#Who do y'all think was watching?

[ailithnight]

In his defense, it's not Danny's fault.

He and his bleeding heart just couldn't walk away or turn a blind eye when someone was in danger.

He and his 3 brain cells just couldn't help but panic when he realized the civilians were staring at him.

No one should stare at him. No one should look at him. He needs to keep his head down. Draw no attention. Stay hidden. They're looking for him. They'll find him. They'll put him back on the table.

Okay, he panicked. But it's not his fault!

And then people jumped to their own conclusions.

And now Danny is impersonating a dead kid. Er, a different dead kid. A dead rich kid. Maybe dead kid?

It's a maybe because Danny is here, standing at the very humble grave of one Jason Peter Todd-Wayne. Once he learned about the public theory, he wanted to apologize. So he did some digging (heh) and found the right grave and came to do just that.

But the grave is empty.

Danny doesn't know how he knows that, but it's intrinsic. There is no body in this grave.

But he also, somehow, knows it belongs to someone. Not in an abstract sense like 'every grave must belong to someone'.

No, Danny can feel that this is some ghost's final resting place. It's not a memorial or a shrine either. Not just some symbolic thing. Danny has seen those. Felt those. They're different. This is a grave. Kinda like that metal hole in the wall is his own.

And ghosts don't get attached to graves that aren't theirs. It's a faux pas. So the ghost attached to this grave is definitely Jason Peter Todd-Wayne. And therefore this is where his body should be. But it's not here. And something about the ghost attached to it feels different. Almost an ache familiar. And Danny doesn't understand why. He wants to understand.

If this was Amity, if Danny could still go home (his thoughts stutter over the idea of home, not quite knowing anymore which side of the swirling green vortex home is supposed to be on) he'd just go ask one of the ghosts about it. Pandora knew almost everything. Before, they'd been doing bi-weekly get together for various forms of training. Everything from fighting to ghost society. It was cool and fun and helpful. Danny misses it.

And what Pandora didn't know, Frostbite usually did. Danny had still been having monthly check ups with him to keep an eye on his "young and still developing core".

And if all else failed, Danny could always go to Clockwork for answers. Or at least puzzles, riddles, or sometimes errands, that would lead him to answers. That's just how Clockwork ticked.

But Danny couldn't go home right now. Unless he spontaneously developed portal powers- unlikely given the new, ever present ache in his core- he might never see the Infinite Realms again. Never see Pandora or Frostbite or Clockwork or Skulker or Ember or Youngblood or Boxy or...

This train of thought was not helping anything. Danny had been standing at this grave for several minutes now. And as much as he wanted to understand this weird grave situation, he had no way of getting answers and it's not what he came here for anyway.

He came here to apologize to the dead kid for kind of accidentally impersonating him. Then he was gonna dip. He'd let himself stay in Gotham for far too long already. Let himself get attached. And now he'd drawn attention to himself. If they caught wind of his recent heroics... its time to run again. They have plenty of heros anyway. Danny shouldn't feel too bad about ghosting them.

But first, he came here to apologize.

"Hey." The word comes out a breathy whisper. Danny clears his throat and tries again. "Umm, listen man," he winced at how his voices cracks and fails, falling back to that whisper of disuse, but pushes on. He needs to say this. He needs to apologize. And warn him.

"I... I don't know if you can hear me. Usually, any ghost can hear what goes on at their graves." Danny can still hear the gentle electric hum of his.

"But, you seem like a special case I guess, so... I hope you can hear me. Cause I owe you an apology. I've kinda been impersonating you for a few weeks. I didn't mean to, I swear! I just, some people needed help and I couldn't leave them be. So I helped them. And then I panicked and, uh, ghosted them. And now people think I'm you. And, honest, I know what it's like to have someone do things in your name without your knowledge or consent." Amorpho comes to mind.

"It sucks. And I... may have drawn some attention here. There are probably hunters coming. I'm really sorry about that. I can... maybe bait them back away. They're really after me, not you. So just, stay hidden for a while I guess. Don't get anywhere near the guys in white suits or the teal and orange jumpsuits. S'long as you don't get too close, you should be fine. Gotham's got enough ambient ecto to keep their long range sensors scrambled." It's the only reason Danny stayed this long. He'd hoped, for a while, maybe he could settle in here, have a halfa normal life. He should have known better.

"Anyway, just... stay safe, m'kay? And if you know any other ghosts, maybe pass the message about the hunters. And, sorry again. I'll leave you now. Should be outta Gotham within the hour. And like I said, I'll try to bait the hunters away. Least I can do for kind of impersonating g you and bringing them here anyway. Sorry."

His piece said, Danny starts to walk away, shoving his hands into the pockets of the threadbare hoodie he'd stolen from a dumpster. He pauses. After a brief moment of contemplation, he steps back. Ignoring the sharp stab in his core he's grown quite accustomed to lately, he focuses his energy into forming and molding ice on his palm. It's very draining, Danny can practically feel even more of the nonexistent fat left on his body melt away as he burns the extra energy. But it feels right to leave a little gift and the little ice ducky also just feels correct.

Apology offered, warning given, and gift left; Danny lets the cool and buzzing sensations of invisibility and intangibility slide over him. At least these abilities are so basic, they barely throb in his chest. Best not to fly though, that one still stings like a hundred angry hornets. So Danny, invisible and intangible, walks away from the grave of Jason Peter Todd-Wayne. Time to find a new city to haunt for a while.

Across the graveyard, a bat stares, suspicious and uncharacteristically dumbfounded at where the young, sickly, frail, scared, endangered strange teen had vanished.

Across the city, a crime lord is having a crisis about the voice in his head and everything it said.

…. More dp x dc because brain rot

So Danny ends up homeless in Gotham after a revival to his parents gone wrong and is trying his best to stay out of the bats way. Unfortunately the kid has the worst luck and an even worst hero complex so when he stumbles across a mugging he can’t help but jump in.

It’s only after he K.O.ed the mugger that he looking up and saw the civilian he saved looking at him and in a split second of panic just faded from visibility. I mean who’s gonna believe the guy if he says his rescuer just fu/king upped and vanished.

It worked out tho. So much in fact that when Danny once again found himself jumping in to trouble before he can think he just decides to disappear after.

This happens so much that people start to take notice and the conclusion they come to? A ghost. More specifically a 13-14 y/o ghost with black hair and blue eyes. More specifically the ghost of the black haired, blue eyed, Wayne kid that died when he was 13. 

Yep! Gotham comes to the conclusion that Jason Todd has come back as a ghost to protect the streets of Gotham!!

Now obviously this gets to Bruce who knows this isn’t the case because Jason is over in crime alleys right now hopefully not going on a murder spree again so he’s gotta find out who this is and preferably before Jason hears about this.

[hiding-under-the-willow]

anyways. What

[nartml]

was it casual when i had a panic attack at the thought of you dying was it casual when you risked your entire carrier just to feed me lunch was it casual when you were willing to die protecting me even though you wouldn't accomplish any of the goals you devoted yourself to was it casual when i spent so many nights rolling around in deep thought about whether you think of me like i do about you was it casual when i wished for you upon a shooting star was it casual when i refused to let you continue your way down a path of self-destructive loneliness even though you wanted me to was it casual when you needed to kill me and only me to grow stronger and be entirely untethered from your past but you just couldn't was it casual when i preferred to bear your pain and hatred and die fighting you as opposed to giving up on you was it casual when i could trade blows with you (read your heart) even though your supposed wife couldn't was it casual when i was your one and only was it casual when the hands that we blew off of each other bore the evidence of our cosmic connection was it casual when you cried your first tears of relief and happiness after you lost to me was it casual when you kept in touch with me but not with your wife was it casual when we fought and laughed and became inseparable was it casual when i can't exist without you was it casual when i put all my goals on hold because how could i focus on them when i can't even save you was it casual when you were my main motivation for training to become infinitely stronger was it casual when i'd remain a fool my entire life if being smart meant that i had to give up on you was it casual when you know my heart i yours was it casual when

[akitalockwood]

Happy new year to everyone! Hope that 2023 will be kind to ya TvT

[uncanny-tranny]

"haha, are you an art gay, a science gay, or a math gay"

Actually, I find the division between art, science, and math to be a very nebulous idea and useless when you actually interact with the universe. The more you learn about the world, the more you surround yourself with art and science and math, and you'll never be able to see it any other way and it will be beautiful. When I take your hand, it won't be the science of our atoms closing the distance between us that we will experience, but the math of our fingers interlocking and the art of our bodies that we will experience. You are math and you are science and you are art, and nothing will make you any lesser💛

[blorbocedes]

​so true... the guy who boxed on the final 2 laps to get the completely unnecessary fastest lap doesn't care about racing 🤡 just hates the sport and also driving... he's clearly not at all passionate or motivated to get a grand slam in terms of being the best in all practice sessions, quali, sprint, sprint race, actual race, and fastest lap...

[good-to-drive]

Abuse, Silence, And Why Kevin Can Fuck Himself

I recently finished watching Kevin Can Fuck Himself on Netflix, and, aside from being the most brutally honest portrayal of domestic abuse I have ever seen, I discovered a beautifully written examination of narrative as power and silence as abuse and how this manifests in our larger culture. 

Without going into too much detail, the show is filmed in two distinct styles that are interleaved throughout each episode to tell a cohesive story. Allison and Kevin’s relationship as seen by the rest of the world is told through a multi-cam, laugh-track sitcom that depicts a very typical “goofy husband, shrewish wife” mainstream comedy. Allison’s life through her own eyes is told through a single-cam drama/thriller about Allison planning to murder Kevin to escape his abuse. 

It’s an absolute masterclass in screenwriting, but more than that, every episode explores the difference between truth, fact, and reality, and how none of these things are quite as much or as little as story. But while the process of transforming the chaotic and plotless reality of life into a story is as involuntary and essential as breathing, misogyny and the degradation of women is just as ubiquitous in our society, and a story that exists at the expense of another person’s lived reality is a refutation of their humanity. 

It's also just a great show for anyone who likes to engage with history (or reality TV or true crime or “real life stories” in general), because while we have to tell ourselves stories about her own lives, we have to tell ourselves stories about other people as well. Eternal silence is narrative death, and the perpetual silence of an unspoken narrative is often the last death we can visit on someone whose story we’d rather ignore. 

I also pulled up some books – Lolita and Disgrace – that dealt with similar themes, but from the perspective of the abuser. And what strikes me the most is that, across three beautifully written stories about narrative and silence within a culture that normalizes abuse, Allison, who began her story within a state of narrative death, was the only point-of-view character who had any chance of surviving. 

One of the main themes of Kevin is that a compelling story is often a story that reinforces what we already believe or like to believe, and while the story may be factual and true it often also exists at the expense of someone's lived reality. The exact same series of events can be a silly joke or a harrowing tale of abuse depending on the lens through which we view it, but historically we've only been willing to see the multicam, laugh track, sitcom perspective on unbalanced relationships.

The alchemical process of turning a series of disjoint facts and experiences into a narrative creates something new and compelling, and erases much of what previously existed. In this way, it’s entirely irreversible. We spin our experiences into a very thin thread, a story we can tell ourselves that elicits something within us, something we need in order to live with the complex, uncertain, and unsatisfying reality of life. In think in many ways the thing we elicit in ourselves is truth. But truth is both more and less than fact, often more a reflection of our own beliefs and desires than the events of our lives. And in telling that truth we may never stray from the facts, but we almost by definition cannot give voice to another person’s reality.

There's a scene in season 2 of Kevin when Allison is hit by a door – a la the classic excuse – because of Kevin’s carelessness. And while he absolutely did not hit her, the way it's written is such an incredible allegory for how Kevin has curated their story and curated their friends' and family’s perceptions of their story such that even if she tells everyone the exact, unvarnished truth of what's happening to her and begs for help, they will only be capable of seeing the laugh-track, sitcom, “Kevin is a harmless goofball and his wife is a total shrew” perspective on the events of their lives. 

As so often happens with abuse, their friends and family saw Allison being hurt because of Kevin. But the alchemy of creating a narrative around Kevin and Allison is irreversible, and the series of events they witness can only be spun together to a joke, an accident, a silly, childish mistake. Allison’s reality, Allison’s pain and fear, is completely elided. Like a lost sound in the middle of a sentence, her experience goes silent, and their larger understanding of her relationship never has to change. And you feel so acutely how Allison lives her entire life in that silence. 

Storytelling is human, it’s essential, there’s no other way to engage with our own lives. And it’s not lying. It’s never lying to tell the truth. But it doesn’t reflect every reality, either, because another person’s reality can’t be reflected within our own narrative, because that’s what it means to be another person. To spin two different threads.

And because narrative is the essential process by which we understand our reality, denying someone their own narrative, or denying that this narrative be heard, is inherently abusive. To allow someone a voice is to give them humanity, and to suppress it is to strip that humanity away. 

Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee, follows the story of a professor, David, who rapes a student and then fails to protect his daughter, Lucy, from being raped by intruders in their home. He destroys his daughter’s life  – not through failing to protect her, but through twisting her rape into a story about why the rape of his student wasn’t wrong. The main theme of the book is generally considered to be exploitation, but Coetzee doesn’t deal with the exploitation of the rape. That’s too direct, too immediate, too easy for the reader to understand as misogynistic and wrong. Rather, Coetzee delves into “the innocuous-seeming use of another person to fill one's gentler emotional needs” (Ruden).

The rape is how we understand David as a fundamentally exploitative person, a person who denies others their humanity by converting them into a vessel for his own desires, who erases their voice in order to speak through them and give himself the things he needs. And that’s how we recognize that the way he absorbs and claims the stories of his daughter and his student is another kind of violation of their humanity. Another way of turning women into vessels for men’s pain and fear and need. 

What’s fascinating is that David's student finds her voice – files a complaint against him – and is eventually able to continue with her life. The woman he raped is less damaged by him than his own daughter, because she was the woman he couldn’t permanently silence. 

In Lolita, another brilliant novel about abuse, dehumanization, and storytelling, Humbert turns to the reader at the end and says, “Imagine us, reader, for we don’t really exist if you don’t.” 

It’s not that Humbert knew he was fictional, but that he knew everyone was fictional. Believed the entire world only truly existed in his own mind, because anything beyond that was irrelevant to his needs. He coped with the collapse of his ability to dehumanize Dolores (who he called Lolita) by demanding that his voice be resurrected. Demanding immortality. Demanding his narrative exist in another person’s world, and thereby be given the existence and humanity that Allison and Dolores and Lucy and David’s student were denied. 

Pushing his needs, finally, onto the reader, because we are the only person he has left, and a person like him can only exist through the use of another. In that way, Humbert was powerless. In that way, Kevin and David were powerless, too.

In Disgrace, David’s dream is to write an opera, and at the end of the book he realizes he’ll never finish his magnum opus. He’ll never be able to terminate the process of converting himself, his world, into a story. But he does learn to decenter himself in that narrative. And it’s when he loses all fear of death, and any conception of the self, that he gains the ability to give dogs – who he generally equates to women – a voice within his opera, his life’s work. 

It’s in death that we discover our true unimportance as human beings, that we learn to let go of vanity and our conception of the self entirely. And David had degraded women so thoroughly in order to justify how he used them to meet his own emotional needs that it was only in losing all value for his own life that he could gain the ability to see them as equal voices. To actually put those voices into his own life story. It's at the cost of himself that he allows other people to truly exist, in the death of the self that he finally allows the world to exist outside of himself. It’s almost a positive character arc. Almost.

When Kevin finally loses the ability to abuse Allison, he, like many abusers, loses all desire to live. His world was built on a structure of superiority and inferiority, on beings and vessels, on the inherent value of men and the inherent meaninglessness of women’s lives. The system on which he based his entire reality has been destroyed by Allison’s declaration of the self. And, if he was a being because she was a vessel, then in losing the ability to treat her as a vessel, to fully and completely dehumanize her, he has lost his own humanity. 

It may be perfectly summed up here: “Become major. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise, what is life for?” (Coetzee).

If you’re not to be a main character, if there indeed is no split between major and minor characters, between people and the paper dolls that populate their story, between living beings and the vessels into which they pour their need – what is life for?

Nothing. At least, not for people whose narrative must exist at the expense of another. 

And that’s why I say that only a narrator like Allison could survive this kind of story. Despite beginning her story trapped in eternal silence, her reality fully elided no matter how immediate and obvious it became, Allison was the only point-of-view character of any of these three stories who didn’t establish her power through the degradation of another. Who didn’t conceptualize the world via being and vessels. Whose narrative didn’t exist, by necessity, at the expense of another person’s humanity. Whose thread could exist in a larger tapestry without destroying her sense of self.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s not generally a likable character. She’s misogynistic, cruel, selfish, jealous, desperate, afraid, and in pain. Like anyone in an abusive relationship, she’s not at her best, and she’s often pushed to do things that are ugly and disturbing because she’s simply been pushed too far. 

But, for me, the power in her character is in how her last scene never felt like a final scene. Her story didn’t have to be killed, her conception of the self didn’t have to be killed, in order to reveal the brutal reality of stories twisting and intertwining without any inherently superior truth or narrative among them. Allison’s story was one of declaring herself. And that’s why it didn’t feel like it ended at the end. Instead, this felt like a beginning.

[camellcat]

some doctor who cyanotypes I made for my photography class that I just realized I never shared

[emblazons]

Begging people to just start writing fanfic instead of demanding a queer romcom from the 80s supernatural horror show

[breakbeatbun]

y'all have gotta learn to act normal about other people's characters

just bc you think they're hot doesn't mean the person who made them wants to know if, or how, you'd fuck them. i feel like that's common sense. it doesn't make it OK now just because it's not a real person you're sexualizing. you don't know what they mean to the person who made them, and if you do, well what the fuck, then.

[djevelbl]

hear me out y'all:

THIS rendition of Sincerely Me (which is GREAT btw) - but it's the LifeStealers--

[fromtheseventhhell]

Zutaras are really the original self-insert, "we understand the story soooooo much better than everybody else" girlies and they just never moved on

[epickiya722]

I forgotten about the "unstitching" Kenjaku thing until I started seeing folks now "stitching" up scenes of Geto.

[softquietsteadylove]

I was wondering if you could do a toxic AU? One where like they're dating, but really bad for each other (like cheat on each other, make the other cry, or something just toxic) and they just can't let each other go. I know it would be kind if impossible because it's THEM, but because it's THEM, and they're obsessed with each other it kinda makes it possible😭

"She's here?!"

"Will you keep your voice down?" Gil attempted to shush Minerva, which of course only made her more upset.

She threw her purse to the ground. "Are you serious right now, Gilgamesh? First, you have some weird moment with Thena behind closed doors seconds before her wedding. Then, you stand and protest the marriage. And then you follow her after she runs off, and I have to find out she's in my home--our home?!"

"It's still my apartment, Minerva," he hissed at her, hand on his hip, solidly blocking the doorway to their bedroom. "You moved in with me, and Thena is my friend. What was I supposed to do, let her go back to that jackass's place alone?!"

"You don't bring the woman you're obsessed with into the apartment you share with your girlfriend!"

She was still in her wedding attire. So was he, suit still on, tie hanging around his neck loosely. "I am not obsessed with Thena."

But she dug her heels in, pointing up in his face. "You are. I should have listened when my friends told me what a red flag it was that you couldn't let go of her, even when she got engaged. I wanted to believe you when you said you weren't in love with her!"

"I never said that."

She reared back as if he'd struck her. "You what?"

"You never asked if I was in love with Thena, you asked if I was cheating on you with her," he clarified, even knowing what he'd get for it. "Which I didn't."

Her slap held nothing back, cracking against his cheek in the otherwise silent apartment.

It stung. "Okay, I deserve that."

"And more," Minerva choked, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Why the hell would you do this? Why did you agree to move in with me? I thought you were going to propose."

He kept his face passive. She didn't want any more lies, and he was tired of lying to her. "I figured 'why not?', that's why."

She stumbled back again. "Was-Was anything you've ever told me in our relationship true?"

"Yes."

"You fucking liar!"

"I'm not lying," he insisted. "I never lied. You asked if I'm obsessed with Thena, I'm not. You asked if I was cheating on you--if I would ever cheat on you with her, and I wouldn't! And Thena would never do that to you either."

"Maybe that's the worst part," she laughed coldly. "Why did she pretend to be my friend all this time?"

"She didn't pretend," he stated so straightforward he was starting to sound like Thena. "She doesn't pretend to like people, I told you. She wasn't lying when she told me she liked you, which you kept insisting was some mean, backhanded lie."

No, instead it was her boyfriend who was lying (according to her). Minerva swiped at her tears, dragging the mascara off her cheeks. "So, you're not cheating on me, you just brought the woman you've loved your entire life home after her failed wedding out of kindness."

Gil sighed. "That's right."

Minerva's tears began anew. Her petite shoulders folded in on themselves, her dark hair tumbling around her in long curls. "You love her."

She deserved this much--the real, whole truth. "Yes."

"You've always loved her," Minerva continued to ask questions he knew she wouldn't like the answers to. "The whole time?"

He stood up straight, dragging his tie off completely. He didn't really like orange, but Minerva insisted they match. "From the first day I met her when we were kids."

"Then why wouldn't you just go be with her?" Minerva demanded, even pointed to the bedroom door where her unseen enemy was lying in wait (according to her).

But he shrugged. He had asked himself these questions for a long time, the answers didn't have any pain left in them. "Because our lives went in different directions. Because we've always been best friends--too good to complicate it. We knew it wouldn't have worked when we were young so why try and break our own hearts?"

It seemed her tears were drying quickly the colder her eyes became. She crossed her arms at him. "So, you've always been in love with her. And you dated me anyway."

"Yes."

"But not everything you told me was a lie?" she scoffed. "And you expect me to believe that?"

"It doesn't matter if you believe it or not." She flinched again, and he did feel bad. He did care for this woman--they had been together for two years. "I never lied to you, Minerva. But don't ask me to choose between you and her."

Because he would choose her. He was choosing her over his girlfriend standing in front of him right now. "I see."

He crossed his arms as well, still planted in front of the door. "I'm not sending her to some hotel. Her brother and Phastos and Ben are probably helping get her stuff out of Eros' place as we speak. Once I know she's safe and has a place to go, you can come and get your stuff."

"That's it?" She was done--the line was cut, the bridge burned and floating down the river.

"Yeah," he also deflated. He didn't think what he was doing was noble by any means. And he deserved every horror story Minerva would tell about her nightmare ex who was always in love with his friend he had told her not to worry about.

Well, she wouldn't have had to if Thena had gotten married. If she had never told him that she couldn't go through with marrying Eros because she had always loved him. She was guilty of that, but he could bear that sin for the both of them.

"Fine," Minerva stated finally, drying the last of her tears.

"I can leave you the apartment, if you want," he added lamely. He really didn't want to.

"Don't offer me your pity," she spat back at him, and he admired her for it. "I don't need a homewrecker's space."

He was a homewrecker, that would stick with him. But he still couldn't bring himself to regret so long as he knew Thena was lying on his bed, crying.

"Go to hell," she hissed at him, picking her purse up and not even bothering to take anything on her way out. "You and your precious Thena."

"Watch it," he grumbled back at her. She could curse his name for generations to come, fine. But he wouldn't let her speak badly of Thena.

That was the last straw, and she slammed the door behind her as hard as she could.

Two years of his life, down the drain. It was a happy relationship, for the most part. She had always excitedly wanted to advance their relationship, take new steps together (like moving in). But looking around the empty apartment, he didn't care. She could come and take the furniture she had picked out that he didn't like, she could take all the stuff on the walls. She could take the stuff that wasn't hers if she wanted. What mattered wasn't out here.

Gil opened the door gently. Thena was sitting up on the bed, a towel around her shoulders and wearing the old shirt he had left out for her to wear. Her wedding dress was lying unceremoniously and disdainfully piled outside the bathroom. "I didn't like that dress either."

Her voice was hoarse as she looked at it. "His mother insisted."

He sat beside her, taking her hand in his, "forget it. Forget her, and her asshole son--never think about them again."

Thena looked at him, turning those big green eyes on him that always made him forget the entire rest of the world around him. Her eyes filled with tears. "She deserves better."

She was talking about Minerva. But he brought her hand up to his lips, "I know."

"She deserves to hate us," she whispered, her lip trembling.

"Probably," he brushed off, focused on pulling her big, ugly, stupid engagement ring off her. She didn't like it anyway--it was just one garishly ugly stone on a tiny band. It was always getting caught on things, always getting turned around on her thin little finger. She hated the attention it drew.

The ring tumbled and rolled as Gil tossed it away.

"I shouldn't have said anything."

"No," he whispered, still kissing each of her fingers. Either way it was true; no, she shouldn't have said anything, but no, he didn't want her to say that now, either.

"We always said we shouldn't do this," she whispered back, crying freely as he weaved their fingers together.

"I know," he conceded as he finally leaned in to kiss her. It was the worst time to do it. They were both crying, it was the worst day of her life, and both of their lives were about to never be the same because of it.

But Thena kissed him back, and they kissed like they had always been doing it. "Why couldn't you tell me earlier not to marry him?"

He laughed, although there wasn't much genuine mirth in it. There wasn't much in her smile, either. "Why couldn't you tell me you loved me sooner?"

She laughed as well, just as sadly. She tilted her head as he swiped her tears away with his thumb. "We're both terrible. We got this wrong, right from the beginning, didn't we?"

"Yeah," he kissed her again, more softly, more sweetly. "But I won't anymore."

[luckycharming]

Not trying to be messy or bitchy on main, but why don't y'all review fanfics anymore? Why don't y'all comment on the stories y'all have read and liked? Like, deadass, as a writer/creator myself, if I slave away and put my whole ass pussy into creating and crafting these really good stories, and nobody reviews them, what's my incentive to keep creating?

And I've heard it be said thousands of times that you should do it for fun! You should do it because blah blah blah! And I get it! I really! It's not good to create solely because of x, y, and z and that's valid, but! I'm also doing this shit for free. Like, fanfic authors bust their asses writing for free. This is a free consumption, and I'm just saying, if you like or love the stories written, why can't y'all let it be known? Why can't y'all comment and review it? It literally doesn't take even a third of the effort it took the writers themselves to write the damn shit.

I remember when I first got into fanfiction and I was in awe, okay? There were so many wonderful stories and authors and you bet your right testicle I made sure I left reviews. Hell, I would even PM them and let them know that hey, I really loved that fic you wrote! This is what it meant to me and thank you so much for not only writing it, but being brave enough to share it with the world because regardless of the ship/fandom/etc., that takes guts!

And y'all won't even do the bare minimum. And then have the nerve to wonder why the quality of writing is shit or why people are leaving the fandom spaces. It makes no sense that stories that are so horribly written and out of character have hundreds, if not thousands of reviews, but the actual good shit barely has fifty, and that's me being generous.

I'm just tired of putting all this effort into shit that I'm not getting anything back from because it's not enough to love what you do. Like, why is it bad that I want people to leave long or nice comments on my work? Why is that me being greedy to want some positive engagement on my content? Or unless I write for popular ships, people won't read my shit? Which isn't bad, because if I like a ship, regardless of if it's popular or canon or so on and so forth, I'm gonna ship it, but still.

And not even that's a guarantee that people will read it, and I don't like don't gimmicky shit. I don't like feeling like I have to dim the quality of my work to get people to fuck with my shit, and it's not me being insecure in my writing because I'm a damn good writer. I know what I bring to the fucking table, but how are we supposed to keep the fandom spaces alive if nobody's engaging with shit anymore?

[rolandkaros]

i've been ruminating a lot on it because i think i'm bad at putting my thoughts into words but i need y'all to understand that while there are absolutely a lot of Not Good Things about the finals being held in saudi arabia for three years...the way people seem to treat is as morally black and white is shortsighted and unhelpful.

realistically the players traveling there will be protected. it may be uncomfortable, it's certainly not ideal, but they will travel there for a few weeks, play their tennis, then leave. there are a lot of women, a lot of queer people who actually live in saudi arabia who cannot just leave, who are actually subjected to laws and social climates...and to me it just seems very disrespectful to that actual lived experience, for everybody to sort of turn their noses up and get on their high horses. of course, if the players wish to opt out, that is their choice, but that is their choice to make. that's their judgement. not ours.

and then, what about a tournament like miami? florida is literally experiencing one of the worst active regressions that i've seen in the us (granted i'm young). things like critical race theory and lgbtq+ ed are being removed from curriculums, rights for trans youth, trans healthcare, etc. are going backwards. abortion rights? gun violence? and yes i know that the laws and climate in saudi arabia are different gravy, i understand that, but my point is, no one would ever DREAM of arguing against hosting a tournament in miami despite all of these issues. and we can extend this to a lot of other tournaments! i mean, all the outrage about fifa hosting a world cup in qatar, but we don't have any of these sentiments about doha? i've seen other people bring up that the finals were hosted in singapore when gay marriage was still illegal there. we've already talked about italy's fascist prime minister. and i could go on and on and on about the war crimes of countries like the us or the uk - is the us not participating actively in genocide right now? where is the standard? if you argue against hosting the finals in saudi arabia for the reason of human rights, to me it seems you have to uphold that standard for the location you do land on. and i can guarantee, you will not find a single country in the world with clean hands.

i want to be clear i am not arguing that hosting the finals in saudi arabia is a good thing, especially for three years, especially because it's definitely going there because of money, and not for any of the "good" reasons i think some people want us to believe about "improving the region" (which is very weirdly white savior-esque anyway). i don't really have an official "conclusion" to this discussion.

what i am arguing is that i think a lot of the protests against saudi arabiahosting the finals are more an example of implicit anti-arab bias and islamophobia, rather than genuine discussion. key word implicit: i don't think most people are purposefully trying to be anti-arab/islamophobic. or at least, i'd like to believe nobody is. but i also think, particularly in the west, there is already so much of this xenophobic sentiment ingrained. and this is why i think it's really really REALLY important to check ourselves when we talk about it instead of just jumping straight to the human rights conversation without a second thought.

i'll say it plainly: i don't think the finals should be held in saudi arabia. but for me, it has more to do with sportswashing, with the dangers of the way money is thrown around in sports, and because i think it's more evidence that the wta doesn't care about player welfare but rather about making a profit (what else is new). human rights are absolutely a concern of mine, but how is it fair to hold saudi arabia to a standard that we don't seem to care about for literally anybody else?

literally look at the us's ugly ugly history, past and present, and tell me why we deserve to host a tennis tournament.