Kodak film roll raffle every semester?” you say, knowing it’s useless because you two are graduating in less than two months so this was your last semester anyway and the raffle had already passed. Oh, also useless because Gojo isn’t a film photographer. Your phone chimes with another email notification. You glance at it. “Oh! Someone else RSVP’d for the event tonight. Yayyy.”

“Sorry, I think that was me,” he says, “I filled out the wrong form at first.”

“Oh,” your shoulders drop in a sulk slightly, done before conscious thought can stop the motion, so now Gojo’s caught onto the fact that you’re upset about something.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, and he walks over to where you’re standing at the podium.

“I’m just a little…bummed out about the turnout,” you confess as you glance at the RSVP form for the event on your phone, “eighteen people signed up, but that includes the eight students that are showcasing their photography. Oh, and now it also includes you. So…that means only nine real sign-ups, and I guess it’s a little less than what I thought it would be.”

“Aww,” he coos, and he places his elbows up onto the wood of the podium, holding his face up to look at you. “I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” you say, and you blush for some reason.

He’s smiling at you now, boyish and lost in thought that probably has nothing to do with the conversation at hand.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing,” he shakes his head, “I just think you’re really cool.”

“Okayyy,” you diffuse the compliment, “are you going to stay for the event?”

“Will you let me?” he asks.

“Maybe,” you say, “if you don’t do anything strange during it.”

“And if I do?” he asks.

“So you are going to do something strange?”

“Nope.”

“Well, now you seem suspicious.”

He laughs. “I was just joking.”

“When you bring the pizzas back, just leave them outside the door. I’ll take it from there,” you say.

“You’re not even gonna let me inside?” he scoffs.

“No.”

“And if I come inside anyway?”

“I’ll place a bucket of water at the top of the door,” you say, “so it’ll fall on you, except it’ll give you a concussion instead of a soak.”

He snorts. “Yeah? How are you even gonna reach the top of the door?”

“I–...shut up.”

“I can help you,” he grins, leaning forward on the podium, “reach the top of the door.”

“You’re going to help me terrorize you?” You raise an eyebrow at him.

He shrugs. “Anything if it means I get to touch your butt.”

“Wha–!! Why would that entail you touching my butt?!”

He looks confused by your confusion. “Hmm…maybe…maybe we should act out what you think this scenario would entail…and then we can act out what I think this scenario would entail, perhaps multiple times, and then–”

“Just go get the things I asked, please,” you say with a sigh.

He laughs, it’s sweet but loud, and you blush when you realize he’s just messing with you for his own amusement.

“Stop teasing me,” you pout at him.

“I seriously can’t help it,” he tells you, and he leans himself off the podium to stand up straight before shoving the car keys you gave him into his pocket, “the way you react is always so cute.”

You feel like you could melt.

“Alright, I’ll be back,” he says, and you watch him as he heads out the door. And the room feels empty without him.

Luckily there are things you can distract yourself with in his absence. Well, technically he was the distraction, but sometimes it felt like everything else was the distraction keeping you from him.

There’s still about an hour left before the film club students come in to set up the exhibits, and you set up everything else you need to set up around the room, like moving the tables around so that the walk flow is like that of a museum’s, you set the club posters you painted up on the wall, pull a plastic table cover over what will be the food and refreshments section when Gojo eventually brings them. And you spend the last ten minutes rehearsing your slides.

It occurs to you that this is the last time you’ll be doing any of this, possibly for the rest of your life. Film Club still has a few events left for the year, but they’re mostly just tabling events and then the end-of-year banquet at the Cheesecake Factory. And so as you click through slides at the podium, your eyes drift from the screen off into the still empty room. And that feeling of something coming to an end washes over you. But you’re not really sure how to feel about it just yet.

Your thoughts drown out the gradually growing bustling noise outside in the hall, and you only become aware of it about a couple minutes later, when the noises increase into loud shouts and cheers. Was there some event next door that you didn’t know about at the same time as the Film Club event? You didn’t know of any, but right before you can check the university’s social media, the door burst opens and Gojo’s standing there with a stack of four pizzas balancing on one palm, with the pinky hooking a plastic bag seemingly carrying a couple bottles of soda, and in his right hand is—…beer?

“Hey,” Gojo says, a gleeful look on his face. The noises outside are heard clearly with the door he’s keeping open with his foot, and then they disappear back into muffles once again when he closes the door. “Where do you want this stuff?”

You storm up to him. “W-Why did you buy beer?” you ask him.

“Huh?” he glances down at the couple of cases of beer in his left hand. “I mean, pizza and beer, you can’t go wrong with that.”

“What??”

He blinks at you. “I-Is it BYOB or something??”

“Satoru. This isn’t a frat party!! This is a Film Club event!!”

“There’s no alcohol at your events?” he asks, setting the pizzas down on the food and refreshments table you had set up earlier. “I assumed you had just forgotten to ask me to get some from the store when you were listing off tasks earlier.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “No. There is no alcohol at our events,” you sigh. But he’s ripping the tops of the cases anyway. “Do you know why it’s so loud outside?” You move towards the door and try to peer through the frosty glass.

“They’re here for the event,” he says. You swirl on your heel to face him, but all you see is the expanse of his back as he rips a pack of napkins open.

“T-This event?” you squeak out.

He looks over his shoulder at you. “Yeah. You said something about the turnout being small, so I posted it to my Instagram story.”

Your mouth drops open.

He stiffens. “I mean, that’s what one of the…” his voice slowly trails off, “…roles & responsibilities was…for the Film Club membership form…to be a member…”

You continue to stare at him.

“…help publicize for club events,” he clarifies.

You quickly turn to face the door again and push it open with force, almost hitting someone straight in the face, and after you apologize for your carelessness, you take in the huge line of people flush against the wall, all chatting with friends in small groups that trail all the way back to the entrance of the building. Most of them are people you’ve recognized at SAE parties and social media posts, and you quickly close the door because now your heart is beating so fast in your chest from the nerves that you can hardly handle it.

You turn to face Gojo again and walk up to him while he’s still busy fixing up the table with more finesse than you'd have expected from him. “Satoru!! I don’t have enough pizza to feed all these people!! There isn’t even enough space in this room for all of them!!” You’re panicking a little.

He tilts his head at you. “Just—…have them walk inside in a single file and round out of the room in a circle.” He gesticulates the plan with his finger in the air. “Easy.”

Right. Like the professional-grade sports conference signings he’s been a part of. “I’m just one person. I have no idea how I’m gonna deal with a group that large.”

“Relax,” he assures you, and he takes a step towards you to hold both your hands in his, “it’s going to be fine! You’ve done these events before, it’s no different than those times. Plus you’re not just one person! I’ll be here with you, too.”

His overwhelming positivity and ease and nonchalance is starting to contrast way too heavily with your anxiety and uncertainty and cynicism, and it has you pulling your hands from his because your palms are starting to get sweaty.

The door creaks open slightly ajar, and you both turn to face it. Haru, the film student from earlier, takes a step into the room.

“Hi!! This is—…this is where the event is supposed to be, right?” he asks sheepishly with skepticism, likely because he can’t believe the line outside.

“Yes!” you confirm, and you glance at the projector screen for the time, “take a seat, I’ll be going over logistics soon.”

Following him suit are a few other film students that trickle in and take seats at the tables, and you do a mental roll call and notice that only a couple are missing. But you’ve only got five minutes until the hour starts for the event, so you shut the door airtight for a peaceful ambience and rush to the front of the room at the podium.

“Hi,” you say into the mic, “thanks so much to you all for coming here!! In a few minutes, I’ll be opening the door for people to come by and check out your photo exhibits. I ask that if you do get commissions booked for your work, you write it down on the sheets provided so we can assess the helpfulness of these events in helping students secure freelance work!” You’re practically reading off a script as a coping mechanism, because your hand is shaking in anticipation. You look down at it underneath the hood of the podium, and in a second, it’s being covered by a familiar hand.

Gojo’s standing next to you at the podium now, holding your hand but discreet from view, and it gives you enough ease to finish your presentation smoothly, mostly because it goes by in a blur with the distraction of his comforting hand squeezes, and you can finally release the deep breath you were holding in.

“Awesome,” Gojo says right when you dismiss the students to start setting up their photo exhibits at their tables, “you finished the presentation. It wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“You almost sound patronizing,” you sigh, but you turn your palm up so he can hold your hand anyway.

By the time you open the door for the event, your anxiety has settled, and all you feel is awe as you watch people make their way into the room. Albeit most of them just go straight for the beer and pizza at first (which you’re pretty sure is illegal to serve on campus, but whatever), and you had to make the last minute decision to change your spotify playlist on the speakers from Studio Ghibli classics to early 2000s club music just to keep them engaged, but as the event proceeds, they all start to travel down the exhibit tables and glance at students photos sprawled across tables and swiping through slideshows on their laptops, and there’s genuine conversation and interest.

Turns out frats & sororities were the target audience for professional photography all along? Considering how anal they are about their social media aesthetics and what-not. Something you’d never even really considered until today, and somehow your world has become a little bit bigger than what it was before.

As you walk around the room just to eavesdrop on some conversations and make sure things are going okay, you steal glances at the freelance commision sign up papers that the film students are keeping track of, and you see occasions written down like birthday photoshoot and grad photos and aunt’s baby shower scribbled under the event columns and you start to feel emotional. The little freshmen & sophomore film students look so ecstatic with the amount of work they’re booking in one evening, and for once you feel like a proud mom.

This is singlehandedly the biggest turnout you’ve ever seen for any event you’ve ever hosted, and for someone that has a hard time asking for help most of the times, you finally see what you’ve been missing out on when you do let someone see you for who you are and they just know what’s important to you.

When you think of it, he’s always known what’s important to you. And he’s always cared.

You’re blinking fast to fight the sheen of tears when you look at Gojo from across the room, who’s chatting it up with some people he knows and then ushering them into the showcase line, because you realize he’s made you feel really proud of yourself today, which is something you’ve really struggled with in the past week.

It’s been four years since you joined this club, with hours of hard work invested into events that weren’t going to get the front page of the newsletter like the Friday soccer games would, or get circulated around on social media like the sorority formals would, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t any less important. And it’s ironic that someone like Gojo who fits into that world of prestige and popularity and success is the one to show you that.

“Hey.” You jump when you hear Gojo’s voice near you and realize you had been too lost in thought to notice that he was approaching you. He’s pointing over his shoulder towards the door. “Some guy came by and said we’ve only got five minutes left for the room?”

You turn away from him slightly, and the sniffle of your nose is quiet enough in the loud echoes of the room. “Oh, yes, um, we only had it booked for an hour. I didn’t think we’d need more than that.”

“Oh okay,” he says, “I’ll tell everyone to get lost then.”

“But not before telling them to follow us on Instagram!!” you chirp at him in practiced club advertisement reflex, “the QR code is posted on the door.”

He nods slowly. “Sure thing, boss.” He turns to head back to the line of people still leading out of the door, but his eyes linger on your face and he turns back to you. The step he takes towards you makes you nervous, because you don’t want him to see you were on the verge of tears. You’re good at hiding these sorts of things.

“Are you okay?” he asks, tilting his head down to look at you straight in the face because it’s obvious you’re not making eye contact.

You take in a deep breath and finally level your gaze with his when you’re certain your eyes are dry. “Yes, fine. Thank you.” And you smile at him. And he takes your word for it.

__

It’s pitch black outside as you walk with Gojo across campus towards the parking lot. He’s carrying all the supplies you have to take home in boxes piled high in his arms, while you just pull an empty mini wagon along because there’s way too many stairs as obstacles for any mode of transport by wheel.

There are a few moments where your shoulder accidentally brushes against his arm, and it’s mostly because you can’t walk in a straight line for the life of you, but you like it because it just feels nice to be in his space somehow. Like those little moments when your knee bumps someone else’s under the table, or your hands touch when handing something to someone, always noticed but never addressed because it just felt natural.

On the way to the faculty parking lot, where the blacktop is barely lit by the baseball stadium lights off in the distance, the exhaustion of the day catches up to you. Gojo’s hand reaches inside his pocket and he pulls out Mina’s car keys before pressing down on a button to open the trunk.

“Gosh, I forgot you had those keys,” you sigh as you fold the wagon and slide it into the back. “I would’ve freaked out if I noticed I didn’t have them.”

“Yeahhh I considered pretending that I lost them just to fuck with you, but I got lazy,” he says with a shrug and a yawn then sets down the boxes in the trunk with a slight grunt that leaves him, then he’s dusting his hands off.

You do a quick look-through of the supplies to make sure you didn’t forget anything in the room, and then pull your phone out to text Nobara that everything went well today. Well, great. Fantastic. Honestly, she’ll be shocked by the turnout when she sees the Instagram photos you’ll be posting to the club’s socials.

Gojo pulls down on the top of the trunk and shuts it closed, then he turns to face you. “Alright, so…”

“So…” you repeat after him, and you’re not sure why the air feels a little awkward, but you twiddle with your fingers because you don’t have the desire to step into the car and head home just yet.

Gojo nods slowly, looking around himself at the ground. “I guess that’s everything.”

“Mhm.”

He scratches the back of his head, and you realize he’s not making any moves to walk away either.

“Um,” you say, “Satoru–”

“Yeah?” he responds, fast, the second you say his name.

You take a step closer to him, and lean your hip against the car. “Thank you,” you say, holding onto your elbow and rubbing soothing circles over your own arm, “for what you did tonight.”

He tilts his head at you in confusion, but then his face relaxes. “Oh, no worries,” he says with a smile, and his voice sounds a little tired from the day too, “I’m pretty sure you would’ve killed yourself if you tried to carry those boxes down the stairs.”

“What?...no, no, not for the boxes,” you say with a shake of your head, and then you remember you need to be offended by what he just said, “what the hell, that’s not true. I have more than sufficient upper body strength.”

He tucks his bottom lip under his teeth, like to stifle a laugh. “Uh-huh.”

You sigh and briefly pinch the bridge of your nose in annoyance and then shake the feeling off with a shake of your head. “I meant…for what you did by publicizing the event.” And for being there for you, when you were feeling alone and nervous about the whole thing, like he could tell you just really needed someone to be with you. But you bite your tongue before you can say that part too.

His brow furrows for a moment, and you realize he’s confused about the appreciation.

“It’s just, I know what it was like when I was a freshman and sophomore, feeling like my work wasn’t really reaching anyone,” you say to him, the vulnerability on your sleeve as you speak, “so it was a really nice thing for you to do for those underclassmen today. I saw the looks on their faces, and they looked really happy. And–...I’m sure it made their day.” You glance off to the side for a moment because you feel a little shy, and then you look back at him. “It made mine too.”

He takes a step towards you, and he’s close now, to where the tips of his shoes almost touch yours. His eyes are calm, darker with minimal light to reflect off of but there are still stars in them as always. “I’m glad I could help. Uh, well, I’m a member of the club now, so, if you need any other help, then. You know where to find me.”

You laugh. “I doubt there’s much I could give you to do at this point in the year, but alright. If anything comes up, I’ll assign it to you.”

You both look up at each other with small smiles. Your thumbs still swiped over the skin of your arm, and he shoves his hands in his pockets to look at his feet, rocking back and forth on his heels slightly. You click your tongue and look up at the sky, and he tilts his head to the side a few times to stretch it out. Were you two just so brain-fried by the day that you can’t even think of a single thing to say to one another? But if that was the case, then why not just call it a day and go home?

There’s a person on a bicycle that passes by, jingling his bell in the process and that breaks the two of you out of this weird trance, and then he’s clearing his throat and you’re shifting on your feet.

“Oh, by the way—” “Um, I just wanted to—” you both say at the same time.

You blink at each other.

“Sorry,” he laughs, “go ahead.”

“No, no, you go ahead,” you say.

“It’s fine,” he gestures to you. “You first.”

“Are you sure?” you ask.

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Well—,” he starts, “I’ll say what I want to say after you say what you want to say…so…no worries. Go ahead.”

“Right,” you nod in agreement, and scratch your arm a little. “I just wanted to say I’m still…sorry about what I said to you last week outside that bar,” you confess, “about…having it easy in life.” You squeeze your upper arm in anxious tendency. “ImeanIknowIalreadyapologizedforit,” you say, fast, with surprisingly no tongue twist, “but…still. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t open up to me about stuff because of what I said and because of…I guess, the…mean impression I claimed to have of you. I just don’t think I was in a great headspace, and…well.” You look up at him and his expression is soft. “I’ve really appreciated being able to talk to you about lots of things. Um. So, yeah, I just wanted to say again that I’m really sorry about it.” You take in and release a deep breath once you’re done with your ramble.

He’s quiet for a moment as he lets your words sink in, and he briefly glances down at his shoes, shoulders raising slightly to roll them back and then he relaxes them when he looks at you again.

“It’s okay,” he says, and he leans against the car now too. “I know you said that I was contributing to making you feel that way, so I owe you an apology for that too.”

You blink up at him.

“Plus, you were dealing with a bunch of pricks,” he says, “and stressed about your future.”

“Mm,” you acknowledge.

“We’re seniors,” he randomly mentions, “I think we’re all just…trying to figure ourselves out? So, I get it. And I don’t want you to feel bad about it.”

You feel a tickle in your throat, and the distracting pain of your nails digging into the palms of your hands is enough to direct your brain away from getting emotional right now. “That’s true. Figuring ourselves out. Mm.”

He gives you a small smile, and then he sighs when he remembers something. “Yeah, a friend of mine just broke up with his girlfriend of six years because he didn’t get into law school, so, stress is a crazy thing.”

“Oh no, I’m so sorry for him–and, them.”

“Yeahhh he bought a ring and everything,” Gojo says, rubbing the back of his neck and wincing a little in empathetic discomfort.

“Oh my gosh.”

“Well, anyway,” he laughs a little, in some sort of fear that he’s just made things awkward, “you don’t have to worry about what you said. I–” he pauses, “I’m hard to get rid of when I want to be around. Ask Suguru, he’s tried to get rid of me on multiple occasions.”

You laugh, and he doesn’t follow up with any more jokes or explanations, like he just wants to hear your laugh in its purity. And you nod, taking in his words for a bit, letting them rerun in your head, because they leave a warmth in you.

“Have you given any thought to what you want to do after graduation?” you ask, and you’re humbled by the fact that you never even thought to ask him that before. Hell, you even asked the stranger you sat next to in stats today that question before you ever asked him.

“Yeah,” he nods, “I think I’m gonna play for the national league.”

“Oh! That’s awesome,” you chirp, “I have no doubt you’ll get it. I’ve seen those recruiters constantly coming up to you during games.” You lightly poke his arm in flattery. “Although you always look super annoyed when they do.”

He laughs. “Yeah, they have no concept of time or place.”

“But anyway,” you say, “that’s really cool. I know your dreams are going to come true, and you’ll be great at it too.”

He nods, and you notice your words seem a little lost on him, like he's distracted by something else, but he covers it up with a well-meaning smile of pursed lips and then another silence settles between you two.

“Oh, what were you gonna,” you start, pointing your finger at him, “what were you gonna say?”

“Oh, right, phew, thanks,” he exhales in relief at the reminder, “well, I guess it’s more of a…question,” he’s sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck, “but we–the frat–is hosting this barbeque thing on Thursday before our game on Friday…and, I was wondering if you’d want to come.” His words hang in the air for a moment as he’s preemptively studying your expression for any clue of an answer, and you realize he’s nervous. When you keep your features neutral, he feels the need to keep speaking. “I mean I—...I’d have to send you the invite, ‘cause it’s kind of an exclusive thing…it’s also in the afternoon since it’s too late in season for us to be throwing parties the night before a game, but, uh, if you’re free,” he pauses to take a breath, “I’d really love it if you came.”

You just stare at him.

He holds his hands up in a slight panic, shoulders tense. “Not a—…it’s not a date though. Don’t worry.”

“Ahh…” you nod, feigning relief but in all honesty you forgot about how many times you’ve turned down his pleas for a date this week and you think it’s sort of cute but also sad that he felt the need to clarify. “Yeah, um, I’ll let you know.”

He smiles, it’s genuine and real and something you’ll never get tired of. “Alright, cool.”

And here you two are standing again in silence, just looking at one another. If you were on the outside, looking in, you’d think that the two of you had just met. Like a fresh start.

Your breathing slows as you gaze up at him, because the way his brow furrows ever so slightly as he looks at you is so handsome and sweet and it makes you remember how when you first met him, you wondered if you’d ever feel relaxed in his presence from how gorgeous he is. Back then, you never would’ve imagined that you would make him nervous someday.

His gaze slowly travels down to your lips, and you feel your eyes soften to where everything else around you is a blur. You want to kiss him. Maybe as a thanks, or a reward, something sweet to show him how much today meant to you. You tilt your head, looking up with doe eyes and flutters of your eyelashes, in the most obvious way a girl could silently tell a guy she wants him to kiss her. He’d have to be the most immensely dense person on the planet to not—

“You really should think about the salsa dancing,” he says, breaking any and all energy between the two of you, “I think it’d be fun.”

You blink at him for a solid ten seconds, and then sigh with a slight slump to your shoulders, because you realize he’s probably never had to guess if a girl wants him to kiss her or not. And he’s still as dense as the person he was when you first fell for him. But there’s something endearing about it, too. Simple. Simple was what you needed. “Mhm.”

After another brief moment of silence, you tuck your hair behind your ears.

“I should get going,” you say, through an awkward half laugh, “I have an essay due at 8AM tomorrow, so...I need to go home and procrastinate.” That earns a short snort from him, and you lean yourself off of the car to head towards the driver’s side. Gojo’s on your tail and then suddenly a step ahead of you as he gets the door for you and you sit inside then fiddle with the rearview mirror just to give your hands something to do because you feel his eyes on you and it’s all-consuming as ever.

“Hey,” he says, resting his elbow on top of the car door as he peers down at you, “text me when you get home.”

You look up at him while you push the keys into ignition. “I will. Good night.”

“Night,” he says with a soft smile on his face, and he hesitates for a moment before he closes the door. Like something someone would do when they don’t want a moment to end.

.

.

.

a/n. thanks so much for reading!! this was such a domestic little chapter to write haha i think it’s the most mellow of the three scenes i wrote for the original longer version of ch10 but sdkfhsdkf i still really enjoyed writing it.

anywhoooooooo the next chapter will be the frat bbq :0 i’m very excited for that one, i think it’s my favorite of the three installments aaa there’s a scene i wrote for it that is one of the highlights in the series for me so far. not because it’s angsty or dramatic or anything, it’s just really silly and cute and horny and is kinda young love vibes and i’m living for that recently because gege has ripped my heart out already i cannot handle angst rn xD hope that’s ok

again thanks so much for reading. i think some of you may know it was really hard for me to push through w writing bc of lots of reasons and stuff that was happening on my account, but all the lovely support n messages really motivated me to not give up on the chapter and i really appreciate that a lot!!

also i had fun dedicating the last chapter to someone, so i kinda wanted to do that again!! i have a lovely n sweet 🫶🏼 anon whose birthday was i think the week after i was supposed to initially post ch10, but unfortunately i didn’t get around to posting it in time even though i said it would be my early bday gift to them BAHAHAH so i wanted to dedicate this chapter to my darling 🫶🏼 anon <33 happy belated birthday my love!!

aaa i’ll hopefully see you in the next one!! :’’) love u all sm <3

- ellie 💕

➸ you're all caught up!

additional notes: please do not ask me for updates (read rules); also, i have decided to officially close the taglist! i’m so sorry, but it’s getting a little too much for me to keep track of :’’) and apparently i have to manually input the tags as well as make separate posts to include everyone because of the tag limit, and it’s too stressful for me lol. i will continue to tag the people who i have been tagging so far (if you were tagged in this chapter or in my separate extended taglist post, i will continue to tag you in future chapters), but if you were not able to make the taglist, i do post on ao3 at the same time as tumblr, and ao3 has a subscription feature where you can get emails for updates! i think that would be helpful for anyone wanting to keep up w the story. sorry!!

taglist:

@megumisdivinedogs @witchbybirth @avatarl0v3r @mwtsxri @asherheed

@wynney @delulux3 @higurumapet @zombriesworld @xenop0p

@phoenix-eclipses @who-can-touch-my-boob @mo0nforme @reagan707 @lost-resonance

@foulprincesscycle @luniunia @alekssashka7 @beabadobeee @thexmistress

@tsukikourito @getitsatoru @gabriiiiiiii @kissofife @tiredflame132

[lesbiabmatsu]

Who out of the gang has pierced ears? What are their favorite earrings?

Osomi has hers pierced! Just one in each earlobe. She's mostly a plain studs kind of girl, simple metallics, but once in a while she does pull out one particular pair of dangly earrings that look like realistic cherries.

Karami has both earlobes and one helix piercing. She's debating getting more, but she is as determined to look Obviously Gay as she is very, very forgetful. She prefers silver over gold, unlike her classic canon counterpart, and when she doesn't have very small but chunky rings in, she loves fake jewels, rainbow colored items, and gaudy costume pieces.

Choromi has hers pierced too! She told herself when she had them done, "I won't be one of those 'lol so quirky' gays. Not everything needs to be silly novelty earrings and frogs. I'm deep and multifaceted!" She now owns, besides a few pairs of simple studs, oodles of silly novelty earrings, some in the shape of frogs. A few other favorites are tiny melon soda floats, four leaf clovers, and kiwi and lime slices.

Ichimi is, in this universe and all others, TERRIFIED OF NEEDLES. NO. HER EARS ARE NOT PIERCED, AND NEVER WILL BE IF SHE HAS ANY SAY IN IT. She does have a pair of little clip ons that almost look like teeny tiny little Bowser wristcuffs, and a pair with little pastel capsules for the full menhera look, but she's not getting real ones.

Jyuushimi considers them a mild hazard. She goes fast, she gets rowdy, and she can't risk her poor earses getting hurt. She has been eyeing some little banana slice earrings, but she resists.

Totty absolutely has hers done, and she is in uwu pastel heaven. Strawberries on whorls of whipped cream, tiny chubby ribbons, little My Melodys (and Kuromis, if she's in a big pining mood), the list goes on into eternity. She accessorizes HARD.

[pacificwanderer]

Hello. I just want to say that I'm eager for you to talk about the theory that maybe Ben also lost his connection with the Force after the events of TLJ. :)

Hey! Me too! I’m going to combine this with another ask that I’m putting below the cut because it gets long and ranty lol, but similar theme.

I saw a meltdown from someone who is now saying that "If Rey is weak and can't control the force properly without Kylo, SW and Disney is anti-feminist" and also said "This is probably a vendetta to keep Kylo alive because without him she would be useless. What is the point of making a force-user character like this? She is worthless. She has to rely on a man to gain excess to her power! I bet she'll have to ask permission like a obedient wife." What the actual F? This is not how the force works!

OKAY lol, so here’s the deal. Rant incoming, and not directed at you, Nonnie. Just general tone of rantiness:

Some people are just going to have to come to terms with the fact that Ben and Rey are are their strongest when they work together. Because, guess what? Kylo is having a hard time dealing with this shit too and, as we get more information during the lead up to the movies, I bet you he’s been having a hard time controlling his Force powers as well. As someone pointed out (maybe the following thread? i can’t find the damn comment), Kylo only fixes Hux’s collar after reaching towards him with what looks like a typical, Kylo going to Force choke you power, only for him to reach out and fix his collar instead. Yeah, of course it’s ship bait, but I also think that it’s more than that. I think he’s having the same struggles connecting with the Force as Rey.

The Force is fucking PISSED at these two. Here it brought them together, showed them how great they are as a team and how well they can protect/work together, and then they fucked it all up (because we’re at the midpoint in a three movie series and they had to). SO YEAH. If it’s not working for one, it’s not working for the other. Once they realize that they need to work together, like the Force has been showing them since TFA (hell, it even kept Rey and Kylo separated with the literal planet splitting between them so they couldn’t fight anymore), they will be unstoppable. They are literally each other’s equal in the Force.

“Darkness rises and Light to meet it.” WE KNOW THIS. The movie shows us this!

She’s conflicted and having a hard time centering her thoughts because she’s thinking about Ben and the burdens that are on her shoulders. She’s a GD symbol and that’s got to be hard to deal with without having a thing for the literal Supreme Leader of the galaxy. If she didn’t care about him (and if they didn’t have a fucking Force bond), this wouldn’t be an issue. But it is an issue because she cares about him. A lot! He disappointed her, and she disappointed him (not getting into the who’s right in that scenario because it’s irrelevant. Fact of the matter is, they both feel betrayed). Also, is she keeping that a secret? Who knows that she went to the Supremacy to save him? Aside from maybe Leia? Because that’s a pretty big fucking secret to have on your shoulders too.

She doesn’t need to ask his permission, she needs to understand that the conflict within her is coming as a result of her feelings for him and her own inabilty to reconcilate and accept her own dark side. Just like he needs to come to terms with and accept the light side in him. I really think that we’re going beyond good and evil with this. Might not be gray jedi (I know Pablo hates that term lol), but something new, something that is purely Force. OH and you know who agrees with me?

Luke fucking Skywalker:

“Using the Force is all about finding balance. And some Force users, particularly Force-sensitive children--known by the Jedi as younglings--are able to tap into its energy without an obvious alignment to either side. The Force simply flows through them in its purest form. Based on the constant struggles I’ve witnessed between the light and the dark sides of the Force, perhaps their innate neutrality can teach us all a valuable lesson.”

This is a Force issue, it’s a relationship issue, and it’s something they’re going to have to work through if they’re ever going to be able to resolve what’s between them. And think about it, when I’m upset with someone I care about, it impacts my ability to be able to do my work, absolutely it does.

Does that make it sexist? Fucking no. It means I care for them and I need to figure out how to solve the problem! I either need to talk to them and sort my shit out, or take a deep breath and find my center. Just like they need to find their center in the Force, but you know what helps? Having a friend or someone who understands there with you to help along the way. To help you understand the experiences you might have otherwise not understood.

The Force is there, it’s always there, and Rey’s had a hard time balancing herself for a while (remember the whole meditation thing with Luke). She needs help. She herself has said she needs help. There’s a power that inside her that she doesn’t understand and she needs to learn how to wield it. And guess who’s been set up to be her teacher (in one way or another) since TFA? Kylo fucking Ren. She goes to dark the same way he can’t keep himself from being attracted by the light.

THEY BALANCE EACH OTHER. And it’s okay! Her powers aren’t being taken from her, but her ability to access them is hampered by her own emotional state. Once she finds her center, her ability to use the Force properly will be just fine (because I think people forget that it takes a lot of mental control to be able to use the Force properly--hell, even Luke struggles with it on Hoth! Remember who helps him there? Obi-Wan’s Force ghost! Guess that’s sexist????).

Hell, I think she’s finding her center in the trailer when she backflips over Kylo’s TIE.

So much discourse comes from people’s headcanons not being validated and I certainly know that some of mine won’t be, but a lot of this angst is because people have been willfully ignoring what the story has been telling them all along.

Heteronormative? Sure, you could make a case for that, and this series as a whole needs to do better wrt representation across the board. Not feminist? How is saying that the only way a woman can be strong is if she only ever relies on herself any more feminist? I’m tired of this fucking narrative where women heroes aren’t allowed to have the same flaws, fuckups, weaknesses, you know, just generally be an interesting character, like their male counterparts. It’s bullshit. Women are multifaceted. They’re allowed to have flaws. They’re allowed to ask for help. They’re allowed to need other people. This shit carries over into IRL and I fucking hate it. Women do not have to be perfect. Not in life and certainly not in fucking fiction. YOU CAN BE A GREAT HERO AND STILL HAVE FLAWS. You can be a hero and not go it alone. You can be a hero and still fail.

The only reason some people have a problem with this is because they don’t like the character that’s clearly causing her conflict right now (but he’s not the only reason she’s feeling conflict!!!!). This all comes down to their fucking hate for Kylo Ren because if she was reliant on the character they shipped her with, there wouldn’t be a gd peep right now.

Anyways, I typed this all out, debated not posting it, but I’m gonna because it took a while.

People are going to believe what they want, I’m not going to change any opinions, but they have to take a moment to ask themselves why they are willing to invest so much time in energy in a series that apparently doing everything they hate all the time? Seems like a big waste of time to me.

Cheers!

[justkimberley]

HSMTMTS Thoughts Episode 7

Episode 1   Episode 2    Episode 3   Episode 4   Episode 5  Episode 6

This one is also kinda long (~2200 words)

Nini and Ricky doing a fantastic job harmonizing in Start of Something New

the dance routine around them is absolutely crazy and all over the place

So it seems that Seb is just their resident piano player (side note, who ended up getting Kelsey??)

Big Red with the flashlight trying so hard to keep it on the disco ball

EJ interrupting because of the bell. Does anyone really love Thanksgiving that much??

Also I always forget that American Thanksgiving is like a month later than Canadian Thanksgiving and I was hella confused for a second.

Ricky is so surprised that Nini is complimenting him

Ashlyn as Robotics Team captain! (side note Big Red gives her an impressed look after he overhears that she’s the captain)

Also: debate team, baking club, high priestess of the Renaissance Faire

We love a multifaceted lady

Miss Jenn/Mr. Mazzarra trying to have a ‘my horse is bigger than your horse’ banter except neither of them have the horses they claim to have

“With whoever could possibly love you,” lol ok Miss Jenn went for the head

“Late night party” - party starts at 8 that’s adorable

“Small group or…” “PARTY AT ASHLYN’S HOUSE!”

It’s really interesting learning about Nini’s Lola (? I think that’s how it’s spelled, which is what I believe Filipino people call their grandmother’s), and her story

I’m just really proud of Ricky’s Dad. Like he was in such a bad place 2-3 episodes ago and now he’s taking care of himself and Ricky (even if it isn’t a grandiose Thanksgiving) he’s trying and I think he’s doing great

“We roll hard” I just really love this line

“I suppose if you’re lonely, you could always just… randomly text my drama teacher,” “Too soon… RIck,” “... yeah okay”

That was pretty funny. Also, it seems like Ricky’s okay with his dad dating?

Ricky’s mom waiting for him to call

I don’t know how I feel about this to be honest. I feel like maybe she should have tried to call him first and then if he didn’t answer or want to talk to her, that she should wait for him to make the next move then.

EJ’s truth arc is very funny to me

Big Red and Ashlyn

“I promise not to steal your phone if you promise not to throw a basketball at my face,” “No, the only thing I’d ever throw at your face is a brighter spotlight cause, I like the way you sing

Oof they’re so cute, we love little crushes

Also this might be an unpopular opinion but y’all need to calm down about the whole ‘Ashlyn and Big Red are GAY and they only THINK theyy like each other’ thing. #1 It was never confirmed for them to be gay. #2 You can still have wlw and mlm head-cannons for them! Bi, Pan, and other multiple gender attraction oriented people exist, even if you forget about us sometimes.

They are a cute little pairing of people who are always looking out and taking care of other people. It’s okay for them to do things for themselves.

Ricky debating calling his mom, it took a lot of courage and then Todd picks up.

Hangs up immediately, it almost looked like he was going to have a panic attack. That would be so hard, such an extreme shift

I guess the reason he was more okay with his Dad dating was that his Dad was open and honest with him about it. Calling your Mom only to find out that she has a boyfriend that a. She never told you about b. He knows about you and c. is trusted enough to be left alone with her phone while she showers? Is a lot, and probably means that she started dating him before the split was official.

Ricky going to call Nini and then deciding against it. Why doesn’t he feel like he can talk to Big Red about this kind of stuff? Why does he always go to Nini first?

Gina shows up, those are good looking cupcakes

She made him a hat!

She looks so hesitant before she gives it to him!

Gina’s like ‘look dude, I know something’s wrong, spill the beans’

Ignore it and push through - I understand where she’s coming from but you really shouldn’t ignore your problems, it usually just makes them worse

“Do what makes you happy,” “... Give me that hat,”

Adorable, also do what makes you happy is good advice so we’re a little all over the map here

“That’s too big,” “I’ll grow into it,” (adorable)

Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzarra’s whole interaction is hilarious.

Don’t burn down my shop! - holy shit, foreshadowing buddies

Ashlyn is so cute! She’s so happy when people compliment her

“I highly recommend not telling someone you love them for the first time on instagram” - yup! That’s what I said in the first one of these I did.

Carlos - “The party may begin!” - I totally thought he said “The party made me gay,” the first time I watched it so uhh yeah

Big Red is lactose intolerant

Carlos’ board game is amazing

“High School Musical the Choosical,” - fantastic name

Everyone is so accepting

Ashlyn and Big Red choosing to be on the same team

“South Side Knights -” “It’s the West High Nights,” “the West High Knights”

Ej is like a compulsive truther now. And it’s kind of hilarious

His face when he says “She laughed!” is hilarious and kind of adorable

“I gotta go join the party, and admit some terrible things, you ladies, catch up!” - I wish we got to see what he was admitting to, I find this whole thing quite funny

I’m glad that Emily and Nini got some reconciliation, I know Nini felt guilty even though it wasn’t her fault

That is not a good cockney accent

Why did Ricky enter alone when him and Gina walked together?

And he left her to open the door on her own with all those cupcakes?

“Buddies,” “We,”

Ricky and Gina both laughing about YouTube, cuties

Look, feelings are feelings and you can’t help what you feel, but pushing someone away and insisting to remain only friends means that you shouldn’t be upset when he makes a new friend

Mr. Mazzara and Miss Jenn

The plug socket is in the frame, more foreshadowing

“He won’t.. Not… fall” this show loves it’s double negatives huh? I don’t not love you, he won’t not fall etc.

“Ok but the center of gravity is off,” YES to different kinds of intelligence being helpful in fields other than the main one people associate them with

Carlos thinking people are going to keep judging him and the theater people being as accepting as possible

EJ is a gleek

What I’ve Been Looking For to the rhythm of Get Your Head in the Game is hard! (Catch me on the piano later trying to figure it out lol)

It just turns into a terrible rap

EJ - “That was terrible,” Seb -  “I’m so happy”

EJ vs. Ricky - “without laughing… or killing each other,”

This is a good parallel to the basketball scene, once again they get kind of aggressive, but this time they also joke around and no one gets hurt

Also I would love to see them become friends, I mean they both need to grow a little before that happens, but I have hopes

They missed the ‘neeee howww’ part of it, I really wanted to hear them do the high voices

EJ’s little “mehh” that sounds like a duck kills me everytime

Gina and Nini awkwarddd

“I do have high hopes for a junior year at East High” oof babey :(

“It must be nice sometimes though, right?” - nini does not understand

This actually gives us an insight as to why they don’t understand each other. Nini would love nothing more than to start a new life with no drama and Gina would love nothing more than to have a life that lasts longer than a couple months before being restarted.

Gina/Nini apology very exciting, hopefully they can actually become friends

“It’s all good,” from Nini seemed disingenuous, I don’t know if it’s because of the Wonderstudy thing or the Ricky thing. 

The sleepover thing I was so worried that it would be a mean spirited thing but I’m so glad it wasn’t

Nini sits on Ricky’s lap when she goes back to the game room and I don’t know if it’s intentional or not but it’s kind of like she’s trying to lay her claim back on Ricky.

Gina looks so happy when a. Carlos calls her in and b. the happy dance about the sleepover! (why’d they have to ruin the happiness??)

Mr. Mazarra returning the favour

“It’s beautiful,” “Math often is,” dudde I feel you I fucking love math

“I cannot stress to you enough how uncomfortable that would make me feel,”

“You know what we should do?” “Break off eye contact sometime soon?”

I’m dying

“It’s about a robot!” this is… pretty adorable. She just wants to make a genuine connection with him

Also are they going to do a romance route with these two? Because I can see them setting it up but also imagine if they just become like… best friends? I feel like they’d be unstoppable.

Musical Choosical Handbook of Rulesicals

“I thought you had never actually played this with people-” “Honey not today of all days,”

Carlos and Seb are the only couple with no bad drama and I’m living for it (please let them just stay happy)

Oops! I knew that jersey question… also it’s definitely the answer Big Red would now because he’s only watched the movie with no words (at his allergists office)

“And do people usually talk like that?” “No they do not.” - gold

EJ the compulsive cheater and also compulsive truther makes a comeback (I seriously find this so funny I don’t know why)

“I love to pop and lock and jam and break,” oh GIna

She’s so happy about winning

Not realistic, you know that the second she called her mom at least someone would be like “pass the weed,” (you know because friends are awesome and also terrible)

“Can you take me off speaker”

Some people are like ‘oh no is she in trouble?’

I kind of hate that it looks like Nini looks sort of happy about Gina’s mom asking her to take her off speaker - I really don’t want Nini to turn into a catty person.

Ricky is concerned

Why did her mom tell her this right now? She should have waited until the next morning, like that wouldn’t have hurt anyone and it would have let them form stronger bonds. And Gina would have had her first sleepover and also they might form strong enough bonds to try and stay in contact with her

Ricky is worried for her, he’s like, ‘You made me feel better, so I’ll go make you feel better’

Nini’s looking upset that Ricky’s being emotionally aware for once? Like dude, he’s grown up a lot since BEFORE summer break? That’s like six months ago I think at this point?

Ricky just wants to help Gina feel better because she made him feel better

She doesn’t understand that they can stay friends even if she leaves and I just :(

“Please don’t do that” he’s so overwhelmed

“My mom moved out two weeks ago and she’s already got a new boyfriend, sound familiar?” Oooh low blow Ricky bud.

“Really don’t need advice from a .. buddy right now,”

Ok but then who does Ricky want advice from? I’m so confused. This boy needs to get a better support system and learn how to use it. Romantic relationships should not be your only outlet for your problems.

Red and Ashlyn

“I hope Gina’s gonna be okay,” - Big Red is so sweet!

They’re so cute

“Hey Big Red? Don’t forget your dip,” - oh she was so going to ask him out and then lost the nerve

Write something for yourself.

It’s a hard thing to do, dude. It’s also hard to let yourself feel so vulnerable, even if it’s only you that’s going to hear it

Gina packing, I feel so sad for her, she’s finally made some good friends and now she has to leave again. She kept the badge! :( 

EJ losing followers and being cancelled, at least we know why now

It seems like a lot of EJ’s self worth comes from how others think of him. So losing followers is probably a pretty big hit. I wonder if he’ll keep going with his whole truth thing when it has these consequences or if he’ll just go back to what he was doing before. I hope that he has a positive arc but, will it go downhill from here? I hope not.

Ricky about to apologise to Nini (why did he erase it, he probably should have sent that) - side note: their conversation before was them asking each other if they were going to the party

It’s interesting that Nini had pictures of EJ and Ricky up still

Gina’s crying face is making me cry

“Hey mom, it’s me, I miss you so much,” tears

Nini hanging up pictures of her grandma and the musical. She’s really trying to move forward from boys huh?

Is nini going to apply to the theater school??

Electrical fire???????? WHy??

[smokingasters]

Lol the problem with Akane for me is she’s hard to read in the movie. The novels make her inner thoughts much clearer and we figure out her true intentions. I actually have many thoughts about her and Kogami which I haven’t been able to pen down.

It’s clear that Akane struggles to accept Kogami’s style of thinking, which is opposite to hers. Kogami isn’t the idealistic Inspector that he used to be, if he had been that person, Akane and Kogami would have made a much stronger unit against Sybil if they had met back then.

Akane believes the law must be given a chance, a law that cannot be manipulated by Sybil, while Kogami has lost his faith in the law. Somewhere he still believes that the law can’t protect people. So the convo between Akane and Atsushi in the car in the novel, highlights how Akane struggles to accept the judgment of people like Kogami.

And then Saiga reiterates to her, that justice and law are multifaceted. There’s no “absolute” law. The collective may as well disagree with Akane’s or Kogami’s interpretation of what the law means and there are some who are entirely comfortable with Sibyl making that decision. We see this in the people that Akane stands against in the meeting.

By the end of the movie we don’t know the reaction of the public to Akane’s decision. Her killing of the bureau chief to stall the dissolution of the Ministry of Justice, in a world governed by Sybil, where the debate rises again that if a persons hue is clear, and they kill someone, does it constitute as a crime? Or is the theory of the crime coefficients itself false?

PPP Novel is out❣️

...just in time for the Lunar New Year Eve, Feb. 9th. 🎉

Noitamina Shop will hold Arata Shindo-kun's bday campaign and at the same time promotes the PPP novel sale 🥂🥳.

Have you already prepared dried persimmons? 🤗 You know, in ancient times people used to wind-hang outside Hoshigaki, thus the Japanese lantern shape we know about today were taken from. 📸 Google Images.

Quick Review:

During the premier of PPP movie before the Global launch, fans kept asking Dir. Shiotani about

The meaning of empty liquor bottle in Kogami's desk.

Why Kogami removed his jacket during his balcony scene

And his answer were simple. Kogami didn't know the difference of wearing it inside or outside. At first, I thought it was some kind of a funny little joke, or I didn't understand the words full well (I'm not a full-bred Japanese though I studied Nihonggo way back in grade school).

But if you read the PPP novel, you will realize Kogami isn't fully adjusted from his traumatic experiences as a mercenary overseas 🤧. So he doesn't feel how to act just as he used to when he's back.

And ofcourse, we all know he and Saiga only emptied the liquor after long hours of chatting and Tonami profiling.

2. It's interesting that the writing team have taken the pulse of the fans during the Q&A session, thus some points in PPP novel is what we might've expect after all ���.

3. Some may say it's nothing new. As it seems the writing team pretty much remain loyal to the movie summary. But if you read between the lines, you realize how it is a bit forgiving & fan-serving, compare to the movie itself 👍🏻.

4. The locations...last minute alterations... 😆😂.

5. And ofcourse the last time Akane spent with Saiga on his detention cell 😭. She literally blame herself for asking him to come to them on Dejima in MoFA's HQ to retrieve the Stronskaya Papers a day after. Which we all know ended tragically.

6. She pulls the trigger. She question the justice. Which quotes the same kind of line from PP3 novel when she's writing her thoughts down in an analogue typewriter. From that scene she thought of Kogami's action and how Sybil judged him for that.

But in PPP novel, no doubt she puts into consideration the life of Atsushi Shindo and how he was used as a pawn, only to be a master pawn who puppets the life of another pawn like what happened to Akira Ignatov.

Aswell as Akira Ignatov's sacrifice. He volunteered to be a puppet for the sake of the future generation. For the sake of his brother in particular 😢😓😓😢.

7. Frede-chan's holding back and being indecisive to keep the truth about the mission to Kogami. Is like keeping her phone number to her crush 😹🤭. Sure, she's just conscious how would Kou-chan would react since she knows Saiga and him are pretty close 😮‍💨.

8. The writing team did a pretty good job by staying true to their plot work. They know what they're doing. As if taken up some piece of advice from Gege Akutami 😅😂.

9. The last scene is pretty much heart-aching but well executed 😘🤌🏻❤️

10. The General was a medical AI but I wonder if the creator of Sybil also created that?... how about BiFrost? Oh hello, Season 4! We're waving at you ☺️😀!

11. Many hate Akane for trying to control Kogami, again?! Let me get this straight, SHE ISN'T CONTROLLING ANYONE!

There's a MASSIVE difference when he a.) first pulled the trigger against Makishima (out of revenge) and when he b.) pulls that against Tonami.

Akane knows it best.

a) She doesn't want him to be a person swallowed by revenge like Sasuke (Naruto).

b) She hopes Kogami is back for the better but instead he acted again with his animal instinct which indicates he can still be easily outplayed by emotions instead of not letting it get the human out of him.

Akane still looks up to Kogami. She knows he was labeled as a latent criminal by Sybil. But the way Kou acted is like proving to Sybil that their labeling of him as latent criminal was right. And if there's one thing Akane isn't fond of, that is proving Sybil right.

So it's not about Kogami. It's about her campaign against Sybil's false and unfair judgement! So don't mock her! 😖

Lastly, PPP novel is enjoyable because a lot of fans are exerting efforts to translate it to English for fans abroad. Kudos to you all❣️

Not everyone have the time, capacity and dedication you've spent. Including me, I'm not good in translation. So thank you. You are the heart of PSYCHO-PASS franchise global expansion ❤️🥰.

End of Review.

Okay, so that wasn't a quick one 😋 sorry about that. I just hope you guys have a wonderful day. Have fun and enjoy everything that you do!

🥰🤗

Meanwhile, the original crew of PP1 are in their podcast discussing how the series have been progressing so far 😋😂

Nah! It's just a trace sketch of CD Discussion Vol. 1

🤣🤣🤣

[uchiha-madara]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO / [Madara is both famous and infamous and i’ve seen so many people either hate or love him with absolutely no in between but the consensus seems to be positive (at least from personal experience)]

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO/ 50/50 [Some people think Madara’s absolutely hot and there are other people that think he’s.. not. I think it’s the eyebags lol, he just needs some sleep ]

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO [ the only one stronger than him was Kaguya. (at least from a 1v1 perspective, the only one that got close was Maito Gai) LBR here, the man took on an entire shinobi army, consisting of the Kage and the 9 tails. Hashirama and Tobirama, both.. he’s stacked, literally God-tier by shinobi standards. He’s considered powerful, yes, but sometimes I see that people don’t really take that into account when interacting with him in his canon-divergent verses, or try to make a mockery of him. He wouldn’t stand for that bs, tbh.]

Are they underrated?  YES / NO [It seems that as time goes on and Boruto progresses the original cast seems pushed to the side, especially when new villains come out, and new challenges are to be faced. I’d say, yes now. No, when he was first revealed in the shinobi war (i remember how everyone was so excited to see him maul ppl in the shinobi war, but that was so many years ago now).]

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO. [The last part of the manga was directly about the protagonists fighting him and was only overshadowed by Kaguya, so I’d say..yes.]

Were they relevant for the main character?  YES / NO 

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. [Not really an inbetween here, either.]

How strictly do you follow canon? – So I tend to follow Madara’s canon personality and his backstory, but most of what I write comes after the shinobi war, whether it be in a modern verse or immortal au or anything of the like. The one constant is his personality and experiences in the past, which i try to mirror in all my au because it’s easier to keep his personality consistent if that makes any sense at all.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals. – Madara’s ambitious, hard working, cunning--basically a Slytherin without the blood purity bs, let’s acknowledge that. He’s surprisingly forward with his reasoning why he’s doing what he’s doing, so he’s not afraid to make waves to change the world to make it a better place (in his view ofc). He’s not afraid to use whatever or whoever is at his disposal to guarantee his victory, even if it’s not completely ideal. You can guarantee that his motivations, while not completely on the “right” side of the moral compass aligns with what he believes is right, which is a double edged sword for him. He’s bold and speaks his mind, and is not afraid of the consequences.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  – Madara has a bad habit of not trusting people, of becoming too paranoid about their motivations and that’s become his downfall multiple times. He’s too determined or stubborn to see when his plan isn’t working and waits too long to change it and ultimately leads to his ruin. He’s not nice by any means at all, and that makes a lot of people dislike him even if his motivations are good. Also, another note, especially about fandom: they consider madara either complete trash or a complete god, when he’s multifaceted and it’s very hard to not be annoyed by it. A lot of people just consider him this evil entity and it’s.. frustrating.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  – So I was writing Madara when everyone thought Tobi was Madara and I really liked how everything was leading--how he was manipulating the entire world to do what he wanted and immediately wanted to write him because his mentality was so different than mine. Granted, I was coming from writing an OC, Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy (two of which i had wrote with my irl friends since I was in middle school, passing a notebook between classes every day). I wanted and needed a change because my passion for writing was waning and Madara held my interest very well (more than any of the other characters tbh, minus Itachi.)

What keeps your inspiration going?  – My partners, new thread ideas especially, when i see new content/art/etc of my muse is a big one. I can see someone draw an au and immediately think of a couple thread ideas based on that. When the content stops coming, it’s hard to write even if I do post a lot of sketches/madara content myself.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO.

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO.

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO/ (I used to on multiple blogs but stopped because it got too hectic)

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day?  YES / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO.

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person?  YES /NO. (Not really, I’ve had to grow quite thick skin to continue writing in this fandom and i’m too stubborn to stop now if someone steps over a couple things. After all, a lot of context is lost through text only messaging. 9/10 times it’s a genuine miscommunication.)

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  – Yes, even if I’m skeptical at first. I can learn from anyone or anything, even if it’s not worded so nicely.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  – !! I love them so much. I love writing about what he would think or do, and basically flesh out headcanons that I already have. It would actually give me an excuse to.

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  –  Mmhm. Yes, of course. I would love to know why and what basis they have in the manga or why they think it so. It’s fun to have a healthy debate every once in a while. you know?

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  – I’d just let it rest and let them have their own opinions about it. Not a big deal to me. 

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it? – I just want to know why. He’s a great character, has had ups and downs, redemption multiple times, etc, so there’s so much to discuss about it. If they hate him they hate him and that’s their business but I’d have to admit that I’m curious why.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  – Hell yeah. Point it out, I want to get better when I write 

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?  – Yeah! I honestly don’t care about formatting, icons, etc. I’m not too picky about thread content, I enjoy ooc conversation a lot, I’m pretty much open to anything, if anything, I like interacting with people a little too much and tend to do that instead of reply lol

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

Tagged by: @shattered-by-sparks Tagging: steal it from me, if you see this and haven’t done it yet, consider yourself tagged <3

[benjiswinburneme-blog]

Trolling and Social Media

When I grow up, I want to be a troll…...said no one ever!

 So why are there so many of them out there? Want to go troll hunting? You’ll find them hiding in the comment section of Facebook, sliding into your direct messages on Instagram, on Reedit under forums to do with Politics, Sex and Gender, Celebrity, Gun Laws, Race and Religion, their all pretty juicy go to topics for your average joe troll.

 But what is a troll? The term “trolling” evolved as a way to describe hateful provocation or bullying online. (Swinburne Online 2017) Or as UrbanDictionary (2018) puts it – The Art of deliberately, cleverly, and secretly pissing people off, usually via the internet. I much prefer and can relate to the second definition. Much of what might be considered trolling, appears to stem from multifaceted communication, cultural understanding, immaturity, boredom, entertainment and diverse thinking (Boyd 2014, p.139).  

It’s a very sensitive topic and there is a fine line between, trolling to piss people off and get a reaction because you might be bored. Then there is trolling with a malicious intent which falls under cyberbullying. Now according to LawStuff (2018) in New South Wales, if you are found cyber bullying someone in any way that intentionally encourages or causes them to kill themselves there is a maximum penalty of 5 years jail time. Serious stuff and unfortunately is seen more and more within young youth and teenagers. The use of anonymity also increases trolling amongst teenagers, who may not see the effects their online behaviour has on their victims (Ozden & Icellioglu 2014, p. 4383).

Personally, I’m not sure if it’s already happening, but I would love to see some sort of digital etiquette rolled out into schools as we continue further into this digital age. Teaching kids and teenagers the correct way to behave online, and reinforce the fact that while you may seem invincible hidden behind your laptop screen, actions have consequences, even on the internet.

 Now before I say goodbye and you go on your troll hunt the good people at Lifewire (2018) have put together a list of 10 types of Internet trolls you can look out for.

1.     The Insult Troll – pure hater, plain and simple.

2.     The Persistent Debate Troll – Loves a good argument

3.     The Grammar Spellcheck Troll – We all know this type of person

4.     The Forever Offended Troll – You’ll find these trolls when controversial topics are discussed.

5.     The Show-off, Know-it-All –Close relative to persistent debate troll.

6.     The Profanity and ALL CAPS TROLL – enough said.

7.     One Word Only Troll – “K” “Yes” “Lol” “no” “what”

8.     Exaggeration Troll – Love to blow everything out of proportion

9.     The Off-Topic Troll – Pretty straight forward

10.  Spammer Troll – Good luck getting a word in.

 I thought I’d add a few interesting reads I came across while researching for our groups presentation as well.

 https://jezebel.com/the-cops-dont-care-about-violent-online-threats-what-d-1682577343

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/02/what-happened-confronted-cruellest-troll-lindy-west

 Reference List:

 Boyd, D 2014, 'Bullying: Is the Media Amplifying Meanness and Cruelty?', in It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Yale University Press, New Haven, USA, pp. 128-52.

 LawStuff, 2015, “Cyber bullying” LawStuff Organisation, viewed 29th January 2018< http://www.lawstuff.org.au/nsw_law/topics/bullying/cyber-bullying>

Moreau, E 2018, “10 Types of Internet Trolls You’ll meet online” LifeWire, viewed 29th January 18, < https://www.lifewire.com/types-of-internet-trolls-3485894>

 Ozden, M. S. & Icellioglu, S 2014, ‘The perception of cyberbullying and cyber victimization by university students in terms of their personality factors’, Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, vol. 16, pp. 4379-4383.

 Swinburne Online, 2017, ‘Week 7: Digital Communities’, viewed 22 December 2017, https://swinburneonline.instructure.com/courses/77/pages/7-dot-2-trolling-and-provocation?module_item_id=6782.

 Urban Dictionary, 2018, “Trolling” UrbanDictionary, viewed 29th January 2018  <https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trolling>

[sleepymarmot]

Twilight Mirage liveblog 4/5 (episodes 55-63)

55-56

Ha, Austin rereads the passage I just came back to relisten 

Yeah, this only proves the point that you can't put the wellbeing and infrastructure of an entire society on the shoulders of 300 people with superpowers, and the warmth of their personal relationship with the rest ot the people! Sorry, I can't make myself sad about this system that was ridiculous and inherently unsustainable from the start!

But how about… Not mean humans ~enslaving innocent Divines~ because they're not idealistic enough or too utilitarian or w/e… not the Divines going “Oh no the 30k years of our love weren't real! You only want us for our bodies! Guess we'll die” and flopping over… How about Divines actually step up and sacrifice themselves willingly for the common good, you know, the way countless humans have done in this universe across both arcs?! “They could be made to be what Candidates once were” Oh boo fucking hoo!

I'm just. Thinking of C/w finale and how unnecessarily brutal it was and how many people sacrificed themselves and others for the greater good. And you're telling me that the Divines and the entire Fleet as a society are too precious for that? And I don't mean sacrifice yourself like Belgard, I mean the bigger picture. A utopia that isn't for everyone isn't a utopia, etc, see that post about The Good Place that got a surprising amount of notes lol

Also count me as an Independence kin still. I would absolutely break up with someone over the right to die (then run away and make everyone really upset by my mere presence then behave in such a way they have to kill me, twice. Okay maybe not this part)

Honestly the whole concept of the Fleet sounds so toxic. It's like being fully financially dependent on your beloved parents forever.

Oh wait here's another thing I must rage about: they stopped making new Divines so that they wouldn't be enslaved! Here's a novel idea: how about instead making a Divine that could be turned into a more productive machine… you make that machine in the first place??? You know, how people in real life make machines to use instead of manual labor??

Like, the problem with Divines is a two-sided coin:

Flawed individuals should not possess inordinate amounts of power. They might abuse it, misuse or just use with good intentions but in controversial or questionable ways (see: the Divines in Counter/weight).

As a flip side, making an entire community almost fully dependent on labor of a small group of sentient beings of a separate species is an unfair burden to them, and even if it is provided willingly. The benefitters become dependent on providers, which is exacerbated by the latter's small numbers (the Fleet being thrown into a crisis by the loss of the final Divines and only coming out of it fine because another superpowered being happened to be nearby). The providers are put at risk of exploitation (the Divines of being “enslaved/killed”), especially since they are outnumbered. The benefitters’ genuine love for the providers is undermined and may eventually be corrupted and superseded by their vested interest in maintaining this arrangement -- but at the same time, wanting more resources is a natural thing and people cannot and should not be blamed for it. This relationship may be mutually beneficial (and it was for an astonishingly long time) but carries an inherent risk.

So Divines potentially have too much and too little power at the same time. Both of these problems could have been avoided if “a special kind of synthetic beings” and “algorithms and robots that provide unique services that form the backbone of society” were two separate things in the first place! Fine, you can't undo what happened tens of thousands of years ago under very specific circumstances and specific threat, but you could try to recognize the problem instead of building a community whose structure is bound to bring that problem to the forefront sooner or later. 

Okaaay, so where did the Divines that “didn't make the cut”, other than Independence, go? Is there a club of really bitter superpowered rejects somewhere?

I really don't get why Tender is having such a crisis

Austin and Janine are a pair of sadistic bastards lmao

I can't believe it's only been an hour into the episode, feels like an eternity (in a good way)        

On the one hand, it's nice that at least Anticipation was thinking about the things I wrote above. On the other, “They could be made to be what Candidates once were” becomes even more ridiculous, because Anticipation is using her excerpt like a candidate Right Now! In order to determine whether she and her kin should be used! 

Tender gets her own version of the “Independence makes Grand an offer he can't refuse” scene :D 

Okay, my first objection to “giving it to Sho” was “um, you want to waste that resource on becoming a museum piece?!” but my current one is, unlike the players' “Anticipation would hurt Sho”, is “do you really want to combine this with Sho's high-strung personality?”

Aaand Tender makes the right choice :D I'm glad.

Wow! This second episode has wildly exceeded all my expectations. What a ride

57-59 

No offense, but I wish the three episodes of “everything is Advent's fault somehow, again” didn't stand in my way to the much superior premise of “Grand Magnificent and Waltz Tango Cache rescue Fouteen from a newly arrived rival faction's flagship”. God, I hope this goes in some interesting unexpecting direction asap. 

Wait, was it ever mentioned that Echo's family is also separated onto the two planets? That's new to me, and it would have been relevant to the first post-Miracle arc. 

Gig making a bold move, getting hit with 4 stress at once and gaining a status at the beginning of the mission: 

Blease tell me someone has redrawn that Community gif with Echo entering the completely trashed ship. That's such a good image

The entire throwing maneuver and the rolls they got… Absolutely fucking crazy

I actually yelped out loud when Echo failed a fucking desperate roll inside the light beam

How come Echo's nanites were inactive before but got activated now? How does that work? 

It's strange how suddenly the show got intense again! The missions after the Miracle felt fun but unengaging for me, and I didn't expected it to pick up until the finale. So many ups and downs in this arc! Can't believe how quickly and often it went from “we basically won” to mortal danger in about one turn. The title should have been “Echo Reverie's Terrible, Bad, No Good Day”… Glad to see the theme of the weight of violence back. It feels very natural as a conflict between Even and Echo, but I wonder if later it would involve Grand Magnificent too – the discussion during Even's message for Cascabel reminded me of what I wrote after the holiday special.

60-61 

Being one of the only two party members doesn't suit Waltz, he has to act dumb for the sake of player agency 

I understand why Jack wants to see what the “new job” is about, but not why Fourteen does!

Ending the recap on “Now you're gonna go your separate ways, and everything's gonna fall apart” is, um, nice

Wait, why is Fourteen on their last life? And how would they know that?

Oh, here's the arms dealer Grand Magnificent I was waiting for lmao Although to be honest… That design wasn't that special in terms of military power, right? I remember the disussions of its complex appearance and the difficulty of shaping the material into this multifaceted sculpture, but it didn't have any innovative armor or weaponry, right? It's not like it's the first and only q-glass mech. I mean, setting aside the base problem that it might not be the most wise and ethical idea to give weapons to the amoral people for whom you just delivered a bomb (and are trying to ignore that fact) while they're tearing your friend's body apart, and that they would have settled for less… it's not like he gave them the part of the actual Divine Independence. I guess we'll see what Advent will do…

At some point Jack, I think, said that Grand is acting like Lem and I was like. Please don't. Can you not go into that direction in the future too please. I've already been concerned about his character arc since finishing Winter and this isn't helping!

Anyways today I had enough free time to listen to five episodes and now I'm hungover and also sad. I'm glad Grand Magnificent didn't suddenly become heroic but also this is depressing. Can't wait for everyone (minus him posssibly?) to finally meet and share the wild shit that happened to them recently. Tender is an excerpt! Fourteen is a knight and also on the brink of dying forever for some reason! Echo has fought in a civil war against their brother! Grand sold out to everyone's #1 enemy and left!

I don't really get ending episode on so much exposition… I understand the awkwardness of retelling an event that was intended to happen onscreen, but when Schism attacked, I assumed that fighting it would be the finale. On the other hand, I thought the same about the September Incident, and how happy I was to be wrong!

62-63

The downtime episode was excellent – exactly the thing I like! Two notes:

I can't be the only one bothered by the use of the word “fascist”, right? Greedy cynical bandits and graverobbers, capitalists, terrorists, whatever… but what does fascism do with any of that?

Everyone's plans for the future were pretty vague, but what I really didn't get was the heart of the debate between Signet and the Cadent. It sounded as if they were talking about the same thing with different words sometimes…

The doctor is Jace, correct? Rapid Evening, academic career, stratis, husband and wife, used to be rivals with someone named Rose? I had to relisten to the entire vignette looking for clues and trying to rememer anyone who would fit all of these descriptors.