#also addresses a LOT of uh. talking points recently

[rotzaprachim]

essential reading.

Opinion - There is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive. - by Peter Beinart

 And perhaps one day, when it finally becomes hideously clear that Hamas cannot free Palestinians by murdering children and Israel cannot subdue Gaza, even by razing it to the ground, those communities may become the germ of a mass movement for freedom that astonishes the world, as Black and white South Africans did decades ago. I’m confident I won’t live to see it. No gambler would stake a bet on it happening at all. But what’s the alternative, for those of us whose lives and histories are bound up with that small, ghastly, sacred place?

"In 1988, bombs exploded at restaurants, sporting events and arcades in South Africa. In response, the African National Congress, then in its 77th year of a struggle to overthrow white domination, did something remarkable: It accepted responsibility and pledged to prevent its fighters from conducting such operations in the future. Its logic was straightforward: Targeting civilians is wrong. “Our morality as revolutionaries,” the A.N.C. declared, “dictates that we respect the values underpinning the humane conduct of war.”

Historically, geographically and morally, the A.N.C. of 1988 is a universe away from the Hamas of 2023, so remote that its behavior may seem irrelevant to the horror that Hamas unleashed last weekend in southern Israel. But South Africa offers a counter-history, a glimpse into how ethical resistance works and how it can succeed. It offers not an instruction manual, but a place — in this season of agony and rage — to look for hope.

There was nothing inevitable about the A.N.C.’s policy, which, as Jeff Goodwin, a New York University sociologist, has documented, helped ensure that there was “so little terrorism in the anti-apartheid struggle.” So why didn’t the A.N.C. carry out the kind of gruesome massacres for which Hamas has become notorious? There’s no simple answer. But two factors are clear. First, the A.N.C.’s strategy for fighting apartheid was intimately linked to its vision of what should follow apartheid. It refused to terrify and traumatize white South Africans because it wasn’t trying to force them out. It was trying to win them over to a vision of a multiracial democracy.

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Second, the A.N.C. found it easier to maintain moral discipline — which required it to focus on popular, nonviolent resistance and use force only against military installations and industrial sites — because its strategy was showing signs of success. By 1988, when the A.N.C. expressed regret for killing civilians, more than 150 American universities had at least partially divested from companies doing business in South Africa, and the United States Congress had imposed sanctions on the apartheid regime. The result was a virtuous cycle: Ethical resistance elicited international support, and international support made ethical resistance easier to sustain.

In Israel today, the dynamic is almost exactly the opposite. Hamas, whose authoritarian, theocratic ideology could not be farther from the A.N.C.’s, has committed an unspeakable horror that may damage the Palestinian cause for decades to come. Yet when Palestinians resist their oppression in ethical ways — by calling for boycotts, sanctions and the application of international law — the United States and its allies work to ensure that those efforts fail, which convinces many Palestinians that ethical resistance doesn’t work, which empowers Hamas.

The savagery Hamas committed on Oct. 7 has made reversing this monstrous cycle much harder. It could take a generation. It will require a shared commitment to ending Palestinian oppression in ways that respect the infinite value of every human life. It will require Palestinians to forcefully oppose attacks on Jewish civilians, and Jews to support Palestinians when they resist oppression in humane ways — even though Palestinians and Jews who take such steps will risk making themselves pariahs among their own people. It will require new forms of political community, in Israel-Palestine and around the world, built around a democratic vision powerful enough to transcend tribal divides. The effort may fail. It has failed before. The alternative is to descend, flags waving, into hell.

As Jewish Israelis bury their dead and recite psalms for their captured, few want to hear at this moment that millions of Palestinians lack basic human rights. Neither do many Jews abroad. I understand; this attack has awakened the deepest traumas of our badly scarred people. But the truth remains: The denial of Palestinian freedom sits at the heart of this conflict, which began long before Hamas’s creation in the late 1980s.

Most of Gaza’s residents aren’t from Gaza. They’re the descendants of refugees who were expelled, or fled in fear, during Israel’s war of independence in 1948. They live in what Human Rights Watch has called an “open-air prison,” penned in by an Israeli state that — with help from Egypt — rations everything that goes in and out, from tomatoes to the travel documents children need to get lifesaving medical care. From this overcrowded cage, which the United Nations in 2017 declared “unlivable” for many residents in part because it lacks electricity and clean water, many Palestinians in Gaza can see the land that their parents and grandparents called home, though most may never step foot in it.

Palestinians in the West Bank are only slightly better off. For more than half a century, they have lived without due process, free movement, citizenship or the ability to vote for the government that controls their lives. Defenseless against an Israeli government that includes ministers openly committed to ethnic cleansing, many are being driven from their homes in what Palestinians compare to the mass expulsions of 1948. Americans and Israeli Jews have the luxury of ignoring these harsh realities. Palestinians do not. Indeed, the commander of Hamas’s military wing cited attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank in justifying its barbarism last weekend.

Just as Black South Africans resisted apartheid, Palestinians resist a system that has earned the same designation from the world’s leading human rights organizations and Israel’s own. After last weekend, some critics may claim Palestinians are incapable of resisting in ethical ways. But that’s not true. In 1936, during the British mandate, Palestinians began what some consider the longest anticolonial general strike in history. In 1976, on what became known as Land Day, thousands of Palestinian citizens demonstrated against the Israeli government’s seizure of Palestinian property in Israel’s north. The first intifada against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which lasted from roughly 1987 to 1993, consisted primarily of nonviolent boycotts of Israeli goods and a refusal to pay Israeli taxes. While some Palestinians threw stones and Molotov cocktails, armed attacks were rare, even in the face of an Israeli crackdown that took more than 1,000 Palestinian lives. In 2005, 173 Palestinian civil society organizations asked “people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.”

But in the United States, Palestinians received little credit for trying to follow Black South Africans’ largely nonviolent path. Instead, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s call for full equality, including the right of Palestinian refugees to return home, was widely deemed antisemitic because it conflicts with the idea of a state that favors Jews.

It is true that these nonviolent efforts sit uncomfortably alongside an ugly history of civilian massacres: the murder of 67 Jews in Hebron in 1929 by local Palestinians after Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, claimed Jews were about to seize Al Aqsa Mosque; the airplane hijackings of the late 1960s and 1970s carried out primarily by the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Yasir Arafat’s nationalist Fatah faction; the 1972 assassination of Israeli athletes in Munich carried out by the Palestinian organization Black September; and the suicide bombings of the 1990s and 2000s conducted by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah’s Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, whose victims included a friend of mine in rabbinical school who I dreamed might one day officiate my wedding.

And yet it is essential to remember that some Palestinians courageously condemned this inhuman violence. In 1979, Edward Said, the famed literary critic, declared himself “horrified at the hijacking of planes, the suicidal missions, the assassinations, the bombing of schools and hotels.” Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian American historian, called the suicide bombings of the second intifada “a war crime.” After Hamas’s attack last weekend, a member of the Israeli parliament, Ayman Odeh, among the most prominent leaders of Israel’s Palestinian citizens, declared, “It is absolutely forbidden to accept any attacks on the innocent.”Tragically, this vision of ethical resistance is being repudiated by some pro-Palestinian activists in the United States. In a statement last week, National Students for Justice in Palestine, which represents more than 250 Palestinian solidarity groups in North America, called Hamas’s attack “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance” that proves that “total return and liberation to Palestine is near” and added, “from Rhodesia to South Africa to Algeria, no settler colony can hold out forever.” One of its posters featured a paraglider that some Hamas fighters used to enter Israel.

The reference to Algeria reveals the delusion underlying this celebration of abduction and murder. After eight years of hideous war, Algeria’s settlers returned to France. But there will be no Algerian solution in Israel-Palestine. Israel is too militarily powerful to be conquered. More fundamentally, Israeli Jews have no home country to which to return. They are already home.

Mr. Said understood this. “The Israeli Jew is there in the Middle East,” he advised Palestinians in 1974, “and we cannot, I might even say that we must not, pretend that he will not be there tomorrow, after the struggle is over.” The Jewish “attachment to the land,” he added, “is something we must face.” Because Mr. Said saw Israeli Jews as something other than mere colonizers, he understood the futility — as well as the immorality — of trying to terrorize them into flight.

The failure of Hamas and its American defenders to recognize that will make it much harder for Jews and Palestinians to resist together in ethical ways. Before last Saturday, it was possible, with some imagination, to envision a joint Palestinian-Jewish struggle for the mutual liberation of both peoples. There were glimmers in the protest movement against Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, through which more and more Israeli Jews grasped a connection between the denial of rights to Palestinians and the assault on their own. And there were signs in the United States, where almost 40 percent of American Jews under the age of 40 told the Jewish Electoral Institute in 2021 that they considered Israel an apartheid state. More Jews in the United States, and even Israel, were beginning to see Palestinian liberation as a form of Jewish liberation as well.

That potential alliance has now been gravely damaged. There are many Jews willing to join Palestinians in a movement to end apartheid, even if doing so alienates us from our communities, and in some cases, our families. But we will not lock arms with people who cheer the kidnapping or murder of a Jewish child.

The struggle to persuade Palestinian activists to repudiate Hamas’s crimes, affirm a vision of mutual coexistence and continue the spirit of Mr. Said and the A.N.C. will be waged inside the Palestinian camp. The role of non-Palestinians is different: to help create the conditions that allow ethical resistance to succeed.

Palestinians are not fundamentally different from other people facing oppression: When moral resistance doesn’t work, they try something else. In 1972, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, which was modeled on the civil rights movement in the United States, organized a march to oppose imprisonment without trial. Although some organizations, most notably the Provisional Irish Republican Army, had already embraced armed resistance, they grew stronger after British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians in what became known as Bloody Sunday. By the early 1980s, the Irish Republican Army had even detonated a bomb outside Harrods, the department store in London. As Kirssa Cline Ryckman, a political scientist, observed in a 2019 paper on why certain movements turn violent, a lack of progress in peaceful protest “can encourage the use of violence by convincing demonstrators that nonviolence will fail to achieve meaningful concessions.”

Israel, with America’s help, has done exactly that. It has repeatedly undermined Palestinians who sought to end Israel’s occupation through negotiations or nonviolent pressure. As part of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestine Liberation Organization renounced violence and began working with Israel — albeit imperfectly — to prevent attacks on Israelis, something that revolutionary groups like the A.N.C. and the Irish Republican Army never did while their people remained under oppression. At first, as Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian political scientist, has detailed, Palestinians supported cooperation with Israel because they thought it would deliver them a state. In early 1996, Palestinian support for the Oslo process reached 80 percent while support for violence against Israelis dropped to 20 percent.

The 1996 election of Benjamin Netanyahu, and the failure of Israel and its American patron to stop settlement growth, however, curdled Palestinian sentiment. Many Jewish Israelis believe that Ehud Barak, who succeeded Mr. Netanyahu, offered Palestinians a generous deal in 2000. Most Palestinians, however, saw Mr. Barak’s offer as falling far short of a fully sovereign state along the 1967 lines. And their disillusionment with a peace process that allowed Israel to entrench its hold over the territory on which they hoped to build their new country ushered in the violence of the second intifada. In Mr. Shikaki’s words, “The loss of confidence in the ability of the peace process to deliver a permanent agreement on acceptable terms had a dramatic impact on the level of Palestinian support for violence against Israelis.” As Palestinians abandoned hope, Hamas gained power.

After the brutal years of the second intifada, in which Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups repeatedly targeted Israeli civilians, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Salam Fayyad, his prime minister from 2007 to 2013, worked to restore security cooperation and prevent anti-Israeli violence once again. Yet again, the strategy failed. The same Israeli leaders who applauded Mr. Fayyad undermined him in back rooms by funding the settlement growth that convinced Palestinians that security cooperation was bringing them only deepening occupation. Mr. Fayyad, in an interview with The Times’s Roger Cohen before he left office in 2013, admitted that because the “occupation regime is more entrenched,” Palestinians “question whether the P.A. can deliver. Meanwhile, Hamas gains recognition and is strengthened.”

As Palestinians lost faith that cooperation with Israel could end the occupation, many appealed to the world to hold Israel accountable for its violation of their rights. In response, both Democratic and Republican presidents have worked diligently to ensure that these nonviolent efforts fail. Since 1997, the United States has vetoed more than a dozen United Nations Security Council resolutions criticizing Israel for its actions in the West Bank and Gaza. This February, even as Israel’s far-right government was beginning a huge settlement expansion, the Biden administration reportedly wielded a veto threat to drastically dilute a Security Council resolution that would have condemned settlement growth.

Washington’s response to the International Criminal Court’s efforts to investigate potential Israeli war crimes is equally hostile. Despite lifting sanctions that the Trump administration imposed on I.C.C. officials investigating the United States’s conduct in Afghanistan, the Biden team remains adamantly opposed to any I.C.C. investigation into Israel’s actions.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or B.D.S., which was founded in 2005 as a nonviolent alternative to the murderous second intifada and which speaks in the language of human rights and international law, has been similarly stymied, including by many of the same American politicians who celebrated the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction South Africa. Joe Biden, who is proud of his role in passing sanctions against South Africa, has condemned the B.D.S. movement, saying it “too often veers into antisemitism.” About 35 states — some of which once divested state funds from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa — have passed laws or issued executive orders punishing companies that boycott Israel. In many cases, those punishments apply even to businesses that boycott only Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Palestinians have noticed. In the words of Dana El Kurd, a Palestinian American political scientist, “Palestinians have lost faith in the efficacy of nonviolent protest as well as the possible role of the international community.” Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, cited this disillusionment during last Saturday’s attack. “In light of the orgy of occupation and its denial of international laws and resolutions, and in light of American and Western support and international silence,” he declared, “we’ve decided to put an end to all this.”

Hamas — and no one else — bears the blame for its sadistic violence. But it can carry out such violence more easily, and with less backlash from ordinary Palestinians, because even many Palestinians who loathe the organization have lost hope that moral strategies can succeed. By treating Israel radically differently from how the United States treated South Africa in the 1980s, American politicians have made it harder for Palestinians to follow the A.N.C.’s ethical path. The Americans who claim to hate Hamas the most have empowered it again and again.

Israelis have just witnessed the greatest one-day loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. For Palestinians, especially in Gaza, where Israel has now ordered more than one million people in the north to leave their homes, the days to come are likely to bring dislocation and death on a scale that should haunt the conscience of the world. Never in my lifetime have the prospects for justice and peace looked more remote. Yet the work of moral rebuilding must begin. In Israel-Palestine and around the world, pockets of Palestinians and Jews, aided by people of conscience of all backgrounds, must slowly construct networks of trust based on the simple principle that the lives of both Palestinians and Jews are precious and inextricably intertwined.

Israel desperately needs a genuinely Jewish and Palestinian political party, not because it can win power but because it can model a politics based on common liberal democratic values, not tribe. American Jews who rightly hate Hamas but know, in their bones, that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is profoundly wrong must ask themselves a painful question: What nonviolent forms of Palestinian resistance to oppression will I support? More Palestinians and their supporters must express revulsion at the murder of innocent Israeli Jews and affirm that Palestinian liberation means living equally alongside them in safety and freedom.

From those reckonings, small, beloved communities can be born, and grow. And perhaps one day, when it finally becomes hideously clear that Hamas cannot free Palestinians by murdering children and Israel cannot subdue Gaza, even by razing it to the ground, those communities may become the germ of a mass movement for freedom that astonishes the world, as Black and white South Africans did decades ago. I’m confident I won’t live to see it. No gambler would stake a bet on it happening at all. But what’s the alternative, for those of us whose lives and histories are bound up with that small, ghastly, sacred place?

Like many others who care about the lives of both Palestinians and Jews, I have felt in recent days the greatest despair I have ever known. On Wednesday, a Palestinian friend sent me a note of consolation. She ended it with the words “only together.” Maybe that can be our motto.

[alwaysthefool]

[Requested] Naïve MC/Reader x LADS (Xavier, Sylus, Zayne, Rafayel)

They realise you’re a little too sheltered when it comes to sexual/romantic stuff

Warnings: Discussions of purity, sex education (not NSFW), OOC MC. This wasn’t meant as suggestive!

Tags: Gender neutral reader, fluff?

This was the request, but I changed it up to exclude the mention of a club since the premise of short fics can’t address my feelings about the issue seriously… everyone has unique scenarios->

Xavier

As the work day ended, instead of waiting for Xavier as you usually would, you walked out with the new hunter you’d met recently, chatting merrily about your day. “So where we going?” You smiled, walking out the Association HQ.

“Your place or mine?” They replied, smiling back, looking down at you.

You didn’t think much of it before replying. “Mine, I guess!” It was just chilling while watching Netflix after all. You really wanted to check out this new horror series, but didn’t get the chance to ask Xavier since he was always busy, and you certainly weren’t going to watch it alone.

He laughed at that for some reason, so you laughed back, although a little confused.

You felt a hand on your shoulder right as you were about to leave the premises. “Ahem.” The two of you turned around to see Xavier behind you, a stern look on his face. You frowned at his expression, and also the fact that you didn’t even hear him follow you. “You gotta stop creeping up on people like this, man.” Your colleague sighed. At this point, everyone was aware of Xavier’s antics when it came to you (which is also what made it shocking to them that you’d agree to hook up with someone else).

“What did you mean you’re taking them to your house?” Xavier completely ignored the person next to you.

“Uh…”. You weren’t sure how to respond. Wasn’t this a normal thing? When you were younger, your friends would come over to your house all the time. Although oddly, they’d have to be approved by Caleb first. He never really told you why, though.

“What do you think, buddy? We’re Netflix and Chilling.” Your companion responded for you. You smiled at that, nodding. “Mhm!”

Xavier’s expression turned hurt immediately, and he bore his puppy dog eyes into yours. “Really, [Name]? You’re… doing that with them?”

For some reason, looking at him, you felt such guilt, you held his hand. “I’m sorry Xavier, if I’d known you wanted to watch that new show too, I’d have asked you instead!”

“Wait, what?” The two spoke in unison. The person beside you rolled their eyes. “Seriously, you’re saying you’d rather be with him in front of me?” Before they could continue, Xavier’s death stare made them throw their hands up in defeat and walk away, too scared to even murmur profanities within his vicinity.

“Hey, where-“ Before you could finish, Xavier turned your attention back to him, holding your hands in his.

“[Name].” His tone was serious, and his eyes concerned. “What do you think Netflix and Chill means?”

“Watching Netflix with chilled coke, of course!”

Xavier sighed, half in relief, half in tension. “I think there’s a lot we need to talk about. But for now, please just ask me if you want to watch a show, try out new Ramen, or ‘hang out casually’.”

Rafayel

“Care to tell me what exactly you’re doing, cutie?” That last word to come out of Rafayel’s mouth was laced with venom, and that irritated expression you’d become so familiar with was splayed on his face once again.

You looked down at your phone. “Uh, someone at work asked for pictures my feet so I’m sending them pictures of my feet.”

“Is this another one of your pranks?” Rafayel crossed his arms.

“No?” Right as you were about to hit send, he took your phone from you, deleting the pictures before you could stop him. “Hey!” You exclaimed.

“You might not…” Rafayel sighed, giving your phone back to you as he sat beside you, tired. “…not love me anymore, but doing this while you’re in my house is cruel.”

You threw your phone away, and turned to face Rafayel, holding his face. He turned away from you, driving daggers into your chest. “Hey, why are you mad? It’s just feet…”

Rafayel, slightly taken aback, let go of his anger and looked at you. “Cutie, do you know why they’re asking for pictures of your feet?”

You shrugged. “Maybe they like my pedicure!”

He put his hands in his head, letting out a laugh. Before you could respond, he squished your cheeks, giving your left one a kiss. You returned the gesture, kissing his right cheek instead.

“You really are the most precious pearl in the ocean. As much as I’d like to continue seeing this pure side of you, I don’t want you to get taken advantage of again.” He stood up, reaching his hand out for you. “Let’s go, you have a lot to learn.”

Zayne

Realistically he’d make you study medical and ordinary romance books LOL

Zayne wasn’t sure how to go about it, how to confront the person who he thought was the love of his life, on why he saw them dressed to the nines having dinner with someone else inside a fancy restaurant on his car ride home. Zayne swore it didn’t upset him much, and that he had bigger things to worry about, but the thought did not leave his mind until he heard a knock on the door.

You looked tired. You didn’t know why you went to Zayne’s house, but you didn’t know who else to talk to. When he opened the door, you almost thought he looked surprised for a moment before his professional face returned. He left the door open for you, and without a word, went to his couch, reading a magazine.

You were already upset, and felt like leaving upon seeing his behaviour, but you were also extremely tired. “I’m fine, thanks for asking.” You spoke sarcastically. Zayne looked up at you, and you expected a snide remark from him, but concern etched his face. He put his magazine down and walked over to you.

“Why are you crying?”

You didn’t realise it until you felt wetness on your cheek. Zayne helped you get out of your shoes and helped you sit on the couch, bringing you a glass of water. He was way nicer than the guy you met today.

“I…” You took a sip. “I went out with a friend to celebrate his promotion, but he was being weird.”

You cried and explained how uncomfortable you felt with him asking questions about you, holding your hand, and then paying for the bill even though you didn’t want him to. It felt wrong and disgusted you.

“[Name],” Zayne was serious all of a sudden. “Did you… go on a date without realising it?”

Your tears stopped. “What? No, I mean, I just met him as a friend.”

He took off his glasses, keeping them in the pocket of his pajama shirt. “You said he wanted to meet you alone, for dinner, at a fancy restaurant, because he wanted you to be the one he celebrated his achievement with. You, and not his friends or family.”

“So?”

Zayne sighed. “You may not know it but he took you out on a date.”

You sniffled, and Zayne handed you a tissue, keeping his gentlemanly distance while patting your head. “I did not want the first date of my life to be this way.”

“It’s alright. I’ll make sure your next one is better.”

Sylus

Honestly he’d take this very seriously, sit you down, and explain this stuff without hesitation, because it’s super important to know.

It was just one meme at first. Then two. Then the whole discussion was about things you had no clue on, making you feel left out from your friend group. You groaned, throwing your phone away on the bed.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Sylus speaks, looking up from what he was reading on his chair. You had nothing to do on your day off and no energy to go outside, but Sylus still wanted to be near you, so you came over and lounged in his house.

“I…” You sat up on his bed, and he put his book on the table, focusing his attention on you. “I was very sheltered as a kid.”

“I can tell.” He quipped.

You rolled your eyes. “Well, anyway, it means I don’t understand what a ‘one night stand’ or a ‘hook up’ is, and I’m too scared to look it up.”

Sylus, as you expected, didn’t judge you. “Why are you scared?”

“Because I think it’s too late, and Caleb would be disappointed…” You knew Sylus didn’t like it when you brought Caleb up, but this time, his gentle expression stayed, as he took off his glasses, placing them inside his pocket.

“It’s never too late to learn about anything, especially things like these.” You gave him a polite smile. That was nice to hear. You shifted, sitting with your feet off the bed, to be a little closer to where he was on his chair.

“Not to mention, you have the best teacher in front of you.”

Bonus:

A while later, Sylus put on his glasses, frowning while going through your group chat, unsure of how to explain what they were discussing to you. “Maybe your brother was right, you have some crazy friends.” He joked.

-x-

[redvelvetcupcakes21]

Listen, can we get recognition of the son and father relationship in s8 please.

"Huh." Hens eyes follow the back of Bucks retreating back as Bobby looks on as well. "I thought he would have a bigger reaction than that. He was so desperateto get rid off Gerrad." Hen pondered, looking at Bobby who had stepped in the station now fully back as Captain of the 118.

Everyone had celebrated at the news...

Except Buck, who was subdued at best when Bobby announced he was back at the helm of the station.

"Wonder what that's about." Bobby frowned, his stomach already churning at what was to come.

What came next was nothing.

At least nothing from Buck.

No chats, no hugs, no smiles, and no interest in cooking for the team or even helping Bobby cook.

Buck was fine when it came to communicating during calls. Ever the professional.

Too professional for Bobby's liking.

And it didn't go unnoticed by the team.

He had tried to approach Buck about before the end of the shift during his fourth day back but Buck had rebuffed his efforts to talk.

They hadn't talked since he came back, Buck wasn't even talking during team dinners.

Sure he would talk to Eddie, Hen, Ravi, and Chim- all smiles and laughter with the team.

But it was just silence with Bobby.

Bobby had it by day 7 of his return and vowed to actually confront Buck at home.

(Bobby refused to be upset about not realizing that Buck had moved in with Tommy at some point. How had Buck not told him that? That was a really big life changing decision and milestone)

(Of course Bobby had missed the irony of him being upset at Buck)

He drove the extra 40 minutes from DTLA to Silver Lake, he had thankfully been able to find Tommy's address through some old work emails.

"Bobby? What are you doing here?" Tommy asked once he opened the door.

"Is Buck here?"

Tommy's jaw ticked at that, "He's out for a run, should he back soon." He opened the door wide and stepped aside. "Come in."

Bobby nodded in thanks and came into the house. He had to admit to himself, he and Tommy weren't close. It always felt as though they both were keen on putting a wall between them, that line between being professional and overly friendly. Bobby knew why his own reason for doing so, it just took for Buck and Tommy to be dating for him to put together Tommy's reason for the wall as well.

He didn't know what to expect when stepping into Tommy's house. But it felt warm and lived in, it was neat but there were a few knickknacks here and there, pictures of random sites and people with Tommy (including a lovely framed photo of Tommy and Buck at the awards ceremony), and a lot of plants.

He also noticed a few familiar items that he was sure belonged to Buck.

"Can I get you something to drink? Juice? Tea? Water?" Tommy offered, leading them towards the kitchen.

"Waters fine, thanks." Bobby took a quick look around the kitchen, taking a seat at the kitchen nook table.

"So...any particular reason for the drop in visit?" Tommy asked, sounding blase as got three glasses of water, setting aside one on the kitchen island.

Bobby nodded and gave out a meek thank you as Tommy sat from across him.

"I-uh, I'm not sure." Bobby admitted, he looked up at Tommy quizzically. "Has Buck told you anything? I mean, has he been different recently?"

Tommy arched a brow at that. "Bobby, if you're asking if I know why Buck has been giving you the silent treatment at work, you can just ask outright."

Bobby's eyes widened and he knew his mouth was hanging open as well. "So you know the reason then?" He asked the other man cautiously.

Tommy nodded, twisting the glass between his hands.

"Can you tell me why? I've been trying to figure it out but he won't talk to me." Bobby pleaded, "He's acting weird around me. He doesnt want to talk, doesnt want to help me out with cooking duties. He doeant even call me Cap anymore."

Tommy nodded sagely. "I know."

"Can you tell me why?"

He watched as Tommy looked crestfallen at that and sighed before explaining to Bobby. "No, because it's not my place and Evan knows he can trust me. And as much as I respect you Bobby, I respect my boyfriend more."

Bobby pressed his lips together, mildly annoyed and impressed that Buck had found a partner that had his back like this.

Bobby rubbed his face tiredly, shoulders slumping in defeat as he mumbled. "Yeah."

"Safe to assume he's doing his job, right? Responding to calls and orders." Tommy leaned back in his seat, arms crossed. "He's talking and treating you the way he typically would with another captain. You put on the uniform, respond to calls, take orders, and go home."

That had Bobby sit up straight. He felt a weird sense of deja vu at the words- he was unsure if he had said the words before or if someone else had. It felt familiar and bitter all at once.

Tommy looked at him with an imploring expression.

"Because this is a job and not a family." Bobby finished hollowly....

He had said the same thing to Tommy and the rest of the 118 when he had started as Captain.

He said the same thing a few times to Buck too after Buck had started at the station, but it never stuck.

Buck had wormed his way into Bobby's life and heart. Despite trying for all the years to make sure he had never treated Buck differently, he knew he had a soft spot for him.

Athena knew.

Hen knew.

May even knew.

A part of him knew that Buck was aware of it too.

Which was why Bobby was at his ropes end in trying to figure out how his relationship with Buck was now at the step before first step.

It was though they had pressed the reset button on their relationship it this time, it was Buck making sure that they weren't a family.

"Exactly." Tommy pointed at him knowingly, a sad smile that had Bobby feeling more guilt ridden for their relationship.

"Tommy, I-Im so-"

"Y'know the one thing I admire about Evan? Is that he's selfless and resilient as hell, but he's not gonna force someone to love him and he's not gonna settle either. It's either all or nothing, which I definitely appreciate because I want it all with him." Tommy's smile was fond, "I know Evan cares for a lot for the people he considers to be his family, I just wish that they thought the same for him."

Bobby frowned at that, thinking hack to the times where he and the others had been there for Buck when he was hurt.

He was about to retort back when he heard Buck's voice and foot steps approaching them, "Hey baby, you wouldn't mind if we skip the movies toni-"

Buck froze on the spot, his demeanor switching quickly to something darker and moodier as he asked Tommy "What's the captain doing here?"

Both men stood up but only Tommy went to Buck's side.

"He wanted to talk to you." Tommy explained gently, he rubbed Buck's back in comfort. "I know you're pissed but it might help to talk to him. Even just to get closure." Tommy advised.

Bobby frowned at that, still unsure to what led to Buck essentially giving him the silent treatment.

He watched as Tommy whispered something into Buck's ear and saw how Buck's eyes widened and hardened again. His looked straight at Bobby with a disappointed frown.

"Just talk to him." Tommy pressed, "You might get some answers you've been wanting to get." He kissed Buck on the temple ans squeezed his hand, "I'll be in the living room if you need me, okay?"

Buck nodded, letting their hands linger and trace over their arms as they pulled away. "Okay, yeah."

Buck licked his lips, rubbing his face tiredly with the bottom of his shirt. "You really don't get why I'm so angry at you?" He asked Bobby, his voice heavy with confusion, hurt, and frustration.

"No," Bobby stressed, waving his arms out in frustration. "Honestly Buck? I don't get where any of this is coming from. I figured you of all people would be relieved that I would be coming back."

Buck nodded, not in agreement but just because as he slumped down in the seat that Tommy had vacated.

"Yeah," Buck sighed, "but that doesn't undo what you did, Captain."

It was the Captain that did it.

It was the final straw.

Bobby slammed his hands against the table. "Damn it, Buck. What the hell did I do in the first place? What exactly?!

Buck took a deep breath in, his blue eyes dark and wide but his voice was rough- on the verge of tears as he told Bobby "You were planning on leaving and you didn't even bother to tell me."

For all the bubbling anger that Bobby had felt, it only took Buck's shaky voice to break his demeanor.

"Oh."

[canmom]

booksbooksbooks - "yeah ok uh. you're worthless! how about that!"

I read Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt! I have previously talked about Brainwyrms on here, her second novel; this is her first, and honestly they are such similar books (thematically, structurally, stylistically - it's possible even that they are in a shared continuity) that a second comment almost feels redundant - but then it turned out I had a lot to say when I got into it. Spoilers below, though I think most of the effect of this book is how it's told rather than what happens.

(Also: the recent bookcrit posts will sometime soon be making their way to canmom.art for easier reading - I've rather dragged my feet on that but Soon(TM).)

So this is a haunted house book that's about fascism. You know it's about fascism before the book even begins, since it says as much in the content warning. More specifically it's about British fascism, personified in an evil house called Albion at the edge of Brighton that corrupts all around it, drawing people in and bringing out the fascist mindset in them.

It would be reasonable to fear this might end up as a polemic loosely packaged as a novel - even if an absolutely on-point and warranted polemic. You can absolutely see how characters fit into the 'argument': a white trans woman who has not fully escaped her racist upbringing on the one hand, her Jewish-Pakistani girlfriend* who runs into the arms of the TERF movement on the other, their blonde cis third wheel who is the first to be fully corrupted by the House. A plot hinging on conflicting accusations of rape; the house itself being established through a series of eugenicist murders. And on top of that, in between parts you get some quotes from, variously: Félix Guattari's Everybody Wants to be a Fascist, Isabel Fall's Helicopter Story, Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism, a Stewart Lee skit, and William Blake's A Little Boy Lost (primarily for the 'Albion' pull I think).

*actually a deep closeted trans guy, wouldn't ya know it

I think it would be easy to find this directness kind of annoying, but what makes it work for me is largely its style. Rumfitt has a hell of an ability to set a mood and environment, to convey the all-too-real bitterness and pain of its characters in circumstances I recognise. It is a story more than willing to veer into delirious fever-dream streams of consciousness or to spend a few pages quoting some fetishist imageboard rant at length. But more important is the genuine and raw anger of the author that seems to run through it: when the narration slips into addressing the reader, it feels like the intensity of feeling can't be contained in fictional devices anymore. The word 'sharp' is surely a cliché, but this is the kind of book to leave you looking up and going 'phew' between chapters. It works because it is able to make you feel the bleakness that its narrative demands.

(Possibly a relevant comparison at this point would be Sálo, but something to develop another time.)

At the same time, it's a book that is so blatantly About Stuff that it's almost impossible to read it simply as a novel. It has a certain degree of mystery structure (what happened in the House? what became of Hannah? who raped who?) and escalating waves of intensity to pull you along, it's got setups and payoffs and callbacks as the ideas raised early in the story bloom again in the final blast of words, but it's not really something you can simply take as a haunted-house story. Some of the biggest horror scenes would be kind of completely ridiculous without the metaphor-drenched context.

We can describe the main beats, all the same.

the bit where I summarise the plot

Alice and Ila are two survivors of an ill-fated expedition into an abandoned house. Alice (trans girl) is haunted by something which manifests in the form of a stain on the wall, and when she covers it by a picture of a racist singer from the 80s who she once admired, his phantom (it's presumably Morrissey, but they book doesn't ever name him). she gets by through shooting sissy hypnosis videos for clients who have her say all sorts of dubious racist shit. Ila (cis) has been welcomed as a token brown woman for the TERF movement, getting interviewed on the radio and invited to conferences. Both of them remember being raped and multilated by the other during the visit to the House - more on that anon. The third member of the party, Hannah, entered with them but never left the House.

Alice's closest thing to friends are a hetero couple of hard partiers; the guy Jon is into knifeplay and it's clearly not something his partner is all on board with. She tries to hook up with a girl but the Morrissey-haunting scares her away, providing some setup for the concepts of haunting this book will use. Ila, meanwhile, is almost raped by another TERF after recounting her story at a conference; the woman in question preemptively DARVOs her on social media so she won't tell. Some other cis(?) girl who Ila had deliriously called a tranny during sex (thanks House!) seconds it. Throughout all this, Ila has been frequently messaging Alice asking to talk again.

The narrative jumps around; we gradually learn more about the circumstances of their previous trip into the House (named Albion by its first two inhabitants), and its history: built by a gay guy in a period that would get you arrested and named Albion by his 15-year-old lover, then the site of a series of eugenicist murders (with explicit allusion to Bluebeard); in modern times, the random suicides it inflicts on the people in the buildings around it, etc. It's a real bad House

So, Hannah (cis, straight) had been feeling third-wheeled by the couple Alice and Ila. We get some flashbacks as Hannah: that time Alice and Ila had sex on the beach and Hannah totally heard it all, that time Hannah hooked up with a black guy and Alice and Ila were kind of assholes to him... When they enter the house together, Hannah becomes separated and drawn to the red room at the heart of the house. When Alice and Ila enter, Hannah is fully claimed by the House and physically transformed into a human swastika, and the narrative splits in two as both Alice and Ila enact brutal rapes on each other; in one version, Alice cuts 'ARBEIT MACHT FREI' into Ila's belly, in the other, Ila cuts a symbolic vagina into Alice's scalp. The two of them leave the House with these injuries, and the narrative pointedly refuses to tell us that one is the real course of events, or that something else happened.

Ila contacts Alice and convinces her to return to the House to put an end to it. They try to have sex and they're not feeling it; then they have nasty politicised sex, which gives the book its title:

“Call me it, please,” she says. “Call you what?” “You know. You know you want to, as well.” She hesitates for a moment. But Alice is right. She does want to. “You fucking tranny,” Ila moans. “God. Fuck. Please.” The pleasure is nearly unbearable for Alice. “Do it again. Tell me what you think of me, what you really think of me. Tell me I’m nothing. Tell me I’m worthless.” “You,” Ila grabs Alice’s hair, “are a fucking worthless tranny.”

Finally the two go into the House and we enter a kind of fever dream of an alternative fascist-ruled timeline in the green and pleasant lands where Mosley plays on the radio, Alice never transitions and marries Hannah and kills herself, Ila is deported to unknown quarters, and then in a parallel vision they both embrace while respectively self-disembowelling and bleaching -

then, finally we get a version where they escape alive and burn the House, only for its curse to continue to affect the next building to be built there, which gives rise to a bomber who bombs the Pride parade where Alice and Harry (formerly Ila) are walking together. But they hold each other in the ashes. t4t end.

You get all that?

I'm leaving out various dream sequences, flashbacks, and meditations on the state of things, like the factory or the, 'shitty transvestite pigs', which could honestly be said to be more important than the narrative itself.

fascism then

So for a book that is so much about fascism, what does it actually have to say on the subject? The facet of fascism examined here is mostly of the online-radicalisation or unspoken-sentiment type, the thing you tell yourself is a joke until you stop telling yourself that. The characters are carrying intrusive patterns of thought, taking different but similar forms for each. The House, or the ideology, feeds on their interpersonal resentments and drives them towards self-destructive cruelty.

In the narration that is (at least at times) their train of thought, they ask themselves why they stay in the House, or get drawn back. The closest thing to an answer comes, in Hannah's point of view, shortly before the dual rape scene:

Alice tried to kick open the door, but it wouldn’t move, however hard she kicked. It felt like there was nothing on the other side of the door – that it wasn’t a door at all, but the border to the world, and the inside of this room was the entire world. If you were to open the door you would find… what? The world outside is dark and unknowable. In the room you are safe. You are subject to violence, abuse, mistreatment, hurt, pain, all of the above, but you are safe from what is outside the room and that is what matters, inside the room is the pain you know, outside the room is the pain you do not know, it’s not a hard choice to make in the end, to sit here ‘neath the burning sun of her body, (...)

But more than that, fascism is some kind of permanent infestation. The House itself is at once England (as the name Albion suggests) and the persistent, seemingly eternal infestation of fascist ideology, which are pretty much one and the same - a country so racist that it will vote to kill its own immune system right before a global pandemic, a country so racist that the very ground stinks, a country so racist that your seemingly left-liberal parents have a map of the British Empire hanging on their wall (excerpted from the middle of a run-on-sentence too long to reproduce here).

So Alice and Ila confront their dalliance with fascism by returning to the House, and in a sense purge themselves through this catabasis; but fascism is not destroyed when the House is ruined, or burned down, or replaced with flats, and keeps growing back to consume more lives.

Mostly the thing the book seems to have to say about fascism is it's fucking everywhere and it's terrifying, a sentiment that is hard to disagree with. But it also has a fair bit to say in depicting its dynamics in the modern world.

What of this dual rape scene then? There is a scornful paragraph at one point about how the social-justice rules of engagement totally fail, mockingly describing how you could plug the two characters into an intersectionality calculator to determine who has narrative authority here, ending with this remark:

So, there’s just two girls leaving a house and maybe you don’t have to take a side, maybe you can empathise with them both and hope they get the therapy and help they need and can learn to forgive one another. No. You can’t do that. Are you a fucking idiot? Are you that fucking stupid that you genuinely think you can do that and that something like that is possible?

At the same time as presenting this situation of absolute ambiguity, the book doesn't seem shy about acknowledging there are straight up bad actors, whether Jon or the older TERF; recurring more than once is the idea of the moves a rapist might make to silence a victim or witness. All sorts of lines: "I'm too important to the movement, think of what would happen", or blatant lies, "it's the only way [the unconscious person] can get off".

All of this, frankly, accords with my experience of the world; these are all things that happen. If it revels a little in setting up these little ironies in its account of the TERF movement (elsewhere we see Ila making up stories to post on a forum that is obviously Mumsnet), it is also painfully cognisant of the ugly dynamics of accusations. Elsewhere this very website gets a shoutout! In an Alice POV chapter:

When I was about fifteen, I used the website Tumblr. It still exists, as far as I know. It was a strange place, and it’s hard to even describe how the culture of it felt when you were part of it: at times welcoming and at times unbearably tense. It was the first time I really read about what being trans was, and it was also where I was sent endless anonymous messages telling me to kill myself. People would often accuse others of things, baselessly, and those accusations would stick to them however much they tried to shake them away. One of my Tumblr mutuals was accused of being a paedophile and a Nazi. We hadn’t really talked much at all – she’d re-blogged my selfies a few times, and I hadn’t thought much about that until people started to accuse her. I began to wonder what her intentions had been when she shared a fifteen-year-old’s selfies. She denied these accusations, of course. Anyone would. She claimed that the people accusing her of being a paedophile and a Nazi were TERFS – and the problem was that some of them were. Or had, at least, started to share TERF rhetoric onto their blogs. Which made sense… they had just been exploited by an older trans woman, and suddenly these other older women were telling them, oh, come join us. There’s a pattern to this, and we don’t have to accept it as normal. I didn’t understand it at the time, I was just angry, angry and confused, but I get it now, with Ila spooning me. I understand why she is the way she is. I hope she understands why I am like I am, too. (...dialogue about the House happens...) I stopped using Tumblr shortly after that whole affair, and after having other people creep on me too – most notably a nineteen-year-old fat rights activist who seemed obsessed with my hair. I turned to 4chan and other forums in that vein, where, even if there were Nazis and paedophiles, at least they were generally honest about being those things, even as they remained anonymous. It felt better to know that I was talking to someone who liked to masturbate over little boys than to talk to someone and find that out about them later.

I was a bit older than the fictional Alice when I arrived on here, and I've never had the sense to leave lmao, but this accords well enough with my experience - notably, I strongly recall how a certain opposed accusation of rape/abuse (with knifeplay involved!) torpedoed the simplistic 'believe accusations' worldview I had held onto up to that point. The girls involved became a cause célèbre for two rival factions in the trans scene at the time, with who you believed largely depending on who your friends were, each rallying to defend theirs and cast the others as apologists. Ironically, both those groups would later fall apart.

Whatever parallels I might draw to touchy real life history, we can certainly see here some of the devices this book likes to use: a long personal illustrative anecdote of some messy shit, seguing into a moment of narration and a remark that connects it to the present, and helps sketch its characters as the extrusion of much-larger social forces. It is not easy to adequately capture complexity without getting completely lost in mush, and I think this book manages solidly. (I am tempted to draw certain parallels to works like Psycho Nymph Exile which address similar dynamics, but that would be way more than I want to get into right now).

It is strange reading this book, in many ways. I have only been in Bright a few times, but once was indeed for a Trans Pride, and I remember sitting on the beach described in the book (I went home before anyone started fucking). I may not have shown up to some anti-TERF demo, but I know well the 'tuneless chants' that Ila derides in her early POV chapter. So many trans books are American, and here is one that is furiously British, and that certainly strikes a chord.

With everything so caught up in magic and metaphor, what can we pull out of our own immersion in this book's wash of terrible images? Simply to love each other defiantly, in the spirit of the old songs? I recall talking with @thesiltverses on how horror and dystopian fiction undermines itself by presenting a relief at the end, and I am inclined to agree. There is no relief here, no 'this is what we need to do to counter the rise of fascism'; it is a story that ends only in a tragic moment of defiance, tinged with that little cynical detail, after a fascist bombs a Pride parade:

He goes to her, on his hands and knees, rubble and blood and bodies all around them. The police, the ambulance, the news crews. They are coming. Photographers are taking pictures of them, and they will put these pictures on the front pages of newspapers, and the picture will be with them forever, they won’t ever escape it, two trans people covered in blood and embracing amidst the carnage. The photographer who gets the image wins a prize for it. They don’t know that yet. They only know this: Harry crawls towards Alice with the last of his strength, his arms outstretched and reaching. The rain will come. When it does it will be bloody. The future will be red-tinted and unknowable, but they will be together. Come to me now, mouths Alice. Hold me.

I feel like this is the tone of a lot of recent tranny-adjacent fiction: we cannot stop them coming, but we will live furiously all the same: a story about the possibility of a pocket of change, that two people so thoroughly corrupted by the House could move past it. Is that all we can hope for? If we can win more, it's probably not for a horror novel to say so.

I know I know at least one person who has known Alison Rumfitt, the UK trans scene being what it is. I'm glad her book is resonating with people, if it is only those who show up at queer bookshops (shoutout to Category Is books where I got my physical copy). We are certainly experiencing a moment for grimdark fiction, and while that suits my tastes rather more than the 'cosy', I distrust any self-congratulation about being soooo transgressive and nasty compared to those pathetic wimpy steven universe gays. This, however, is something quite different: it's nasty because it's simply extremely pointed and the subject kind of demands it.

A couple of weeks ago I was discussing with some people at the film festival about how you'd do a film adaptation of this book. Having now read it, I'm scratching my head - it seems rather unfilmable, because so much of what it's saying is caught up in internal monologues and devices of narration that would hardly translate to the screen. But hey, you know what, if someone tries, I want to see.

[screams-in-writing]

Hi, recently discovered your Mr puzzles x reader fic and I really like it so far! So my question is (as a hypothetical and if it’s too spoilery and or too much to answer you don’t have to answer this!) what would be the reader’s reaction to the smg4 crew and how do you think each individual interaction would go down. Like after some character development and with a way to return to the smg4 world for Mr.Puzzles I think the reader would convince him to formerly apologize to all of them for putting them through everything that he’s done to them and the smg4 crew are super confused and flabbergasted that Mr.Puzzles actually somehow managed to get a partner.

Again if you don’t want to answer that first question then here’s another one that’s more silly! What if Mr.Puzzles sees the reader playing a Mario game and Mr.Puzzles just freaks out and just shuts off the game and reader is understandably upset at him doing that and then he explains that that pesky plumber ruined his life and never wants to see his face again! And then reader gets an idea of how to effectively keep Puzzles in line and to basically puzzle proof everything. By saying. “Oh, so you’re saying if I were to give him a call right now? And ask him to come over?” And he’s like “You wouldn’t dare! Youre, You’re bluffing! Y-you can’t call Mario!” And reader’s like “oh yeah? How can you tell if I’m bluffing or not?” And then he’s like “Cease your irritating mind games!” And then reader’s like “Just try me tv man. One phone call is all it takes.” With a smug smirk.

There will be an interaction like that with the smg4 crew, but it’s a bit further down the line for the fic, but it will be there. But reader will be very interested in meeting them, even if it’s only over a computer at first. I do think the reader would believe that he ought to apologize but it is also entirely up to Mr. Puzzles as to how and when. He strikes me as not having the best time actually addressing other people when he’s not on camera and can act as he will. When it comes down to actually addressing the emotional (and maybe physical?) stress on Smg4 and co, it is going to be a lot more difficult, since I feel he doesn’t exactly realize how much distress he caused in the name of trying to make a good show over all the things he had a hand in, directly or indirectly.

But once that is finally addressed, there is so going to be mass confusion, teasing, taunting and disbelief like yeah wdym that Mr. Puzzles actually has time outside of his wants for another person??? How?? Did he brainwash the reader no worries they can help with that like it is very hard for many of the crew to believe it is actually genuine and not some trickery until they witness little things that Mr. Puzzles actually allows them to see that yup no. This man is down bad and he is terrible at conveying said feelings and it’s kinda amazing the relationship developing hasn't crashed and burned yet *whistles innocently* as to the second part:

reader would find it fascinating the puzzles actually met Mario, even if it was some alternate universe version of him. I feel like if he 50/50 on being upset over someone shutting a game off on me but if it was because the other person claimed to have met said character? I’d definitely be intrigued and grill them. puzzles would have a good segue into talking about how he ended up in readers world but now that he is friends and possibly more he’s digging himself a hole for future him as puzzles would only focus on Mario and how he ruined things yadda yadda but not explain in detail how puzzles was the one that instigated things and uh oh communication likely should have been done at that earlier point before the reader gets to talk to smg4 and co to find out that puzzles is keeping a pretty big secret he’d been struggling to decide whether or not to drop and oops now he’s being blackmailed by smg4 and 3 to fess up.

also it would be a good tactic to keep him in line but only when puzzles is back on his own world and Mario can just. Appear if someone calls him and puzzles lives in a state of high anxiety for a while struggling to decide whether to retaliate or not. In readers world, puzzles just gets smugly amused and condescending that it won’t work since Mario can’t get here. But tables turn when it is a reality and reader will definitely be the smug one then. I’m especially excited to have Mario terrorize Mr puzzles inadvertently and somehow have smg4 roped into getting back at Mario and reader and others will just sit back with popcorn and watch the show.

[aihoshiino]

Since you haven't yet, could you please tell us your thoughts about the recent interview with Ai? After all, it seems to reveal a lot of interesting things about her.

For those who haven't read it yet, this is referring to the four-page in character interview with Ai that was published in the January 2024 issue of Da Vinci magazine!

Off the bat, it was really interesting to get such a direct and length look at Ai's public persona as it exists in OnK. Ironically enough, despite so much of the series being about people who are unable to get past her 'Ai of B-Komachi' mask, we actually don't get a ton of time spent with it as readers — we mostly see Ai in her private life, with Saitou, Miyako and the twins, where she is considerably more unfiltered and explicitly not on the job and we even get peeks directly into her POV from our perspective as out-of-universe observers. In fact, apart from the Da Vinci interview, the only other time we see Ai 'on the job' to this degree is a really quick exchange she has with a TV presenter just before her first post-hiatus performance. So it was really interesting to chew on!

The thing that stands out to me most from the interview is kind of a confirmation of something I've been saying for a long time — which is that Ai is a lot more honest than a lot of people (both in universe and in the fandom!) give her credit for. A lot of her answers are surprisingly frank and in line with what we know to be her true feelings and her more honest way of expressing herself elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, she's absolutely full of shit in plenty of spots here (EL OH EL ABOUT B-KOMACHI'S 'IRREPLACEABLE BOND') and her answers are still very polished and pretty, but there's a lot more of Ai herself here than I think even she herself would want to acknowledge.

This matches up with how Ai describes herself in 45510 — that, even though she's afraid of opening up, she does want people to know her as she really is and to accept her as such. It's interesting to see that expressed, even indirectly, through the interview like this.

It was also super cool to see a lot of my more incidental headcanons/personal interpretations confirmed! In particular, seeing Ai talk about Kana so warmly got me really excited. I'd always liked to imagine that she felt pretty fondly towards Kana and that she admired her hard work and dedication at such a young age so seeing Ai talking about her so effusively was really cute.

Less sweet was the confirmation that Ai's shitty home life in Ayumi's house stretched way back prior to Ayumi beginning to physically abuse her. Reading Ai calling herself a 'nasty brat' (almost definitely her mom's words) and then talking about her feeling so unwelcome at home that she'd sneak out of the house in the dead of night and wander around near the traintracks, daydreaming about being able to run away… it pains a really horrible image of what growing up in that house must have been like.

Speaking of parents, though… uh, wow, holy shit, Ai's dad! This is the only direct mention of him we've ever gotten and it definitely raises more questions than it answers. Prior to this, he'd been such a non-entity in Ai's life that I just kind of assumed he'd either passed away when she was very young or that he'd never been involved in her life — Ayumi is consistently referred to as her only parent to the point that, once she's out of the picture, Ai's only other option for stable family is, specifically, her mother's relatives. The idea of Ai being cared for by her dad or his side of the family is just never addressed as a possibility, so it's clear that past a certain point he was unable or unwilling to care for her.

The Da Vinci interview does imply she saw him occasionally — she describes their shopping trips as something that 'didn't happen often' — which supports the idea that he and Ayumi divorced or separated when Ai was quite young and he wasn't really involved in her life. It's honestly kind of depressing that he's the center of her happy childhood memory because like… man, it really says something about how abjectly unrelentingly dogshit her life was that "my dad sometimes took me to the grocery store" was happy enough in comparison to everything else in her life that she thought of it as a cherished memory.

Overall, the Da Vinci interview was a really nice surprise! We don't really get a lot of additional info about Ai from that time period specifically — a lot of the new reveals about her as a character tend to come from periods of her life prior to the timeline of the story, so getting a little extra peek into her final days really was a treat.

[maskedjolo]

Classic/Withered Animatronics Continuity Error Theory

Hi!

Now with the pleasantries out of the way, I would like to put forward a theory I have that I'm not sure if people have been talking about as much as they should. This theory is surrounding the Withered Animatronics and why they look so DIFFERENT from the Classic Animatronics even though they are intended to be the same animatronics in the lore. Especially since the 'un-withered' designs of the animatronics are implied to have never existed by sources such as the recently released interactive novel 'The Week Before.' Like many, I have found this error in visual continuity to be REALLY hard to just ignore as someone who really cares about the tiniest of details. But I believe I may have found a theory that addresses this continuity error while NOT RETCONNING ANYTHING! (And you'll also notice a lot of the so-called 'EVIDENCE' for this theory is also based on TINY DETAILS)

So - let's clear one thing up immediately. As suggested in The Week Before, when Phone Guy (Ralph) comments on how he's glad they restored the animatronics back to their classic designs, it is heavily implied that these CLASSIC designs are the ORIGINAL designs of the animatronics, meaning that the 'un-withered' version of the Withered Animatronics NEVER EXISTED.

These animatronics (models courtesy of UFMP & TaddyDudstare, render by me), for a while and by a fair few people, were considered to be what the band originally looked like when Freddy's first opened in (presumably) 1983 and would later become the Withered Animatronics in FNAF 2. But these animatronics? They NEVER EXISTED. Because we now know that the Classic Animatronics were their original designs before FNAF 2.

We have even more evidence to back this claim that the Classic Animatronics were their original iterations from even OUTSIDE the recently released book. Most notably in the CELEBRATE poster in FNAF 1's office and the FNAF 1 trailer.

We can see that the wall behind them is made of bricks.

While the wall behind them in FNAF 1 is a solid, smooth wall.

And if these posters and the shot from the trailer weren't taken in this location, then where? Well, it's not really WHERE, it's more about WHEN. This stage difference is clearly implying that these are at least 2 different points in time. These posters were made BEFORE FNAF 2 in the ORIGINAL Freddy's locaiton. These are shots of them BEFORE we see them in FNAF 2. If we follow the logic made in this tiny detail, then that confirms that these designs existed way before the Withereds ever did.

That also means that the shot of them performing in the trailer is us seeing them work in their hayday before everything turned bad... haunting.

But then that brings up a very noticeable visual design continuity issue. Because, let's be honest, the Withereds and the Classics look WAY too different to be the same designs and I'm not just talking about their withering. They're bulkier, squarer, they have more teeth, their heads are different proportions, Chica and Foxy have 3 toes instead of 2 and Freddy and Bonnie have buttons where they didn't before. Those are just some changes that can be immediately noticed when compared side-by-side.

Naturally, this led people to create these un-withered designs of the Withered Animatronics and say that these were the first iterations of them and that they got redesigned when Fazbear Entertainment attempted to reopen the original Freddy Fazbear's Pizza in FNAF 1. Unfortunately... this isn't true as it has now been basically confirmed that the Classics ARE the ORIGINALS and the Withereds are still supposed to be the same set of animatronics...

Many people have just decided to roll with it and say 'Oh, it's just a retcon, it doesn't really matter.' But, uh, NO. It DOES matter. Especially to someone like me who just CAN'T IGNORE these things! So naturally it got me pondering for a good few days over how I could rationally explain why the Withereds look the way they do when the designs that came before them were the Classic designs as implied in The Week Before.

After much pondering, I think I've finally cracked it! I think I have finally come up with a reason why the Withereds look so different compared to their Classic designs that were supposedly their iterations before them. (And, looking on Redit, I can see many other people have noticed this as well)

So those UN-WITHERED animatronics up there? They NEVER existed. But that doesn't mean they weren't GOING too. Yes, the Classics were their original designs. But I think people forget a detail mentioned in FNAF 2 that easily explains away all of our problems!

In FNAF 2, Night 2 - Phone Guy (or Ralph) comments on the animatronics in the Parts & Services room. He says, "Those are from the previous location and we just use them for parts now. The idea at first was to repair them. Uh, they even started retrofitting them with some of the newer technology. But they were just so ugly, you know? And the smell... uh... So the company just decided to go in a whole new direction and make them super kid-friendly!"

This is something that I think goes overlooked, but Phone Guy implies that those animatronics from the original location were getting some work done on them before the events of FNAF 2. He says they were being fixed up and fitted with newer technology to help them rebrand. He then goes on to mention that they just looked too ugly and the smell of them wasn't great, making the company decide to invest in completely new animatronics.

THIS ONE PART IN THE CALL EXPLAINS EVERYTHING.

Basically, the Classic Animatronics were RE-DESIGNED to look like they do in FNAF 2. They were RE-BUILDING them, CHANGING them. Fazbear Entertainment was trying to change how the original animatronics looked to seperate them from the Classic looking animatronics that were present during the MCI and that were reportedly oozing bodily substances. They wanted them to look different. So they started trying to upgrade them and change their outer appearance so they could pass off as new animatronics. These new upgrades would also include advanced mobility so they could walk around better during the day which is why all the animatronic endoskeletons now have 3 toes so they can walk around better.

A design choice that now all of the Toy Animatronics inherited instead.

(Render by zueiroooooooooooo on DeviantArt which I downloaded with low quality for some reason)

But, of course, this didn't really work. As Phone Guy says, the newer designs of the animatronics just didn't look as appealing as they did before. They were ugly, even off-putting. Creepy. And they couldn't use their original designs since the smell of rot and decay was still very much there. And so, as Phone Guy again says, they just decided to go in a whole new direction and completely ditch those animatronics to begin with, spending a small fortune in creating the Toy Animatronics that were updated with newer technology and could be advertised as being part of their security to make Freddy's a lot safer and kid-friendly in the eyes of the public.

And the original animatronics? They were left backstage to rot. Left uncared for and forgotten to gather dust, their only use now being the occaisional spare part. That also explains some of the withering on these Withered Animatronics such as Bonnie missing his face and arm or Chica missing her hands and her jaw hanging off her head or even why so much of Foxy's casing is missing. It's because these animatronics were abandoned before they finished retrofitting them. They are missing pieces of themselves because they were never even installed in the first place. So those fan-made UN-WITHERED versions of the Withered Animatronics are most likely what they were GOING to look like if they were actually finished.

But, of course, the Toy Animatronics failed. They had to be scrapped because they were just too broken and Fazbear Entertainment probably didn't have enough money to repair or maintain them, as Phone Guy says, "They've spent a small fortune on these new animatronics." With the grand reopening failing, they couldn't earn back the money they spent on the Toys to make them better or win back their reputation with the public. So it was better to scrap them and sell them for parts to earn back just a little money.

With nowhere else to turn to, they have to now work under a much smaller budget. So they take the animatronics they already had, the ones they already know that works, and decided to restore them back to their original designs since they already had the spare parts needed to do so.

And so, as we see in FNAF 1, the animatronics have been reverted back to their original designs and put back up on stage. This could even explain why Foxy still looks withered in FNAF 1 and why he's Out Of Order. It's because they didn't have any other parts for Foxy. We can see in the backstage in FNAF 1 that there are parts for Freddy, Bonnie and Chica. But nothing for Foxy. They restored him back to his classic design, but his classic design was already withered and broken while the others already had spare parts that they could be fitted with. Foxy, sadly, didn't and remained Out Of Order just because they had no spare parts for his classic design, back to having 2 toes instead of 3.

Poor Foxy ):

Unfortunately, the nostalgia of these classic designs wasn't enough to bring people back. People had an even worse view of the company and those animatronics were just too closely associated to the MCI. Business was not working which would lead to Fazbear's closing its doors... and leaving the animatronics locked up in there with it.

So, to summarise:

When Freddy's first opened, these Classic designs for the animatronics were their first iteration. After the MCI, there is about a year and a half gap between 1985 (presumably when the MCI happened) and 1987 in November when Freddy's reopens.

In between this time, Fazbear Entertainment attempted to redesign and refit the Classic Animatronics with a new look and new technology. However, they gave up half-way through as they were deemed to be too ugly, the new technology did not work well with their old technology, and there was too much of a negative stigma surrounding those particular animatronics. Especially since that smell didn't seem to fully disappear...

So they made the Toys instead, spending a small fortune on them, and leaving the original animatronics backstage to rot and decay, their newer designs unfinished and never to see the light of day. But then, of course, the Toys failed and Fazbear Entertainment had to scrap them in order to get back some of their money.

With no money coming into the books after their failed reopening and the Toys just taking too much to maintain and repair, the Toys are scrapped and Fazbear Entertainment uses the last of their money to restore the original animatronics back to their Classic designs. Removing all the technology they tried to implement and giving them back their old parts (except for Foxy who doesn't appear to have any spare parts, so he is stuck with his original casing that is now old and withered itself).

And that's how we find them in FNAF 1.

So! That's my proposal for why the Withereds look so different even though the Classic designs are supposed to predate them! There is little-to-no retconning involved to explain this notable design change! I'll admit, this theory ISN'T FLAWLESS. There are a few holes in it and is built off of a lot of assumptions. But I will have you know that they are mostly LOGICAL assumptions that are built off of already existing information and details!

Thanks for reading and have a nice day! :D

[starcanwrecked-confessions]

so uh. I am “Cis Boy Anon” I guess I’m being called now and I just wanted to. Apologize and clarify a bit for my previous confession. I already sent something like this, but it wasn’t posted I thought of a bunch of other stuff to say immediately afterward.

First, I am very sorry for any harm I may have caused. That was not my intention. I acted very childish.

Second. I at no point was trying to say I spoke for all cis people. I was sharing my own experience and opinion. It was a bad opinion, and am not trying to imply that anyone else shared anything like it.

Third. I was… in a bad headspace when I wrote that. I’ve grown kind of frustrated and disillusioned with this fandom recently, as every single time I’ve tried to share my thoughts and opinions they’ve just been ignored. I feel very left out of the discussion, and it has discouraged me from trying to actually join.

Fourth. I do not despise anyone for having trans headcanons. I have a couple of my own. But to see it be one of the only things talked about, and it being something that I didn’t really feel I could take part in, it caused me to feel a lot of unearned hate towards it.

Fifth and finally. About people “not wanting to hear the opinions of cis man”. That’s a me problem. I do not value my own opinions much and am afraid that I will be hated for them. It is something that I need to work on, and I should not have it about gender. That was very childish of me.

Anyway. I apologize for any harm I may have caused, and I thank you all for your patience.

P.S: “Go cry cis boy” is iconic.

Ok the first two point are fine but I want to address the rest:

#3 your frustration and feeling of being left out should not end up being left down too "I don't like people I having trans headcanons, you should listen to cis ppl instead". Idc that your "worded it badly", that's basically what you said

#4 I'm not sure where you're getting it being "one of the only things talked about", trans headcanons and headcanons in general are a big part of the fandom yes but that's how it is for most fandoms, but so much other stuff is talked in this fandom as well. Also just because you are cis doesn't mean you cannot at all partake and trans headcanons, as long as you're not lying or something and claiming "oh I'm the trans and see this character as trans bc it lines up with my experience" then you're fine

#5 it is not just childish if you to have said that. So many transphobes and queerphobes say stuff about how cis straight white men are the minority and aren't listen too. You were reiterating a transphobic idea

[kolapon-art]

hiya there!! i follow you on twitter as well as here and i just wanted to say i really like all your toh analysis, it's absolutely fantastic—and, your thoughts also make me feel Not crazy for having so many issues with the writing in ftf 😭

like, the more i think on it the more weird i find it that hunters personal conflicts feel so largely brushed over, when like. in the episode he literally Fucking Died like an hour ago and everybody is just completely moving on. not to mention gus knowing hunter was a grimwalker is just moved on from the second after he says it which is still SO WEIRD???? and yeah yeah i know, the season was shortened, but how does that excuse this when the writers chose to put fuckin Boscha and Kikimora in the episode instead of address this or the characters we actually care about... (and this complaint also connects to your very good point about gus being sidelined)

i don't know, maybe more grimwalker things will be addressed in the finale, and maybe there'll be more gus there plus more acknowledgement of gus' plotline with the magic amplifier and how he Literally Saw belos' memories? but nothing was Ever done with that?? like a lot of hunter being a grimwalker (mostly in s3) feels so shoddily handled despite how much coolness and potential the concept has. it can only be hoped for i guess... idk. Tldr thanks for outlining how truly stranger and Poor the writing decisions for hunter (+ gus) were in ftf. and this is only a small part of it tbh 😭 but.. shrugs

Feel like all the things you listed and I have been talking about, are fortunately largely aknowledged by the fandom as issues so we aint so crazy thinking it. But in any case, maybe ep 3 will prove us wrong and address all those issues, esp with how ambiguous Hunter's grimwalker arc has been lately. I am not sure what the writers want us to think about his powers and his eyes, as you prolly saw form my recent thread on twt. And some people have also derived all the wrong conclusions out of it (even saw a take where it was said that Hunter getting powers and diff eyes was making him a real boy and witch which is uh...yuck). So I hope this is clarified or the fandom will be pretty divided here I feel. Also thanks for reading my silly little thoughts, here and on twt.

[crowsongcaws]

(This inspired me to write from the moment I saw it back in May, but I only just finished writing this! Your art is amazing by the way, and hopefully this fic still makes sense even if it was patchily written across the span of two months!)

It was the day for Gem and the Scotts to make their first (actual, official) appearance when Scott's guitar amp broke.

He wasn't really living paycheck-to-paycheck, not with his full-time job at a gardening speciality store and his freelance web design work, but he wasn't exactly looking to drop a lot of money suddenly on an amp that he wouldn't know the quality of until the first gig later that night. So, much like when other things happened outside of his ability to fix them, he began to reach out to others.

"Sorry, Scott, me and Tango are out of town visiting his parents!" Jimmy said over the phone.

"Ah, my bad, I forgot about that," Scott sighed. "I've just got this gig tonight, and I've no clue what to do."

"Maybe you could ask Joel? He's been hanging out with that guy—you know, has the uh grey-ish hair, wears a face mask—"

"Etho," Scott reminded him.

"Yeah, yeah! Well Etho's good with that stuff. I don't think he'd mind!"

So Scott called Joel, who promptly said, "Nah, sorry, man. Eefo's been at some project all week and I just got him to go to bed. If I bring this up anywhere near him, he's going to run himself into the ground."

"Gods, I get that. I hope he's able to get some good sleep, but I really need this amp fixed. You wouldn't happen to have picked up any new skills recently, have you?"

"Even if I had, not gonna lie, I'm sticking around with Eefo to make sure he sleeps and eats better for at least today. Also, he sleeps so quietly."

Scott squinted at that and said, "He's at your house?"

"Why the fuck would he be at my house? I'm at his house. Lizzie's hanging out with her girlfriend, and I can't stand another night of her freight-train snoring."

Joel paused for half a second.

"Don't tell her I said that."

Scott snorted and rolled his eyes as if Joel could see it.

"Won't tell a soul," Scott dramatically replied. "Thanks for picking up, anyways."

"No problem. Bet you could try giving Grian a call, though. Not sure how much he knows about amps, but he does know a lot of people."

"Yeah, sounds about right for him. Thanks Joel, have fun with your date."

"Yeah, yeah, I know you must be jealous since it's just been you and righty—"

Scott hung up before he could get another word in, knowing that his one "innocent" jab at Joel would definitely have consequences later no matter how true the statement was.

He huffed at that, but the clock really was ticking, and he was beginning to actually get nervous. Without another thought, he phoned Grian, his heartbeat picking up every time the phone rang with no response. It wasn't until the last ring that Grian managed to pick up.

"Hey, Grian, do you know anyone who could help—" "Pearl has no idea what she's talking about, whatever she's told you is just not true—"

They both paused.

"What about Pearl—?" "You heard nothing."

Scott pursed his lips, and that itch to gossip grew, but at this point, he could feel the time ticking down.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Scott told him, "but whatever all of that is, it's not why I called. My first gig with my band is in a few hours, but the amp for my guitar broke. Do you know anyone who could fix it?"

Grian hummed (and, suspiciously, sounded very relieved. Scott would investigate it later) and said, "Guitar amp? Well I do happen to know someone who could help with that, and he owes me a favor. You're still in town, right?"

"Yeah, I am, I'll text you the address right now. I can't thank you enough, Grian, I was starting to get worried! You're the third person I've had to call."

"It's no problem! By the way, the person I'm sending to you is Mumbo, he's my flatmate. It shouldn't take too long for him to get to you, just add 10 extra minutes to whatever time you had in mind. He drives like the car will explode if he takes his hands off the steering wheel."

"As long as it doesn't take him hours to get here, I don't mind."

"It won't, it won't," Grian reassured him. "...Also... if Pearl happens to tell you anything—"

"—then I'll be sure to get some popcorn while she tells me everything, thanks for the heads-up! Bye!" And he hung up.

True to Grian's word, someone did eventually show up (15 minutes later than what he would've expected since the drive should've been 25 minutes long and not 40), and Scott vaguely recognized him. Grian's flatmate, yes, but also Grian's skittish partner in crime when he went trespassing, a friend of a friend that sometimes showed up to the field days that Grian liked to organize, and the person that had once knocked out the power for half the city (which, Scott figured, probably had something to do with Grian, too).

And he was devastatingly attractive.

"I am so sorry," Mumbo anxiously apologized. "I'm not familiar with the parking lot here, and I couldn't find a parking spot until just then!"

"Oh, it's not a problem, I'm glad you made it," Scott soothed, occasionally eyeing Mumbo up and down. He was really glad that Mumbo had made it.

Mumbo was wearing an oddly formal button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a black vest, and matching slacks, but he also had heavy duty work boots and dark brown gloves that he clearly used for everything related to tinkering. Even if Scott only needed his guitar amp fixed, Mumbo had brought goggles, too, which sat on his slicked-back hair.

Scott blinked.

Mumbo wasn't nearly as far from his type as one would've guessed.

Lean with vaguely muscular arms, clearly knowledgeable, and Mumbo was taller than him. Not absurdly so, but enough that Scott had to tilt his head upwards to meet his eyes.

"I'm assuming this is your speaker...?" Mumbo eventually asked, and Scott realized he'd stared a few seconds too long.

"That's it, yes," Scott smoothly replied. "I hate to rush you, but my gig does start in three hours, so do you think you'll be able to fix it before then? If you aren't able to fix it, though, I get it. I appreciate the help anyways."

At that, Mumbo almost seemed mildly offended, and he said, "Well, I certainly haven't worked on something like this before, but it isn't that complicated. I'll have it done in an hour at most, so you'll have plenty of time to practice."

"You really are my knight in shining armor," Scott snickered.

Mumbo's face flushed red at that, and he poorly attempted to hide the fact by kneeling down to start working on the amp. Scott grinned. He didn't mind working to get the attention he wanted, but with easy reactions like that, it wouldn't be hard at all to get it.

As the first couple of minutes ticked by, Scott decided to settle on the ground with his legs crossed and text his bandmates. Gem and Impulse had decided to go out and buy glitter to make their usual band make-up really pop for their first show, but they were taking a while. As soon as he was done sending his check-in text, he glanced over to see the repair progress.

"So, are those goggles for style?" Scott asked.

Mumbo looked up in surprise that he'd even been addressed, and after a moment, he replied, "No, I was working on my own project at home, and it was a little more... risky. But I was in a rush to get here as quick as I could, so I didn't bother leaving them at home!"

"Do you do risky things a lot?" he teased.

"Yes, actually," Mumbo answered, horribly oblivious to Scott's intentions, "I can't put a number to the amount of times I've burnt myself or set something on fire!"

Scott let out a small, quiet sigh and began to watch Mumbo work. None of it made sense, but it made the time go by quicker.

Somewhere between 10-15 minutes later, he figured he might as well start applying the band make-up that he did have available to him. He leaned his phone against Impulse's drum set and opened the camera, then he started with the eyeliner. Next came the lightest amount of foundation and a small amount of dark eye shadow. With that done, he began tracing out a blue star on his cheek. His movements only slowed to a stop when he realized that just over his shoulder in the camera, he could see that Mumbo had stopped working.

"Did you need something, Mumbo?" Scott asked.

Mumbo opened his mouth to respond, then visibly paused for a too-long moment. He took in Scott's changed appearance, and judging by the sudden nervousness in his movements, Scott could only guess that he'd applied it just as intended.

"Yes, yes, I did... uh, I just wanted to know...? If you mind if I tamper with some other settings?" Mumbo stammered.

Scott grinned, all-too pleased with himself and replied, "You can tamper with whatever you like. Very polite of you to ask first."

"That's—that's what manners are for!" Mumbo weakly said, giving Scott an equally shaky grin before he went back to working. At least, he tried to. It took about a minute for him to reorient himself, much to Scott's delight.

Only when Mumbo regained his focus did Scott return to his own work. He finished one of the stars and spent a few extra minutes drawing the other star. He added a few small blue dots around the stars, almost like freckles, and then he patted them dry so the glitter would look smoother on it whenever Gem and Impulse returned.

Now it had been a little over 35 minutes, and Scott was thoroughly bored. He took to watching Mumbo again, alternating between watching the subtle flex of his arms and trying to make sense of whatever repairs or tampering was going on. Ultimately, he got bored of the mechanics and focused in on the mechanic.

"Grian told me that you owed him a favor. Care to share?" Scott idly asked.

Mumbo hummed, continuing to work, and then he answered, "Well, it's only one favor, but he uses it a lot. Not that I mind, I am very grateful, I just thought he'd use it for more pressing matters like... if he was in a life-or-death situation, or if he was being hunted down for an impossibly large debt!"

"You must really owe him, then."

"I definitely do," Mumbo agreed. "We've known each other since middle school, and we went to the very same high school and college. Thing is, that last year of college, I struggled with finding a secure place to live, and I was at risk of not being able to graduate after all. Well, he gave me a place to stay, and he did some of my easier assignments... for me."

Scott's eyebrows raised, but he didn't comment. He didn't think it was a big deal, but it wasn't something he'd expected from someone like Mumbo.

Instead of any criticism, he said, "Glad he did. What you're able to do is impressive. I just hope he's not taking advantage of that favor, or else I'll have to sic Impulse on him."

Mumbo huffed, easy-going and amused.

"He isn't, he isn't," Mumbo reassured him. "If I didn't want to, I wouldn't. Besides, this just means I can ask him for a favor in return, too. I'm already wondering what kind of redstone parts I can order with my newfound favor!"

"You really like redstone, huh?"

"Couldn't live without it!"

The conversation petered out as Mumbo focused in on a specific part, and then just a moment later, he seemed satisfied with what he'd done and put everything back together.

"Care to test it out?" Mumbo requested. "I was just curious how it'd sound if I made a few adjustments."

Scott nodded, stood up, and collected his guitar. He was all-too pleased when he saw the amp even show signs of working again, but then again, Mumbo had been too confident to ever doubt. Readjusting the settings, Scott got his guitar pick and strummed the strings a few times to test out the sound. Now, despite his experience playing the electric guitar, he usually needed to adjust his settings a few times to get the clean, tuned sound that he was looking for. However, somehow, Mumbo had improved the quality of it just by messing with it for a little over half an hour.

"Does that sound better?" Mumbo politely asked. "I'm afraid I'm not well-versed in this subject matter..."

"Yes, gods, this sounds great!" Scott excitedly said, testing out a few more notes. He'd readjust, anyways, and see if Gem and Impulse liked the sound of it, too, but this was far better than it'd been before.

"Glad to hear! Another job well done for me, then, and I suppose a new skill I may look into later on," Mumbo mused.

He began to get up, but Scott was still distracted. It wasn't until he'd allowed his mind to stop wandering on future performances that he realized Mumbo was heading to the exit. Quickly, he set his guitar down and grabbed some of his make-up, making a dash for the exit before Mumbo could get any further.

"Mumbo!" Scott called out, getting the other to stop just as he pushed the door open.

"Oh, yes? Did it break already?" Mumbo worriedly asked.

"No, no, you're fine, I was just wondering if I could repay you later on with dinner?" Scott asked.

Mumbo's worried expression melted away, and he said, "You don't have to do that, really, Grian will repay me just fine—"

"I don't have to, but I'd like to," Scott interrupted. "If you want to, that is. You just really caught my eye."

Mumbo's face flushed a lovely shade of pink, and quietly, he nodded. Scott grinned and held up a tube of lipstick he had. Before Mumbo could question it, Scott's gentle fingers, rough in some places from strumming guitar strings, took ahold of Mumbo's arm and turned it so the underside of it was exposed to his gaze. Then, glittery pink lipstick was gliding across his inner forearm, spelling out Scott's name and phone number in loopy symbols that ended off with a small heart.

"Text me if you're still up for that date," Scott said with a wink, and then he turned away, leaving Mumbo to dazedly stumble outside into the parking lot.

The sun was setting, warm sunshine dancing across his face and shimmering off of the pretty writing on his skin, and all he could think about was how Scott's careful touch had left goosebumps on his arms.

I guess I have a date.

Grian would never believe him.

Underrated duo (I'm delusional)

[madelinemccoolname]

i was inspired by a youtube video, so introducing

Magnet's Media Mreviews

Red Faction Guerrilla Re-mars-stered and Fast and the Furious (2001)

So lets start by addressing the elephant in the room. Neither of these are kids movies and one of them isn't even a movie. this is because I want to transition this series from "maddie wants to review a whole series" and transition it to "hey this is something I've consumed recently, here are my thoughts formatted like a casual review" both because the serious reviews are harder to write, and because I like writing and like sharing my opinions on things but I've made both too scary in my mind. so yeah not just movies, lets review an xbox 360 game.

Red Faction Guerrilla was an xbox 360 generation open world third person shooter about doing revolution on mars. The remake is the same, though prettier. I realize this is an awkward review to start this relaunched series with, if i said that was intentional would you believe me? the game mostly revolves around the player as mason lastname (no relation) doing odd jobs for the Red Faction, blow up a building, blow up a lot of buildings, blow up a guy... most of this game is blowing something up for somebody. This is because at the time of release, red faction guerrilla was showing off some extremely cool destructible environment and building technology, and they knew what they had was cool and satisfying enough to build a whole game around. This leads to a game that plays well, side quests that lead into story progress that lead into side quests, satisfying gameplay loops, and one of the only games I know that looks worse than it is to play. Sure it has problems, its a ps360 open world game set on a desert planet, it comes with problems, but satisfying gameplay isn't one of them.

On the subject of problems, the story might as well not exist, the music is unmemorable, there are maybe 6 high quality cut scenes in the game and most of them have to do with a racist, native martian scavengers that the game sets up for a long time and then it turns out to be a jingoist caricature of a vague "native" culture that probably should've been cut. the weapons never get as crazy as you'd hope, mostly just different rocket launchers and normal guns, moving around without a car is a pain, the game penalizes you if a civilian npc dies in the same zip code but game good so 7/10

memorable bits: big hammer, dust gun, the terrible propaganda billboards, jenkins the old man that lets you blow stuff up in his car, the call of duty modern warfare missions right at the end, the sequel

fast and the furious

oh my god I'm so much more comfortable talking about a movie. the fast and the furious is a movie about a guy named brian trying to be a guy with a fast car named brian, he wants to get in with another group with vin deasil's character dom, but uh oh, brian's actually a cop, is he going to choose being a cop or being a racer, watch the movie to find out what he chooses just forget about the sequels.

Speaking of forgetting about sequels, what is this plot? so dom and his gang are stealing tvs and dvd players and selling them on the street, and brian is trying to get in with them, to see if they're doing it, in addition to illegal street racing, which they're also doing but that's not a good enough crime. So then brian has to get closer and closer to dom, while examining other racers to see if they did it, and getting close to dom's group while hiding from them also. And the big race "Race Wars" is going on and they wanna win the big race and its actually not that important despite this being a car movie. It's almost notable in how un-notable this "undercover cop who might defect" plot is, except theres also 10 sequels??? and a spinoff? like what do we need to know, where the one guy gets his ADD meds? how many gangs is he going undercover for? you'd think they'd recognize him after a point. or oh shit wait maybe the next movie is about completely different characters and they're all just car movies. anyway I got distracted but the movie's boring 5/10

memorable bits: racism, sexism, homophobia, uh dom's shitty friend who's homophobic and is also dating dom's sister which you'd think he would have a problem with, race wars, brian's shitty cop handler that sucks, the snoozer of a climax, brian maybe dying at the end

[listieshadows]

Do people have head canons about concept albums?

Anyway, I've long heard people talk about how Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band isn't a complete concept album; that after the first two songs it doesn't pick its thread back up until the title track reprise. More recently, however, I've come around to the idea that, y'know, maybe it doesn't?

The Lonely Hearts Club Band are supposed to be an alter-ego for The Beatles, right? Well, to me, this has always been an album by Sgt. Pepper's called Beatles. Why did they pick that name? I'unno, but anyway, yeah, this is an album by Sgt. Pepper's, and these are all songs they'd write. It's kind of like Cruising With Ruben & The Jets, if you've heard that one.

And bringing up Zappa, I imagine that's why there are songs on here with crowd noises; those are live tracks mixed in with the studio tracks. Maybe even they're that ahead of their time and some of these songs are live tracks with overdubs like Zappa would do. Now, I don't know what number album this is that they're only now including their title song, but I'unno. Maybe it wasn't something they wrote until a while after they started, or maybe it's always strictly been a live concert intro that they never felt the need to include on an album until there'd been such a fan demand for it. Or, maybe, it flowed so well into "With A Little Help From My Friends" that they figured, "Ah, screw it."

Speaking of that, there's the discrepency of Billy Shears. If he's "the singer," why does he only sing one song? The way I see it, he's not a member of the band; he's a guest singer. Like, I'unno, Roy Harper on Pink Floyd's "Have A Cigar". Could be something they wrote together and decided to let Shears sing. Hell, maybe "the singer" in the title track is adustiable for whoever sings the song after it—even if their last name doesn't rhyme with "years." Like, I'unno, the idea that Billy Shears has to be the lead singer... The only two things I see backing that up are the Yellow Submarine movie and the Sgt. Pepper's movie, and, like, I'unno. The Yellow Submarine movie had to come up with a lot of stuff outside of the song it was named after, so that could just be its own thing, for one, and that's not even bringing up the question of if we should treat the Frampton/Bee Gees movie as any sort of authority.

One last thing I wanna address, and this is something I thought up as I was typing this—the Beatles on the album cover. As in, the mop top Beatles, to the right. How's that explained? Uh, those could be Johnny & The Moondogs in this universe, I guess. And if we're following my logic, I suppose that would also make "Hello, Goodbye" a Sgt. Pepper's song since they wore the costumes for the music video, and the mop top four even make a cameo?

But, yeah, the point of this post is: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a band. Big surprise. A different one from The Beatles, anyway. And none of them are Barry Gibb.

[noahfandomstudies]

Episode 2 transcript

[00:00:01.470] - Speaker 1

All right. Welcome back to another episode of Wiseguy Wisdom. My name is Noah.

[00:00:05.550] - Speaker 2

And this is, uh, Cappy.

[00:00:07.890] - Speaker 1

Yeah. So, um, today, um, this is actually going to be a really interesting episode. We're going to talk about, um, you know, culture capital and its important Sopranos. Um, since The Sopranos whole big shtick is that it deals with Italian Americans, but, like, not in like the, you know, the traditional like, oh, like like like my point is they address like themselves and so like they address like the stereotypes and whatever in the show. But, um, I think it's also like, like important to notice how, um, you know, even though it is fictional, it still takes place in modern times in like a pretty realistic setting. Um, and I feel like David Chase, um, the show's creator, who also grew up in, like, Italian northern Jersey, acknowledges that, you know, he shows like, the guys hanging at the deli, you know, he shows the guys at like the strip club. You know, he shows like all this stuff, the jewelry, the jewelry.

[00:01:07.290] - Speaker 1

Yeah. You know, like, uh, like stuff falling off of trucks, you know, and like, stuff like that, you know? Um, but, um, no, I feel like it's it's really important because it says, you know, about more about, like, not even stereotyping, but like, um, you know, where does he get these? I like ideas and concept from, like, are they just stereotypes or are there, like, you know, some people who could be like, yeah, that's pretty much what we do, you know, like, so because there have been people, you know, there have been like, um, actual like real. I've seen videos like real gangsters and like show how accurate The Sopranos show is. And some of them say it's a little bit like it's a little bit stretched, but, um, some of it's pretty accurate.

[00:01:47.670] - Speaker 2

Yeah. For sure. Um, so I feel like for, for the culture aspect, um, um, Sopranos definitely hits it on key with even when like are they film of like like like the New York family. Like I feel like that's super key as well. And even when they do like like the construction contracts, like, like even if you look today in, like some major cities, like the Italians like a control a lot of those big contracts, though, and like, like the unions still, for the most part, are ran by Italians. But like the Italians ran everything back then. And I feel like just until, like very recently, until, you know, like a lot of them are starting to like to, like, die off now and like, not as many, um, like, like younger generation Italian kids are, are like, um, going into the life and a lot of them are choosing school and stuff. And nowadays I feel that it's just getting less and less.

[00:02:50.040] - Speaker 2

But I feel at the time of The Sopranos and even before the Italians ran most, um, industries and unions. Yeah.

[00:02:58.710] - Speaker 1

No. And like going off that like I do have the youth, um, like a part of the show is like, you know, I think it was in season one when like, Metal Strap just has. Are you in the Mafia? Oh my God, you know, like big point in the show. Um, and, you know, she's just a kid in the early 2000, you know, like, she doesn't really know much about this mafia stuff. But it's interesting because I've, like, met, like, like people in real life who they're like, oh, yeah, like like, that's like a joke. You know, I'm like, oh, you're Italian. You have any family in the mob? They're like, oh yeah. No, we, I have like grandparents and great uncles and shit. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, oh, so what about they're like, I can't tell you, right? So this is like an actual like decently good representation of like, you know, how they deal like the Italian culture like deals with it.

[00:03:49.230] - Speaker 1

And um, another thing is like they, um, you know, obviously, you know, you're not going to see like, like, like Paulie Walnuts, like walking around like a guy in a tracksuit, you know? But there are like like, listen, growing up in North Jersey myself, I have seen, like and heard about like even just heard about in the news, like actual like Rico cases, you know, like involving these like mobs through like, money laundering and, you know, just drugs. Drugs like like grand like grand larceny. Yeah. So like to my knowledge, it's not that far off. Like, yes, it's a fictional show, but it's very like he puts it in this almost, like, hyper realistic world. Yeah.

[00:04:37.020] - Speaker 2

And like, I know that some of the, um, like, like actors did, like, have, like some mafia experience, I know.

[00:04:46.200] - Speaker 1

So yeah, there was literally um, I saw it was on a talk show. It was one of the cast members of Sopranos. He said he got a call in the middle of the night, and they didn't say who it was from. They just said, um. They said, listen, we've seen your work.

[00:05:03.050] - Speaker 2

Guys don't.

[00:05:03.530] - Speaker 1

Wear white. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He said, listen, we've seen your work. We like what you're doing. But let me give you one thing. Why these guys don't wear shirt, which is like like when I first saw it and I first heard that, I'm like, oh my God. They actually, you know, are acknowledging it like, they're like realizing how they're representing the Italian culture. Um, you know, in like almost praising it, um, which is a very strong thing, especially coming from the mob itself. Right.

[00:05:33.830] - Speaker 2

Definitely. And like, um, yeah, obviously, I think a big thing too, that we can touch on is how the FBI. Yeah, I kind of, um, like, infiltrates these, like, families and stuff. Yeah.

[00:05:52.100] - Speaker 1

Yeah. No, it's, um, and it's interesting because, like, the FBI, um, in the show, they're like a very prominent force. Um, they literally, you know, um, like, almost like, disguise themselves, kind of doing, like a almost like a sting operation. Um, like they'll be like, hey, how's it going? You know, we know you're kind of in the mob, but we're going to be, like, very discreet about this. Like like in the show, you know, they're they're literally getting advice from Tony and his gang about, like, foreign, like, Pakistani terrorists because they're working for Homeland security. I've heard of that actually happening. Um, friends of, um, of my family, um, who have relatives have said that the FBI will literally sometimes like, well, they didn't like they couldn't really out themselves like, as crime. But they said that we they're like, yeah, we've had FBI people and come in and been like, do you have any information?

[00:06:48.080] - Speaker 1

Because wink, wink, we kind of know what you're up to.

[00:06:52.010] - Speaker 2

Yeah. And like I feel like the parts who we're like Tony, like the mob boss, like he gave, um, like the two FBI agents. Like, like information about about like about, like, uh, um, terrorism and stuff and like, obviously. Yeah. I feel like if you ever got, like, like, prosecuted and stuff like, like who, who knows if if that would even help him out in, in court and like, even to, like, um, the omerta like code, you know, where like, like the code of, like, silence and stuff. Yeah, I feel that. I don't know, like if if mobsters would actually like, like, like help it the FBI. I like that, you know, but I mean, who knows? I mean, anything's possible with this stuff. Yeah.

[00:07:38.960] - Speaker 1

Um, another thing I want to point out is because I actually have a lot of, like, personal, uh, good friends who are from, um, you know, very traditionalist Italian families. Um, from the family aspect, I would say they get a lot of it. Very accurate. You know, they're like the Italian, like, family dynamic. They're very close, you know, they're very family oriented. Um, they're very loud. Um, but also, um, you know, I feel like the show does a good job about, like, you know, showing how to, like, really care about, like, your children and like, cause in the show, the whole thing is, like, we don't want this life for our children, right? Yeah. They try and keep it as separate as they can. Um, but, like, you know, at the end of the day, they're just regular families, like, you know, we see Tony like, going to his son's football game and cheering him on.

[00:08:23.510] - Speaker 1

You know, they have the giant Christmas dinner. Yeah.

[00:08:26.510] - Speaker 2

Um, Sunday.

[00:08:27.560] - Speaker 1

Sunday, Sunday dinner. Right. And they like, you know, they're, um, one of his cousin. His like, babies communion is like a big thing. So I would say from the family aspect, it's very good. Spot on, spot on. Yeah. All right, well, thank you. And we'll see you in the next episode.

[aihoshiino]

I saw recently you said that you dont like the current version of akane, and I honestly agree. But what are your reason you dont like post tb akane

Hello anon, sorry for the wait!!! I have actually been pecking at the response for this all week because it ended up dovetailing into some of my broader thoughts and issues with the manga using my feelings about Akane's characterization as a sort of lens/jumping off point. I hope this is still interesting to read even though it took forever to answer lol.

I also want to note that the bulk of this post was written before chapter 128! Some of my issues that are mentioned in this post did get sort of poked at and paid some lipservice in a way that makes me hopeful we'll get some improvement on this stuff as the movie arc progresses. Think of this as 'my pre-128 thoughts' if you come across it in like a post chapter 130 world in the distant future. It's also uh fucking long (it was over 2000 words long when I stopped counting.....) so enjoy this mini essay???

To get my most neutral thoughts out of the way up front, Akane is a character I really like in LoveNow! I think the arc she's given is compelling and her struggles feel super real. The gradual peeling back of her outer layers and the reveal that she's just as damaged by the industry as the people around her was really good and my only real major problem with LN is that I felt like the aftermath of her suicide attempt (at least, emotionally speaking) was glossed over a bit too quickly for my liking. On top of that, I like a lot of ideas about TB Akane on paper and I'm not inherently against any of the things that get put on the table in relation to her. My issues are more to do with the ways Akasaka executes said ideas and – imo – fails to capitalize on a lot of the interesting potential that a character like Akane presents.

I think this issue partially stems from the fact that Akane and Memcho were (iirc anyway) not actually originally intended to stick around with the main cast past the LoveNow arc. Memcho didn't really have a personal arc during LoveNow and during the rest of the manga, she sort of has a "flat" arc, so I think she makes the transition a lot more gracefully. Which is not to say Memcho herself is a flat character lol! Rather a 'flat' arc is when a character doesn't necessarily have some major change in themselves, but their intrinsic traits/beliefs/etc help to advance the arcs of characters around them; sort of like a mentor type character, if that helps.

Akane, by contrast, had a pretty dynamic character arc that felt as though it was intended to be relatively self contained and conclusive but with Akasaka's plans changing behind the scenes, Akane has ended up sort of outlasting the arc she was originally set up to have. That's not to say a character can't still be relevant after their arc is done or that a character needs an active ongoing arc to work within a story but there's a lot of things about the way that arc is simply not resolved that bug me – for example, the arc wrap makes a big point of saying that Akane will probably have to deal with ongoing online negativity for the rest of her career but this never comes up again even in places where it really should be relevant. I also just personally am not a big fan of how quickly and completely Akane's suicide attempt gets swept under the rug and is literally never addressed again once LoveNow wraps but that's more of an issue with OnK's bad habit of dropping loose threads a whole than it is something specific to Akane.

As for the rest of it… uh, this might be a bummer to see in the main tag if Akane is your Oshi no Girlie so I'll put the rest of my thoughts behind a cut. Akane enjoyers, please feel free to pretend I'm just talking about my favourite ice cream flavours or something. Or even go get some ice cream yourself and say it's on me. I don't care if it's October, ice cream is a forever food!!!

SO… To get the most immediate and shallow points off the table first, I just find the character design change between LoveNow and TB Akane really jarring lol. Like, I guess it's not necessarily impossible for her hair to have grown down to her chest in the time between LoveNow and when she pops back up but that combined with the changes in how she starts being characterized really just widen that gulf. The only time she ever really feels like LoveNow Akane to me again is when she takes Aqua to see a 2.5D play and is just so happy afterwards that he enjoyed it – that's cute! That's charming! That's the Akane I liked a lot in LoveNow and I feel like we don't really see her again after that but it's hard to put my finger on what feels so off. It's kind of just Vibes.

Getting into more serious, structural stuff a big part of why I feel post-TB Akane falls flat for me is simply that a lot of the interesting things Aka put on the table for her during LoveNow have been swept away and ignored. There are so many things that could be done with Akane as a character that are absolutely screaming out with incredible thematic potential but Akasaka hasn't really taken advantage of any of them. At the worst points of the manga, it feels like she's being used as a blunt force tool to make the plot go at the speed Akasaka wants it to progress and this has resulted in Akane spending a good chunk of the story doing literally nothing on-panel that doesn't revolve around Aqua in some way. Everything else – her rivalry with Kana, her passion for acting, her relationship with her family and her manager – is paid the barest bits of lipservice if it's even acknowledged at all but when you really get down to the nitty gritty of what Akane meaningfully engages with and achieves in most arcs now exclusively has to do with Aqua.

It's not inherently a bad thing for a character to be motivated by outside factors or for their actions to be driven by devotion or even hatred for somebody else – Aqua himself is a good example of a character whose arc is driven by both of these things, as his devotion to Ai and hatred for the man who hurt her are the main external things driving him through pretty much the entire story so far. But Aqua also has things going on outside of this – other important connections and relationships, feelings and conflicts and motivations that make him feel, imo, more well realized. Not only that, but his arc has a very well conveyed and easy to understand "want vs need" conflict, of his continued pursuit of revenge having clear and tangible friction with his emotional need to let go of his past trauma and move on.

Akane has, since Tokyo Blade, been sorely lacking in a lot of these areas. Her acting career progresses entirely offscreen with no apparent conflict or effort on her part and she has absolutely no strong or meaningful connections to the cast outside of Aqua and arguably Kana, but they haven't really had any sort of meaningful or meaty interactions since way back around, what, the mid-70s, in chapter terms? Not only that but her existing relationships have largely been completely put to the wayside, too. LoveNow establishes her as a person who cares deeply for the people who care for her – her mom, her manager, her friends on the show. Akane felt so bad about people saying bad things about her mom and her manager online – not even harassment actually directed at them, or that we have any reason to believe they saw or received! – that it contributed to her suicide attempt. Contrast this to when she is literally about to walk off and attempt a literal actual fucking murder and all she's thinking is "aqua… let's have crepes together… let's be together forever…". No consideration for her parents, who are about to go through unimaginable pain, or the promising acting career she's about to destroy? Nope! Akane revolves entirely around Aqua now. It feels insulting!

I don't even necessarily hate or even disagree with taking Akane in the direction of her fixating on Aqua in response to him saving her and feeling like she has to cling to him and throw away her life to 'save' him in return. I do think the story is purposely portraying this as an unhealthy fixation and does not want us to uncritically celebrate this aspect of their relationship but I also just think the story kind of fails to really examine Akane to the logical conclusion of that flaw.

In general, Akane is one of those characters who like… I don't quite know how to express this feeling so forgive me if I go in circles on this topic a bit, but there are occasions where Akane will do or say something genuinely shitty or deranged or display a pattern of behaviour that speaks clearly to a flaw of hers in ways I want to be on board and engaged with but as time passes, it becomes clear that the narrative does not actually see anything wrong with what just happened and so it never gets addressed or meaningfully engaged with. There's a lot of little bits like this (can we talk about how Akane leveraged her suicide attempt against Aqua as a manipulation technique in TB and this never comes up again?? lol???) but the thing that really truly sticks in my craw is the way Akane is repeatedly depicted as continuing to use her fake 'Aikane' persona (as conveyed by the star eyes) during her acting career and starts getting famous at least partially because of it.

This is going to sound really dramatic but as someone who deeply, deeply cares about Ai and is so, so compelled by the tragedy that was her exploitation in life and death – this is so horrifying! This is Akane directly profiting off her exploitation of Ai's image. This is Akane digging up Ai's corpse so she can rip out her guts and parade around wearing them. It is absolutely baffling to me that the story at no point pauses to at least acknowledge that this is another way in which Ai is being exploited even in death – that even now, almost twenty years later, she cannot ever escape or be left to rest in peace as a human being.

Honestly Akane's relationship to Ai is SUCH a mountain of missed opportunities it makes me kind of crazy. Like, we get some wishy-washy stuff about ~Ai's emotions that were revived in her~ but seemingly the only thing done with that is to give Akane a cheat code to magically know things about the mystery she should have no reasonable way of deducting. But like - if Akane really does understand Ai so completely and it's so empathetic that she can Sherlock scan the emotions of a dead woman she had never met then why does she never, you know… express any kind of opinion on her? What does Akane think of Ai? What does she think about the way Ai was exploited and abused by the very industry Akane is trying to break into? Holy shit! It should be SO obvious to draw a parallel between Ai's death at the hands of a ex-fan and Akane's suicide attempt driven by fan harassment. But Akane just… never talks about Ai or even really treats her like a person even though she apparently downloaded Ai into her brain by reading Wikipedia really hard.

It's frustrating because there SHOULD be a really great thematic idea here - other characters often treat Ai as this inscrutable enigma but with Akane, there was the opportunity to make a point that Ai was just a lonely, messed up person and that if Akane can come to understand and connect with her post mortem then the people in her life absolutely could have put in the effort to understand and connect with her while she was still alive. The story failing to have Akane treat Ai even the slightest bit like a person ends up making her feel really callous in a way that was clearly not intentional and is, as a result, frustrating to read. This also comes into play in the ways she's so tunnel visioned on Aqua. Like, there's just something really darkly funny about Akane acknowledging how insanely unimaginably tragic the horror of Ai's death is and the way the people closest to her were robbed of the opportunity to publicly heal and grieve and then she just... totally fails to acknowledge Ruby also experienced this life altering trauma? LIKE

"your little sister is on her own, though"

To be clear, Akane being callous and kind of tunnel-visioned is not in of itself something I have a problem with. As a Category 5 Women's Wrongs Enjoyer (my list of favourite fictional women includes Monika DDLC, Akane Shinjo and Junko Enoshima lol) so I actually think Akane having those sorts of nastier flaws or at least having blinders up that make her behave in such a way that contrasts her actually heart would be so good and juicy! It would be a really good opportunity to dig into ideas of like... someone can go through something horrible that negatively impacts them and maybe even makes them behave in poor and destructive ways, but just because someone isn't a 100% pure and sympathetic 'perfect' victim doesn't at all take away from the fact that they were victimized and they still deserve to be helped and protected. But because the story seems to be largely unaware that Akane comes off like this, it fails to be meaningfully engaged with which, again, makes it frustrating to read.

I do have hope that a lot of these issues will be resolved, though! The AquAkane breakup finally forcefully ripped her out of the role of 'Aqua's Perfect Girlfriend' and while she's still orbiting him a bit more than I necessarily would like, chapter 128 has already done a lot to address some of these issues. Even stuff as small as Akane talking to Memcho and Kana and not really having any page time with Aqua and her acknowledging that both Aqua and Ruby (with particular emphasis on Ruby, it seems!) are both still suffering in the aftermath of their childhood trauma. It's small, but a lot of my issues with Akane were of the 'death by a thousand cuts' variety so even having them addressed in these passing ways does a lot to help.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if I eventually come around on Akane and end up liking her a lot more. I've sort of had similar feelings about characters in works I like before – off the top of my head, I remember really disliking Naoto from Persona 4 when I first played the game because the section of the story she's associated with has some really bullshit pacing and Naoto is used in some really awkward ways by the narrative that made me associate those feelings of frustration with her. I felt similarly about Megumi from 13 Sentinels where I felt like some of the beats in her story dragged down both her arc and the arcs of the characters associated with her and really disliked her as a result. Upon revisiting both games though, I was able to properly separate my feelings of frustration with the narrative from the characters themselves and ended up coming around on both of them in a huge way.

Once Oshi no Ko wraps and we can see what Akane's arc looks like in its entirety, I fully expect to have a similar turnaround on her. I don't expect that she'll ever be one of my favourite characters but once we can see the totality of her character arc and the full scope of her role in the story, I expect to find more appreciation for her. Right now, though, while I'm still sort of stewing in disappointment, hope, expectation and frustrations it's hard to fully come around on her.

[queenshelby]

My Friend’s Father (Part Seven)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Age Gap, Smut

Words: 4,498

Notes:

I have decided to make this into a series.

Alright, no judgment. This was a dream of mine and I felt like I had to write it down. Everyone in this Fic is over the age of 18 and this Fic is in no way based on Cillian’s real family life. It’s pure filth.

*********

Throughout the entire night, you couldn’t help but think about Cillian. You dreamed about the kiss you shared, the touch of his hands on your face and even the scent of his skin.

You knew you shouldn’t think this way about your best friend’s father but it was something you couldn’t control even though you were angry with him.

But there was one person you who you were even more angry with and this was Connor, the man you were actually dating.

You got up early that morning to confront Connor about his behaviour at the art gallery opening and the truth was that you were pretty much done with him. You never had feelings for him in the first place and the truth was that he had simply become a distraction for you. You wanted to distract yourself from having taken a liking in your best friend’s father which, in itself, you knew was wrong.

Connor embarrassed you in front of your friends and Cillian was right when he said that he was acting controlling, even though you didn’t want to hear it, especially not from him.

You knew you had to end it and you knew that it wasn’t going to be a difficult task for you. You had always been a strong woman and you didn’t want to be with someone like that and, just when you arrived at Connor’s house you took a deep breath and did what had to be done.

‘It’s your loss Y/N’ were his words when you eventually left his house after a ten minute conversation but you didn’t feel like you had lost anything. In fact, you’ve gained something and that was experience in standing up for yourself.

***

Just after you encounter with Connor that morning, you went to have breakfast with Denise and her friends at the G Hotel in Galway.

They were all staying at the five-star hotel, courtesy of Denise’s father who had organised the weekend for Denise for her birthday and as a reward for her achievements after she had worked so hard on her project.

‘Happy Birthday’ you said as you greeted her and the others and Denise immediately told you off for being too loud as her head was pounding. It was obvious to you that she was rather hungover from the night the before.

‘You had too much champaign, huh?’ you giggled before handing her the present you had bought for her.

You usually didn’t spend much money on each other for birthdays but, since she was your best friend, you had spent a few hours’ worth in wages and gotten her something meaningful.

She was collecting vintage tea-cups and you had recently found a beautiful Royal Dalton set in a second-hand shop which you knew she would adore.

‘This is absolutely beautiful, thank you so much’ Denise said as she unwrapped it before hugging you gently.

‘You are welcome. I knew you would like it’ you said with a warm smile and, just as you did and sat down next to her, your mobile phone went off.

You received a text message from a number that was unfamiliar to you and when you opened it, you were none the wiser.

‘It was good to see you’ the message said and you were rather confused by it. You had some job interviews recently and wondered whether this was sent by one of the interviewers. Or perhaps someone from university, you wondered?

‘What is it?” Denise asked as she saw the look of confusion on your face when you glanced at your phone.

‘Someone just send me a message saying that it was good to see me’ you chuckled before explaining to her that you didn’t know the number.

‘Maybe it is this guy from university you were talking about a few weeks back? You know, the lecturer in the science department?’ Denise wondered before suggesting to you that you should text back and ask for a name, but you already knew it wouldn’t be him. There was no way he would have your number and you certainly were no longer interested in getting to know him after you had found out that he was married.

You texted back to the unknown number, enquiring who this was and, within a couple of seconds, your phone went off again and you almost choked on your coffee.

‘Cillian’ the message read and you quickly changed the angle of your phone so that Denise wouldn’t see it.

‘And? Who is it?’ she asked while trying to look at your phone.

‘Uhm…just a guy I met a few weeks ago…I ran into him again yesterday morning and I totally forgot about it…’ you stammered quickly but Denise didn’t buy a word you were saying.

‘You forgot?’ she giggled, winking at you as she did and your cheeks blushed almost instantly. ‘Well, he obviously didn’t and you must have given him your number for a reason. Is he hot? What’s he like? I need to know everything…’ she went on to say as, suddenly, without you haven’t sent anything back to Cillian, you received yet another text message from him.

‘For what its’s worth, you looked beautiful’ the next text read and you couldn’t help but smile as you continued to sip on your cup of coffee and Denise most certainly noticed the look on your face and asked you what he said.

‘Just that I looked nice’ you stammered, feeling awful about lying to her about who texted you but there was no way that you could have told her that it was, in fact, her father who you were texting with.

‘Uh, he likes you’ Denise then giggled before carrying on. ‘Well, since you ditched Connor now, you should go and meet up with him and have some fun. After Connor’s one-off ten-minute performance, I have no doubt that you really need it’ Denise said and, just as she did, the conversation across the breakfast table took a turn. Like so often, it now was all about sex and you realised that dissatisfaction was a common occurrence in women your age.

‘I believe that the whole talk about the female g-spot is load of rubbish. It’s a myth’ Amalie observed eventually after everyone across the table complained about the lovers that they had.

It was at this point that you mentally checked out from the conversation and, whilst you thought about the one pleasurable experience you had in your life when it came to sex, you certainly didn’t want to talk about it in front of Denise. Especially not Denise.

Instead of engaging in talks about vibrators and the male anatomy, you decided to respond to Cillian’s text messages after you had received yet another one, telling you that he was sorry. Clearly, he was desperate to hear from you.

‘I see, you kept my note?’ you responded quickly, ignoring his compliments and apologies, and, just moments after you sent it, you received a response from him.

‘Kept it in my wallet. Can we meet?’ Cillian asked and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes just before you received yet another message from him which read ‘BTW this is not a booty call. I just want to talk with you. Please.’

His message made you laugh but you agreed to meet him nonetheless.

‘I have an apartment at the Docks. Can you come there?’ Cillian asked in his next text message.  

‘Alright. How does 4 o’clock sound? Text me your address’ you texted back and it wasn’t long until Cillian sent you the address of his apartment.

‘And?’ Denise asked as she watched you text with the mysterious stranger and you simply blushed again and responded with a short and somewhat embarrassed ‘nothing’.

‘Oh common, tell me Y/N. I am your best friend’ she then said and you confirmed that you would quickly meet up with him this afternoon before Denise’s birthday dinner.

‘Oh la la, you are having a date’ Denise then said somewhat excitedly.

‘We are just catching up to talk Denise. It’s not a date’ you then said.

‘Sure…whatever you say Y/N’ she then said sarcastically which is when, finally, she backed off and you received yet another text message from Cillian.

‘Looking forward to see you, xx’ it read and your heart skipped a beat pretty much then and there.

***

After you went home to have a shower and get changed into some nice jeans and a black shirt as well as some nice lingerie (just in case) you made your way to Cillian’s apartment.

You parked around the corner and walked the rest of the way just to be sure that no one would see your car being parked there.

‘Jesus’ you said somewhat surprised when you walked into the lobby of the apartment building and took the elevator to the top floor after Cillian had buzzed you inside. You had never been to a building like this. It was luxurious and right on the harbour.

When you arrived on the top floor, Cillian already waited for you, glancing through the door of his apartment.

‘Wow, these are some good views. Do you own this place?’ you observed as you stepped inside and set your purse on the desk by the door.

‘Yeah, bought it a few years ago’ Cillian said as you began to shrug off your jacket, but Cillian came up from behind you, and caught your hands. You looked down at your hands, noticing that yours dwarfed in his. They were warm and soft.

‘Let me take this for you’ he said like a gentleman and you were somewhat surprised by his gesture. This was not something you were used to but you liked it, a lot.

‘You know, I didn’t expect that you would text me, especially not after last night. So, what is it that you want to talk about?’ you asked nervously and, just as you did, Cillian cut straight to the chase.

‘I wanted to tell you, in person, that I am sorry about last night. I shouldn’t have lectured you about this guy who you are seeing and the truth is that, yes, I was jealous and I know that I had no right to be jealous and for that I am also sorry. I should have acted differently, especially knowing that you are my daughter’s best friend’ he admitted just before you cut him off.

‘Well, for what its worth, I ended it with Connor this morning because I think you were right about him’ you said with a nervous smile, causing Cillian to cock an eyebrow.

‘I can’t say that I am not happy about that’ he said jokingly before continuing on. ‘But, regardless of this, I think that we need to talk about how we move forward from what happened between us for Denise’s sake’ he then said, causing you to nod.

‘Yeah’ you then said somewhat disappointed before building up your strength in order to say something else. ‘The thing is, Cillian, I know what I want. I just think that you don’t’ you said, cheeks blushing.

‘And what is that you want Y/N?’ Cillian asked curiously as if he didn’t already know the answer to his question.

‘You’ you then admitted and, just as you did, Cillian’s hands caressed your face and he pulled you close and kissed you yet again.

The kiss was slow and passionate and, unlike the night before, you allowed yourself to give into it until, eventually, your lips drifted apart.

‘Are you sure Y/N? Because, I am much older than you and you probably have better offers with more assurances that I simply cannot offer you’ Cillian then asked as he was standing directly in front of you and held you against his body.

‘The fact that you are older actually turns me on’ you admitted before pressing your lips onto his again and then pulling away. You adored his wrinkles and greying hair and you were surprised that he had no idea how attractive he actually was.

‘But what is it that you want Cillian?’ you then asked as you felt his firm chest against you while his warm breath fanned against your neck, sending shivers down your spine.

‘Honestly, I don’t know Y/N. I have never been so fucking confused in my life’ he explained reluctantly, not knowing where to place the feelings he had built for you. You were over twenty years younger than him and his daughter’s friend and this clearly bothered him. He knew that this wasn’t something he could easily overcome.

‘Well, I am confused too but I like you, a lot’ you admitted, also unsure about what this was that you were feeling for him but, what you knew was that you wanted to give whatever this was a chance. You were curious and you were filled with desire for this man standing there right in front of you.

‘And I need to know that you feel the same and that this isn’t going to be just another mistake you are making because, if you are going to walk away after we have sex, then I am not up for it’ you then explained, wanting to ensure that he wouldn’t pull away from you this time.

‘No more mistakes Y/N. I like you and I want this’ Cillian whispered as he pressed his lips firmly right under your ear, slowly kissing down your neck.

‘I want you’ he then said as his breath tickled your skin and the firmness of his kiss made your stomach flip.

‘Then that’s good enough for me’ you huffed out in a laboured breath and just, as you did, Cillian used his hands to spin you around, causing you to face away from him.

Then, his hands dropped to your waist where his fingers gently edged themselves under the hem of your shirt, barely touching your skin. His lips moved, and he left a trail of kisses down your shoulder and towards your arm.

‘I knew this was a booty call’ you teased as you couldn't help but move against him.

‘Do you want to stop?’ he asked as your hips rocked and shifted while he gently brushed his fingers against your skin.

‘Hell no’ you giggled before you lifted your arms and he began to pull your shirt up.

You felt like you were performing some secret dance that we both knew, but that you'd never realised you'd known.

Cillian lifted your shirt inch at a time up off you, and let it fall to the floor. He sighed in satisfaction as he looked down at your breasts.

‘Why are you so fucking perfect?’ Cillian asked and you opened your mouth to answer but it came out as a sigh as his hands tightened around your waist.

‘Let’s take this off’ Cillian said determined as one of his hands inched up towards your breast, and he squeezed it gently. Then, his hands came away from you, and unsnapped your bra.

You practically shook it off of you, and then dropped your hands to your jeans. You needed his hands back on you again as soon as possible and turned to watch him as you kicked your shoes off and shoved down your jeans, your underwear coming with them.

‘Eager, are we?’ Cillian chuckled as he quickly began to undress himself as well after you had given him a look full of hunger and anticipation.

‘We are short of time’ you said as you were momentarily distracted by the sight of him unbuttoning his shirt, but you hurried to kick off the fabric wrapped around your ankles.

‘We’ve got at least two and a half hours Y/N’ Cillian then said as you finally stood there in front of him completely naked.

‘Exactly’ you chuckled as Cillian was still fighting with the buttons on his shirt, and you grabbed the fabric of it and pulled him against you, crushing your mouth against his.

Cillian made love to your mouth with his lips and his tongue. He was firm, slow, and demanding.

You breathed together, tasted together. He dragged a soft moan from your mouth with a caress of his lips. He explored you, letting his tongue run along the roof of your mouth. Your teeth crashed. He sucked your tongue into his mouth, and your stomach clenched and you let out an embarrassingly desperate sound.

Before your first night with Cillian, you'd never been kissed like this. The kisses you shared were more intimate and more sensual than anything you'd ever experienced in your life.

As you were kissing, you finally managed to unbutton his shirt and shoved it open. Your hands ran up and down his chest, exploring his toned body all the while he was relentless in his kiss. His arms wrapped around you, one hand pressing into the small of your back, and the other working his fingers into your hair.

With a small tug of your hair, he pulled your face away from him.

‘I could kiss you all day Y/N, but you said that we are short of time so you better get onto the bed’ he winked and you snaked your arms around his neck and kissed him while he walked you back into his bedroom and towards the bed.

As you were moving towards the bed, he fought with his belt and his pants all while his lips never left yours.

You shuffled awkwardly backwards until the backs of your knees hit the bed, forcing you to sit down. You kept your arms behind you to prop yourself up, smiling as you watched him finish undressing. He was just gorgeous and so goddamn perfect.

‘You are so sexy, you know that?’ you said full of desire while you watched as he pushed his pants down, kicking them off his ankles and standing in front of you completely naked, and... Sweet. Baby. Jesus…your mouth watered at the sight of his hard cock.

‘So are you’ he winked and, just as he did, you met his eyes again after having stared at his cock for a little while. That terrifying intense stare was back, and he looked like he was going to eat you alive. For all you knew, he would.

Without breaking eye contact, Cillian bent down and went to his knees at the foot of the bed, grabbed your legs, and pulled you closer to him, spreading your legs wide as he did so.

‘Lay back’ he ordered and you couldn’t help but bite your lip in anticipation.

‘What are you going to do to me?’ you asked as he was still staring at you. A slow smile graced his face.

‘I am going to make love to you with my tongue until you cum’ Cillian smirked and the idea of his face between your legs made your breath catch.

‘Oh, Sweet Jesus’ you moaned as he let go of one of your legs and put a hand on your shoulder. He pushed you back and then he lowered his lips to you.

Sweet bliss washed over you in an instant. You gasped, and moaned, and shivered. Cillian lapped at you like you were the sweetest treasure he'd ever put in his mouth. A slow, deep rumble from his chest travelled straight into your body through his lips, shaking you to your core. His tongue dove inside you, exploring you. He sucked on the lips of your sex, and the circled his tongue around your clit, sending powerful shocks of pleasure straight to your centre.

He was building you up to something big. Something beautiful.

He eased off right before you exploded, and you cried out.

‘Cillian, don't stop, please’ you moaned and, just as you began to plead with him, his fingers began to gently run through your wet slit.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t’ he said as he slowly pushed two of his fingers inside you before his tongue resumed its work on your clit.

Curling his fingers slightly upwards, he reached an unfamiliar spot deep inside you and, as soon as he reached this spot, you cried out in pleasure.

‘Oh god, fuck, Cillian’ you moaned as his fingers began to gently thrust in and out of you while he made love to you with his tongue.

With his skilled tongue and fingers working you, it didn’t take you long to reach an orgasm. Your legs began to shake almost violently as a wave of pleasure erupted through your body and your walls tightened around Cillian’s fingers.

When you finally came down from your high, Cillian stood up, pushed his hands against your hips, and slid you farther onto the bed.

‘You sound so fucking sexy when you cum like this, without having to hold back’ Cillian observed as he climbed onto the bed. He crawled towards you like a wolf stalking his prey.

‘I want you inside me, please…I am aching for your cock’ you moaned, spurring him on and, without losing any time he spread your legs wide and pressed the head against your slit, gently working the tip in and out, teasing you.

‘Oh god, please, stop teasing’ you whimpered, trying to wiggle against him. You wanted to feel all of him so badly.

‘Be patient, we will get there’ he whispered, and leaned forward so his arms were on either side of your face.

You felt him push a little deeper into you.

‘Oh god yes’ you gasped and winced and Cillian tilted his head and took your mouth with his, kissing you slowly as he rocked in and out. His lips and his tongue matched the pace of his thrusts, and you felt overwhelmed with desire as he slid deeper and deeper inside of you.

‘Fuck you feel so good Y/N’ Cillian groaned as he stretched you and pushed you until he was all the way in, and he pulled his mouth away from yours just long enough to let out a string of curses before he took your mouth again.

You couldn't breathe. Everything about him was amazing. The way he felt inside you was just perfect.

He held your head firmly in place as he kissed you, thrusting into you and grinding his hips so that he hit every single spot you didn't even know you had. Right as you were nearing your climax, he pulled all the way out and pushed himself off of you, pausing to catch his breath.

‘No…don’t stop…I was so close’ you whimpered.

‘Don’t worry, I am not done with you yet but I do enjoy teasing you’ he gasped and you could tell that he enjoyed edging you which is something no other man you have been with had ever done to you before. Unlike them, Cillian had amazing self-control which you thought might come with age.

Almost an hour later, after he edged you numerous times and made you change positions on several occasions, you ended up with Cillian on top of you once again. He slid back inside you, resuming his relentless pace. With every thrust, he ground his pelvis against your clit, and with only a few careful movements of his hips, you exploded in pleasure around him. There was no way you could have held back any longer as waves of heat and ice crashed onto you, and you fought to breathe through the intensity of your orgasm.

‘Fuck Y/N’ Cillian groaned shortly thereafter, feeling your walls contract around his shaft. He collapsed forward onto you, and you could feel him pulsing inside you and filling you with rope after rope of his warm cum.

You loved the feeling of him cuming inside you and his breath was hot against your neck, and he kissed your neck and your mouth again as he pulled back and out of you, giving you a chance to breathe.

***

‘Cillian’ you whispered, barely able to speak even after five minutes had passed since you came down from your high.

‘Yes Beautiful?’ he said, and moved slightly so he could wrap his lips around your nipple. He sucked and tongued at it, and pulled at it with his teeth.

‘Careful’ you laughed, and shifted under him slightly. ‘I’m super sensitive now’ you said.

‘I certainly hope so’ he murmured. ‘Although, I am not done with you yet. We still have an hour before dinner’ he smirked and your eyes widened immediately.

‘Oh really?’ you asked surprised and, when you looked down on him, you noticed that his cock was already hardening again just after a short five minutes of relaxation.

‘Really’ Cillian then chuckled as he rolled you onto your stomach, spreading your legs and crouching behind you.

Without losing any time, he lined himself up with your entrance and pushed back inside of you, eliciting a loud groan.

After doing you from behind for what felt like forever, he'd hauled you up into his lap and made love to you with his arms around you and our foreheads pressed together. You'd watched his eyes widen and roll back in his head as he came inside you again just after you reached your own high as well.

He then kissed you as he slowly pulled out of you, and then carried you in his arms like a bride into the bathroom where he'd showered you, washed your hair and your body, and treated you to another mind-blowing orgasm with his fingers.

‘I am fucking sore Cillian’ you huffed out as you were standing in front of the mirror and retouched your make up with a white towel wrapped around your body. You had only limited supplies with you in your handbag but were somewhat lucky that Denise had kept a few items in one of the bathrooms in the three-bedroom apartment.

‘I am sorry’ he then said as he stepped behind you and applied some more aftershave before kissing your neck.

‘Are you?’ you asked, looking back at him before pressing a gentle kiss on his lips.

‘Not really’ he then smirked before buttoning up his shirt.

You knew that you couldn’t arrive at the dinner together and, after you got ready, you decided to walk to the restaurant first so that Cillian would allow you a ten-minute head start.

But walking was difficult in itself and Cillian had a slight chuckle when he watched you waddle out of his apartment.

Your core was stinging but it was defiantly worth it.

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@peaky-cillian​

@severewobblerlightdragon​  @ysmmsy​  

[mxttellion]

Your recent post has made me curious about your experience. I was an onlooker/lurker to Eddsworld until late March/Early April.

Man. Where do I even begin, genuinely

guess you can call this The Not So Extensive Neb Eddsworld Lore because. I have a LOT to talk about. It's been almost a decade I've seen pretty much everything despite having joined in like. Late 2013

I discovered Eddsworld back in 2012 via Flipnote Hatena (fly high sweet angel), and I never actually actively cared about the series until September 2013, when I decided to give the series a shot after snobbing it for so long: and lol I'm obsessed

Also since I'm funny as all hell I'm gonna address to different eras of my experience with the characters I was obsessed with at the moment

This is what I call my Tom Era: I wasn't on any actual social media yet, except for Sudomemo and DeviantArt, where I had multiple rps with people and got scolded by someone's sister over roleplaying (ya that happened and it's still funny as hell)

Jump to uh. Late 2014 - 2015 when I actually join Tumblr with my main (the ogs will know <3) and that's when I actually started being active in the fanbase and produce content, this is the uh. Matt and Eduardo era? Sure why not. I made a lot of content of them and I don't like talking about this moment bc of personal trauma sorry lol <3

The sasquatch drama happened in this fragment of time, and some might even remember that I've talked about it in this blog at some point

Anyway it's the pre The End - Legacy era, the fandom was really small and everyone pretty much knew the other for better or for worse

Oh I had a Matt ask blog. Don't look for it or I'll get you and I'll bite you

I got a Flipnote I made in 2015 reblogged by Tomska and I felt like my life was complete, and a fanart liked by Kreid (poweredd animator in case u forgot)

Shit happens and now we're in 2016, the fandom explodes, i have no FUCKING idea was was going on at first but man. Man if it wasn't kind of funny to watch

Anyway it's important to also note that I uh. Don't. Really remember a lot from 2016-2017, no idea why, maybe it's just my brain going full on traumatic amnesia mode and deleting everything. But also this post is wayy too long on its own so I'll cut it short

I made that one magical au? I was an emotionally charged undiagnosed teenager so maybe being so active on the internet wasn't a great idea, I got teased by a "cringe art" account for my au who got BLASTED within an hour of existing, I made the Salty AU in 2018 with the ask blog, joined Amino which was just. The worst idea I had in that year alone, joined the official server in 2019 only to leave everything related to eddsworld behind in 2020 because holy shit what was that ... Also there's an high change that Matt has seen my au but I talked about this already.

Then came back in 2021 and the rest is history. Matt Mod, Patryck hyperfixation, yeah you know it

I cut it VERY short bc there's. A lot I don't wanna talk about (just. Personal unpleasant experiences) but man. Man if I don't sound like a mad man talking about this, like dude I've spend sooo much time in the fanbase and I've seen sooo much shit going on, it's like as if I'm talking to a therapist about this or something