#again not like real them idk i feel the need to explain that every time | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

moonpascal · 2 months ago

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IN THE SHADOW OF MEMORY

CHAPTER FOUR I series masterlist I wc: 3.4k

WARNINGS:

hurt/angst, lonelines, lots of dialogue

AUTHORS NOTE:

thank you to @amiableness my love as always gave me the encouragement i need for these things!

sorry for the long wait! i played hogwarts legacy for the first time and got sucked in. but it did help me with visioning locations and everything. hopefully chapter four was worth the wait (idk feels like a filler lol)

The past few days had been agonizingly unproductive since you realized the extent of your memory loss—entire chunks of the last year and a half simply gone.

Hermione, stubborn as ever, refused to tell you what you were missing, no matter how much you begged. You knew she was hiding something, and it frustrated you to no end. These were your memories, after all—you had every right to know what had been erased.

The memory that played in the great hall never left you. You couldn’t be sure if it was a fragment of what was lost or just your mind playing tricks on you. Either way, it felt personal, too personal to share with her without knowing for certain if it was real.

But every time you tried to push through and remember more, it was as if a wall slammed down in your mind, sending a jarring, almost painful shock that stopped you cold. Why had this happened to you? Was it an accident, or had someone targeted you? The questions were maddening.

Caught in a loop of pacing and rubbing your temples in frustration, you accidentally kicked your trunk, sending the pile of jumpers and a tie sprawling across the floor. Huffing in annoyance, you bent down to fold them again, ignoring the nagging sense of familiarity they stirred. You were too irritated, too overwhelmed to connect it.

Just as you finished folding the last item, Grace walked in, looking thoroughly exhausted.

“Tough class?” you asked, trying to shift your focus.

She let out a small, tired laugh as she dropped her bag at the foot of her bed. “I wish. Just boys not taking no for an answer,” she sighed.

You shot her a sympathetic look, knowing the feeling all too well. “Wouldn’t happen to be a certain Slytherin whose clothes I keep tripping over, would it?” you teased, holding up the pile.

Grace gave you a sharp, confused look for a moment, and you worried you’d said the wrong thing. But then she forced a smile. “Right! That’s… um, exactly why he’s upset, but he really shouldn’t have left his closet in our dorm,” she said, a nervous edge to her voice.

“Serves him right,” you laughed, before glancing at the clothes again. “But on a serious note, could you possibly return these to him? Or maybe I should just throw them out? They’re taking up space, and I keep knocking them over.”

“Oh,” Grace said, eyes widening like she’d just been reminded of something important. She grabbed the pile from you a bit too quickly. “Of course! I’ll do that right now.”

Before you could protest or tell her she didn’t need to rush, she was already out the door, leaving you standing there, even more confused than before.

In her hurried state, she might have noticed the pesky tie that slipped off again.

You knew you needed to study and catch up on your missing assignments, but any excuse to procrastinate sounded more appealing. Weighing your options for a brief moment, you grabbed the tie and left the room, hoping to catch up with her.

Exiting your out of the common room and bounding down the stairs, you guessed Grace was heading toward the Slytherin area.

Hopefully, you could catch her but luck wasn’t on your side—she was on a mission, and you didn’t spot her once as you made your way through the castle.

The dungeons weren’t a place you frequented, so you were surprised when you managed to navigate there on your first try.

Upon arriving, you saw Theo trudging down the steps, the pile of clothes in his arms. You faltered, a strange pang coursing through you for reasons you couldn’t explain.

You considered a quick escape, but Theo called your name before you had a chance to move.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked, a touch of surprise in his voice. You didn’t have any classes together today, so it was unexpected to see you. He shifted the clothes under his arm, stepping closer.

“I tried to catch Grace—she dropped this,” you awkwardly gestured to the tie in your hand, “but I guess I found the culprit.”

Theo’s eyes widened at the implication, his heart sinking a bit. “No, these aren’t mine,” he quickly corrected.

You shot him a skeptical look. “So, you and Grace aren’t... involved?” you asked, waving your hand in a vague motion.

Theo scrunched his face in disgust, shaking his head. “No, never. She’s just a friend. She gave these to me to return to one of the guys.”

“Right,” you said, though still not entirely convinced. “Well, make sure he gets his tie back, too.” You draped it over the pile in his arms.

“Right, of course. Thank you for bringing it,” Theo smiled, and any doubt you had about him lying slowly drifted away. You found yourself staring at him, that smile triggering a flash of a memory—the same one from before.

Could it have been real? Theo seemed different now, kinder than you remembered. And how had you never noticed how... easy on the eyes he was?

“Woah, Tesoro, are you okay?” Theo’s voice brought you out of your thoughts, and you realized he had a hand on your shoulder and another gently cupping your cheek. The clothes he’d been holding were forgotten on the ground.

His face was so close to yours that you instinctively took a step back, but the absence of his touch left you yearning.

“I’m sorry, what?” you said, dazed and confused, not fully processing why he was asking.

“Your nose—it’s bleeding. Let’s get you to sit down,” he said urgently, grabbing the tie and guiding you to a nearby bench. You almost tripped from how sudden it was.

“I’m fine, really, Theodore,” you insisted, brushing it off. “This is probably the fourth one today.” The moment the words left your mouth, you regretted it.

“Fourth?” His tone grew tense, his eyes full of concern. “Are they accompanied by anything else? Headaches? Nausea? Fainting spells?” He inspected you, wiping the blood from your upper lip with the now-ruined tie.

You shrugged, trying to seem unbothered. “Not all the time. I don’t think it’s that serious.”

Theo, however, looked far from reassured. “That’s not normal,” he muttered your name, his worry etched deeply into his face.

“Theo, really, I’m fine. Just a little tired,” you tried to comfort him, but his expression barely softened. Hearing you use his name, though, seemed to snap him back. He pulled back slightly, still visibly rattled.

“Right, sorry,” he stammered, dropping his hands from you as if your touch burned him.

“I appreciate the concern, though,” you said, genuinely touched by how much he seemed to care. A stark contrast from the Theo you were used to. “Could we talk later? I have this thing that I can’t seem to figure out.”

He blinked, seemingly taken aback by your suggestion. In truth, you were a bit surprised by it yourself.

“I have Quidditch practice tonight, but how about tomorrow?” he offered, a bit nervously.

“Perfect,” you grinned. “See you tomorrow then, Theodore.”

He smiled in return, and for a moment, you found yourself wanting to stay and just stare at him. Another part of you still hesitated, wary of his past actions and the memories you couldn’t access. But maybe he had the answers.

You watched him walk away, a slight spring in his step as he bent to pick up the discarded clothes. He disappeared into the Slytherin common room, the snake door sliding shut. The sight surprisingly comforted you.

You sat for a moment before finally rising from the bench and starting the walk back to your common room. Your mind was a tangled mix of questions, emotions, and fleeting familiarities that refused to come into focus. It felt like your brain was in overdrive, struggling to fill in blanks without knowing where to start.

The walk back to your dorm felt like a blur, your mind racing with thoughts of how to piece together the gaps in your memory. You needed answers, but the trio seemed determined to keep you out of the loop, offering vague reassurances that only deepened your frustration.

You hated the way they looked at you—like you were fragile, something to be handled with care. It made you feel small, like you weren’t capable of understanding your own situation. The growing silence around what was happening to you was suffocating, and your dorm had become the only place where you didn’t feel on edge.

As you spotted Harry ahead in the corridor, you sped up, determined to find a distraction from the overwhelming pressure of your missing memories. You bumped him lightly with your shoulder, forcing a smile. “Hey, stranger. Haven’t seen you in a while. Want to sneak off to Hogsmeade?”

Harry hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. “Trouble, I would, really, but I’ve got Quidditch practice tonight.”

Your smile faltered, a flicker of confusion crossing your face. If Slytherin had practice, there was no way Gryffindor did too. The rivalry between the two houses was so intense they could barely play fair in an actual game, let alone share the pitch for practice. You opened your mouth to question him, but Harry quickly cut you off.

“Tomorrow, yeah? We can go then. It’s Saturday, so no sneaking required.” Giving you an awkward smile.

“Right. Tomorrow.” You nodded, but the unease gnawed at you. First Theo, now Harry. The feeling of being lied to—it stung more than you wanted to admit. Harry never hid things from you before, and Theo—well, you didn’t know him well enough to judge, but it still hurt.

You turned away before Harry could say more, heading in the opposite of his direction- mind you was not towards the pitch.

When you finally reached your dorm and shut the door behind you, the quiet hit you hard. Alone again, the weight of the past few days crashed down. You dropped onto your bed, letting out a shaky breath. The frustration, confusion, and hurt welled up, but you couldn’t bring yourself to cry. You just lay there, staring at the ceiling, feeling more isolated than ever.

No one was being honest with you. They were keeping you at arm’s length, treating you like you couldn’t handle the truth. You were left to fend for yourself, with only half the pieces to a puzzle that seemed impossible to solve. You felt pushed aside, only to be dealt with when it was convenient.

It hurt more than you wanted to admit, and the pity party you were throwing yourself was, for the moment, the only thing that felt comforting.

“Fridays, we’ll go to the Astronomy Tower at midnight. It’ll be our thing.”

The words jolted you awake. You blinked, disoriented, scanning the dark room. The moonlight filtered in softly, casting long shadows. You rubbed your eyes and looked around, hoping to find the source of the voice, but the room was silent. Your roommates’ curtains were drawn, and their steady breathing filled the space.

You lay back, trying to make sense of what you’d heard. Maybe it was a dream. Or maybe, another memory trying to break through the haze?

After tossing and turning for what felt like an eternity, it became clear you weren’t going to be able to fall back asleep. Frustrated, you sighed and threw off the covers, slipping on your shoes. Before you knew it, you were out the door, your curiosity leading you through the corridors.

You tiptoed through the common room, careful not to wake anyone. Without Harry’s cloak, you had to rely on the disillusionment spell to stay hidden, but you knew it wasn’t foolproof.

You navigated the quiet halls, turning corners and climbing staircases with no real sense of direction, yet somehow you felt like you were being pulled somewhere—guided by the echo of those words.

Soon enough, you found yourself at the base of the Astronomy Tower. You hesitated for a moment, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu before your feet carried you up the winding staircase. The ascent felt both familiar and foreign, like a path you had walked countless times. It felt like your body was moving on its own, like it knew something your mind hadn’t caught up to yet.

When you finally reached the top, you paused. The silence of the tower wrapped around you, and with a quiet exhale, you removed the disillusionment spell, standing under the vast, starry sky.

The silence was broken by a cough, jolting you from your thoughts. You nearly screamed, spinning around to see Theo sitting against the railing, watching you with curious eyes.

“Merlin! Theodore, you scared me!” you hissed, clutching your chest as your heart pounded.

“Sorry,” he chuckled, clearly finding your reaction amusing. You glared at him, but he just smiled.

“What are you doing up here?” you asked, exasperated as you stepped closer to where he was sitting.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he smirked. The teasing tone was so typical of him, and despite everything, it brought you some comfort.

You rolled your eyes. “Needed some air. And you?”

“Something like that,” he shrugged, taking a drag from the cigarette between his fingers.

“You know those things will kill you, right?” you said, deciding to sit down next to him. You tucked your legs beneath you, resting your back against the railing.

“I’ve heard,” he replied, exhaling the smoke away from you before flicking the cigarette to the ground and crushing it with his foot.

You bit your tongue, resisting the urge to lecture him about the littering. “Maybe you should take their advice.”

He chuckled softly humming in response, leaning his head back against the railing, eyes closed. For a moment, neither of you spoke. Strangely, you felt more at ease up here with him than you had in days.

With his eyes closed, you stole a glance at his face—the messy hair, the moles dotting his skin, and those lips… You quickly looked away, mentally scolding yourself.

“So,” he said, grabbing your attention. His gaze so focused it made you avert your eyes again, “what really brought you up here?”

“I’m… not sure,” you admitted, fidgeting with the fraying edge of your skirt. “I thought I heard a voice, but it could’ve been a dream. It said something about Astronomy Tower at midnight, and I got curious.”

You noticed Theo’s jaw clench briefly before relaxing again, making you frown slightly. “And you?” you asked, trying to redirect the conversation.

“Just needed some quiet,” he said, hesitating for a moment. “But… what was it you wanted to talk about earlier?”

You had nearly forgotten about that. Now that he asked, the words seemed to stick in your throat. You wanted to say you could wait, let him have his moment of peace, but you needed answers.

“Oh, right,” you sighed, unsure of where to start. “I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“Take your time,” Theo reassured, his voice soft, and you were grateful to see no judgment in his eyes.

You took a shaky breath, trying to gather your thoughts. It was hard to know where to even begin.

“Long story short, I lost a chunk of my memories,” you started, the words spilling out before you could stop them. “And the other day, I think I had a flashback of one… with you?”

Theo immediately straightened himself, his attention fully locked on you.

“I was—um, what was your memory about?” he asked, his voice a little shaky as if he was trying to stay calm, but you could sense a bit of hope behind his eyes.

“Don’t laugh,” you warned, giving him a serious look, though a faint smile tugged at your lips. “We were in the Forbidden Forest, I think. I was upset about a letter, and you came along, and we… burned it. Does that sound familiar at all?” You searched his face, praying that this wasn’t just your imagination playing tricks on you.

Theo’s expression tightened, his brow furrowing as if he was choosing his next words very carefully. He looked torn, like saying the wrong thing might somehow hurt you more.

“It’s just… we only had our first conversation a few days ago, right?” you added, trying to lighten the mood despite the tension.

He grimaced slightly, rubbing his eyes. “No,” he sighed, his voice heavy. “That was a memory. That night in the Forbidden Forest—that was the first time we really talked. I was out there trying to clear my head, had a lot going on, and then I heard you. You were crying. I didn’t expect to find you out there.”

“Have we… had more conversations since that night?” you asked cautiously, feeling a strange mix of relief and confusion.

Theo hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, we did.”

“Could you tell me more? Did we hang out after that? Were we friends or just acquaintances? I just feel so lost and confused. You confirming this is the first bit of clarity I’ve had in days,” your voice cracked, the weight of everything you’d been carrying finally slipping through.

Theo’s face shifted, a mixture of pain and hesitation crossing his features. He looked away briefly, his hands gripping the railing beside him. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, careful. “I wish I could tell you everything… I really do.”

He paused, glancing at you before continuing. “But… it’s not that simple.”

Your heart sank at his words, a mix of frustration and sadness settling in your chest. “Why? What’s stopping you?”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not that I don’t want to, believe me. We just don’t know what could happen if we sprung all this information onto you, how the spell or you would react if we try to fill in all the gaps. I mean you’re already having nosebleeds and intense migraines from no one even saying anything. If we push too hard, it could make things worse.”

Theo’s voice softened as he continued. “I just don’t want to hurt you more than you’re already hurting.” His eyes searched yours, hoping you’d understand.

You looked away, the sting of disappointment dulling the relief you’d felt just moments ago. “But I need to know, Theo. I can’t keep living like this, with these blanks and half-truths. Everyone’s treating me like I’m fragile, like I’ll shatter if they say the wrong thing.” Your voice trembled, a mix of anger and helplessness rising to the surface.

Theo shifted closer, his hand hovering just above yours before he hesitated and withdrew. “I get it,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “But trust me when I say this—it’s not that we’re all in on some secret without you. We’re just… trying to keep you safe.”

The vulnerability in his eyes made your heart ache. You could see the struggle there, the pull between wanting to protect you and the desire to be honest. He wasn’t just holding back for the sake of secrecy—it was out of concern for you.

“Safe from what?” you asked, your voice thick with emotion. “I feel more trapped than safe. Like I’m stuck behind this wall, and everyone’s watching me struggle without actually helping.”

Theo exhaled, his brow furrowing as he searched for the right words. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but we’re doing the best we can. It’s not that we don’t want to tell you—it’s that we don’t know what’ll happen if we do.”

You bit your lip, feeling that familiar swell of frustration rise again. “So I’m just supposed to wait? Until what? Until my memories come back on their own? What if they never do?”

Theo breath stutters and he hesitates. He’s tried his best not to think of that possibility, that you’ll come back to him and this in time would be a funny memory. “I don’t have all the answers. But you’re not alone in this, okay? Even if it feels like it.”

You wanted to believe him. Despite everything, you could sense that Theo genuinely cared, even if he couldn’t give you the answers you desperately sought. You looked at him, your chest tightening with the mix of anger and sadness swirling inside you. “I just wish I knew what I was missing.”

Theo nodded slowly, his eyes heavy with the weight of things left unsaid. “When the time comes, I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

For a moment, there was nothing but silence between you. The cool night air seemed to press down, the weight of your shared secrets hanging in the space between you.

Finally, you nodded, feeling a small sense of comfort in Theo’s promise, even if it couldn’t give you what you needed right now.

If you enjoyed, please please reblog or comment! Your words keep me motivated to write and make me so happy <3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

#theodore nott x reader #theodore nott #theo nott x reader #theo nott #slytherin boys #theodore nott series #theo nott series #theodore nott imagine #theo nott imagine #theo nott x you #theo nott x y/n #theodore nott x you #theodore nott x y/n #moons writing ☾#itsom

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stillness-in-green · 2 months ago

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Sorry if this question rubs you the wrong way, but wouldn't going out of their way to try to help villains to the absolute extreme that you propose be a bit suicidal? I feel like trying to talk no jutsu criminals like Moonfish who's a serial killing canibal, or Muscular who doesn't have any actual reason for commiting violence against others other than he enjoys it, would end up getting people hurt or worse.

Idk, maybe my perception is skewed because my country has problems with the justice system being too lenient with criminals, but then striking hard against honest folk.

Like, let's say heroes try to talk to Muscular about his feelings and stuff, and he just beats them to death. So should they arrest him and take him to jail now, or should they respond "understandable, have a nice day" and let him carry on with his rampage and try to talk no jutsu him the next day?

I’ve had enough exchanges with you, rvg, to assume you don’t mean it this way, but I gotta say, this is an incredibly fallacious way to frame the “talk to Villains” discussion. I wrote two responses to this, first a characteristically long and rambly response which you and anyone else who’s interested are free to read below the cut. The second response is much shorter and is here above the cut, if only for those readers who think it’s a waste of time to try and give a sincere answer to what reads like deliberate reductiveness—though again, I don’t think that’s your intent.

Here is my model version of how Heroes should engage with Villains:

Step One: Heroes should put in a basic, good faith effort to defuse and de-escalate every Villain encounter they have with the tools and knowledge they have available; the ideal result is that the Villain will choose on their own to stop presenting a danger to the public.

Step Two: If that is not feasible for some reason, or if it is ineffective, then the Heroes should make all possible efforts to arrest the Villain with the minimal possible harm.

Step Three: If there is an immediate threat to the lives of bystanders and there is absolutely no way the Heroes can come up with to stop the Villain non-lethally, then there should, afterwards, be an investigation into the death of the Villain and all Heroes who were involved should have to face questions about their role in the situation and their decision to use lethal force. Measures should then be implemented to help prevent the situation from arising again in the future. A Hero killing someone should by default be treated as a punishable failure, not a victory.

That’s it! That’s all there is to it! Try talking first, then try arresting, and if killing is truly the only way, be ready to explain why. That step-by-step should be the standard, and if there are going to be deviations from it, they should be exceptionally well-justified by both the characters and the narrative. If that’s not the standard, then I think it’s a key thing we need to see the protagonists confronting and changing.

Hero Society is obviously in the not-the-standard camp: most of the Heroes spend most of the series jumping straight to Step Two, totally skipping Step One; there are then multiple instances of Step Three being botched completely, with non-lethal tactics being discarded or ignored and lethal force being accepted without question or resistance. By the end of the series, a tiny handful of Heroes are now hesitantly attempting what should have been their very first go-to, Step One, but their prior reliance on Steps Two and Three make the Villains much more resistant than they might have otherwise been, which reenforces the push towards lethal force in a society that will still not enforce any consequences for it.

This would all be more forgivable if not for the way BNHA positions its Heroes, as lawful defenders of the status quo in a basically modern version of Japan—i.e. they’re cops but the story either doesn’t want to saddle them with the responsibilities real cops would have or else Horikoshi has some alarming views that treat said responsibilities as bothersome administrative red tape.

Therein is my fundamental complaint: BNHA makes the choice to frame its Heroes as being basically specialized police but then disregards or attempts to minimize how that framing colors the Heroes actions’ and decisions, especially with regard to the Villains. My thoughts on what the Heroes “should” be doing are nothing more than taking that framing (Heroes = cops) to its logical conclusion and asking the story to treat the Heroes accordingly.

Below the jump, find the longer version of this answer, which contains more picking apart of the ask’s premise, more references to the canon and to real life, and an extended discussion about the non-Hero institutions in BNHA that are in some way responsible for Villains and what Heroes’ obligations are re: those institutions. It is, in other words, the version of this answer that’s 4000 words long instead of 500. Reminder that it was the version of this answer that was written first, so pardon any recycled phrasing or reiterated rhetoric.

I’ll just start by re-pasting the question…

What I think is that there is a lot of air between “beating up Villains while being more concerned about the news camera catching your good side than you are about talking to the human being you’re pummeling” and “trying to talk to the Villain but just shrugging and letting them carry on if it doesn’t work”.

A perennial response Villain fans get when they talk about this is an exasperated, even outraged, “What, so you’re saying Deku should just let Shigaraki kill him or innocent people?!” And like, no, that’s not what we’re saying at all, and it’s a really reductive, bad faith characterization of the argument. So I want to talk first about what Villain fans are saying, and then I’ll circle back to your question about trying to talk no jutsu the really bad news Villains and what Heroes should do if that talk no jutsu fails.

First things first, and to get it out of the way, not all Villains are on the level of Muscular or Moonfish. For the vast majority of the series, the numeric bulk of Villains are just street criminals. It would not be a life or death struggle for Kamui Woods and Mount Lady to try and talk down a purse snatcher together. There is so much room for positive change in how Heroes engage with street-level Villains that just gets glossed over entirely when people want to spin-kick the argument all the way to S-class threats like post-surgery Shigaraki.

Note how handily and briskly Hawks deals with the nudist flasher guy when he’s walking around town with Endeavor—he doesn’t even glance in his direction. Would it have been so impossibly hard to use his feathers to pin the guy’s coat back together and then cheerfully ask him why he went and did a thing like that?

So just keep that in mind, first of all: for the vast majority of what a Hero does day-to-day, especially the powerful ones who are way up near the top of the rankings, there are options available to them beyond “immediately resort to extreme violence” or “give the Villain a thumbs-up and walk away, whistling to cover the sound of civilian screams.”

But okay, how about with the more dangerous Villains? Well, the point still stands: multiple heroic characters throughout the manga show themselves to be entirely capable of carrying on a conversation—be it with the Villains or with Hero allies—while fighting. Mirio is able to temporarily keep ShigAFO talking and distracted by simply asking him a few basic questions; he and Nighteye both are able to get at least some answers out of Overhaul(!) just by asking about his intentions. Ochaco and Toga have coherent conversation every single time they fight. Hawks and Twice have a whole argument while fighting. As soon as Shouto can be bothered to talk to Dabi, Dabi’s eager to spill his whole backstory to him.

Shigaraki in particular comes off as desperate to share his grievances practically every time Heroes encounter him, and that only stops being true at the very end—and even there, it might be less true if that green twit fighting him could have been arsed to just fucking ask him, “Hey, last time we fought, when we were in the same headspace, I saw an image of you crying with a dog. What was up with that?” Deku doesn’t have to stand there with his hands in the air while asking! As all the examples cited demonstrate, Heroes are more than able to fight and talk at the same time. So why don’t they try to make that talk a little more actually useful?

What I’m saying is simply that I would like it if less of that conversation were dedicated to Heroes giving moralizing sermons about how bad and unforgiveable Villains are and a lot more of it were dedicated to Heroes just asking why the Villains are doing what they’re doing, and letting the conversation go from there, fighting defensively and keeping the Villain focused on them as much as they’re capable of doing. We see the results in the series when Heroes bother trying this—think Deku’s results with Gentle Criminal or Ochaco’s with Toga—so it’s damning that they don’t try it more often.

The likely explanation is that professional heroism as a matter of practice and culture does not tend to bother with de-escalation tactics; after all, while you’re standing there trying to talk to the bank robber, some other Hero could easily be coming in for the take-down, and then they get all the credit and glory and not least the pay. The whole system is geared towards rewarding fast, uncompromising takedowns, ignoring the possibility of more peaceful, productive resolutions in favor of stopping the Public Disturbance as quickly as possible, because it’s more important to stop random civilians feeling inconvenienced than it is to maybe try addressing a Villain’s issues so they stand down themselves and are less likely to become hardened criminals.

Heck, even Deku really only gets anywhere with Gentle because his first instinct—shutting down the fight right away with a Smash—gets him rebounded off an air trampoline with enough force to knock him back nearly a neighborhood block. The defensive, evasive nature of Gentle’s power means it’s difficult to hit him directly, and Gentle’s personality was such that he kept talking while Deku was figuring out how to beat him. That talking was really what gave Deku enough insight to trigger his empathy, so he started returning the conversation in ways that he never did against e.g. Stain, AFO, or in his first fight with Muscular. He didn’t lead by asking why Gentle was invading his school, though; he just ordered him repeatedly to stop.

Heroes and, in turn, the kids, just don’t default to trying to talk to the Villains. We see that they can, they’re just not trained to, so it becomes a tactic of last resort, or of distraction, or, finally, as being the result of moments of connection that make them incapable of continuing to ignore the Villains’ humanity. But when it’s a last resort like that, when they don’t bother asking questions until after the Villains have been pushed past the point of wanting to engage, everything gets so much harder and more dangerous.

Look at Shigaraki and Toga. When Deku and Ochaco initially encounter them, the kids’ first response is basically just revulsion and terror. And like, okay, they’re students, newly fledged Hero Course trainees. They shouldn’t have been facing real life Villains for another two years, at least! So it’s not surprising that they don’t know what to do and don’t react in the most empathetic manner possible. I’m not blaming them for that. But I do want to ask what would have happened if their classes and the Hero culture were more focused on attempting dialogue with Villains.

All Might at USJ writes Shigaraki off as a faker with no real beliefs, and Deku at the mall calls him an incomprehensible cipher, but what if either of them had instead asked Tomura why he was there and what he wanted, then asked follow-up questions from there? How much earlier might they have found out that Shigaraki had some tragedy in his past that he blamed All Might for not saving him from? What might finding that out early on have led them to change about how they approached Shigaraki in subsequent encounters?

If Ochaco and Tsuyu had asked Toga why she attacked people, then followed up on whatever answer Toga gave about liking blood with some questions about consent, how much sooner might they have found out that Toga spent her whole life feeling ostracized and repressed because she was convinced by the adults around her that people finding out she craved blood would make her a freak in their eyes? How might they have engaged with her differently if they realized her parents had been verbally abusing her since she was three years old?

But we also don’t have to stop with U.A. types! Toga went on the run at only 15—how many times did she have had close scrapes with arrest before the training camp attack? How many other opportunities were there for someone to talk her down before she made it to the League? Heck, even all the way to the end, if the green twit hadn’t just insisted on antagonizing Toga one last time for the road—as if he’d learned nothing at all since the mall scene!—how much more easily might Ochaco have been able to engage with her? Maybe if Toga hadn’t set her mind to embracing Villainy because Deku functionally became yet another person calling her a freak, Ochaco could have gotten to the breakthrough point before Toga stabbed her in the gut?

I’ve been talking about the more sympathetic Villains here so far, but all this goes for the rest of them, too. Sure, Moonfish is a cannibal serial killer now, but was he always? Or was there a time when he was just like Toga, a teenager wrestling with quirk-driven hungers who was abused and ostracized for them? I’ve thought, from time to time, about the idea of a League ageswap AU, where Moonfish is that scared but defiant teenager who’s been pushed over the edge and done something violent, but is not yet past saving. Conversely, it’s all too easy for me to imagine a Toga who was never captured and never shown any compassion growing into an adult who fully embraced her vampire serial killer reputation and “deviant” hungers to become just as much an alleged monster as Canon Moonfish.

How about Muscular? Was he always a violent sadist? Was it impossible that he could have grown up to be anything else? Could that taste for violence ever have found an outlet other than murder? Could he have gotten into underground fighting, like Rappa? Could he have become a Hero like Mirko, always hungry for a better challenge than she’s getting? Quite frankly, even if Imasuji Gouto was a violent little bully who killed neighborhood pets as a child, he still deserved some kind of intervention—psychological counseling, medication, more acceptable outlets, etc.

How many Villains would HeroAca!Japan be spared if the people in power were more focused on intervention and rehabilitation at every stage of a Villain’s life and career? Why do Heroes think it’s helpful or necessary to tell everyone in earshot their personal opinion about the unforgivability of their opponents? Why is it such a problem for some readers when Villain fans point out that a lot of issues could be sidestepped entirely, and the HeroAca world considerably bettered, if the Hero Industry were less focused on showy grandstanding violence, less terrified of the optics of being anything other than maximally harsh on Villains?

That all said, that’s the nuance of what I want when I say I want more talk no jutsu. But let’s go back to your question—what should Heroes do when they run into Villains who can’t be talked down?

Say that all the interventions and counseling programs have failed, and someone—some mother’s son, some father’s daughter—has grown up to become a Villain. And not just any Villain, but a really dangerous one. What do?

Well, I do still want to see Heroes try to talk first, unless they have some reason to believe talking won’t work, like knowledge that knowing that efforts in that direction have already been made and documented in previous encounters between law enforcement and the Villain in question. There’s also some flex here based on how capable of dragging out an encounter the Heroes on-scene are, and how much danger any bystanders would be in—I would want more effort from someone who can hold their own for long periods like Deku than e.g. Manual. But like, anyone can yell a few basic questions about motivations to see what sort of response they get.

But say our Hero is up against someone like Muscular, who just laughs off questions like that. What to do then?

Then arrest him.

Seriously, this is not that complicated. I’m not asking some run-of-the-mill Hero to get their arms ripped off trying to give battle therapy to Muscular! But I do want Muscular to get therapy, or at least be offered it, once he’s no longer presenting an immediate threat and those conversations can happen in a safe environment. And if he doesn’t accept it,[1] I still want him to be treated as humanely as reasonably possible in prison, with the therapy option always on the table if he ever wants to try it. I also want his prison term (even if it’s for life) to not involve methods of punishment that are considered by the United Nations to constitute torture, like Tartarus’s apparent extended solitary confinement.

1: Perhaps because he would rather rip his own arms off than talk about his feelings or waste any more time getting analyzed by shrinks than he already has; pick your poison based on why and for how long you think he’s been killing people.

I truly do not have any problems, ethically speaking, with Heroes arresting dangerous Villains. My problem has always been that Hero Society is comprehensively awful in how it treats those who don’t fit neatly into society’s little boxes. Their social support networks are full of holes, their law enforcement is financially disincentivized from attempting de-escalation, their judicial process is completely invisible, and their prisons are concrete holes that only serve to make people worse, as we can see clearly in the case of people like poor Ending—already unstable when he was first arrested by Endeavor, but so blatantly suicidal when his sentence is up that the literal first thing he does after release is to investigate Endeavor’s personal life so as to find a way to goad Endeavor into killing him.

Now, sure, Heroes are not responsible for prison policies and practices; those are under a completely different part of the criminal justice umbrella. Nor is it up to them to determine how e.g. financial aid programs or family services work. But I want Heroes to be better in the ways that they—personally and professionally—can be, and I want them to be cognizant of the flaws in the system they uphold. I want them to have some basic intellectual curiosity about the Villains they fight—why they turned out like they did, if they can be helped, and what’s going to become of them after the Hero hands them off to the police.

Like, what is All Might’s opinion on Tartarus? He spent 30+ years fighting for the society that maintains it—does he think or care at all about the fact that some extremely damaged, abused people wind up in there after he gets done beating them up? And if he doesn’t, what does that say about him? What would Ochaco have done if Toga had lived and said she’d rather Ochaco kill her than let her go to prison forever? Does Shouto think now about the family situation of every Villain he fights, or did his ability to care about “some mother’s son” begin and end with his mother’s son?

Obviously, Heroes stop Villains all the time; I’m not asking them to do deep dives into the history and treatment of each and every one. I just want them to ask the questions they can while the Villain is in front of them, and to care about the state of both the systems that produce Villains and the ones tasked with their care. I think that when handing people over to state custody, Heroes have a responsibility to be meaningfully confident that the state won’t abuse that custodianship. If they aren’t—if they truly don’t give a shit about what happens to Villains once the police van door swings closed—then in my view they’re no different than any professional who shirks their duty.

So many people insist that the kids—that Heroes in general—have no duty to care about the Villains, but to me, this view comes off as wildly ignorant about the wide variety of jobs in the real world that do, in fact, confer a duty of care.

If…

…a teacher sees a child with unexplained bruises but doesn’t bother to do their due diligence as a mandatory reporter—

…a prison guard leaves a handcuffed inmate alone in a room with a fellow warden wearing brass knuckles—

…a medic doesn’t speak up when a flight attendant asks if there’s a doctor on the plane—

…a bartender just keeps on serving someone who’s obviously intoxicated and then lets them stumble out the door to the parking lot—

—then they are shirking their duty. There is no shortage out there of examples of this sort of responsibility, one that you can be held legally responsible for, one that you choose to accept when you sign up for the job.

Heroes are not Samaritans doing the work out of the goodness of their hearts; they’re not vigilantes just trying to keep their own patch safe. They’re government employees, crucial members of the lawful system they represent. They have to care—not personally, not individually, but on a professional, structural level, they have to care about the people they fight because the system has to care about those people. And if the system doesn’t care, the system has to be changed.

I'm segueing here into real life stuff, so let me note as a disclaimer that what follows is based on my cultural familiarity with American policies, as well as periodic research into that of other nations. I don't know what country you live in, rvg, so I can hardly speak to its crime-and-punishment situation. This is all a lefty American's opinion on what reading she has done about American, Japanese, and, in the case of this particular post, Scandinavian criminal justice systems.

That said: in real life, de-escalation works. One of the things you’ll often see talked about in police reform/abolishment circles is that the police are, quite frankly, doing too much work. Or, more specifically, they’re doing the wrong kind of work, work for which their training has not prepared them and which other groups would be far better suited to handle.

Here’s an article on offering a campus police force de-escalation training and the resulting 26-36% drop in injuries suffered by both civilians and officers; it also talks about how de-escalation tactics are used by SWAT teams but regarded with suspicion by patrol officers, with this quote being particularly telling: “[Special operations] officers were taught to use time, distance and cover to their advantage. For patrol officers, time was viewed as 'The more time you give a suspect, the more danger you're in.'” De-escalation is not the usual training patrol officers get, so it runs against their gut feeling, despite its proven effectiveness—compare this to BNHA’s repeated focus on speed in shutting down altercations.

Here’s an article on the results of a test run of a program in Denver, Colorado, in which police officers were completely removed from response teams to 911 calls about situations considered low risk (drug abuse, trespassing, welfare checks, etc); instead, teams of mental health specialists and paramedics were dispatched. Reports of nonviolent crime dropped 34% over the course of the time the program ran, and the direct financial cost of the response was four times lower than sending police.

The classic dramatic image of this sort of thing is the hostage situation—and when I looked into it, numerous articles said that containment and negotiation tactics have over a 94% chance of resolving hostage crises without fatalities!

The common element in this sort of thing is refraining from showboating displays of force, loud assertions of power and authority, arguments, moralizing, threats, and so forth. Far more effective is listening, active attempts to communicate and understand, not throwing one's weight around and not rising to aggression even when provoked.

Meanwhile, on the carceral side of things, restorative justice leads to greater satisfaction from both victims and perpetrators, more feeling that they were listened to and respected, and increased belief that justice was served. While the evidence on its impact on recidivism is mixed, it certainly doesn’t seem to be less effective than traditional retributive justice, and may well be considerably more effective if combined with programs that focus more specifically on lessening recidivism than restorative justice alone (research is ongoing).

This article on how “cushy” Scandinavian prisons are far more effective at reducing recidivism than their much harsher, bleaker American counterparts argues that a crucial factor in reducing recidivism is minimizing the amount of resentment criminals bear towards the system. When perpetrators can point at unjust or disproportionate punishments, cruel treatment by wardens, rejection by society, etc, it’s much easier to stew on resentment, to turn nastier themselves, to blame outside factors. Conversely, when life inside prison is made as much like life outside prison as possible with the key difference being the crucial deprivation of freedom, that resentment is defanged, leading to more more self-reflection and willingness to accept responsibility. And again, it works: Norway is a world leader, with their recidivism rate being a mere 20% compared to the U.S.’s nearly 77%.

The studies and the evidence for this stuff is out there, it’s just fighting this huge, ugly uphill battle against people who care far, far more about inflicting punishment than they do actually improving outcomes. And so much of that is based on cultural values—what people believe, what values they’re taught. That's where pop culture comes in.

That last article I linked above talks about the efforts made in the U.S. to turn prisons into a for-profit industry, and how demonizing criminals to encourage maximum sentences helps that effort; here’s another on how U.S. police departments rehabilitated the popular image of the police in the early part of the 1900s as bumbling fools or a corrupt gang by consulting on the writing of police procedurals, most crucially starting with Dragnet in 1951, but continuing even today. Here’s one on a growing concern in Japan about the relationship fostered between TV studios and police when police permission and cooperation is required for filming those popular reality TV police documentary programs.

Mass media and pop culture informs this stuff. True, Horikoshi is not having to get his work cleared by a police PR department to publish it, but you can see from the above how the police have used and do use mass media to polish up their image; they see it as an effective tool to use because it is. And the closer to our reality a work of fiction is, the more obviously it resembles the world around us, the more it seems to purport to moral instructiveness, the more true that becomes. That’s why I criticize BNHA much more harshly than any number of other manga or anime I follow where Good Guys Kill Bad Guys all the time and no one thinks twice about it: because those series aren’t parading the Good Guys out as Japanese citizens working with Japanese police under Japanese law to maintain the rosy image of the Japanese status quo.

I’m long past the point where I’m just rambling, so I’ll wind it down here by pointing out this: Horikoshi also thought that things in his world needed to change. As much as I loathe BNHA’s endgame and think much of its epilogue is trite shoulder-patting pablum that fails to meaningfully address the setting’s real problems, multiple aspects of Hero Society were at least nominally challenged and subsequently changed: citizen inaction, the dominance of professional heroics as a career path, the diminishment of non-Hero careers, quirk-based discrimination. As a direct result of the main characters’ efforts to address places where the old system was failing people, the incident rate of Villains is decreasing.

The fact that these changes are made provides in itself the evidence that they needed to be made. I think they need to go further still: my number one greivance with the epilogue is that we've seen all these changes aimed at reducing the numbers of Villains that arise in the first place, and that's nice and all, but we don't see any evidence that the Villains that do arise are treated any differently than they ever were, not even the common purse snatchers, much less the serial killers, the cannibals, and the terrorists.

So, should Heroes have to get themselves nearly killed trying to reform a Villain? Ideally no, but that assumes a world where Heroes are working in concert with a bunch of other people who are also dedicated to preventing, reforming, or rehabilitating Villains. If none of that other personnel infrastructure exists, then, well, to paraphrase Nedzu, someone has to take the first step. Why shouldn’t it be the combat-trained professionals with shounen battle stamina who also happen to be the main characters?

#bnha #bnha gets real #long post #bnha hero society #bnha muscular #bnha moonfish #league of villains #no. 2 green #bnha critical #stillness answers #i know applying real life criminal justice philosophy to shounen battle manga is an endeavor that is only less doomed than it is pretentiou #but what is one to do when faced with a work like bnha #and the false binaries its narrative all but begs its readers to embrace #randomvongenerico

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artastic-friend · 1 year ago

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Some things I love about DJ’s sound design and animations in Help Wanted 2:

Every time he makes a bigger movement that requires shifting of its weight you can HEAR IT- It creaks and you can hear hydraulics inside of him WHICH BTW IS SO COOL IN SO MANY WAYS BC (tangent): it makes sense as to why he needs hydraulics being so huge and heavy, but also because the way real spiders extend their legs is like a natural form of hydraulics!! They pump their hemolymph(basically bug blood) into their legs which then allow those legs to be filled with more pressure that causes them to extend! This is why a dead or near-death spider’s legs go into the curled position (the death curl) :(

The sTOMPS I always loved the stomps even in base sb but there is just something so cool about hearing them around you as he is so close!!! It all just adds to the feeling of his weight and size 😫

HIS GROWLING?? AND MORE ANIMAL-LIKE SOUNDS??? In the past we would hear a little bit of it when he was sleeping in SB, but now we hear more examples of it and just like- closer and more noticeably 😳 it’s almost like you can hear it breathing at times and it is so cool and uncanny in the best ways :D

Ok the SNAP?!? The way he snaps his fingers and the sound reverberates all around you?!? And the way the light ring of the outside of his tunnel turns on at the same time??? I don’t really think that DJ is actually producing the snap sound from the snap alone, as with the synthetic materials its gloves are made of probably can’t produce that crisp of a sound, BUT THAT JUST MEANS THAT HE MAKES THE SOUND HIMSELF WITH ITS SPEAKERS OR SOMETHING AND SO HE’S DOING IT 100% FOR STYLE POINTS AND I LOVE THAT FOR HIM

The sound of its teeth clanking together to the beat of the music, that’s just a neat feature I like very much

Ok movements now, THE WAY HE SWAYS HIS HIPS(?) TO THE MUSIC!?! especially when it is doing that little happy dance of his or pointing at the player when it’s their turn to play. I LOVE THAT LITTLE DANCE IT’S SO CUTE

Ok the way he leans in reaaal close before settling back? He’s probably just doing it as it shifts its balance to lean back, but like, I wanna believe he’s also sorta doing it on purpose a little 🤭

Speaking of which, the movements for him going from leaning towards you to shifting his weight back and getting into that badass cross-armed pose?!!? Love it 😭 I love it sm- once again, the recoil and the followthrough of his movements just emphasize its size and weight so well I am just obsessed

OH AND HIS LITTLE FINGER TAPS WITH HIS MIDDLE RIGHT ARM THAT’S ON THE FLOOR?!? It’s a smaller detail but I am so glad they included it because it’s just so neat!?! I don’t know how to explain why I like it but it is so neat and adds to his vibe so well

OK I JUST NOTICED THIS BUT WHEN IT IS DOING THAT LITTLE DANCE AND POINTING AT YOU WHEN YOU GOT EVERYTHING RIGHT: he like, Bops his head a little and with each head bop his headphones bounce a little as well!! Idk why that is just such a neat little detail to me!

Ok this one I probably should have mentioned sooner since it’s one of the first things it does but the way it climbs out of the tunnel and grabs the sides like that with his middle set of arms? 😫😫✨ Idk what to tell y’all but that is the most attractive shit I’ve seen!!! Y’all need to step up your game if you wanna be like him XD /j

His head tilts. Need I say more? They’re adorable.

THE JUMPSCARE??!?? Dude I know it’s probably meant to look like he’s coming in to bite/eat you or something??? But to me and my DJ-Simp corrupted brain it just looks like we’re boutta make out 😁😁😁

OK THAT’S ALL I GOT FOR RIGHT NOW, but I might possibly add to this later???? If I notice anything else that stands out to me.

#dj music man #djmm #random rambles #help wanted 2

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oops-all-concrete · 11 months ago

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Hello lovelies! I have written more fluffy headcanons for you, this time in the form of;

Romanced Companions comfort Tav, who's in shocked after having to be revivified.

Essentially they're kinda shook/out of it, like, the other companions come back and tell the romanced companions "Yeah, they have been out of it since they got up. Idk what to tell you" (If it makes anymore sense, it could even be Tavs first reviving)

Prepare for fluff, hurt/comfort, lots of hugs, lots of sweetness. Essentially, all your Tavs are getting the princess treatment they deserve!

(ALSO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE LOVE ON MY LAST HEADCANONS POST OH MY GOD?? 400+ NOTES IS INSANE)

Lae'zel -

Once informed Lae'zel becomes weary. Something must be wrong, Tav is never so- elsewhere. She goes out of her way go ask Halsin for antidotes, ask Shadowheart to remove curse, but upon going to ask Astarion if he can smell blight in their blood, he suggests dying and being brought back in any way can be challenging. "We're not made to come back." Now, comfort isn't her strong suit- but Gods she was desperate to aid them. She brings carefully decorated food (like a fun charcuterie board Gale helped with) over and helps them out of armour, massaging their tired muscles and feeding them by hand. She doesn't cuddle, but she stays all night, pressed as close as possible. For protection, of course. (The rest of the companions get a private earful about keeping them safe. She knows they're scared of her and will exploit it)

Shadowheart -

She gets a strange feeling before the group even returns- something in her feels off. So when she sees everyone back in one piece, she's relieved- until she isn't. Karlach tells her immediately, seeing her worry. "Only been revived in the last hour. Been real quiet too" Shadowheart can't stand her lover being so lost in their own eyes. Shadowheart gets an idea- and invited Tav to help her cook for the camp, but sulks at their mindless nod. She's not deterred- she holds up every ingredient to Tavs nose, gets them involved with simple tasks and gets them to taste test. Everything to get their senses wired until they come back to her. The minute she sees a smile on their lips again, she's kissing them too. "Thanks for coming back...would have been boring without you" She smiles into every kiss. (The food might be burning, but who cares?)

Wyll -

Wyll always greets Tav when they come back, happy to see them alive, but he can tell something is wrong immediately. "Tav is still adjusting to being alive again, I think. I don't know if they can talk right now" Shadowheart says. Wyll approaches Tav slowly, taking their face in his hands and gently kissing their forehead. "Hi love." He smiles. "Can I take you back to my tent? I'd love to get you into a bath, if that's okay?" He asks, trying not sound certain. Tav gets a small nod out, but Wyll asks again several times until Tav is in the bath, Wylls hands on their scalp, gently washing their hair and body of blood. He tells them about his day, a story he was telling Karlach- how glad he is to see them alive. Because they are alive. And Tav clearly needed to hear it. The reminder makes them human once again, settling into the warm water. He wordlessly, but diligently cleans them, head to toe, the odd kiss to their brow here and there.

Karlach -

When Karlach peers out of her tent and sees Lae'zel, Astarion and Wyll back, she frowns, not seeing Tav right away. She finds Tav with Gale, unsure what to do with them, and explains what Lae'zel told him. "Awful knock to the head. Went straight down, not even a yell" He frowns. Karlach wants nothing more than to throw her arms around them, but she gets a better idea, taking Tav to the lakeside and brings them for a swim. Wyll and Shadowheart advise against it, but Karlach persists. She strips them both and gently pulls Tav over herself to drift. They react immediately to the water but still and calm, clinging to her as they float. "It's alright soldier, you're off duty now. I've got you" She says, thumbing some of the dried mud off their face with a patient smile.

Gale -

Gale's a mess. I mean, specifically now. Tav looks like they're seeing the sun for the first time, and needs to be told not to stare. He gets them sat down and tries to comfort with words, but it all comes out as "Ah, needn't worry, you've got one of Waterdeeps finest, and I didn't fall asleep during all my herbalism and medical weave classes. I'm sure I have something- I know I have something-" And he sits beside you and reads in his tent, leaning Tav against his shoulder to keep them awake. He ruins his hair keeping it out of his eyes, throws off his bracers to avoid catching pages- and it takes him a moment to realise- Tav is asleep on him. He has bored them to sleep. Tav is drooling. And Gale is relieved. They look like themself again, pressing their face into his arm. The breakfast they're greeted with is almost worth dying, trust me.

Astarion -

Aatarion knows immediately, he doesn't have to be told. He knows that look and all the horrors behind it, not letting anybody get in his way as he got to Tav. But- well he doesn't know what to do, really, nobody did the right thing when Astarion had been "revived" so he didn't know what it looked like. But he had an idea. He slowly walks them to sit in his tent, strips their armour and asks them to wait. He's back 2 minutes later with a washcloth and water bowl in hand, and mid-way through washing Tavs face, Wyll brings some bread, fruit and orange juice. Astarion smiles and makes the odd "You must be famished" between pressing grapes to their lips. "I can see you've been doing your bloody best, as usual" he complements dabbing their cheeks. "You did wonderful today, darling" he praises. "...There's my Tav" He smiles like he's come home, looking at their now clean face.

Hope you all enjoyed, if you have any prompts/requests, let me know in the notes/in my asks! ♡

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ronearoundblindly · 4 months ago

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I just want to start this off by saying you are one of my favorite Steve writers of all time I can’t believe I just randomly found you one day. Every time I read something I think “oh this is her best” and then I go to something else and literally the same reaction so thank you of sharing this for free. The comfort reading your Steve stories give me is unexplainable.

LOL the funniest thing is I found your works on ao3 first and at first I didn’t click the tumblr there so when I found the CEO au here I was like “um excuse me who tf is plagiarizing — oh wait no same person. Thank god”

So I don’t know how you feel about writing about pregnancy and kids but Steve having to deal with that especially in the Sun Salt and Shield AU is so hilarious to me. Is there a hc you have about that? Or just in general about them getting more serious. I love that you didn’t take the easy way out and just “Splash”ify the mermaid reader.

Um🥹😚, all of this is great, and I'm not trying to just skip over all your lovely compliments (also, good looking out on the plagiarism because that issue's going around again 🥲). I just want to jump right into the headcanon of pregnancy and kids for Sun, Salt, and Shield.

This is mostly rambling. Sorry it's not well-formed, but there *might* be a chapter of fic percolating from this. No warnings. No detailed talk of pregnancy or birth, only vague reference.

Just the other day I revisited an ask about MissG/Doll not having the more humanoid body of idk-what-to-call-them classical mermaids?? And I wondered if that (the classic look) could have been a blended species from way in the past between deep sea mermaids and humans--essentially, would Doll and Steve have children that looked more like what we typically see as mermaids?

It's an interesting train of thought, and, frankly, perfectly logical. If they had a kid or kids, that's likely how I'd do it.

However--and this is a big HOWEVER,--I am admittedly not a big fan of pregnancy, kidfics, and all that 'adorable' parenthood stuff. Sounds a little cruel that way, but there you have it. I'm me. I make things more complicated than they need to be.

I would make pregnancy a different experience from humans. Doll's kind would have a different mentality toward offspring than humans. Some hilarious and/or angsty misunderstandings could ensue.

For example--because I don't think too deeply into these matters, shhhh--based on the sheer size of her whole species, I don't think deep sea mermaids visibly look pregnant like humans. Their hips simply get wider and they sort of thicken all the way through their torsos to mid-tail. Honest to goodness, humans truly just think Miss G is getting fat, but just in a 'putting on weight' way, not a nasty judgy way. In this event, and since you/G do not have the vocabulary to explain, your pregnancy goes unnoticed until it is very advanced.

To you, this is a common inevitability in the sea between mates, but there isn't the type of hoopla--for lack of a better term--surrounding the process.

So you're pregnant? Big deal?

Ummmm, wow, the wheels are really starting to turn on this, but also your species doesn't have a calculated sense of time. You live in mostly darkness (and the ambient/changing light of other mermaids' tails), so you wouldn't have any real way of explaining how long gestation for a baby is. Likely, the kid would grow super fast, too. Means Tony still doesn't know the average lifespan of your species because there are no common/known markers to describe how long your 'elders' have been alive.

Stuff I haven't worked out yet: would the child of a deep sea mermaid and a human be able to live in either native environment? That's where I'm thinking the lower-depth, classic mermaid comes into play; still has fins, can breathe air for short periods (but longer than you), probably can't handle heavy pressure for very long though (since you spend far longer in a pool, not the pressure chamber asleep, than most deep sea-ers while pregnant), and is lighter colored in scales and features than you due to the shallower water (more affected by sunlight).

I do think it would be cute for the child to have Steve's blond hair and blue eyes simply because that is unheard of in your species (as are the paler scales and armoring. I should mention that since you have lavender eyes--i.e. very light sensitive--human blue eyes are comparatively dark.

You'll notice I'm not saying son or daughter. When newborn young...I don't think anyone can tell if the child is male or female. I don't thing G's species cares, and I think you'd be very confused by how intently Tony and Steve try to figure that out. Conceptually, it simply doesn't matter at all what sex the kid is until puberty, and even then...it still sort of doesn't??

Hmm. That's all I got on this for now, but I sense I could probably come up with some interesting angst with a happy ending from it.

Thank you for asking!

A/N: Not that it matters, but I love 'Splash.' I've learned that it's fine to explore fantastical things to all sorts of degrees, and as almost all of fandom can tell you, fluff is great, fluff is necessary, and fluff keeps us afloat. Big HOWEVER, it is not okay to wash away anyone's race or heritage (in this case--obviously fake--a species' culture). Be respectful. It's that easy.

[Main Masterlist; Light Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

@fandom-has-taken-me-hostage @leah2901 @blogbog710

#sun salt and shield series #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fic #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #captain america fanfiction #captain america x reader #captain america x you #marvel au #steve rogers x female reader #deep sea mermaid #deep sea mermaid!reader #mermaid!reader #mermaid!au #ro answers

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mrclairdycat · 2 years ago

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HUMAN THINGS THAT WOULD SHOCK/CONFUSE WALLY DARLING: A THREAD.

Slight gore warning, I think?

People waxing and plucking their hair.

Nail art. He would love it.

Tumblr. If you gave him tumblr he would end up scrolling all day to see art, and spam post his own. I'm sure he would also feel obliged to comment under every post to compliment the art, he's such a nice little fella

Organs. He would find them silly and interesting. You would show him pictures of organs and he would ask things like:"do you have different colored organs? Can I see yours?"

The fact that we have to go to the bathroom? Imagine being like: "Yeah whenever we consume things we need to make it go out of our bodies aswell." He would be like: "... Neat." He would then play by flushing the toilet numerous times, he would find it fun. He probably would end up clogging it up because he tries to see how many things it can flush.

Human teeth.

Iphones. He would like it since the logo is an apple. He wouldn't play with the phone he would just add it to his collection of apple things.

Videogames? He thinks that the character in the screen is real and he's controlling them. You explain how they don't exist. "How can you be sure about that?" he asks, "cause we make them, they're just codes." "But how can you be sure they just dont know they're alive since they can't tell you?" he asks again: you start rethinking the many times you tortured characters in The Sims.

Pokemon. He would think the creatures are real too. He would lose his shit to Applin. He would ask: "Can I have him?" and you'll buy him the plushie and say they don't live here cause you don't have the heart to tell him it doesn't exist.

Certain animals?? He would be confused on why don't they speak. He sees them as people, he would be like "Why did you lick me? That's weird," to a dog... and then lick him back cause he thinks its a human world thing. You say:"thats just how he communicates affection, " and he would start licking people too to show his affection in this language.

Emojis. If he started messaging he would spam emojis. Probably thinks audio messages are like calls, and you're left with a spam of audio messages that are like: "Hello? Hellooo? Why aren't you saying anything?"

Digital art. He would look in awe. "I have unlimited colors? That's fun."

Sensory videos. He would be like an ipad kid. His face is on the screen watching the videos all day. ShApeS anD CoLoRs.

Sensory toys. He would love them aswell.

Deodorant. "We spray this on our armpits," you say. "Why?" he asks. "Because we sweat and produce smelly liquids," you reply. "... Ew."

Showers. He would be like a cat, he would hate showers at first. He doesn't understand why you would want to be wet. You would then randomly find him standing in the shower with an intense fixiated look on his face as the warm/hot water pours down on him. He likes the feeling.

Speaking about warmness, he would absolutely love how warm humans are. He would just randomly hug you cause he likes how warm and comforting it feels. Probably would like sleeping with you aswell and cuddle.

Human movies and tv shows. He would think those are things happening for real. You explain that it's like theatre. "... Wow, your theatre is very realistic," he says.

Wars. He would be so confused. "Why would you hurt your neighbours? That's bad, just discuss things pacifically." Probably would make him sad. He wants everyone to be friends and an happy community.

Meat. I'm pretty sure in Welcome Home they only eat fruits and vegetables? Idk. He would ask:"Since humans are also animals, do you eat eachoth-" "No. That's illegal," you reply. "... What's an illegal?" he asks. "It's a rule: humans are prohibited from eating each other," you respond. "... Since I'm not a human can I eat one-" "NO."

People making out. He would stare at them. He finds it gross but interesting, he doesn't view it as a intimate sexual thing just a weird thing human do.

Certain social rules. Why can't you just say hi to someone and speak to them as if they're your friend? Why is it rude to stare?

An apple factory. Like the fruit. So... many... apples. He would be sad some apples get thrown away and tries to 'save' them.

Blood. You would try to explain it, he understands it as just red water circuling inside your body. He would play with blood or finger paint with it and won't understand why that is an horrifying image.

Spotify. Unlimited music?? You can save your favourites to listen to them whenever you want? Wow.

Pollution. He would go crazy and blow up. WHY WOULD YOU HARM AND LITTER YOUR HOME?? AAAARGH!!

Homeless people. You're telling me there are people who don't have a home? Everyone needs a home! Why don't they give them a home?!

Preschool. A place where you spend your entire day fingerpainting, reading books, making stuff and dancing? All of the things he loves the most. He would infiltrate into one, the teacher would probably call the police, he would get asked questions. He just wanted to have fun too....

Discovering that in grammar saying "the most" without anything else is just incorrect and doesn't make sense. He doesn't like being corrected about it. It's his thing. Don't correct him.

Cuss words. He would be shocked at how many cuss words he hears daily: watch your profanity.

Space?? People being on planets?? His mind would blow up.

Birth. You... make humans?? You create yourself? What do you mean they grow inside of you? How? Does it just randomly happen? You would rather die than teach him about sex. You say that you were kidding and a stork brings the babies for those who want one, it's their job. "Ohhh, that makes more sense," he says. Then he sees a cat or dog giving birth and just implodes.

Therapists. He would like them cause they would be the closest thing to his neighbours. He doesn't understand, however, why they demand to get paid for being friendly.

History. You're telling me there was a time when your kind didn't exist? And you know that because of just... history? How? What??

Earrings. To him it just looks like you're stabbing yourself.

#wally darling #welcome home #partycoffin #welcomehomepuppetshow #welcome home headcanon #welcome home headcanons #headcanon #thread #i love wally #the skrunkly

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moonspiritmars · 2 months ago

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okay tonight's mismag2 episode really felt like all of the air was sucked out of my room. I'm still at a loss for words over the beautiful, raw, and fucking real depictions of grief by Lou and Danielle tonight and I need to spend time finding the words to explain the way in which they touched me, as someone who has experienced a comically large amount of grief. I felt transported into their characters many times tonight and that has never happened to such an immense degree for me before. Even just thinking about it has me tearing up again jesus. I just want to thank them more than anything.

There's been a lot said about Evan tonight and so I don't want to add too much more to it because I want to focus more on the others but I did need to get one thing out, as someone who has been the Evan Kelmp to many of my friends and loved ones.

K just wanted to help, to fix, to heal, to unbreak the broken, and there are many things that are admirable in that desperate need to help despite your ability to do so.

It's just that the thing K tried to 'fix' wasn't broken anymore. Healed poorly, sure, but healed nonetheless, and yet to K it was still seen as broken, in need of fixing, in need of saving.

To have healed 'ugly,' and have that not seen as healed enough creates a deeply wounded creature in you, if there wasn't one already there to begin with. To be nonchalant, or even proud, of the way something has healed, whether literally or figuratively, and have that be stomped on by someone who believes that if they can heal you just a little bit more, fix you a little bit better, they can ultimately mold your healing to meet their standards, fucking burns. So many people already struggle to feel like they will ever be anything other than broken, and these attempts while often in good faith, just reinforce that belief. Also, it may not be true for everyone, but wanting to fix at whatever the cost, without thinking about consequences, can often be tied back to wanting to feel some semblance of control. K wants to save the world, and they can't, but if they can just save Evan, maybe they'll finally feel like they're worth something.

Evan never asked to be saved, though. Sure, people rarely ask straight up to be saved despite wanting it more than anything, but to assume that is the case for every person who has healed awkwardly is a deeply unhealthy saviorism complex that always harms more than it helps.

Idk there's probably 100 better ways to get this point across, I just have been in this situation before and it hurts in a brand new way. I flinched when K became fixated on the healed bone in Evan's arm because I knew where it was going immediately and didn't like it. It's a wound that never develops scar tissue, a burn that is always a burn no matter how much time has passed. You are not broken, but you are not healed 'correctly,' and no matter how much work you did on your own, how bloody your fingers are from clawing your way out of the deepest of holes, how you learned to save yourself despite everything, it won't be enough. Whether directly or indirectly, it means you won't be enough, either.

Anyways woooooooooo the deeply wounded animal in me flinched and whined at this episode, but also settled in the raw and real depictions of grief by the cast. I cannot wait to write more about Jammer and Sam, about feeling like your purpose is to hold everyone else together, to smile and laugh so people don't worry about you. For now I'll just settle with saying from the bottom of my heart, thank you for grieving in front of us. I have a hopeful feeling that many people will find parts of themselves healed by the beautiful work that was tonights episode, and if those parts heal awkward or a little bit wrong, remember they are healed. That is enough. You are whole, and you always have been. To have brokenness inside you does not mean that you are broken yourself. To heal at all, even at awkward angles, in 'ugly' ways, is a beautiful, fragile thing. Cherish it.

And hey if you feel like you are broken and unhealed and not ready or able to heal or tend to your wounds, and like people will always see you as broken and unhealed and nothing more, I won't. I don't. Pinky promise.

#dimension 20 #misfits and magic #mismag #mismag 2 #aabria iyengar #lou wilson #danielle radford #erika ishii #brennan lee mulligan #grief #episode 3

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brighttears · 1 year ago

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heyy bright 😁 so i’ve been realizing that i think most of your fics are Jackson/ after QZ joel (correct me if i’m wrong though, this is just what i think i’m noticing) and i’m wondering what are your thoughts on QZ Joel? would you ever write for him? (^з^)-☆

Joel Miller x f!reader

No physical description except female sex organs and having hair, no use of y/n

Word count: 9.7k

Warnings: SMUT (MINORS DNI), unprotected PiV, dirty talk, pet names (baby, baby girl, sweetheart, angel, good girl), creampie, Joel has a big ol weiner, drinking, mention of violence, blood, mention of prostitution (does not occur, has not occurred in the past), smoking (cigar, cigs briefly), sad!Joel for a minute but happy ending :), Tess doesn’t exist (sorry Tess)

A/n: you are right i’ve been noticing that i lean too much on Jackson so thank u for this request and i’m gonna try not to do that. had no intention of this being this long it just kind of happened lol. i know i didn't explicitly answer your question but i hope this explains some? idk this just came out of me so here it is i hope you enjoy !!!

—

Boston is ugly. It’s impossible to breathe a clean breath, impossible to get clean. Joel’s lungs are black and he doesn't smile. He may sleep, but he gets no rest, and you can see it easily in his eyes. The QZ is full of sickness—lying, cheating, stealing, there's no honor here. It's impossible not to have some of it rub off on you. It's almost impossible to see anything past it. Almost.

The first time Joel saw you he felt like a rat stepping onto a glue trap. He hadn’t realized he had stopped to stare until someone bumped into his shoulder, taking him back into the bustling street, and then you’d disappeared and he honestly wasn’t sure if he’d actually seen that beautiful girl or not. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, dropping dreams or ghosts down just to make things interesting. He mostly shook it off. Still, only half believing that you were even real, he’d catch himself scanning around, looking for you out in the streets. And then he saw you again, and again, minding your business somewhere across the street, painting over Firefly logos while under guard’s watch—never somewhere that he could get to. Every time he saw you felt like taking a hit of you, and he always wanted more. Whenever he found himself with too little to do, he’d set out, treating Boston like a maze to find you, slipping around booths and through speakeasies and alleys. Despite how packed Boston is, goddamn, you were hard to find. He was aware that it wasn’t… normal behavior, but that’s as far as he got in caring about that. It was a frustrating hobby, though, like an itch he couldn't scratch, because he didn’t understand what he was feeling, or what he wanted, or who the fuck you thought you were, doing this to him, or how he was going to get himself out of this one. He had to interrogate himself to figure out that what he wanted was for you to need him.

He wanted you to be with him, never leave his side, never want to leave, and he’d be so good to you, he’d be the knight to your queen. You had him bad, you were driving him crazy.

You had burrowed your way into his head. It was nice to have something to daydream about, though—your smile, a smile that he gave you, that’d be for him. He’d daydream about you dancing, you’d be twirling with your eyes closed, arms out, all lit up in orange light like evening sun but holier, and he’d reach out and your fingers would brush his and you’d smile with your eyes closed because you wouldn’t have to open them to know that it’s him. And then he’d spin you into his arms, wrap you up, hold you safe. He’d daydream about his hands on your stomach, holding your back against him, your hair on his face. He would dream about you taking his face in your hands, kissing him, loving him, fucking him. He imagined your voice—put together from small bites of ‘overheard’ conversations—telling him you’re his.

They used to make rings for this shit. Now all you’ve got is metaphors and sex. What a world to love in.

The problem with all of this, however, is that he wanted to know you already. Joel doesn’t know how to develop this kind of relationship, with anyone, actually, and he cringed at the idea of actually trying to do it. If he did even end up finding you, what the fuck was he supposed to say? He genuinely could not come up with an answer. So, thank god for Robert—never thought he’d be saying that, but on this day only, thank god for his cheap, dumbass tricks, and Joel’s dumbass for agreeing to trade with him, and being ripped off again, because that’s how you met.

Being the coward he is, Robert had sent a third party to meet with you and him—apparently buying the same product—that somehow thought you wouldn’t check the goods, and then you spent the whole day together hunting that fucker down. You were the one who threw the first punch once you found him, and Joel liked that because he didn’t feel bad for hitting him, too. And then you got your ration cards back, and you came home with him.

In just those few hours, a bond had formed, and all those days he’d spent looking for you fell away. Cliches were clicking in his head. He offered you his smuggled jungle juice and somewhere to clean off your bloody fist.

Now, you’re here in his apartment, the door swinging softly shut behind you. Joel stands frozen across the room from you, a knee sticking out, unsure if you can feel the rope of tension between you or if it’s just him. He wants you here and it makes him uncomfortable. Mind blank and swimming at the same time, he’s not sure what to say. When he does, he can’t find the correct conduct, weakly and awkwardly jutting his chin out in a sort of nod. Finding himself unable to speak softly, his cadence is a mess that rolls through almost incoherently. He can’t believe how silly the sentence that came out of him is:

“Have you been lookin’ for me as hard as I’ve been lookin’ for you?”

You shift your weight. “Maybe.”

Joel barely ever has company. To be frank, the few times he’s had women over, it’s been for sex, and the longest they stay is if they fall asleep, and they’re almost always up and gone before he wakes. So, here is a beautiful woman in his apartment, and he wants you, so his first instinct is to get you in bed. That doesn’t feel right though—not because he doesn’t want to fuck you, but because he wants more than that. He doesn’t want a one night stand. He wants to savor you. He wants to know you. He wants you to stay.

The unfamiliarity and lack of clarity of what to do here frightens him.

“So you got a rag I can stain?” You break the silence for him, holding your hand to massage your palm with your thumb.

“Yeah, uh,” Joel walks into the kitchen, flicking his eyes around. He knows what rag you can use but he forgot that it might be too embarrassing to bring out. There are not many options though, he can’t let you use the one clean rag he does have.

“If you can’t find one it’s alright, I can use my shirt, I just need the sink.”

Joel turns to you, taken off guard, but catches telling details when he looks you up and down. Your jeans are dark so you can’t immediately see that there are brown stains around the ripped knees, and lines of more old blood are swiped over the side of your thigh, which he knows come from wiping off a blade. Realizing that you do in fact live in the same world as him, Joel opens a crooked drawer and pulls out a rag that used to be white but is now mostly brown with dried blood. Without looking at you, he wets the somewhat stiff cloth in the sink and hands it to you.

You barely pause, taking it casually. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He mumbles, hiking up his jeans and trying to covertly watch you wipe away at your hand. A large part of him wants to take your hand in his, wipe and dab at it himself, make sure it’s clean, and then bandage it, slowly and carefully. He wants to take care of you, show you gentleness and kindness, but, no matter how much he wants to be soft and personal, to connect, he seems unable to actually act on it. His face flashes in self depreciation before he instead goes to the floorboards in his bedroom, fishing around for that drink he promised you.

A smile spreads over your face as he emerges back with the bottle and Joel almost stops dead in his tracks at it, at him, because of him. Well, because of alcohol, but he was the one providing it, at least.

He trades you the bottle for the rag and you waterfall it while he scrubs drying blood from between his fingers. Your face twists up as you swallow and you laugh.

While he watches yours, Joel can feel his lip curling up and he asks, “What’s that for?”

“This shit is pure. I’m used to it being watered down.”

“Oh, yeah. Got that from Robert, actually.” He tells you, motioning towards it. “One of the only times he’s been useful.”

“What are the other times?” You stay smiling.

Joel mindlessly circles the rough cloth over top his hand and looks down when he answers, “Well, today.” Because he brought me to you. These half–admittances are escapees, like his brain can’t help but be truthful with you. No matter how much one side screams ‘danger’ at the other, he needs to do something to make an attachment, he needs you to know that he wants you around, he can’t let you slip away. He can’t get himself to say that last part, though.

You hum and hold the bottle out to him. He swipes the rag over his hand one last time, then tosses it onto the table and takes the bottle, wishing you’d let your lips around it so he could get a taste of you without taking any risks.

Risks. What is he willing to do for this? For this feeling? How far is he willing to be taken with it? He can barely grasp the ideas behind it. It’s familiar, but what is it? How much does he care about its definition? He swigs.

“Have you traded with Robert a lot?”

Joel nods as he swallows with a grimace, then elaborates, “You could say that. More like been ripped off by ‘im a lot.”

“So you’re a chump?” You smirk.

Joel halfheartedly glares at you and you only smirk further. “No. Just desperate. Not a lot of options.” He passes the bottle.

“So you’re the kind of guy who takes what he can get.” You say before raising it, to your lips now.

He almost chuckles, watching your mouth, “I didn’ take shit, remember?”

You shrug and hand him back the bottle. “So what are you gonna do with all those ration cards now?”

Joel focuses on being able to tell what of what he’s tasting is the alcohol and what is you. He licks his lips after he swallows. “Don’t know yet… What’re you gonna do?”

“I was thinking about buying a really expensive coat. Like a mink's fur coat.” Joel gives you a look like he’s not completely sure if you’re being serious or not. “I’m kidding. I’m getting fucking food. I’ve been skipping a meal a day for the last two weeks saving up for what we didn’t get.”

As he hands you the bottle again, the thought of that pangs Joel’s chest. If you stay with me, you’ll never have to do that again. I can provide for you. “I have food.”

You stare at him as you lift the bottle to your lips, and after you swallow, say “I’m not asking for your food.” Your face is straight and voice bristled.

“No, I know,” Joel stammers, “I was just offerin’—”

“I don’t want your food.” You shove the bottle at his chest and cross your arms once he takes it, leaning back a foot.

An offer like that is no longer simple friendliness, but Joel didn’t think about that before he spoke. Intentions mean less than jack shit and social rules are more like laws to live by these days; you probably think he’s trying to bargain for sex. “I’m sorry,” Joel closes his eyes and shakes his head, “that’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, ok, well, thanks for the drink, I’ll see you around.”

“No, wait, I’m sorry,” he reaches out for your arm, and even though he lets go as soon as he closes his hand around it, it’s enough to scare you away entirely and you rush out of his apartment without looking back, slamming the door shut behind you. He jerks it right back open, holding himself in the doorway with another “Wait,” as he watches you barrel down the hallway and disappear down the stairs. “Fuck.” He whispers. Joel retreats back into his apartment and slams the door behind him, stopping just inside to rub his hand over his forehead. It’s a fair reaction on your part, he just happened to be the 1% of people to make a move like that not intending to harm you.

This is the exact opposite of what he was going for. His hand slaps to his side as he lets it fall.

As Joel’s eyes wander over the table, he catches something in his peripheral, and spots two ration cards. They’re not his, they must have fallen out of your pocket.

Like a shot, Joel snatches them up and is out the door, bounding down the steps and throwing himself out through the front door. He skids to a stop just outside, turning left and right until he spots you still making haste away from his place. “Wait!” He calls out again as he weaves through the street toward you. When you stop and turn to him his hand shoots up, showing you the cards.

You shoot daggers and as soon as he’s in front of you, bark, “I’m not a fucking prostitute. I’m not gonna fuck you for food.”

“No, no, count your cards, these aren’t mine, they’re yours. I swear.”

Still glaring, you pull the stack out of your back pocket and flip through them. When you finish, you bite the inside of your cheek, shove them into your pants instead of your pocket, and hold your hand out for your missing two. You’re staring him straight in the eyes as he hands them over and you add them to the rest, and then your expression softens. Joel takes this opportunity to try to have you give him another chance.

“I swear, I didn’t mean any a that like that. I know how it sounded, I wasn’t thinkin’. I’m not lookin’ for anythin’ like that. I swear.”

You chew on your lip for a moment. “Okay. Fine.” You blink and pull at your waistband.

Joel takes a deep breath, but his relief is short lived. Shit. Now what? I can’t ask her to ‘come back to my place’, and if I ask to walk her home she’ll probably think the same fucking thing. Joel is not used to trying to gain someone's trust. What would convince him? No answer comes.

Gravel shifts under your foot as you turn more towards him, resting a hand on your hip and cocking your head. Suddenly, Joel feels pressure under your gaze and readjusts his posture, straightening, but struggles with his gaze. The interaction is one of assessing dominance—more of you checking his. Joel grinds his jaw with his eyes focused down on the hand on your hip. This goes against instinct, which would be to puff out his chest, cross his arms, raise his chain to glare down his nose. He is not afraid of you, you’re not trying to threaten him, and he understands what you’re doing and that he needs to convey a level of submitance; he owes it to you now that he’s made you suspect he’s trying to manipulate you into sex. His throat bobs as he swallows his pride, then shifts his eyes back up to yours. When you relax, he lets out a breath and follows.

“Okay, look,” you begin, “I’m not helpless just because I’m a woman, I can carry my fucking own, you should know that by now, but… I know Robert’s got guys, and I am aware of the risk of being a woman, and I also respect the buddy system. So, walk with me?” It’s your turn to struggle with your gaze, flipping your eyes between his and the ground.

A confetti cannon goes off in Joel’s head. “Alright.” He nods.

“Alright.” You nod back, take a step backwards, then turn back to where you were heading originally. The two of you fall into an even stride, silently focusing on your death stares as you journey through the loud, filthy, reeking streets of the Boston QZ. Joel thinks he spots a couple suspicious characters as you walk and is grateful that he came after you and that you let him walk you home.

The sky’s blue is beginning to darken and the crowds are dwindling. Curfew is fast approaching, but Joel doesn’t want to ask you how much further, because, for one, he doesn’t want there to be a whiff of doubt that he’s no less than happy to be doing this, and, if it does get to be too late, maybe you’ll let him spend the night. It’s unlikely that you’ll be having sex, but that’s fine; he guesses you’re right, he is the kind of guy who will take what he can get.

“Okay, you’re free to go.” You snap Joel out of his thoughts, pulling out a bit of disappointment that you’re already here. Your building is short and wide, with graffiti littering the bottom and most of the low windows boarded up or taped over with rustling plastic. A burly and sunburnt young man smokes a daring cigarette on the steps and you exchange amicable nods with him.

Joel pauses, looking around and hiking up his pants trivially. The lack of promise that he’ll ever be able to speak to you again stirs anxiety in him and he searches again for the right thing to say. “Alright, well, it was nice to meet you.” He struggles again with some kind of cordial inflection, nodding and clearing his throat.

“You, too. I’ll see you around.” You nod back, then add a reassuring “Okay?”

Joel nods again, staying to watch you go. Once you’re out of sight, he takes a deep breath. The man on the steps spits and eyes Joel, so he leaves, hustling back to make it before curfew.

Back in his apartment, Joel returns the alcohol back under the floor and his bloody towel into its drawer. He strips his flannel, removes his boots, and lays back on his bed, the setting sun casting a sheet of orange over his body. Pulling his pillow under his head and folding his arms behind it, Joel sighs loudly and shuts his eyes. Today was fucking exhausting, more for his mind than body. It has been the strangest day he’s had in a long time. Laying with his eyes closed, Joel picks through his mind for explanations and answers. What’s happening inside of him? What is he looking for? What happened today? His brow pinches as he wracks and wracks.

Friend. When the word surfaces it breaks with panic and Joel jolts into a sitting position. Girl–friend. He forgot that that’s even a word. He rubs his face with his hand until he feels like he knows where he is again. What the fuck going on with him? Does he think, what, that he’s gonna take you on a ‘date’? And go where exactly? One of those slimy speakeasies, stay for five minutes until a fight breaks out and/or FEDRA fucking crashes it? Oh, yeah, how about spending the night sitting in opposite cells? That would allow for a lot of alone time, except for the fully armed and immoral guard. He could take you out past the walls, maybe find an abandoned restaurant and hope neither of you get bit or killed while checking it out so that you can sit down on dust caked chairs to clink glasses full of dirt.

That shit isn’t possible. Joel lets himself fall back into the mattress.

Maybe a quick fuck will do the trick after all.

But, still with that thought comes a gust of dread as he imagines then seeing you out on the street in the days following and having to avoid eye contact. Well what if you could just keep having sex? And just, hang out, you know, maybe if you could… come to live with him and then that way—fuck. That’s like dating.

‘Dating’ sounds so stupid, like you’re going to go sit at a diner sipping the same milkshake with two straws.

Well what if you’re just as fucked up and broken as he is? Would that make it any better? Then he wouldn’t scare you if he gets night terrors because you get them, too, and you’d understand about the violence and bloodshed. Thinking more on it, though, Joel realizes that all that that would really mean is that you probably have the same amount of fucking issues with ‘friends’.

“Shit.”

Joel flips to his side, shoving his arm under the pillow again to press his face into it. He’s lost, and fucked. Maybe the answer will come to him in the morning. Probably not, but he’s fucking tired, so let’s just say it will.

—

The morning brings no answers, only more confusion and anxiety. His head has become jumbled in the night and Joel’s not sure about any of it anymore.

Too close. He doesn’t even know you. You could be one of Robert’s guys, for all he knows. No, that makes no sense. If you were going to rob him you would have already. What else could you want? Jesus, did you drug him? He knows the truth, that he has feelings for you, he just really does not want that to be the case.

But, at the same time, there is the brown haired puppy dog that still lives in him, dreaming up how to get you flowers and how much he likes your hair and your eyes and how you talk. You’re a beautiful person, both in the surface level, physical sense, but also as an individual being. Even though you’ve only known each other for a day, he has seen enough to understand that you are, at least to a level, a safe person. Tulips, he needs to find tulips for you.

Either way, he just needs to find a way to slow this all the fuck down.

He shouldn’t get involved with you. You shouldn't get involved with him. He shouldn't trust you. You don't know who he is. He could change for you. You’re gonna get him killed. He’s gonna get you killed. The life he wants with you isn’t possible. He’s the kinda guy who will take what he can get. God, he needs to fuck you at least. Goddamnit, he doesn't want you to think that's all you are to him. Can’t you at least just be friends? What does that even mean? He wishes he never met you. He immediately takes that back. Why is this happening to him? Both sides of him can dig that last one.

Joel groans and rubs his face with his hands. He stands, stretching his arms up and squeezing his eyes shut against the bright yellow morning light. His arms drop down to scratch at his chest over his sleeveless undershirt. Socked feet sweep over the hardwood floor over to the kitchen where he slaps cold water from the tap onto his face. Noticing wisps of blood still on his hands, he scrubs at them with his nails under the water. He forgot to sign up for any work today because he spent all day yesterday dealing with Robert, and… hanging out with you.

With another whiney groan, Joel swats the faucet’s handle off and plants his hands on either side of the sink, letting water drip from his nose as he stares into the drain. Hanging out? People do that. He’s seen people just kind of sit around somewhere and talk, not doing deals, but, like, on their porches, sitting on side by side folding chairs. Yeah, people hang out. He imagines himself asking you if you want to ‘hang out’; he’s chewing gum with sunglasses and a backwards hat on, you’re in pigtails and reject him and he kicks rocks on his way home.

He has had friends before, but it was from traveling in a group, trying to survive, when you kind of have to spend all your time together. There’s little choice and little room to decide if you actually like this person, little time to even actually get to know them, and they die a lot. That’s what he’s used to, and that is not what he wants with you.

“The fuck am I doin’.” Joel mutters to himself, watching trails of water shine as they trickle down towards the drain.

Soft, fully brown haired Joel swings his legs on one of his shoulders: “Go out n’ see if she’s around.”

Baggy–eyed, forever frowning Joel digs his fingers into his other shoulder: “If you ever see her again, you better walk the other fuckin’ direction.”

Puppy dog Joel furrows his brow and leans over to look at the other: “She’s a nice girl.”

Morose Joel glares back: “No such fuckin’ thing. An’ if she is, we’ll fuckin’ ruin ‘er.”

“Jesus. You’re paranoid. Can’t you just let us be happy?”

“No such fuckin’ thing.”

Joel smacks his hand to his forehead and pushes away from the sink. He lifts the bottom of his white shirt to rub his face dry and goes to sit back down on his bed to pull on his shoes, grabbing his other flannel and finishing buttoning it as he walks down the hall to exit his apartment building. He’s not sure what he’s doing—not admitting that he’s going to end up heading in the direction of your apartment—but he needs to get out of his head, and the QZ offers plenty of distractions. Here’s one now, as soon as he steps outside—

“Hey friend,”

Joel whips around to the voice at the corner of his building, a man his size but wiry, with saddle brown skin and an overly genial smile.

“You look lost.”

Joel narrows his eyes.

“Well, if you’re feelin’ lost—”

“Give me a fuckin’ break.” Joel cuts in. “That shit is meaningless. Hope is dead, jackass.”

The man’s face instantly falls, disheartened, and he leans his shoulder against the brick. Joel huffs and moves on, shaking his head. That look makes a small part of him remorseful, like a thorn in his side, so he decides to stop at a speakeasy.

He has to squint against the rising sun as he walks, so he doesn’t catch you until you’re right on him, asking, “Where’re you headed?”

Joel freezes, placing his hand on his brow to shade his eyes to see you smiling. Like remedied, all that anxiety and apprehension rolls off of him like water off a duck's back. “For a drink.” He answers, returning a serene smile.

“Don’t you have that at home?”

“Yeah, well I jus’… wanted to get outta there.” He shifts out of the suns glare.

You hum and nod. “I get that. What about my place? I don’t have alcohol, but I do have a cigar.”

Joel’s eyebrows shoot up. “A cigar?”

You nod. “Well they didn’t have any mink coats, so I got the second best thing.” Your mouth twists up into a mischievous smile and you swivel your torso back and forth. When Joel’s lips start to curl, you turn, watching him over your shoulder as you walk until he joins you.

When the two of you get to your apartment, the young burly man is still on the steps; he winks at Joel as he follows you past, and Joel stares back until the door shuts behind him. Inside, as he follows you up the narrow, winding staircase, he spends the entire five-flight journey to the top floor conflicted about where to let his gaze fall.

“Alright, this is my floor.” You glance over your shoulder at him then grab the door frame to swing into the tight hallway. “End of the hall.”

Your apartment is much smaller than his, and wide. Cracked, off white paint cries uneven, chipped stripes that reach up to the crown molding. Your bedroom is to the immediate right, a narrow room opened by two glass double doors. At the opposite end is another glass door, tall, that opens up to a fire escape. To his left is your kitchen, which is just the wall lined with cupboards, a sink, and white refrigerator. In front of him, a couch is half visible, the rest hidden behind the corner, under a row of three windows. Like his, the curtains are thin torn pieces of fabric. Just before the corner next to the entrance to your bedroom is a gray folding table with three tan metal folding chairs. Walking in, Joel can see in your room a twin bed with rosy sheets and no headboard, its head shoved in the space between the tall glass door and the wall with a thin pillow and singular white sheet. He hopes you have a bunch of other blankets shoved somewhere he can’t see, because it’s only barely summer anymore. The long wall opposite is taken up mostly by bookcases, which hold some books but mostly by all sorts of other things, including clothes. A ragged chair sits next to it, back facing him. Shoved in between the shelves and the tall glass door is a tall lamp, a thin piece of pink fabric laying over a disfigured shade. The carpet is worn and somewhat cluttered; right next to that chair is a pair of lacy black underwear. Joel rips his eyes away from it back to you in front of him, disappearing around the corner for only a moment before reappearing with a fat, half smoked cigar. You twist it in your fingers with a wide smile, flipping open a Zippo lighter in your other hand.

“How did you get that?” Joel asks, astonished. He hasn’t seen a cigar in years but has dreamt about smoking one more than once.

“My friend on the steps outside. Don’t tell anyone, though. Come on,” you nod your head back around the corner and he follows you into a cramped, mellow blue and yellow tiled bathroom. You push out a small broken crank window high up on the wall, pull the door shut behind Joel, and light up the cigar. Leaned against the sink, Joel watches you, very aware of the close quarters. The end of the cigar lights up deep orange and crackles. Your brow is furrowed, Joel can see the hairs of your eyebrows and lashes, a tiny scar in the corner of your eye over the bone of your eye socket. When you pull away, dense smoke snakes out of your mouth. You look down at it as you attempt smoke rings, getting one good one but failing at the rest. When you laugh the rest of the gray puffs out of your mouth.

“Damn it.” you giggle, and hand the cigar and lighter to Joel.

He has to relight it and watches the flame over the end. He sucks in stale, earthy smog; it tastes ancient, but still has some of that discernable cigar flavor. As it fills his mouth, Joel closes his eyes, leans his head back and moans before opening his mouth to let the smoke leave. His eyes are on you as they open, and yours are half lidded, focused on his mouth, a slight smile on your lips. They slowly crawl back up to his eyes, and you look away. Joel takes another puff and makes a sound to get your attention, attempting rings as well, not doing much better than you did.

You hold your hands out, “Ok, let me try again.” You take your time and Joel watches your tongue working in awe. You make a good three rings. Smoke puffs out of your mouth again when you smile at him and pass the cigar back.

Joel focuses his efforts on the rings but keeps his eyes on you watching his mouth. As you do, your smile grows, eyes half lidded again, and you lean your back against the window’s wall, turning your head to see him blow four perfect rings.

“You’re good at that.” You chuckle, staying on his mouth even after he’s done. He takes another puff.

“Practice, I guess. Even though it’s been awhile.”

You hum and finally tear your eyes away from his mouth. He offers the cigar but you shake your head, “That thing is nasty, I’m afraid I’ll throw up if I take one more puff. You can keep it.”

“You sure?”

“Mhm. All yours.”

“Thanks.”

“I got it with you in mind, anyway.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. You look like a cigar guy.”

“Well, what did I do to deserve this?”

Your eyes go back to his mouth. “Nothing, I guess… I knew it’d get you over here.” You look down and smile.

Joel sucks in murky smoke, letting it fill his mouth, and wonders how you taste. He’s never wanted someone's saliva in his mouth so much. He reaches behind him to balance the cigar on your sink to let it extinguish on its own. “I won’t make you watch me smoke that whole thing. I’ll take it home with me.” Turning back, he looks you up and down, admiring you, and says, “Thank you.” Those are another set of words that Joel cringes at, but he means it, and he needs you to know that he is grateful for this. The last gift he got was a box of bullets from Tommy on his birthday—not to say that’s a bad gift, or that he’s ever expecting anything on his birthday, but, you gave him a gift, just because, and it’s a luxury. He can’t believe you’re real, he wants to reach out and touch you just to be sure.

“Mhm.” You smile, lifting your fist to rest your lip on, laying your other arm over your torso to support your elbow. Joel drifts over the details—the edge of your lip poking out from where it presses on a finger, the muscle and bone structure of your wrist. He fully appreciates the color of your skin as he follows it until its end at what he can see of your collar, how your chest shapes around the position of your arms. He sees you briefly squeeze your arm around yourself and his eyes are on your hips when he hears your foot shift under you and your body moves a little closer to him.

“Joel?” Your quiet voice brings him back, and you’re blushing.

“Hm?”

Your eyes flutter and you push yourself off from the wall, moving your hand to scratch the back of your head, then face him, though still not looking at him, “Nothing, um, I dunno,” you chuckle nervously.

“What?” He coaxes, growing a light smile.

You finally look at him, folding your arms over your chest and cocking your head as you ask, “Do you have anything going on today?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

Could this be what he thinks? Are you asking him to ‘hang out’?

“Do you wanna… hang out?”

Good lord in heaven, you are.

“Yeah.” He says, then blinks, shifts, and repeats more enthusiastically, “Yeah.”

“Cool.” You offer a small, twitching smile. “Well, we can get out of this tiny bathroom.”

“I don’t mind it.” The truth suddenly jumps out of Joel and as soon as it’s out, he looks at his feet. Please, please, please, don’t let this be him ruining it, again, because second chances are basically extinct.

“Why not?” Your tone is light, not angry or affronted. He looks back up, pausing to consider you, how beautiful you are, how much he really does enjoy being this close to you. The more he realizes how few inches are separating you, the more he aches for your body on his. He swallows hard. Is he being sleazy?

You shift closer and his heart rate picks up. “I mean, I don’t really mind it either.” A light blush blooms over your face and Joel’s lips inadvertently part. When you move closer still, Joel straightens up from the sink, letting his hands rest at his sides, hoping you want them on your hips. “I like being close to you.”

“I wanna be closer.” Joel tells you quietly, then swallows hard again.

Out of the corner of his eye, while he focuses on your face, Joel sees your hand rising cautiously, then feels it rest on his shoulder. He permits his hands to your hips.

From there, naturally and easily, you connect. Your lips touch softly when they meet, then promptly conquering more of each other’s, and finally he tastes you, a pure elixir, and hangs onto your lip with his teeth so that he can raise the dose. Joel breathes deeply through his nose as he savors and his hand brushes up your hip, catching under your shirt and pulling it up slowly with it; feeling your skin warm and bare under his touch shoots directly into his veins. You remove your mouth from his to instead purr into his neck and Joel moans, then adds quietly, “Jesus.” You chuckle before refocusing your lips, gently nipping at and skimming over his skin. His hand glides up to the back of your head and he softly moans again. Lazily, Joel allows you to start slowly unbuttoning his flannel, appreciating his contact with your body and your sensitive touch on his neck. The only way he knows he’s not dreaming is because of your pinching teeth. Once his flannel is undone you smooth your hands down the length of his torso, fingers slipping off of him just before his belt, then come back up, slowing on his shoulders for permission to slip the shirt. Joel takes his hands off of you for the three seconds it takes to pull his flannel off, feeling your hot breath on his neck as you pull away with his shifting. Your eyes meet again and Joel’s heart flutters at how large your pupils are. He watches them move down to cross over his shoulders, your hands following your eyes, and then you look back up at him and bite your lip. Like you’ve flicked a switch with this simple movement, Joel takes your mouth with his tongue and grabs your hips to pull against his. Briefly, he regains composure to check, “Is this ok?” and you confirm with a nod back into his lips, slinging your arms around his neck and rolling your hips. “That a girl,” it escapes him, scaring him for only a moment, but you whine an encouraging moan and press yourself into him. The force leans Joel back over the sink and he has to throw a hand back onto it to keep himself steady.

“Shit, ok, this room is too small now.” You chuckle into each other’s lips and then you pull away, keeping a grip on his hand as you turn the knob and take him around the corner into your room.

Standing just before your bed, you turn back to him and take his face in your hands, sliding your palms over his beard, fingertips on rough skin. They slip into his hair as you bring his face to yours, working back in your welcome tongue. His hands slither around you and then he squeezes you into a hug, relieving his ache for your body, relishing in the pressure of his hold. As you breathe out your head falls back and Joel moves in, licking into a hickey, too absorbed to give a shit about leaving marks. When a hand travels down to your ass and squeezes, you make a sound and hitch your body up.

“You like that?” Joel purrs, fully loose lipped and glued back on yours. When you ‘mhm’ into his mouth he squeezes again, hiking you up himself.

“Joel,” his lips force you to mumble.

“What is it, babygirl?”

All you do is whine, but your answer is in the hand that slides between your bodies to cup the stiff bulge between his legs.

“You want me to fuck you?” He basically growls, sliding the hand up from your ass to grip your side and the other up to your face, stroking his thumb over your cheek and forcing you to meet his eyes. There’s a desperate tweak in your brow that tells him all he needs to know but he waits for you to say it.

“Yes,” you whimper, and then he walks you back onto your bed, the two of you falling onto it with little pause with mouths and hands. Messily, he licks and nibbles at your lips and paws at your chest. Your hands spread over his thick, bare shoulders and biceps, legs shamelessly widening more than they need to under his hips, then hook and pull when he doesn’t bring them down himself.

“You’re fuckin’ horny, huh?” He asks with a slight smirk.

“I just want you. I just want you.” You mumble.

Joel’s brow twists up and he kisses you deeper. You want him, you want him, you want him. “I want you so much, baby. God, I need you. I’ve been wantn’ you so bad since the first time I saw you,” the words are doing nothing more than spilling out of him, but he’s gone now, “so beautiful, such a beautiful girl. You want me to fuck you?”

“Yes,” you breathe out, tugging his shirt up his back.

Joel pushes himself up to stand on his knees and pull his undershirt up and off, then stays over you, panting. Slowly, mindfully, his hands smooth up your body, hooking his thumbs under your shirt, lifting it. You watch his eyes and lift your arms when his hands ask. He slips your shirt off carefully and lets it fall on the floor, and then you’re bare underneath him. The adoration is palpable in his touch as he smooths his calloused hands from the V of your waist over your belly, splitting to slide over your sides but meeting again on your chest. He pets your breasts, teasing your nipples with fleeting touch, and then suddenly dips his body down to lick and tenderly nip one of your nipples. Then his wet lips drag up your collar, your neck, and back to your lips, and his mouth and tongue are gentle but passionate. Joel cherishes every touch you share. Then, your hands go back down to the bulge under his jeans, one rubbing over the cup while the other tugs at his belt. He chuckles into your lips and then rises again to undo his belt. When you try to tug down your pants you both understand the trouble and Joel hoists his legs over you to stand beside the bed, letting you up with him so that you can both undress as quickly and easily as possible. For a moment all there is is the sound of belts clicking and fabric brushing against skin. For whatever reason, you both start to laugh breathily until reattaching mouths smother it out. You fall back on the bed, your legs back open, and Joel wastes little time getting his hands on his dick, unable to help himself from a few strokes before he positions himself at your entrance, swiping his tip up and down your wet slit. Laying his forearm on the bed allows him to stroke your cheek with his thumb.

Nearly slurring, Joel asks, “You ready for me baby?”

“Mhm,” you nod, “I want you, Joel, please,”

“You don’t need to beg, sweetheart, I gothcu,” he kisses you tenderly, but it breaks as he fills you and you both moan. Joel’s forehead rests briefly on your lips when he looks down to watch himself pushing into you, his fingers pinching his base to guide himself, he prizes this picture of him in between your legs, opened wide for him. As he fits his large, stiff member inside of you your fingers comb through and then grip his hair, making him moan. “Goddamnit baby, what a good girl, takin’ me like this. I know it’s a lot. I know.” He assures you as you squeal, toes curling as he plugs you up. Joel swings his head back up, biting his lip as he watches your face, impressed with himself when he sees your pupils almost disappear back into your head. He nips at your lips but your mouth stays open until he stills his cock inside of you.

You groan, “Oh my god, Joel,”

“Yeah?” He mumbles as he begins to move. You clench around him when you moan and he swears, moving his head down to bite your neck gently as he continues to take himself in and out. He smiles when your hands claw at his back and release his teeth to speak, “Such a good girl for takin’ me like this. You’re a fuckin’ angel.”

“Ok, Joel, I’m good, I’m good, please fuck me,”

Joel growls and links his teeth on your lip again. “Told you darlin’, no need to beg, I’ll give you what you need. How do you want it? You want it hard?”

“I don’t fucking care just fuck me,”

Jesus, if heaven’s real this is what it’ll be.

Joel trusts your word and starts to fuck you how he wants—deep and hard, pounding your pussy in final satisfaction of the need he’s been pinned with since the moment he saw you. The room is full with the sounds of your moans and skin on skin.

“God, look atchu, pretty girl, god, your pussy’s so fuckin’ tight for me.” The sensation of him bumping your cervix and your cunt enveloping him fully is keeping him going like he’s a quarter operated ride that someone slipped fifty cents into. “That feel good, baby? Huh? Does that feel good?” You slap your hand onto the wall above you to keep your head from hitting it with the force of Joel’s thrust and repeatedly breathe out yeses. Joel groans at how your nails dig into his shoulder. “Tell me, tell me how good it feels,”

“Yes, Joel, it feels so good, you fuck me so good,”

“That’s righ’, baby. Gonna treat you so good. So good. So good baby you feel so good.” Joel leans his head back as bottoms out. When you almost scream, Joel stops, frightened, “Shit, you ok?”

“I’m fine Joel,” you laugh, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. It was—it was good, that felt really good.”

“Oh, alright, I’m sorry, I’m—”

“No, no, I’m fine, Joel it’s good,”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, fuck—ok—” you push Joel up and his heartbeat quickens with anxiety. Unsure, he simply follows your movements, climbing off of you, letting you tug his arm and flopping back on the bed for you to mount him.

Now sitting up on your knees on top of him, you study him. “You’re so fucking hot, pretty boy.”

A wide smile spreads over Joel’s face, pumping rosy cheeks, and he throws an arm over his eyes modestly. The reaction is spontaneous, Joel being unprepared for such praise.

“You are!” You giggle, moving his arm and dropping on your elbows to kiss him. One of his hands goes to your hair and he squeezes your hip with the other with eager grip. You rise back up, a line of spit briefly linking you, and your hand trails down over his chest until it comes to his cock, bulging over his stomach. He twitches and breathes out as your hand slides over it and he beholds you above him.

“Fuck,” you purr when you slip him in. Joel strains his arms down to grip your thighs, breathing out a loud moan. “Shit.”

“Goddamn,” he whispers, then says, “come on, baby, take all of it.” You sit down on him slowly, hands landing over his chest, and he brushes his hands up and down your arms. “Thas’ righ’ baby. So good for me.” Joel moves to your hips, pulling them down and in to start to move inside you, forcing himself to be gentle. Your head flips back as you let out a loud, pornographic moan, and Joel can no longer keep himself reigned in. Gripping your hips, he’s now moving them more than you are, one hand gripping your ass, guiding you to angle down, taking more of him.

Riding him like a mustang, your fingers skim over his wrists, unable to grasp them. “Fuck,” You whimper, brow twisted up, eyes closed.

Joel takes his hand off of your ass to grab your face, squishing your cheeks, “Eyes on me, sweetheart.” You moan and obey, he keeps your face in his hand to make sure you stay. “Good girl. Stay with me baby.” He grunts and briefly bits his lips as he begins moving his hips up into you, thrusting his cock even deeper inside of you until he’s bumping your cervix again. You squeak and close your eyes, leaning your head back until he jerks your face, reminding you softly, “Eyes on me.” Your hand slaps on his chest as you adjust your posture, though Joel’s grip stabilizes you enough, holding you in place. He releases your cheeks but keeps his hand on your face, letting his palm and fingers brush over the side of your head as you bounce, his thumb on the back of your neck, supporting your head up when you try to let it fall back. “You’re so beautiful. Bet you look so pretty when you cum.”

“My god, Joel,” you pant, “I knew you would fuck me so good, you’re gonna make me cum,”

Joel’s eyes light up and he inadvertently smirks, “Yeah?” Eagerly, he tells you, “I wanna make you cum, baby, I wanna feel you fuckin’ cum. You’re bein’ such a good girl lettin’ me fuck you so hard like this. God, I wanna make you cum,” His hips bump up into you and he tugs on yours in a tempo that buries him as far as he’ll go inside of you. Prizing his view, Joel notices a bulge, coming and going at a suspiciously similar rhythm as how he’s fucking you, and when he realizes that it’s him, heat spreads through his chest and he only fucks you harder. “Oooooh, baby,” he looks back up at you and your chest and face are flushed. “My angel, look at you. Go ahead and cum on my cock, babygirl, I know you’re ready to.”

Your pipe out desperate moans as you bounce on his cock and your hands shoot up, one twisting your hair behind your head the other on your face, smoothing down over your face and mouth down to massage your breast.

“Does that feel good baby?” He almost whines out the question, desperate for praise, for affirmation that he’s being good for you.

“Yes, god, fuck me Joel, I need you, oh my god please,” you cry out.

“You gonna cum for me? Cum on my cock like a good girl?”

You close your mouth, whining through sealed lips, then pop them back open to moan almost unrealistically pornographically, but the way your pussy squeezes him proves it unmistakably genuine.

“Ah, fuck,” Joel lets out loudly as your legs shake and tighten around him, just like your cunt does, and his thrusts are basically out of his control. His mouth falls open and his eyes squeeze shut, almost seeing white, a sweet taste filling his mouth as the euphoric pleasure you provide him trembles to a peak and he groans as he cums in a pussy–drunk frenzy.

As he comes out of it embarrassment starts to run over him at his gusto, but the look on your face calms it—your brow is furrowed up, eyes closed with your mouth slack like his. Your back is arched with your hands resting on his thighs, panting.

You let out a loud breath and flip your body back to look at him, smiling, “Shit.” A breathy laugh shakes out of him and you sit back, still with him inside of you. Then you rise up off of him, “Oh, fuck,” you stand, almost tripping, “I gotta go clean myself up. I’ll be right back.”

Joel basks in the glory of your figure walking away, still fully nude, pattering through your apartment, then disappearing around the corner. He leans back, turning his head to view the sky from the dirty glass door. It’s a picturesque baby blue, dotted with a few puffy white clouds. Fuck the other shoe, if it drops it drops, he just wants to be here right now, with the sun warming his bare chest, nose full of your scent, his lips swollen and dick still wet with your cum. Joel takes a deep breath. Maybe it’s dramatic to say he’d be happy to die here, and it’s not entirely true, but it’s just that he feels content for the first time in fucking years.

When your padding steps sound again, Joel shifts his upper body up, watching you approach, and then you slip into bed, nudging him so that you can lay side by side facing each other. The top sheet is cast lazily over your bodies and a comfortable silence falls over it. Joel tries to memorize the details of your eyes and admires the way his mouth has plumped your lips.

Lying in bed with you here in this cramped apartment feels like a dugout, and he wants to go back in time, to any point over the last ten or so years, to tell himself that this is waiting there for him, just to let himself know that it’s gonna be ok. He can’t believe he’s still in Boston.

“Can we stay here for a while?” He asks you.

You nod, “We still have all day, pretty boy.” Joel smiles and you move to kiss him, long and light. He hooks your lip in his mouth, asking you nearer, and, without breaking the kiss, you lift yourself up, only your chest off of the bed, supporting your body up with your elbow. To hover over him, you reach your hand over to plant next to his head. Joel’s hands slither up your face to the back of your head, assuring your connection. All he wants is your lips.

“Baby,” He whispers, his voice high.

“Hm?”

“Nothin’. I dunno.”

You smile, peck another gentle kiss, and then lay back beside him. You shift closer to each other and your legs tangle.

After a couple of still moments, you take a deep breath and address him, worry in your voice, “Joel…”

“What is it?” His brow pinches in concern.

“I’m just worried… maybe I should have waited.” You say quietly, brow slightly furrowed as you gaze into his eyes, raising a loose fist to your lips.

He pushes his hand out to brush the back of his finger over your wrist, “Why’s that?”

You pause. “Cause… I don’t want… I wasn’t… I wasn’t trying to have… you know, a one night stand. I mean, for this to be a one time thing and then I never see you again.”

Joel’s brow furrows as he assures you, “Me neither, no, no baby, I wanna see you again. I want you to stay. I wanna stay. I wanna know you.”

You uncover your mouth to smile and your eyes twinkle, “You want to know me?”

“Wull… yeah.”

“That’s such a nice thing to say.”

“I mean it.”

“Well, I wanna know you, too.”

Joel’s contentedness pauses. He didn’t think about that part and he’s not sure if he wants you to know him. Yes, desperately, god yes he does, but, no, his soul is covered in soot. You shouldn't, he doesn’t want you to see him, know him, because he’s bad.

“What’s that face?” You ask.

“What face?”

“That face you just made. You don’t want me to know you?”

How did you read him like that? He’s not sure which side he should take with this so he says nothing.

You sigh and blink, then place your hand on his cheek, stroking it with your thumb once. It’s warm and solid against his skin and flowers bloom in his chest.

“If I’m gonna let you know me, you gotta let me know you. That’s the deal. I think we’re pretty similar, Joel.” You take another deep breath, “I haven’t had someone in this bed with me in a long time. I haven’t touched someone like this in… forever. I don’t like to let people get this close. I’m letting you get close, though. Because I really, really want to. But part of me really, really, doesn’t. For some reason, I trust you. I hate saying that. But I just do. I really like you, Joel. Maybe you’re gonna break my heart. I decided that that’s ok. I just really want to know you.” Your hand slides down to his neck, over his shoulder, then down to the middle of his sternum. “So, that’s the deal. If I’m gonna let you in, you gotta let me in.”

Joel isn’t sure why there are tears wetting his eyes. He wasn’t ready to be spoken to like this, to be cared about. The longing to hear words like these has long been buried and he never expected any of that to be fulfilled. He blinks the tears back, swallows hard, and murmurs a tender “Ok.”

Your hand slides back up to caress his cheek. The affection in it floods him and he melts into the bed, eyes falling closed. When he opens them again, it’s like this is all there is; he can’t see anything else except for you, and those pink sheets, and the light behind you coming through the window.

He can’t help this feeling of safety with you. He smiles. You smile back.

You can’t make Boston any better, but now, Joel is taking his first clean breath of air, and it smells like you. The world is ugly, but love makes it bearable. And now you’re here, and he’ll wait to tell you, but he figured it out, he’s sure he loves you.

…Metaphors and sex, sex and metaphors.

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cinnamonest · 7 months ago

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LENA HI i need to ask. how do you survive irl? bc personally im a radical feminist and im all for eradicating gender roles and empowering women so having all these raging fetishes that stem from misogyny is so shameful to me(not that i really want to stop anyway…) i walk around with millions of unwanted inappropriate thoughts produced by my noncon-adled porn-rotten brain. like i genuinely need advice(or at least reassurement…) from someone that can relate. even if you cant relate or dont want to answer, id be VERY happy if you could just post this to your board so maybe someone else could see it and send a reply, as another anon or as a comment to the post, idk. thank you in advance. and no i dont want to see a professional about this, the fuck am i supposed to tell them😭

I totally get that, I struggled with the same thing for a long time. I'm not great with explaining things like this, but I think the most important thing to address (the observation of which helped me get over feelings of shame and guilt) is

1) a disconnect between real misogyny and fictional misogyny, as well as 2) critical examination of fandom culture perpetuating shaming the content.

To be very clear: misogyny in real life is not like what I write about. Actual misogynists behave remarkably differently from what you see here. They do not cherish you, they're not just possessive or tsun, they genuinely do not see you as human, you are disposable to them, they hate you — and their behavior reflects that.

Secondly, I think it helps to become aware of a phenomenon I've noticed, increasingly so in recent years, where the same people vehemently hating on dark fiction will turn around and engage in very real misogyny. It's a bizarre phenomenon but it's definitely real and observable, and observing this over and over again has proven to me that fictional content does not at all facilitate real engagement.

I'm obviously biased to myself, and I won't say it's objectively true, but I personally think that the fictional content helps me recognize the real thing even where others often don't, and I've seen others in these spaces have similar experiences.

Which frankly, this contrast is not good because real misogyny, especially as it is casually woven into everyday life and culture, causes real harm, yet fandom culture is increasingly obsessed with fictional content and shaming consumers while turning a blind eye to it occurring in reality.

Recognizing the difference, for me at least, and the disconnect between them, as well as the realization of just how often real misogyny was a critical part of getting over feelings of guilt.

Tldr:

1) fictional misogyny and real misogyny are not only different, but often mutually exclusive, and

2) engaging with fictional content on misogyny does not inhibit your ability to recognize nor combat it — that's a matter of careful analysis of engagement with culture.

Also on another note — there are a lot of professionals who are very understanding about this sort of thing! I won't say every single one is, but there are plenty of non-judgemental professionals.

#for some reason i got a long rant post hating on dark content in my recommended tab #then the same person had made generic taylor swift hate posts #people truly lack self awareness and the older i get the more evident that is

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luvrxbunny · 1 year ago

Text

idk

Pairing: No Outbreak!Joel Miller x f!Reader

Prompt: Praise

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, praise (kinda like body worship), age-gap, piv, unprotected sex (lmk if I forgot anything)

WC: 2.8k

A/N: this might suck im so sorry, its super rushed. also I couldn't think of a name (not proofread at all)

You shake your head as your friends laugh. They always think it’s funny, and although it doesn’t bother you very much, it’s still quite annoying. Your friends seem to think that your relationship with Joel is a fling, some sort of manic, impulsive decision to date someone so much older than you. You’ve explained to them over and over again that what you have with Joel is as real as it gets. You’ve never been more in love with anyone, but they think you’re dickmatized, they’re waiting for you to ‘snap out of it’.

“I told you guys, I love him.” You state before finishing your drink, rolling your eyes at the way they giggle. You check your phone for updates but all you get is Joel’s same ‘15 minutes away.’ text that was there the last time you checked. You pray that every light he comes across is green and the streets are empty, you want to get out of here as soon as possible.

“I don’t even know if I believe that!” Stacey is drunker than she should be, saying things she shouldn’t be. You’ve grown used to it now, she’s the one who has the most to say about your relationship. “I feel like you treat him like…” She laughs abruptly. “Like he’s your boss or something!” She cackles again at the way your face drops. “And he- he could be, ‘cause he’s so old.” You take a deep breath and look up at her, your face blank as her laughter dies down.

“Joel is-” Just uttering his name from your lips brings a smile to your face. “He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. He understands me, my needs, and my wants in a way that I don’t even understand. I’ve known him for a year and a half now, I’ve known you much longer, yet he knows more about me than you ever will. He’s my everything and that’s never gonna change. I’m not upset at you, just to clarify.” You say with a soft chuckle. “I think all of this is coming from a place of jealousy if I’m being completely honest. I hope that you find someone who loves you like you’re his entire universe.” You begin to collect your things, deciding you can wait for Joel outside.

“He makes me feel like an angel, like-” You laugh at their shocked and confused expressions. They have no clue what you’re talking about, it makes you pity them a bit, but it mostly makes you happy, feeling lucky you were able to find it. “Anyway…” You chuckle awkwardly and stand to leave. “That’s how I feel about him. So, if you could like… not, say things insinuating that I don’t love my boyfriend, I would really love that.” You smile and awkwardly bow/curtsey at them, waving and walking away. You’re a bit embarrassed at the silence in the room as you walk away. You turn the corner as quickly as you can and jump at the man standing in the middle of the foyer.

“Joel!? Oh- You scared the shit outta me!” You place a hand over your heart with a smile, taking deep breaths as you walk toward him. “Did you text? I’m sorry there was an… altercation.” He nods at you slowly and only then do you realize his stare. It’s different from the one you usually get, softer, more watery somehow. “I know.” He pauses to take a deep breath as you reach him. His hand reaches out for yours and you take it with a confused smile as you both start walking to the front door. “I uh- I heard actually.”

Joel feels your hand tense in his for a moment as you let out a nervous giggle. “Oh! That- That’s great.” You chuckle and glance up at him for a moment, mumbling. “That’s so embarrassing.” He laughs gently at that, his hand leaving yours once you guys reach the car. “That’s not true, darlin’.” He says as he climbs into the car. You’re chuckling quietly, still embarrassed as you ride home in near silence, the only noise being the little hum of the radio.

He doesn’t bring it up until after dinner, you’re both on the couch, in Joel's shirt, watching some movie that recently came out but Joel’s mind is on the rant he heard from you earlier. He had shown up unannounced due to his phone dying mid-way through the drive-over. He heard Stacey mention the way you act toward him, how unaffectionate you were. Joel doesn’t necessarily agree with that but he’s definitely questioned your feelings toward him before, constantly wondering if you actually like him or if you’re just lonely. So of course he wanted to hear your answer, he prepared himself for the worst, held his breath, grit his teeth, and waited for the pain of your answer. His heart stuttered when you paused after “Joel is-”

He was ready to hear the most heartbreaking words tumble from your mouth next, but then you said he was the best thing to ever happen to you, and his heart stopped. His eyes went wide as you rambled on, saying wonderful thing after wonderful thing. He felt his heart tremble inside his chest, loving the things you were saying, and the way you were defending him against your friends. The fact that you were outwardly announcing the extreme feelings you have for him made so many different emotions swirl through him. He was in a daze until you turned the corner, and he’s fallen into that same one again.

You can feel Joel staring at you, you can see his head turned your way from the corners of your eye. You’re trying to ignore it, but he clears his throat and you turn toward him. “You okay?” His face is a bit frantic and he’s looking at you in that way again, the one you couldn’t really explain. He’s taking slow breaths and turns to you, letting you know this was going to be a whole conversation. You face him, letting the TV play because you don’t even understand the movie anyway.

“Why don’t you talk to me that way?” His question baffles you. You glace over at the TV, seeing if he's referring to something that happened in the movie but come up with nothing. You turn back to him slowly, watching his expectant, worried expression, and furrow your brows at him, prompting him to explain himself. “Back at Stacey’s house, you were sayin’ real nice things.” You feel the temperature in the room rise as embarrassment creeps into your bones.

‘Why don’t you talk to me that way?’

“Do you want me to?” You ask concerned. You would never want to even imagine that Joel isn’t feeling loved enough, that you’re not giving him enough, despite all the things you do for him. You reach out for him, waving your hands toward yourself to motion him closer. His head is hung, staring at the couch’s cushions as he scoots himself to you. “I can start telling you all this stuff. I- Honestly I didn’t think you’d want to hear it.” You giggle nervously and take a sudden interest in the couch's patterns.

Joel’s shocked to his core at your words but quickly takes your opening. “I’d really like it if you’d tell me... I get worried that maybe you don’t- “ He takes a deep breath, his chest heaving with a sigh. “That maybe you don’t like me as much as I-” You cut him off with a hurt, yet firm, “No!”

“Joel you’re so so-” You grunt, unable to explain the way he makes you feel. “You just- You’re everything good, and positive, and amazing in this world.” His entire body relaxes as he lets out a relieved sigh. “You’re perfect. You can’t even argue with me on that. You’re literally my dream guy. You’re kind, even though you’re hot enough that you probably don’t even need to be as nice as you are. You care about me and my feelings even though I’d probably just let you use my body, and throw me away if you really wanted. I-” You pause and take a breath- already worried about how he’ll take some of the things you’ve said. You give him a shy smile, a small laugh slipping out at his dazed look.

Joel couldn’t breathe as you spoke. His heart was swelling at every word, but there was also a dull hum in his lower stomach that was growing the longer you did. It flares up when you meet his eyes, giving him that pretty smile he loves so much. His head is all jumbled up. He doesn’t know if you’ve asked him something or if he should be responding. All he knows is that he really wants- really needs more. “Can-” He clears his throat, stalling and trying to clear his mind a bit. “Could you tell me more about- about my looks? How-” He feels anxiety flare in his chest as he requests. He’s looking at his hands, examining his knuckles, completely terrified at how you’ll react to the request, scared that you’ll have a look on your face that’ll break his heart. “How do you feel about ‘em?”

Joel has to fight the urge to run his fingers through his hair, run his nails along his beard to comb it and maybe cover the patches. He’s already regretting asking you. He didn’t get enough sleep last night, he probably has bags and he can’t even begin to think about how many gray hairs he has littering his head, and his beard. This shirt is a little too tight too, he can feel his stomach pressing against the fabric.

What do I expect her to say? Fuck, this was a stupid fuckin’ idea. I should’ve at least looked in goddamn mir-

His thoughts are cut off by a squeal and your shaking body. You’re wiggling yourself back and forth on the couch, bouncing in excitement. “Oh my god, Joel, I have so much to say.” He’s astonished at your excitement, at how eager you are to praise him. He can feel the humming in his stomach intensify. “You’re so-” Your voice drops to an adorably shy whisper. “You’re so fucking hot.” He lets out a soft gasp as you straighten your back, place your hands in your lap, and put on a semi-serious face before speaking.

“So the first thing that’s coming to mind right now is your thighs.” His eyes flicker down, but it doesn’t clarify anything. “How big they are, how thick and meaty- Ugh! I love them so much!” His heart warms and his pulse races at the way you’re smiling, as though telling him these things brings you actual, genuine, joy. “So next I’d like to mention your arms- oh, your arms. They’re so thick, you’re so strong” Your hand comes up slowly to squeeze his bicep, then caress it softly and he can feel himself hardening in his pants. He finally understands the feelings your words cause, he’s grateful, feeling incredibly loved, and insanely turned on.

“Now I wanna talk about your shoulders! Okay so, what really messes me up like- in general, is how fucking-” You take a shaky breath, that shy smile on your face again as you look at his lap, almost crying at how empty it looks. He notices your hesitance, where your gaze is and he sits back, opening his legs a bit wider and tilting his head toward it. He’s ready to have you on him, for you to know how this is affecting him. His breathing is already speeding up at the thought, watching you climb into his lap. You gasp, eyes wide, a devious smile on your face as you stare at him after feeling the way he's pressing into his jeans for you. “Joel…” Your tone is teasing but playful, bringing a smile to his face as you settle yourself in his lap.

“You like this? That’s why you want me to talk to you all nice?” His mouth drops open as his hips tilt up, pressing into you as his cock hardens fully. You can feel him filling out his boxers as he nods eagerly at you. You’re grinning as he lowers his hips back down but keeps a small grind for his personal sanity. “Can you keep-”

You’re nodding and continuing before he can finish. “You’re so big, Joel.” The compliment comes out as a whine and you tilt your hips toward him, pressing your chest against his, and your clit into the tip of his dick. He’s groaning your name and bringing his hands to your hips, pushing you into him. “You’re so broad, m-makes me feel so safe.”

He’s kissing your cheek as you speak, grinding up into you, and pressing your hips to him. Your head is getting clouded, consumed with your love for Joel, with the pleasure you’re giving him. “You- Your hair.” His heart stutters slightly, nervous about what you’ll say. “The curls, and it’s so soft and-” Your eyes slip shut as your hips take over, moving on their own as you grip Joel’s hair, pulling him into your chest. “The salt and pepper look is so good, Joel.”

“Fuck me.” His eyes roll back and his hands push your hips up. His hands fumble with his belt as you smother him in your chest, whining about how much you love him. “Love that this turns you on s’much, baby. It’s so fucking cute.” He can hear the smile in your voice and his eyes roll back as he lets out a sweet moan of your name, pressing the heel of his palm into his dick for a moment.

“Sweetheart, I gotta-” His words are broken by a whine as he finally gets his cock out of his pants, wrapping his warm hand and pumping his cock perfectly. He could cum like this, with you above him, telling him about every feature of his and how it affects you. Your hips are still swiveling in the air as you speak, waiting and looking for something to press against your pussy. It’s the only reason he doesn’t just keep jerking himself to your words. “I gotta fuck you, darlin’. Need you so bad, I want you so much.”

You don’t even look back, you just pull your panties aside, and lower yourself onto him, trusting that he’ll lead himself to the right hole. You’re clinging to his neck as you sink down, moaning his name over and over as he stretches you out. “You’re so tight, baby. Holy shit.” You clench down on him, and pull out of his neck, pressing a sloppy kiss against his mouth.

He’s thrusting into you slowly, hands gripping your hips to keep your rhythm steady. You’re letting out beautiful moans and little mumbles into his lips, not having the restraint to pull away for even one second. Joel slides his hand from your hip, up your back to hold the back of your neck gently, and pulls you away from him. “What is it, honey?”

He’s breathless as he fucks into you, his dick pulsing already. He grunts and closes his eyes as you moan incoherent words at him. You’re trying to answer him, your brain has completely turned to mush from the way he’s pounding into you. “-eyes are so p-pretty.”

Joel’s eyes snap open again. “Your lips are so soft and-” You’re still praising him, still rattling off your list of things that you find arousing about him. He doesn’t understand how you even have this much material, how even though you’re too fucked out to grind yourself on his cock properly, but you can still talk all about how much he turns you on, and how beautiful you think he is. He can feel his balls tightening.

His hand cups your face, sticking his thumb into your mouth as you whine and hump him harder. He’s trying not to focus too much on how warm, and wet your mouth is and slips his thumb out, ignoring the whimper you give. He relishes in the groan that’s pulled from your chest as he puts pressure on your aching, swollen clit. He’s rubbing circles before you can finish your moan of his name, your eyes roll back, and your body tenses. Joel’s in shock at how quickly he’s got you cumming around him. Your pussy spasms and your hips jerk against him with your mouth open in a silent moan.

Joel keeps his finger running over your clit as he watches you cum, still thrusting into you, chasing that last push he needs to fall over the edge. You give it to him without him having to ask. “Fuck me so perfect, Joey-” You pitch up into a whine and tangle your hands in his hair roughly. “A g-good boy, such a great guy-” You’re cut off as he bucks into you, his hips lifting off the couch completely, almost throwing you off as he groans and fills you to the brim.

He’s resting his head against your shoulder, his arms wrapped around you and holding your body to his as he throbs inside you, spilling all he has into your pulsing hole. He's huffing out groans in time with the ropes his dick is spurting into you, his entire body shaking as pleasure takes him over. You’re encouraging him the whole time, talking him through his orgasm, helping him tame the fire that’s raging through him.

Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed, here's the rest of my Kinktober Works and be sure to check out my Main Masterlist!!

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olderthannetfic · 7 months ago

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https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749333039047442432/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost74884185043?source=share

Sorry, long rant incoming.

Someone in the replies said it, but I think it needs to be said again where everyone can see it: I think a lot of the attitude that anon is somehow secretly pro-censorship because they think certain preferences are skeevy, and strenuously insisting that bad attitudes can NEVER be media's fault.... idk, maybe take it out of the context of debates about sexually explicit/pornographic media for a moment?

There are works of media that had pretty direct effects on activist and political movements, good and bad. Uncle Tom's Cabin inspired a lot of people to fight against slavery. The movie Birth of a Nation, which showed a history of the U.S. with the KKK as heroic, is considered by most historians to be a major contributor to the revival of the KKK in the 1920s. The Nazis used films, books, music, art, and so on in their propaganda, knowing it would help their ideas go down more easily. The Soviets did too. Every dictatorship did. Even democratic countries have done it as well, usually but not always in more subtle ways.

Do none of those count, because "oh, people who were going to be convinced by Birth of a Nation would be racist anyway"? "Good, non-racist people wouldn't be convinced by it"? I mean, the latter is true: there were plenty of people, especially black Americans but plenty of white allies too, who boycotted the film at the time. The NAACP led a boycott. But do you really think NO ONE was convinced? (What about people who previously didn't feel any way about it one way or the other? Were they just innately more evil, even if it might've just been that they weren't aware? Do supposedly progressive people in fandom realize how much this sounds like Christian original sin rhetoric...) And does it matter purely about media fully changing minds, or also how it galvanizes people who already think one way? If it gives them new talking points, new ways of thinking about it and convincing others? If it helps them believe their cause is more important and worth fighting for?

So why does this all suddenly change when we're talking about sex? Is porn really this special class of media where somehow all the rules about how we can both like things and also be critical of how media (fiction, news media, whatever) influences us - "be critical of the media you love," as a tote bag sold by Feminist Frequency said - just stop applying for some reason? Or maybe if something is bypassing your rational brain entirely and going directly for the pleasure centers, there's all the more reason to think critically about what it's saying? Propaganda is designed to bypass all that, too.

Also, if media really has NOTHING to do with it, that just wouldn't explain why it's disproportionately anime that feature these specific elements that seem to attract more people arguing for why it's wrong to be upset by rape or child exploitation in real life. I don't believe that everyone who watches slavery isekai or lolicon approves of those things irl - I think for the vast majority of people, it IS a fantasy and that's the point - but I have noticed that in places like the Anime News Network or Crunchyroll forums, the comments become a cesspool of creepy people arguing for why ages of consent should be lowered and mean feminists who don't like watching media with rape in it just need to get over themselves, in a way they just don't when you're talking about Attack on Titan or My Hero Academia or Shoujo Romance #4891 or whatever.

As another person in the notes said, abusers ARE opportunistic. They'll use something like Twilight as easily as they'll use the most uwu, soft, "non problematic" ship to argue for why they're allowed to abuse you. But I don't think that means we can't be critical (not calling for censorship, of course! but like, writing op-eds and stuff) of media that makes their arguments a little easier, maybe even directly makes their arguments for them.

You can believe both that everyone has the opportunity to read, watch, listen to, play what they want and make up their own minds about it, and that it's wrong for the government to ever decide what media is and isn't "acceptable," and also believe that media often is saying things that aren't apparent on the surface and that you should be critical of those messages, *especially* with the stuff you like.

The point is just that porn isn't like, fundamentally different from other fictional media in this way. (Or, hell, I would argue that fictional media isn't functionally different from other mass media in this way. If anything, fiction's politics are often more insidious in a way that makes it easier for them to reach people who might not otherwise be open to those messages in the form of, say, blatantly right-wing news media.)

It's particularly strange to me when people jump all over someone for expressing how something can be insidiously creepy in a more mundane way. The line people are upset about that used the word "unpack" was just making the point that even if we can agree lolicon isn't outright advocating pedophilia, even if we agree the point is that it's a fantasy and they're not like real children at all and that's what people like, it's still working within an idealization/fetishization of helplessness, innocence, and dependence, and that still has a lot that you can critique from a feminist perspective. It's still a thing that plays into some crappy societal ideas about who women are supposed to be, and is selling that to men as a romantic ideal. There's still a lot we can talk about there! And it's still totally fair for women to be wary of men where that seems to be all they're into - because for some (and I believe this was what anon was initially trying to say was their experience), it does impact how they treat real women. It doesn't have to be everyone for it to have an impact.

There's a lot of anime that presents women that way, even way outside of lolicon. A lot of it's anime I like! I'm still critical of that aspect of it. I still wish that particular part of it were different.

I still don't see how this makes me "pro censorship" unless I believe some kind of institution should mandate that that not be included. And whether that's the government, or the industry itself (people do kind of narrowly focus on "the government" in a way that would make a lot of industry-run censorship that was still very harmful, e.g. the Hollywood Hays Code, not "count"), or anyone, I very much disagree with that. Creators should be able to create what they want. A lot of what creators are doing with this is unconscious, is reflecting societal biases they learned but haven't thought deeply about.... which is precisely the point of critiquing how those show up in a work.

People love to talk about "secretly 'anti' attitudes" but at the end of the day, support or opposition to censorship is pretty straightforward. You believe someone should be stopped from making a particular kind of media, or you don't. If you don't, you're not pro-censorship, no matter how much you personally may not like that that media or a particular aspect of it exists. Most people who care about media have some media they wish didn't exist. It's about what they do about it that makes them pro or anti censorship. Talk to people who donate to or even work for the ACLU or other anti censorship groups; most of them don't like racist or sexist stuff, but they also don't believe it should be banned and that's the point.

Bringing it back to the discussion at hand, I think the point was just that you can't be blind to how power dynamics influence this stuff. I wouldn't even say specifically cishet men are at fault here, since some people who read this blog seem to think that anyone saying that is automatically talking about bioessentialism as opposed to like, societal stuff (don't ask me why, this has been explained on here enough times in enough different discourses over the years, I think). I'd just say anyone with power in that particular context. There's a reason why it's specifically mainstream media, aimed at groups in power, that tends to draw in creeps excusing the real thing... in a way that just similarly is not true of people in fanfiction fandom, who are usually a member of one or more oppressed categories, exploring that in their own marginal work. Fans of rape fanfiction just don't act the way that fans of slavery rape isekai do. It's because there is fundamentally a difference both when you're someone whom society tells you are entitled to everything you want in this particular arena, and also when a work is mainstream, broadening its reach, and speaking a particular message from the lens of people with economic and social power (who are making these mainstream works) and given approval by publishers/media studios/etc. in a way that is not the case with amateur work with tiny audiences. And, frankly, there's a difference between something that eroticizes rape from the point of view of the perpetrator vs. the victim.

Not a difference in terms of how legal it should be. Not a difference in whether every single person who watches it or likes it is bad. But a difference in terms of what it's saying, how it's saying that, and often the effects they have as a result. That, too, is true with every topic, not just sex.

I feel like a lot of people getting mad at these do fundamentally agree with this, but just have a weird blind spot when it's put in any sort of terminology that reminds them of certain bad arguments they've seen in fandom, uses any words that can be dismissed as "radfem" or "anti" or whatever, and so just refuse to engage with the actual meat of what is being said.

If you do actually believe though that it's wrong to EVER think media can have a negative effect on what people believe about irl issues, because there was always something "already there" that was going to "come out anyway" if it affects you that way (again, people: this is "original sin" rhetoric), and if you ever privately judge people for the media they like you're secretly pro-censorship. You do have to recognzie that both you personally come up short and also most peopel doing real concrete real world things to fight censorship would also come up short!

I think sometimes of an editorial that said "if you love Return of the Jedi but hated the Ewoks you understand feminist criticism" in terms of how you can be bothered by the sexism of a piece of media in a way you'd be bothered by any one individual element of it, and still overall like the whole. And also, you can be offended by something, even wish it didn't exist (don't we as nerds all have entries in some franchise we like or another that we wish didn't exist for fannish reasons?), without believing that it should be officially made to stop existing or have never existed in the first place. That last part does actaully matter as like, its own thing. It is in fact separable from just being able to have personal judgey feelings about media and about the people who liked it.

And opposing it does not mean in any way that we have to just stop thinking critically about the media we love, or that we have to act like media can never have any influence on people. We on the left tend to talk about sexism, racism, homophoia and so on as being influenced by culture and society. Well, guess what is part of society and culture? Fictional (and other kinds of) media. That's part of that societal programming we get. It's why you'll see some of it even from people whose parents very much tried to resist teaching them certain things, because they get it from media anyway. I was raised by strenuously feminist parents: it was the media that taught me what gender roles were and how I was expected to adhere to them.

Look, I realize it's a bit rich of me to say this, but people are not going to engage with your actual points if you cannot be more succinct.

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