#also either of them could be saying the quote

[flymetothexmoon]

Bikes + Leather-Studded Kisses

Warnings: Mentions of Nictoine. Dry humping. Public smut. Oral F!Receiving on Motorcycle.

Pairing: Established Relationship with Choi Seunghyun x F!Reader.

Authors Note: definitely not the first fanfic about Seunghyun and Reader on a Motorcycle so kudos + respect to the person who wrote it first because you a real one. This is my take on a quote my beautiful girl @aizshallnotbefound said in a moment of silliness so pls be nice. enjoy~

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚♡ɞ˚

Maybe you were having a midlife crisis.

Or maybe you were exactly where you needed to be.

It was Saturday, the type of Saturday where the cherry blossoms were in bloom and you could feel the sun hitting your skin.

You, however, were not in Yongdap-dong for the cherry blossoms. Somehow, you found yourself in front Ducati Korea as your eager eyes began to scan the outside of the building. Buying a motorcycle was not always something you envisioned doing when turning the age you did, but it was either go check out bikes or dye your hair something crazy and you figured given your boyfriend's past of random hair coloring experimentation, you would do the later.

The doors to the establishment eventually unlocked with the clicking sound from the mechanics of the interior locking system. It was now or never.

You could feel your eyelashes fluttering against your eyelids as your feet made their way inside of the building; the smell of the leather jackets that were for individual sale, the sound of employees offering one another the slight murmur of small talk, the sight of all different models of motorcycle that glistened in the vehicle showroom– you could practically taste the somehow bitter yet watered down coffee they provided for guests and employees alike.

It did not take long for someone to make their way over to where you were. Assuming it was someone on their sales team, you smiled warmly at the person coming toward you.

This person was dressed with the three c's in mind; comfort, collectiveness, and confidence, as the two of you began simple conversation of them asking what brought you in, what you were looking for out of a motorcycle, and financing.

You were brought back to their desk as you took the seat across from them, your eyes darting from the keyboard they were typing on to also aborbing your surroundings as more people began to walk into the shop.

"I hate to pry, but you mentioned this was your mid life crisis moment so you did not color your hair. You do not seem that old... may I ask your age?"

Honestly you could not remember the last time someone was so direct with you. When you answered, the sales professional nodded, smiling warmly at the comment.

"I would have never guessed. You look great."

The rest of the process was quick, easy, and dare you say painless considering you were at the mercy of the person selling you this motorcycle.

You had already taken the vehicle for a test drive and you were currently waiting to be cleared for purchase. As you sat in the same comfortable but somehow also uncomfortable chair, you twiddled with your thumbs, the ring on your left middle finger making contact with the top part of your knuckle on your thumb.

"No need to be nervous. Right now we are waiting on a bank approval for the loan to check the funds are really there. As of now it looks like you could be driving off in your new motorcycle. Can I interest you in some accessories while we wait? Most women love the idea of getting a new jacket, or maybe some designer gloves so they do not blister their hands..."

Interrupting your thoughts, the canine part of your teeth began to chew at the sensitive skin of the inside of your cheek.

Nodding, you agreed to at least take a look.

Seunghyun, your boyfriend, had always told you how delicate your hands were. He was the type of man who paid for your manicures, his excuse being that he wanted to be in charge of what he saw when your hands were in sync with your mouth when both body parts were wrapped perfect around him.

As you followed your sales professional to the part of the showroom where they kept accessories, your feet began to glide across the tiled floor with ease, your hands holding the delicate fabric between your fingers, the little tiny rhinestones on each ring finger were bouncing off the iridescent light fixtures.

The pesrson selling you the motorcycle followed close behind, but kept their distance as you continued to test the fabric to each jacket, feeling the different types of leather as you finally stopped at one specific one; one you knew Seunghyun would love.

"This is it. This is the one I am panning to get."

It did not take long for the person behind you to nod their head as they eagerly grabbbed the appropriate size and design you'd pointed out. Continuing to walk around, you did indeed end up buying a pair of gloves that would balance the look of the bike and the jacket you'd just chosen.

Before long, your name was being called, bringing you back to the days when you were in school.

An approval.

You smiled wide, your freshly manicured nails glistening in the light once again as you signed your name across a dotted line, extending your hand out to the person who you'd just spent a few hours of your day with.

Somehow, you'd kept this little secret of yours away from Seunghyun as you stood outside the establishment, the familiar of feeling of the sun radiating back on your arms as you admired the motor vehicle in front of you. You had known Seunghyun would not be home for a few hours to admire its beauty in the sunlight, so you were sure to make a point to change your attire later in the day.

•┈┈┈••✦♡✦••┈┈┈•

As the day grew in time, the different hues in the sky began to change as you admired the sun slowly setting.

The ride to you and Seunghyun's shared penthouse was not a long one, less than hour to be exact, as you waited for his return. You were more comfortable on the bike than you anticipated being and the way your back arched while leaning forward was almost sinful as your hands held onto the handle bars appropriately.

It did not take long for you to change into the appropriate attire you wanted to be wearing the moment Seunghyun got home. It was simple, yet practical as you paired a pair of high wasted dark wash jeans with ripped holes at the knee, a pair of ankle boots that cut off at the ankle, and a lace top with frills at the neckline that complimented the leather jacket you'd purchased earlier and the leather gloves you'd also purchased earlier.

Your eyelashes fluttered against your lids as the different colors in the sky began to remind you of cotton candy, a sweet treat you had not had since childhood, but the familiarity still crushing your bones from the inside out.

Eventually, you could see headlights forming in the distance as a blacked out vehicle started to come up on the hill you two lived on. Upon squinting, you realized it was Seunghyun and who you assumed was his driver for the day.

As the vehicle got closer, eventually parking right in front of where were standing, your smile only widened as the door opened and your boyfriend was slowly emerging out of the door. His back was still to you as you saw his long fingers holding the tip of the door's window for balance and him handing the driver money. You noticed him bow in respect and gratitude for the lift as he removed his hand from the window, closing the door shut behind him.

Seunghyun always waited for the driver to leave before making his way into the house. He still had not noticed you were there, let alone, what you were standing with. You watched him bow a second time, his lips curving into an exhausted smile as he finally turned to face you.

You could not hold the excitement any longer as you watched in real time his eyes widening at the sight of you, at the sight of the bike you were previously leaning against as you reached up, holding his neck tightly and pushing your chest against against his. His heartbeat was loud and spertatic against yours as you felt his arms shake a little as they wrapped around your smaller frame.

Seunghyun somehow pulled you closer as his head found its way to look behind the two of you, looking at the bike that sat parked neatly behind both of you. He pulled away only slightly, his fingers rubbing tiny circles into your hips as you waited for any kind of reaction he could give you.

The taller man stayed silent and still, the only movement coming from his fingers on your hips you pushed on him closer, doing anything to feel him against you. Seunghyun only shifted at the contact, a murmured gasp leaving his vocal cords and a pop from the muscle in his jaw.

"Princess, why is there bike in our driveway?"

Finally, you let out an even louder excited giggle as you shimmied out of his grasp, pulling his hand that was once drawing little circles in your hip into the clasp of your hand as you dragged him the small distance to the bike, practically jumping up and down as you watched him admire the motor vehicle. His hand let go of yours for a second so he could circle the vehicle properly, his hand slowly extending to grace his fingers across the matte black paint.

"Well. As you know, my birthday was recently here, and I was thinking about what I could get for myself as a milestone gift. I thought about maybe dying my hair, but I saw someone riding around in one recently and it reminded me of when I got my motorcycle license a while back and never did anything with it. Surprise?"

You'd watched Seunghyun do a full walk around of the bike, his fingers still gracing against the paint job like he was trying to savor the feel of the finish. Like a nervous tick, his tongue darted from his mouth, licking the perfect stride against his lips slowly.

He was in deep thought.

Seunghyun continued to wet his lips and it was like everything shut off in the decision making part of your brain as you began to feel like mush, your legs closing tightly against one another, solely based off primal instinct as you hoped he did not notice.

Of course he did.

He notices everything you do— especially when it came to the beauty flower that was between your legs.

The taller man stopped what he was doing, stepping closer to you again, his hands finding your hips once more as they firmly grasped onto them like you needed him to stay straight. Before you could say anything else, you were off the ground and you were sat on the bike you'd just purchased, facing the opposite direction as the handlebars as the grip your boyfriend had on you tightened, his body closing in on yours as you inhaled deeply and took in his scent.

Marlboro Red cigarettes and Teakwood.

Seunghyun was closer than before as his breath hitched at the base of your neck where it met your collarbone. His lips parted slightly, the canine part of his teeth gracing against the sensitive and exposed area of your skin as you gasped quietly at the sudden feeling.

"You taste like cherries. Are you wearing your cherry perfume again or have you been hitting your silly little vape again? I told you that stuff is bad for you, Princess."

His teeth bit down harder as they managed to hit the bulging part of your collarbone this time, his tongue gently circling the inflamed area.

"Considering you smoke cigarettes all day, I do not think you have a valid excuse to make fun of me for my vape flavor of choice, old man. Sorry for wanting my lungs to be flavor coated,"

Your boyfriend's laugh was low, the vibration from his vocal cords causing the entire upper part of your body to lock up and the bottom half of your body going into a full spasm nodes. Honestly you did not know what was worse, and before you could think of another clever response to defuse the situation, his lips were on yours. By the way his lips felt on yours, it could have fooled you into thinking it had been longer since you were last intimate.

Like instinct, your hands went to the shirt he was wearing; a black simple button down that had the first two top buttons undone, a simple action that made you think of sin when you imagined the release it must have him when he did that. The tips of your nails were peaking through the fingerless portion of the riding gloves you were wearing, the manicured tips gently sliding across the exposed part of his chest.

It did not take long for Seunghyun to audibly groan against your lip, his body pushing against yours with a sense of urgency as his tongue forced his way into your mouth, not even bothering to beg for an entry way. As Seunghyun moved his body against yours, one of his planted firmly next to you on the seat of the bike you were sat on, the faint sound of his nails digging into the leather as you held onto his shirt tighter.

Seunghyun was a lot of things, but one thing that he could not pride himself in was his lack of patience. He was never satisfied doing just one thing, and had always to take things to a notch, and that was no exception when it came to your sex life. For being such a private person, somewhere deep in his soul he craved attention more than most, and maybe that is why he went into the entertainment industry, so he could hide when needed and to be praised when needed.

You barely had time to notice Seunghyun's own leather jacket he was wearing until he finally pulled away from you and leaving the the both of you gasping for air as you locked eyes. By how you two looked, people would think you were high off more than each other as both: your and his pupils were completely blown from the best drug on the market— intimacy.

"Do you have any idea what you did to me tonight, mm? The way I come back from doing press all day to you standing here next to this bike, the way you got all dolled up in a lace top and leather jacket as if you are not already the hottest woman I'd ever seen."

Slowly, your cheeks turned the same color as the sun setting behind you both.

You wanted to thank him, but before your brain had time to form a complete sentence, his hands were back on you, only this time they were at your knees as he forced them to be spread and on display for him his eyes went straight to your core.

Seunghyun moved his head to the side, his jaw slightly popping again, as he quickly dropped to his knees in front of you like he was praying to a God he did not know he needed until his eyes were at level with you. You still had your jeans on but that did not stop the man from moving his middle finger down your clothed folds like he knew exactly where each part of you was— and he did.

His finger continued to work its way up and down the center most part of your jeans as your legs squirmed the tiniest bit. Not because you did not want him to continue, but because you did.

Your boyfriend quickly caught onto this as his left quickly darted upward grabbing the exposed part of your knee as his thumb drew circles on over the ripped part of the fabric and the soft touch of your knee itself as he spread you even further, his hand staying put as a way to keep you still.

Seunghyun began to mumble at the sight of you, his tongue escaping to wet his lips once again as you made out something he was mumbling. It was rushed, and in Korean, but you still understood every word.

"진짜 존나 아름다워. 마지막 식사처럼 널 음미할 거야."

Everything that happened next was a blur when your hips began to raise, only slightly, as you now sat bare on the leather seating of the bike. The seat was cold, but under the soft hues of pinks and purples from the sky and for all you'd already endured since Seunghyun got home, you could not be anymore warm.

Your boyfriend was still sat on his knees in front of you, his own dark wash jeans hitting the pavement to the driveway as he seemed to take forever admiring you. The tint of his yellow sunglasses was slightly reflective as you watched his hands remove them from his face and place them behind his own head neatly as he moved closer to you and began to slide his middle finger back to at the center of you, only this time his finger hitting you bare.

"I don't know why you bought this thing... If you wanted something to sit on and take a ride on, my face and cock have always been an option..."

That was all it took.

That was all you needed, and to be frank, all he needed before his mouth was on yours.

Hot, wet, and needy. So dam needy.

Your hips were already grinding against his face as you involuntarily jerked forward to give him better access as one of your hands dug into the leather seat and your other tangled deep into his dark roots, your almond shaped nails scratching at his scalp in response.

Seunghyun had been interested in art ever since he could remember, but he swore he had never seen something so artistic and beautiful until he first experienced his face being between your legs and his mouth attached your pussy like he would never have the blessing to eat another meal.

It was not until you began to continuously scratch at his scalp when you felt a vibration from his vocal cords vibrate against you like a goddamn orchestra.

His mouth felt like fire and the only that could reduce the flame was the wetness between and around your fold. The taller man's tongue would move up the same way it would move down as he tried to savor the taste like he wanted to remember for later. His mouth closed in on you as you felt the movement of his lips placing delicate, sloppy, kisses at the core of your pussy.

You squirmed again, your own head tilting back in the moment as your hand tugged at his sensitive roots.

Seunghyun leaned back quickly, his mouth leaving you as he looked up at you, completely wrecked and unaware of his intense gaze on you as his now swollen lips parted slightly, the arrousl of you still glissening across the bottom parts of his chin.

"Princess. If you do not stop squirming, I will leave you out here...."

Even in your wrecked state, you paused.

He paused.

Eventually, you whimpered in response.

His head dove back to you, only this time when his mouth latched onto yours, he quickly added a finger into you as well.

The pleasure was unlike anything you'd ever experienced. Sure, Seunghyun ate you out; in fact, he usually tried to at least once a day, but he never dared to eat you out like this, and in public where any of his neighbors could potentially see the two of you.

Seunghyun's one finger inside of you quickly turned to two as the metal one of his rings became a prominent part of the sensation. He was knuckle deep into you as his fingers pumped in and out of you, setting an already painful pleasurable pace inside of you. The way his fingers curled just enough, and the way his mouth latched onto your pussy like he was writing out his own godddamn full name in cursive.

His finger movements started to get sloppy, at point his fingers slamming into you once and then staying there as you began to tremble around him, and he boy could he tell.

Not only were his finger movements slowing down, but his the way his tongue began to dart at the bud of your pussy more quickly, he knew it was going to happen soon and you were both ready.

"Seunghyun, I— please. I'm going to cum. Need your mouth... and your fingers."

You would not be able to feel how hard he was, not yet anyway, and you definitely would not be able to say much more before his lips began to violently suck on you again and his fingers began to pump in and out of you again.

Half of him wanted to tell you to be his good girl and cum, half of him wanted to pull away from you all together and shove his own jeans to the pavement and fuck you stupid, but in the moment all he could properly comprehend was good damn good you tasted on his mouth.

Seunghyun's movements were fast and all you needed was the warmth of the metal from the ring on his middle finger and the warmth of his mouth signing a single "n" with the flick of his tongue as he signed his name into you one last time.

By the time you'd actually finished, the sky had gew darker and the moo began to shine through a nearby tree as Seunghyun pulled his mouth away from you, leaning back so his back supported his knees, removing his fingers from you as well with the sound of a pop from the wetness of inside you.

Bringing his two digits to his mouth, he licked his fingers clean of you, watching as you slowly caught your own breath and made eye contact.

"Good thing the seats were leather..."

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚♡ɞ˚

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[hijadelverano]

A secret place, just for them

Summary: two lonely souls met in their most sacred place and suddenly, it was like they knew each other forever

World count: 1.6k

Warnings: it's just a lot of fluff and a lot of reflection on what literature means to them (and for me, so this is kinda an insert???). My character is latina, I put a photo here but you can imagine her as you want. No beta read and english is not my first language, so sorry in advance.

Note: I have six mid-term exams next week but I couldn't continue living without finishing this.

Hope you enjoy!

We went around without looking for each other, but knowing we went around to find each other.

-Julio Cortázar

When you’re little and your teacher asks you to think about what literature means to you, your mind goes black. The classroom’s answers are all the same: either it’s fun or boring and feels like some kind of obligation. But at the back of the class, a kid thinks differently but is ashamed to admit it out loud. Luckily, those who were shy could write the answers on a piece of paper anonymously. 

Later, when the kids are entertained with their tasks, the teacher takes a moment to read those answers and there’s one that catches her eye. It is an escape, she read, like a portal to another world that has to have a good ending.

My goodness, she whispered. These kids were barely ten, how could they think like that? Those words held so much wisdom and a hint of sadness too. She had a guess of who could’ve written this but in the end, she did nothing but continue teaching the value of books hoping that would be enough.

The years passed, these kids grew up and forged their personalities as the time passed. Some of them changed but one stayed the same. That girl in the back stayed the same, she might’ve grown taller, her body more mature as she entered her adulthood but her soul was the same. She never changed that opinion about books, and that must’ve been the first sign of her loneliness.

She was alone until she remembered the words she carried with her, the weight of the book waiting to be held again. Books became her companion, her escape but also the anchor that she needed when her mind tried to escape from reality. The words grounded her, hugged her when the sadness took over, and answered the question she never dared to say out loud. They were her lullabies in times of insomnia when her mind wouldn’t turn off .

We live and breathe words, a quote from a book she doesn’t remember but it lingered enough in her heart to have it tattooed on her wrist years later. A reminder that literature is everywhere and, whether you're conscious about it or not, it shapes not only your mind but the entire society you live in.

Sol, that was her name, created a tradition she didn’t share with anyone but her. Every time she felt the words were stuck in her throat, she would find a quote, read it, and even print it. That way her soul found peace, because there was someone who felt the same, wrote it, and published it so that everybody could identify with the words.

Those quotes were her armor, her salvation when the world felt too heavy to carry, and she never thought she could find someone who felt the same until she did.

The meeting was so cheesy in a Hallmark movie style. Of all the places fate could’ve chosen, it picked the most sacred one - for both of them.

It was a library, of course it was. Not a regular one that felt too impersonal. It was the coziest and warmest library, each shelf hiding secret passages in between. It was small but it still fitted a cafeteria in a corner like it was always supposed to be there. The smell of books - old and new - mixed with coffee made the place a safe heaven, a limbo where you could disconnect and just be.

One hand already holding two books - quite heavy, may she add - while the other one trying to reach one above her. She’s trying so hard to not curse, too stubborn to get help, stepping on her toes trying to reach that black book that caught her attention.

And like it was scripted, a hand behind her reached the book and grabbed it like it was the easiest thing in the world. When she turned to thank her savior - just for courtesy as she swears she could’ve done it by herself -, she raised her gaze and met the warmest brown eyes she’s ever seen. He was older than her, the lines beside his eyes hid an entire story she was curious to know, and was holding his own stack of books in his big arms - was it getting warmer there or it was just her imagination?

“Hmm, Cortázar” he read the author's name, his voice was deep and soft “ wait, this is Hopscotch?” he asked, handing her the book.

She thanked him and smiled before answering “Yes, this is the Spanish version. I’m just lucky they got it here”.

“Never read that one before, I heard the chapters are disorganized and it’s difficult to read”.

“There are multiple ways to read this book, and that’s what makes it so fascinating: you get different stories from the same book,” you said, happy at the opportunity to talk about her favorite novel, hoping she could convince him to read it.

Her eyes flicked quickly to one of the books he was holding, reading the name of the author, and then added “But I guess the best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story”.

To her delight, his eyes widened, recognizing the quote. His face illuminated in a way she didn’t expect, always assuming no one would know her references.

“You’ve read Richard Powers?”

Before they knew it, they had paid for their books and were sitting at the small table in the corner waiting for their coffee order. They didn’t know anything about each other, the personal questions felt unnecessary at the moment. Every second of their conversation was used to talk about their favorite author and the books that marked them growing up. When they found out they read the same book, a new endless conversation started. They couldn’t stop smiling, even though their cheeks hurt. 

None of them wanted to stop, but the library was closing. Maybe they should’ve followed this in another place, but this shared encounter was already perfect as it was. Meeting each other in a place that was a sacred heaven for both of them felt so great. It was like fate, God or whoever had the power, decided to finally gift them some grace and cross their road. 

So here they stood, outside the library, looking at each other while finding the courage to say goodbye. Their way back home was in opposite directions which saddened them. Suddenly she was nervous,  gripping the plastic bag in her right hand a little too tight.

“I’ve just realized I don’t know your name” she said and they laughed.

“Let me do this right,”  he extended his hand. “I’m Michael Robinavitch, but my friends call me Robby.”

“Sol Torres, you can call me Sol but my friends like to annoy me with Sunny” she said, grabbing his hand. Their touch felt electric against their skin like it was sealing something they couldn’t name yet but they accepted it either way.

Here goes nothing, she thought before extending a bag to him “This is for you”, God she could feel her cheeks getting warmer at every second. He was definitely surprised, his eyes going from the bag to look at her face and to the bag again.

Robby.exe had stopped working. 

It took him many seconds for his brain to send a signal to his hand and finally grab the bag. He was beyond surprised, his face didn’t even try to hide it. When he took the book out of the plastic bag, he went speechless.

“Hopscotch? How - When?” he stuttered while looking at the brand new edition of the Cortázar book, this one in english, that initiated everything just mere hours ago.

“When you went to the bathroom” she explained, omitting the fact that she almost ran to the counter and asked the girl on the counter to help her. The librarian, already sensing the vibes, just said I got you girl and when Robby came back to the table, he didn’t notice the new plastic bag beside her.

“I can’t accept this” you are telling him that she bought the same book, her favorite, in both Spanish and English so that she could give him an edition he could read? The heart inside him woke up from its slumber and started beating so hard that all of Pittsburgh could hear it.

This woman can’t be real.

“Open the book,” she said, her voice was soft, no longer nervous as before. He did as she said (on a parallel note, he vowed to forever answer her commands, but he pushed that thought to the bottom of his brain quickly as his heart could deal with that right now) and opened the book, speechless again. “See that number? I expect a text when you finish the book”

“And if I want to call you instead?”

It was already night outside, but her smile, oh her smile, was just as bright as the sun - a true honor to her name.

Without knowing, their little bookclub became their lifeline, a little paradise only for the two of them, where they could hide when the world became too much. Little by little, they learned about each other, every quote they shared came with a story of their past and present. By the end of the day, these two souls weren’t lonely anymore, for they found their true companion to carry the weight they felt. 

In literature, they have an escape and that’s where they found each other.

[silent-sanctum]

"Jotaro as a Father"

Alright, this is another popular discussion about Jotaro's character. It also falls victim to the fandom's tendency to resort to "black and white" thinking, perhaps combined with other minor factors (and another case of me liking to overanalyze my favorite characters because Araki left so much about him vague)

This user has posted this on another "opinions that I will defend until the end of time" and garnered thousands of likes. This was probably the most liked quoted retweet. And it irked me. Am I surprised? Not really. Disappointed? Absolutely. And they are probably the 80% Jotaro fans that don't understand him.

And as your local Jotaro defender and anti-Jotaro mischaracterization person, I am here with another essay exploring more of his mentality. This time, it's about him being a parent, and while he isn't the best father, he isn't that bad either, or at least how the majority of the fandom thinks him to be.

I have made a previous character essay that talked about Jotaro's crippling weaknesses under the facade of strength and competence in detail. If you're interested, I'll leave this sentence linked to the post.

Now keep in mind: This character study is all assumptions and headcanons, BUT they are grounded in canon (e.g., pattern of behavior, general personality, actions he took, etc.) instead of what is popular in fanon interpretations. And much like how I wrote my previous essay (with the CEO and her POV on her emotional reservation), I will be drawing a lot of thematic comparisons with another show I've watched.

Why? Because sometimes, there are patterns on how groups of people can function in life, and it's not just the writer's bias and blind defense of their favorite character.

Second, I need to make this clear also: Jolyne is valid for being mad at her father. I am not invalidating her feelings at all. This essay is about exploring his headspace and what led him to do what he did. That's it.

Okay. Now onto the essay itself.

"Is he a bad father?"

Ehh, I can say that while he isn't good, he isn't bad either. His parenting lands more in the grey area, instead of either end of the spectrum. Because we all know at the surface level that he got married, had a daughter, went AWOL, divorced his wife, and stayed away from his family for their safety.

The action was bad: Neglect is neglect, no matter the excuse, and it can cause the affected people to respond to it negatively in the long term, especially for children with an absent parent.

However, the intention was good: He chose to stay away from his family because he attracted danger to his loved ones, who couldn't see the threat. He's a Stand user who could likely draw in other Stand users. He cared for them, and he wouldn't want to risk their safety by being around them.

It's complicated and nuanced. I feel like it's wrong to just shoehorn him into the "bad father" category, when the generalized view of what a "bad dad" is being abusive or leaving the child with malicious and/or selfish intent. But he doesn't hold up the "good father" title either, when being a "good dad" involves being a constant support for one's child, which he didn't do in Jolyne's late childhood to her teens.

So, he's neither good nor bad. He's a father doing all that he can with his current circumstances.

And yes, while I could leave it at that with the whole "he's neither good nor bad, but somewhere in between", many have placed their arguments about why he's a bad father and the alternatives he could've taken instead of completely choosing the self-isolation route.

The most popular one was this question:

"If he knew he was a danger, why did he have Jolyne? Why did he choose to have a family when he was going to stay away from them in the end?"

Here's the thing though… He didn't.

Jotaro doesn't have the hindsight that the audience has. He couldn't have known until he noticed it later down adulthood, where he grew to become more observant of his surroundings.

And even if he did know, is he not allowed to be human? Do you want him to just be a lonely marine biologist who just does the Speedwagon Foundation's (SWF) Stand work 24/7? Is he not a person who is capable of feeling love for someone else, and has wants for himself outside his job?

Yes, he's diligent. He is capable of self-preservation. He is powerful. But even the strongest individuals have families of their own. They have close bonds with others that they treasure. Why? Because being able to love and feel love is what makes someone "human". Jotaro is a human just like most of us. He isn't a working machine who just does his job.

Let me introduce this show called "Moving." It's a show where basically "superpowered parents who used to be special agents, hide their superpowered children from organizations who wish to exploit or kill them." It's a relevant show to this essay since the protagonist's father behaves similarly to Jotaro.

In the show, this man is the government's best agent with special abilities. He carries out his missions and reports back after completing his task. He does his job seriously and rarely fails an assignment. In isolation, he describes himself to be cold and stoic, who is unable to socialize much due to his role as a special operations agent.

One day, he encounters the protagonist's mother: The organization's top graduate with exceptional marksmanship, who also possesses special abilities.

And despite both of them knowing the risks of getting too personal and intimate, guess what happened?

They both fall in love, even if it means being locked into being exploited by the government. And not only that, guess what else happened.

They have a child together.

Let me remind you: They know they are high-profile agents. The best of the best. They are aware of the risks that come with interpersonal connections, but they had that family anyway. Why? Because they were human. To find normalcy in the midst of their circumstances.

My point is that Jotaro is a person who's allowed to have a life, even if it couldn't be completely normal given his situation. Jonathan got married and had a kid. Joseph got married and had children. What makes Jotaro any different? Because he's workaholic, stoic, and reserved like the dad in the show? That's not a fair assumption if you ask me.

Another thought raised was this:

"Couldn't he just have given and trained Jolyne with her Stand?"

It seems plausible, and it sounds cool. But you have to know how Jotaro operated and why that couldn't be the case. His life after Egypt went down the drain. Heck, you could even say that his life changed when Star Platinum awakened in him. When Stands became a permanent thing in his day-to-day.

No matter how much he likes to focus on his day job as a biologist, he now had to shoulder being the SWF's go-to investigator for the supernatural. Not only did he work hard in his profession, but he had to do the Foundation's tasks as the Joestar bloodline's active patriarch and as the one who slayed DIO.

He couldn't have a normal life anymore. Not with his involvement with the Foundation and the enemies he attracted.

Now answer me this- What parent who loves their child will subject them to a life like theirs?

"Moving's" main premise is the lengths that families will go to protect their children, including from their past. The couple I mentioned raised their superpowered baby in hiding. And here's the kicker: It's the father who chose to suppress his son's abilities so he could live a normal life.

Again, this is the same cold, stoic man whom the organization treats as its best agent. And it's not just this family. There are multiple examples of parents in this show choosing to let their kids hide their powers.

Your daughter has caught the teacher's attention because of her power? Fake her death.

When you see the organization's leader smirk at you after learning that powers are hereditary, and you have a child? Go off the radar and leave everything, but your family, behind.

Jotaro never wanted Jolyne to be involved with Stands. He didn't want her to risk her life fighting a random Stand user when she could live the life of a normal teenager. She didn't have a Stand. Her mother didn't have one either. Why burden his child with the responsibility he had?

And did his isolation work? For the most part, yes. That is, until the incident with Romeo.

But then you ask yourself:

"He could've called her! Texted her! Sent an email- something! It's the 2000s! Technology's a thing by this point!"

Remember what his main character flaw is… Communication. If there's any fault that he has without debate, it's his inability to connect and socialize with others properly, and his poor maintenance of his bonds (as I have stated in my previous essay).

This argument could go in two ways. One is the whole communication issue, and maybe he was either too caught up in his job to update them, or he didn't want to share any details, thinking it's best for them not to know. As flawed as that thought was.

OR we could go the Snipster route, wherein he DID call Jolyne to check in on her, but because he kept making excuses as to why he's not coming home and is always away, she gradually grew to resent and hate him through the years, up until at one point, she yells at him to not call her anymore if he was going to continue being an absent father.

Pick your poison.

This leads to the next argument:

"He's a bad father because he's completely absent from Jolyne's life! He rarely bonded with Jolyne at all!"

Then why does Jolyne have so much anger towards him? If he were a fully absent father (as in I-didn't-know-you-existed type of absent), she shouldn't be holding so much resentment toward Jotaro. So, why is she hateful to him?

Because at one point, he was a present parent in Jolyne's childhood before he left. Yes, he could be busy working, but he could've spent his few moments of respite taking care of his daughter to the best he could as a loving father. She is the child he cherished after all. His weakness.

Not to Jonathan or Joseph levels of "golden retriever" and "grandiose" type of affection, but perhaps in more domestic, quiet ways: Cook her meals, read her books, listen to her talk about her day, help and teach her with homework, etc.

If he were a fully absent father, Jolyne should've felt apathetic and confused when meeting him again, not anger. If he were completely absent, Jolyne wouldn't have engaged in delinquent activity to catch her father's attention.

Again, in Moving, the protagonist is raised by a single mother from his childhood to his teens. He does not know who his father is, because when the dad was present, he was a toddler and therefore couldn't remember him. To him, his father is a stranger.

And how he reacts to the father at the end of the show is him not being upset or mad. It's him being surprised, confused, and neutral toward him. Why? Because he doesn't know him.

I would show the images but there's an image limit and I'm sad

Heck, you can say the same for Josuke and Joseph if you want an in-universe example. Josuke never knew who his dad was and was raised by Tomoko all his life. And when he meets old man Joseph for the first time, he's confused and is generally neutral to him. He's shy even when he helps him after his cane broke.

---

Jotaro leaves a lot to interpretation, and while I see a gem of a post here and there sometimes, I have to trudge through a sludge of mischaracterization and an oversaturation of memes that downplay what's canon in favor of fanon validation.

And I get it. I browse Twitter, check the timeline for updates, and notice that most users are impressionable teenagers who are from the West and go about their days living with Western individualistic values.

Maybe, just maybe, some people will project the "bad father" image to Jotaro as a result of their own daddy issues. Just like how misogynists will project themselves onto a favorite character like Jotaro.

I'm not saying this as a definitive truth, but as a possibility. Jotaro is fictional after all, and people will use fiction as a reprieve from reality.

TL;DR? He isn't a bad father, but he isn't a good one either. He's a father who does what he can to protect his daughter, with all his flawed mentality and caring heart.

[fatuismooches]

first of all, tysm for responding to my omega comfort ask, you delivered as always 🫶

I’ve been thinking abt a fragile reader who likes stealing parts of the segment’s outfits when they’re bored 🤩

Omega might struggle to find his mask one day, only to find you standing in front of a mirror, his mask on your face, proudly puffing out your chest and mocking his arrogant tone. He doesn’t interrupt, but watches, amused by your antics.

Maybe Beta will be scrounging around for his bow tie, muttering angrily, until he notices you sitting nearby, adjusting the fabric around your neck. You don’t see it, but he flashes an adoring smile your way 🥰

Also, could I be night anon? 🙏

All of your lovers had a great variety of clothes and stylistic choices spread across them. It would frequently send you into laughter when you saw someone like Beta standing next to Omega, but you truly did love them all the more for their eccentric choices. More importantly, there was no way you could pass up the opportunity to "borrow" such fashionable clothes! Seeing as Dottore and the segments were frequently busy, their clothes were a perfect source of comfort whenever you were bored or missing them, their warmth and lingering scent still remaining.

Omega's blue shirt, white coat, and gloves were the easiest articles to put on - if you spent time trying to put on all those other accessories, you'd tire yourself out before you even began. You had to hold the mask up to your face too, since it was too big to lock in behind your ears properly, and you couldn't even see, but it didn't matter since you had literally become the Doctor in that instance.

"I am first and foremost a scholar. As a scholar, I respect all possibilities." You quoted those lines that Omega loved to parrot and tried to match the level of his sassy scholarness, but unfortunately, you couldn't compare. Your evil laugh didn't even have that oomph to it either...

Little did you know that the segment himself was taking in the sight with amusement. Putting aside your questionable dialogue (which he would get you back for later), he admired how alluring you looked in his clothes. Ah, how wonderful it would be if he could return to you in only his clothes more often. Therefore, he was content to let you embarrass yourself for a while longer before he succumbed to his urge to touch you. You didn't even realize Omega was approaching until you felt a hand quickly turn your chin and guide your lips to his.

"While I find your problem-solving to be most entertaining, if you wanted to be closer to me, I have much better solutions in mind."

-

Beta's clothes, on the other hand, were much simpler to put on. The button-down white shirt was easy to toss on, and his coat was long and surprisingly soft. It would make a good blanket, you thought. Trying to make your eyes line up with the holes of Beta's mask was a chore, so you had discarded it to the side. But what really brought the whole thing together was the iconic pink bow tie, of course.

"He he ho ho." No, that just sounded wrong coming from you. "This bores me," you drawled, imagining the scurrying of some of his menials after the Harbinger lost interest in his latest project, all while perfecting your tug of the bow tie.

Beta's previous grumpiness is forgotten and replaced by his usual blank stare, where he takes in what he's watching while collecting his thoughts. It doesn't take long for him to break into laughter, which makes you practically jump in your seat. If anything, the segment would appreciate it if you could take control of his agents for a day. Perhaps you'd be more suited to the job than he is...

"If you really have nothing better to do, then come with me to my lab. ... No, I didn't say for you to take those off."

[crystallizsch]

guess who (re)watched everything everywhere all at once and cried (again)

[corpusdiem-seizethedead]

Husk: How was your day?

Angel: Good.

Husk: Really?

Angel: Don't make me lie twice.

[youremyonlyhope]

I took this quiz. And some episodes were easy. Some made me just plain mad (Anti-Mavity Motorbike. No. I hate this stupid running joke). Some made me mad because I understood IMMEDIATELY what they meant (Awkward Bed Sharing, Paving Slab, Smacked Bottom) and it annoyed me that it made sense. And some made me mad because I knew the exact episode but could not remember the actual title for the LIFE of me (PE Teacher, Floating Fingers). And others made me want to sob (Cup-A-Soup, Solid Right Hook) because I loved the description choice so much.

Anyway. I need there to stop being so many "the [Blank] of the Doctor" episode titles. I can't keep track of them. At a certain point if I knew it was an 'of the Doctor' episode I just skipped it.

[wonder-worker]

"As for the government of the kingdom, [Edward V] had complete confidence in the peers of realm and the queen."

"According to the Crowland continuator, [Elizabeth Woodville] seems to have taken the king's place in listening to his council immediately after Edward IV's death. It does appear that she expected to have some role in her son's kingship, and the Crowland continuator’s report of the letters sent to her by [Richard of Gloucester] indicates that she had good reason to expect to be able to work with him and the other councillors: 'the duke of Gloucester wrote the most pleasant letters to console the queen; he promised to come and offer submission, fealty and all that was due from him to his lord and king, Edward V, the first-born son of his brother the dead king and the queen'."

"[However], in what was Gloucester's first coup, Edward V was separated from his household and Woodville advisors. When the young king questioned the move, Buckingham was reported to have told the boy 'It is not in the business of women but men to govern kingdoms'. The blunt remark referred to the authority of Elizabeth Woodville as queen and the power she must have anticipated within the new political climate left by Edward IV's sudden death. [...] While the veracity of this scene is questionable*, the words attributed to the duke no doubt seemed plausible to Dominic Mancini who believed they exemplified the popular sentiment held by men [...]."

— Dominic Mancini, The Usurpation of Richard the Third / J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 / Alexander R. Brondarbit, Power Brokers and the Yorkist State, 1461-1485

*One of Mancini's key sources seems to have been Edward V's own doctor, John Argentine, who attended to him in the Tower. It's very likely that he was the one who recounted this scene to Mancini, which suggests that it should probably be considered more credible than not.

[qeisterhaft]

📸

❝   she’s   standing   by   the   window.   watching   you.   there’s   …   𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞   in   her,   boy.   not   blame.   never   blame.   ❞

[thecomet-and-themeteor]

I don't know how much sense this makes but I need a Langelique Cinderella AU, I think it'd work pretty well

[fideidefenswhore]

"The end of Anne Boleyn marks the more sinister transformation in Henry's kingship which underlay his solemn protestations of spiritual headship and godly reform. Nobody could now call him to account in the sacred or secular realm, and although it goes too far to say that his will was law, since some respect was still due to the judicial process, the legal travesty of Anne's trial and execution shows what his unchecked authority could achieve. It also illustrated the forces which Henry had unleashed by breaking with Rome. From this point onwards, political division would be matched by a level of ideological division previously unknown. Anne had been backed by those who supported religious reform and sneered at papal pretension; her fall was hastened by the efforts of those whose loyalties lay with Princess Mary and the Catholic past. Cromwell had slipped adeptly (and temporarily) from the former group to the latter, and such political reinventions were to remain common, but many continued to be fired by strong religious convictions, allowing religious division to exacerbate political tensions to a dangerous extent." (Henry VIII, Lucy Wooding)

+

"For all Henry's protestations of the contrary, the atmosphere at his court in his final years was almost as unsettled and claustrophobic as during the Wars of the Roses. John Husee answered the charge that he no longer sent reports of state affairs to the Lisles by explaining, 'I thereby might put myself in danger of my life...for there is divers here that hath been punished for reading and copying with publishing abroad of news; yea, some of them are at this hour in the Tower.' Civil order was maintained, but only because Henry sold the bulk of the confiscated monastic lands at rock-bottom prices to willing purchasers to create a whole new class of property-owners with a vested interest in the status quo. Spies and informers stalked the country, safe-conducts were needed to travel abroad and the posts were intercepted-- no one felt completely safe." (Hunting the Falcon, Fox&Guy).

[arolesbianism]

Did some abno fights in ruina today which means more nugget slots which means I got to write more dialogue for them let's gooooo 🎉🎉🎉

[miss-oranje-disco-dancer]

then send me a son

pairing: joel miller x reader

cws/tags: so much angst (w/ happy ending! i swear), discussion of suicide attempt (the canon one), suicidal ideations, losing a child, losing a parent, survivors guilt, discussions of abortion, unplanned pregnancy, p in v, oral sex, virginity loss (but it's not that big of deal/not a kink), both dealing w grief, ellie is dead, this is set in jackson post tlou pt I

summary: joel is put on suicide watch after he returns to jackson w/o ellie and reader becomes his 'caregiver' of sorts. lowkey enemies to lovers but also not bc it's kinda one-sided 'hatred'

a/n: author is pro-choice! and also understands the complexities of mental health that reader and joel do not at times (just wanted to make it clear that i understand... from personal experience... what depression is like as well as suicidal ideation).

title is from the song 'the suburbs' by arcade fire, but listen to the entirety of the suburbs (album) and funeral (album) if you want to understand my mindframe while writing this

the last sentence is a quote and i've reblogged it before but i'll find the image and post it/reblog it again

wc: 9.4k

masterlist | ko-fi | taglist

Joel is just surprised Tommy has the gall to ask, “Where’s Ellie?” when he arrives in Jackson alone. 

In this world, when two people leave and only one comes back, you don’t ask because you already know what happened. You wait for that person to tell you about a miracle, and when they don’t, you know for sure. 

“Heaven, if you believe in that sort of thing,” is Joel’s response. 

But Joel doesn’t believe in Heaven or Hell, or anything other than ashes and dirt. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Tommy says because he’d already said ‘I’m sorry’ when Sarah died, and that didn’t bring her back. 

It takes a hefty amount of booze to get Joel to tell the story.

“I just hope she died for something. Then, at least, I’ll know I’m being selfish.”

I didn’t get that with Sarah, he thinks. She didn’t die for a ‘noble cause’. He doubts Ellie did either. 

“You’re being put on watch,” Maria tells him the next morning – when he’s sober and asking what his duties are now that he’s back. 

Life goes on, which means work goes on, so what’s my job? As long as it’s not burning bodies, I’ll be okay. 

“Watch? Like I’m watching, or I’m being watched.”

“Being watched.”

He asks why, though he doesn’t need to. Tommy knows why he’s got that scar on his forehead. 

“Fucking authoritarian bullshit,” he mutters, half into his pillow. “Thought you were a communist.”

“I am. And this has nothing to do with that.”

“I bet Tommy put you up to it anyway.”

“He didn’t ‘put me up to anything’.”

“But he told you, didn’t he?”

“He told me a long time ago.”

“Figures. You always knew I was a coward.”

“You say stuff like that, and then act like you don’t need help.”

“I didn’t say I don’t need help. I said I don’t want it.”

She’s silent, letting him continue. “Now let me grieve in peace, will you?”

She hums something akin to agreement, but asks for something that sounds like protest to him. “Where’s your gun?”

“Which one?”

“All of ‘em.”

He tells her because he doesn’t want Tommy or anyone else searching through all his bullshit because that’s what happens if he doesn’t give ‘em up.

“Want my kitchen knives too?” he says, almost wryly. 

She takes most of them, but leaves the more blunt ones out of sympathy. He can have butter on his toast. Unless she takes the toaster so he can’t take it with him in the bathtub. 

She leaves the toaster, and then, leaves him alone. 

Quite frankly, he’s too old to kill himself. Sure, people do it at his age, but he’s so goddamn tired. Moreover, he knows he could get someone else to do it pretty easily. Maybe he could be a martyr. He could save someone from a clicker or a soldier. He could save someone’s life for once. But would that be enough to save his soul? To make it to Heaven and see Ellie and Sarah again?

Maybe, he would, if God really does love people the way some say he does. But if Joel was God, he’d deny himself entry.

He stays in bed for the rest of the day. Aside from the two times he eats. And once in the middle of the night to take a piss because he may be depressed, but the last of his dignity is motivation enough not to wet the bed. 

He doesn’t shower or change his clothes. Not like he’s wearing a shirt anyway, just boxers ‘cause it’s too hot outside and he doesn’t want to get up and turn on the fan. Sleep doesn’t come easy, but it comes. It comes because it has to, reluctant as it is.

He wakes up to the voice of an unfamiliar woman. Quieter than Ellie or Sarah, less stern than Maria or Tess. Not like he was expecting to hear from three out of four of those women, not outside of his dreams. 

You’ve always cared about people, saving lives and all that. But you’re no good with a gun, so Tommy finds a better job than patrol for you.  

“You’re going to be watching my brother, Joel.”

“Like, spying on him?”

“No, like making sure he doesn’t kill himself.”

A suicidal man is nothing new, especially in this world, but Tommy’s bluntness about it is. He acts as if it’s a normal job. Like the ones in office buildings that sound wonderful even though the people who tell you about them assure you it was barely better than life is now. This new watchmen position is the same as patrol, in a way. Terrifying in the gravity it holds. You have to keep someone alive.

You can shoot deer, you can run quickly, you can hide well. You can survive on your own. But, at age 10, your mom bled out as you sat by her side. You were too weak to carry her, to dig a grave and bury her. Your survival feels unearned, but you’re no good with guns. You’d miss if you tried to do it. That’s a rare thought anyway, and surely not one you plan to ever speak aloud. They’d put you on watch too, which sounds suffocating, in all honesty.

You don’t know Joel. You’ve heard his name in passing, but you arrived in Jackson during the period of time he was gone. He was going to take some girl to some hospital for something or other. 

“What about that girl?” you ask. “Is she not taking care of him?”

“She’s not around anymore.”

“Oh,” you say. 

He just nods. The ‘why’ of the whole arrangement makes sense, but you’re still unclear on the ‘how’. Am I just supposed to stay in his house 24/7? Is he allowed to shower on his own? Do I have to cook or do laundry?

“Just check in on him. He’s not the most… personable, but don’t take anything he says to heart.”

Just check in on him. It sounds simpler than it will be, you know that much. Even keeping a plant alive takes more than ‘checking in on it’. 

You arrive at his house around 10 AM. You assume he’ll be awake, but when you look around his living room and kitchen, you can’t find him. Oh God, you think. What if he’s… 

He’s asleep in bed. You’re pretty sure. He’s lying there and there’s no evidence that anything’s wrong, but when you say his name from the doorway, he doesn’t move. So, you walk closer to him, just to make sure he’s breathing. 

“Joel,” you say softly – because your other option is reaching out to touch him, and you feel that’s a little too personal, especially when he’s not wearing a shirt. 

“Who the Hell are you and how did you get into my house?” he says. 

“Tommy sent me.”

“Oh, so they’re making you watch me?”

“Yeah.”

You’re glad he knows about the arrangement. Maybe he’ll give you some direction on what to do with him. 

“Must hate you if they stuck you with me.” 

You can’t tell if he’s being ironic, but you hope so. Still, you don’t know how to respond. You decide on a simple, “I’ll let you get some sleep. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”

Though you’re alone in the room, you sit with perfect posture on Joel’s couch, looking around at the decor – or lack thereof – looking for clues about who this man is. 

You think about making him breakfast, but you’d have to raid his cabinets to do so, and you’re terrified to make any missteps when it comes to Joel. You don’t think he’ll kill himself over burnt toast, but there is a persistent need lodged inside your brain to make him like you. It’s a little selfish when you should be focused on just keeping him alive, but maybe if he likes you, he’ll feel better, maybe you’ll feel better too. That’s still nothing but the ever-lingering hope in your heart. But it’s something.

He comes downstairs eventually, in a t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. 

“Good morning,” you say. 

“No, it ain’t,” he says, heading in the direction of the kitchen. 

“Do you want me to help you with anything? Breakfast or coffee?”

“I can make my own damn coffee, kid.”

And he does. The first shred of kindness you get from him is an offer to pour you a cup. 

“I’m alright, but thank you.”

He sits down in a chair across from you and sips his coffee as you watch him awkwardly. 

“Are you really gonna do that all day?”

“Do what?”

“Sit there and stare at me.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

“You could leave, for starters.”

“I’ll get in trouble.”

“What? You afraid Tommy’ll get upset with you?”

“A little.”

“He’s a softie. I wouldn’t worry too much.”

You are worried. Sure, you want Tommy to be happy with you, but moreover, you don’t want to leave Joel alone lest something happen to him. You might not know the guy very well, but you’d hate to see someone take their own life. 

“Can I just stay here? I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

He shrugs, and you take it as a yes.

He does not need a caregiver or a watchman. He does not need you, but you look like a kicked puppy and there’s no way he’ll force you to leave. Another young girl he’ll reluctantly let stick by his side. It’s almost cruel of Tommy to send someone like you. Someone young and full of life. Someone he has a hard time pushing away. 

He should’ve sent Joel a crotchety old bitch or a drill sergeant. Maybe Tommy thinks he’s doing Joel a favor by giving him a nice girl, polite and eager to please. It’s a good thing your chipper attitude irritates him. It’s the first item on the very small list of qualities that Joel dislikes.

At first, he insists on making his own food. You’re still a guest, even if he’s reluctant to have you as one. It doesn’t matter where he lives, he’ll always have been raised in Texas. He’ll always hear his mother calling him out on his lack of manners. His hospitality is force of habit.

Plus, if he lets you do anything for him, he’ll owe you something – at least in his mind. And he doesn’t want to owe anyone anything. He doesn’t want to give or get or build any kind of rapport with you whatsoever, especially since you seem to take all attention as progress, despite the fact that Joel is harsh with you most of the time. 

The whole ordeal makes him feel like more of a failure than he did before. He couldn’t save Ellie, or Sarah for that matter, and now he’s being forced into his own retirement or held hostage depending on how you look at it, so he can’t even get the satisfaction that productivity brings.

He also finds himself pretty fucking bored without work. He became so used to being in constant battle, even in his sleep. One wrong move and he was dead. The worst injury he’s gotten in the past few weeks was a paper cut.

Reading was never his biggest hobby, but it’s not bad when you find the right book. Often, you’ll sit across the room from him and read a book of your own, and the silence as he relaxes into the couch is quite peaceful for a change. 

No amount of peace and quiet can cure his boredom, though. It makes him antsy, and you notice. You notice a lot when your job is just staring at him, it seems.

“I found a book of crossword puzzles,” you announce. 

“Congratulations,” Joel says. 

“I thought since you were bored, I’d give them to you, and maybe you could do them…”

By the look on your face, he can guess that you’re regretting your words. Lest he make you cry, he accepts the book. 

“Plus, it looks kind of old so I don’t know if I’d know how to do it myself,” you add.

He knows you don’t mean it as an insult, but it sounds like one, and it makes him laugh. The list of qualities Joel likes about you is already long — and buried deep in his subconscious — but he’ll have to add the fact that you can make him laugh.

“Are you calling me old?”

“Not in a bad way. You’re just older than I am.”

He flips through the book and finds that about 80% of them are done. 

“Somebody did most of these already.”

“I’m sorry… maybe I could erase that person’s answers and then you could do them?”

“I think I’d still be able to tell.”

You hang your head in defeat. 

“Gimme a pencil and I’ll try the ones that aren’t done yet.”

You look through his junk drawer, find a pencil, and hand it to him. He doesn’t expect you to sit on the couch next to him. 

“I know you’re supposed to watch me, but you don’t have to watch that closely.”

You move away slightly, no longer looking over his shoulder. 

“I was just curious about the answers.”

“I was kidding around,” he says (though, it’s only a half-truth). “Come back here.”

It takes him about a week to finish the book. 

“Had to go back and fix some of the others,” he says. “The person who originally filled ‘em out was an idiot.”

“That’s not very nice. Maybe it was a kid.”

“Kid had great handwriting, then.”

You pause, hesitating for a reason he can’t pinpoint. 

“What? You want me to say sorry for calling that guy an idiot. ‘Cause I will if it matters that much to you.”

“No, no, fuck that guy, he was an idiot,” you say, clearly taking after him. 

“Language, Missy,” he says, jokingly scolding you. 

“Sorry. I should stop swearing.”

“It’s okay. You probably picked it up from me anyway.”

“Maybe,” you agree. You’re fidgeting, holding something behind your back, he notices. 

“Whatcha got there?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” you say, holding it out to him. “I just figured since you finished the crossword book, I should get you more.”

He only did the crosswords for you. He never really cared for them anyway. He just wanted to make you happy — he’d rather have you content than pissy or whiny. The only thing worse than your constant insistence on getting his approval would be if you just sat there and cried all day.

He’d tried to give the book back to you, but you couldn’t do ‘em on your own since you were lacking in 90s pop culture knowledge. So, he did them, with you watching over his shoulder the whole time. 

He’s about to admit this to you and hand the new one back over to you when he looks at the pages – white paper, stapled together, all drawn up in pen. 

“Did you make these?” he asks, in awe of both your ability to draw perfectly straight lines, and moreover, how much you must care if you’re willing to go to these lengths. Kiss-ass behavior, he tells himself.

You nod, and he gets the sudden urge to hug you, but opts for a thank you with a smile he can’t repress.

“You didn’t have to do all this, but it’s very sweet of you.”

He considers taking back the ‘very sweet’ comment when he finds that 3 down is four letters with the prompt “grumpy old man”. JOEL fits perfectly in the blank spaces. 

You go on walks, read endless books, and Joel finally lets you start taking on some of the housework. It should be nice, but you get the feeling he’s not all that happy about this situation. Not that he tells you it outright. He doesn’t tell you much at all. And you’ve tried. It’s not like you’re asking hard-hitting questions. 

“How old are you?” 

“56.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue.”

He doesn’t even bother to ask the same question back to you. Sometimes, he doesn’t even look up at you when you speak to him. You know it’s the depression of losing someone close to you, you know what that feels like – the problem is, you don’t know how to fix it. You only know how to hide it.

It’s quite simple, in theory. All you have to do is give him the desire to get out of bed every day. But you don’t even know what he likes. All you know is that your presence is not high on his list of favorite things. You try and try until you swear his shitty attitude is rubbing off on you. 

Tommy checks in with you periodically, asking you how things are going with Joel, and this would be the perfect opportunity for you to get out of this position, which Joel would probably love, but to spite him, you tell Tommy it’s going well.

And it is, in a way – Joel is not actively mean to you. He doesn’t insult you or argue with you, he just mostly ignores you. So, you figure if you ignore him, maybe he’ll miss your attention. Stupid teenage bullshit mindset, acting like you have a crush on him, playing some sort of push and pull game that he’s not even privy to. 

But that’s not like you. That brooding behavior is all Joel, so it lasts no more than a day or so until you go back to trying, and accept the fact that he’s just an asshole. Doesn’t mean you have to be one. 

You never expected to win him over with the crossword puzzles but you see the look in his eyes when you give him the homemade ones, and you know there’s something in there besides all that pain. You know that look, can’t put a name to it, all you know is that it’s a good sign, one you had yet to see from Joel.

Joel wouldn’t have thought he’d get tired of hearing someone ask, “can I do anything for you?”, constantly begging to dote on him, to care for him. The last time someone did this for him was on Father’s Day, which is an ancient holiday now, almost mythical.

But it’s been weeks of the same old shit. It has nothing to do with you. In fact, you’re probably the best ‘caregiver’ he could’ve gotten stuck with. Thing is, though, he doesn’t want a caregiver, and he’s tired of said caregiver bombarding him. It’s enough to just have her watching him like a hawk, but yapping in his ear is another thing. Because he enjoys the quiet (and because the way you ask him questions reminds him of Ellie.)

It’s a joke, a stupid joke. It’s his patience wearing thin.

“Can I get you anything?” you ask. 

“Sure. A beer, maybe. And a fuckin’ blowjob,” he mutters. Yeah, that’d be the dream but it’s a joke, bordering on a jab at you. 

“I don’t think we have any beer,” you say. You both know damn well there’s no alcohol in the house. 

“I know.”

“And, as for the other thing- is that something that you’d want… me to do?”

“Hey,” his tone softens. “Sweetheart, it was a joke. I was messing with you.”

“Okay, so you don’t want that, correct?”

“It was a joke. I’m sorry I even said it.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you say, sheepishly. “It’s your house, your rules, right?”

The concept of free speech in his house was one he’d brought up regarding ‘swear words’— It’s his house so he’s allowed to say ‘fuck’, ‘shit’, ‘bitch’, and every other word he could come up with, and he came up with some deep cuts just to make you laugh. Admittedly, it’s a nice sound.

“Yeah.” He thinks for a moment. “I just think that these sorts of topics aren’t appropriate for someone…”

“You know I’m an adult, right, Joel?”

“Yes, I know, but you’re still young and you seem a little innocent. I don’t want to put those types of thoughts in your head.”

“I know what a blowjob is, and I know what sex is. I just haven’t found the right person yet. That doesn’t mean I’ve never thought about it or whatever.”

You rarely snap at him, so he knows that word — innocent — must’ve been more offensive than he’d meant it. Maybe you’re not innocent. Maybe you’re just kind and a hell of a lot younger than him. Maybe it just seems like you should be.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just saying that I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“But do you want it?” You punctuate every word with a newfound annoyance.

“It’s not about that.”

“Yes it is.” You’re quite incredulous for someone who has been presented with the idea only a moment ago.

“Fine. Yes, in theory, if we were just two people who know each other, then, sure, if you offered, I’d say yes.”

“I offered.”

The way he calls you ‘sweetheart’ feels more like an insult than a term of endearment. You’d rather be ‘kid’ or nothing at all, anything less patronizing. It’s worse when he calls you innocent. You’re not innocent, you’re just nice — something that Joel is not. You’re painfully nice. You’ve heard it makes people like you. You’re still waiting on the results, though.

But, if he’d ordered you to suck him off, you’d have kneed him in the balls, and he would’ve thought twice about calling you ‘sweetheart’. The thing is, he doesn’t. Instead, he backs away from the opportunity, tells you it was a joke. 

But you see two things behind his eyes: one, he wants this. He might not want to want this, but he does. More importantly, you see his genuine concern for your well-being override this desire and you realize you feel safer around him than you do around most men. That’s one of the reasons that you do give him ‘a fuckin’ blowjob’. The other being that, sometimes, before you go to bed, you can’t sleep, and a certain man comes to mind as your fingers slip beneath the waistband of your panties. 

When you reiterate that you offered, you exchange a long stare wherein you try to reach into each other’s souls and sort this shit out but when you both realize you can’t, Joel says, “Okay.”

And you say, “Okay.”

A new kind of tension bubbles to the surface as Joel sits down on the couch and you kneel before him. 

You fiddle with his belt, eventually managing to get it undone, but Joel does the rest of the work it takes to get his pants down to his ankles, boxers too. 

You’d imagined he’d be big, but that’s how fantasies work. Every man’s dick is big in your lewd daydreams, but it’s like you manifested it with Joel. You begin to feel like you’re in over your head, and though you aren’t innocent, you aren’t experienced enough to take him. But who are you to back down from a challenge?

Joel can see hesitation wash over your face for the first time. You pause, study the scene like you’re trying to decide your approach, and then you take his cock in your hand, looking up at him like you’re asking for the green light.

He gives you the go-ahead with the only piece of advice he thinks you’ll need. “Just don’t bite, and you’ll do fine.”

He probably should’ve mentioned another thing: don’t take too much at once or you’ll choke. His head lolls back and his eyes fall closed the moment your lips meet the tip of it. He doesn’t touch you, doesn’t want you to feel intimidated by his presence while you’re exploring, so to speak. He lets out a low groan of approval to let you know he’s still with you.

But he’s fading into a beautiful oblivion until he hears you gag, feels you sputter and it shocks him out of that blissful feeling. His eyes snap open and he cradles the back of your head. 

“Easy, easy,” he says. “Don’t hurt yourself.” 

You pull away briefly and catch your breath. 

“That’s good,” he says. “Breathe, baby.”

He can see you looking for instructions, so he takes your hand and helps you get a firm grip on his cock, sliding your hand up and down, and finally letting you do it on your own. 

“Doin’ good, baby,” he says. “You gotta give your mouth a break sometimes.”

You’ve never gotten anything close to praise from Joel before. It’d warm your heart like nothing else if it weren’t so goddamn sexy in this context. 

You nod, wipe the spit from your chin, and give your mouth a brief break, but you can’t hold yourself back forever. Soon, your lips are back on his cock, kissing from the base to the tip, flicking your tongue over the head, seeing what reactions you can get from him. 

When you get into the rhythm of hand and mouth in tandem, you barely register him telling you that he’s gonna come. 

You imagine it’s an acquired taste but it’s not awful. You can swallow it. So, you do, and you look up at him with a smile. 

He looks like he’s woken up from a dream and he’s still getting his bearings straight, but he’s quick to stand up and take your hand. 

“Where are we going?”

“To my bed.”

You’d follow him anywhere but bed does sound good to you right now. It sounds like an adventure. You don’t go into his bedroom unless absolutely necessary. You’d think he was hiding something horrible in there if you didn’t have a mutual feeling regarding your own bedroom.

“Are we going to have sex?” you ask. 

“No,” he says. 

“Then, what are we going to do?”

“You,” he begins. “Are going to lie back and relax.”

He coaxes you to lie down, and he doesn’t have to try hard. 

“I,” he continues. “Am going to make you feel good.”

You’re fairly certain about what he means, so there’s nothing left for you to do but let him do the work. It’s just another part of the job you’ll have to learn from experience.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he says. 

You nod. 

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” he says, playing with the hem of your t-shirt. 

“Wait-” you say, sitting up, and he withdraws. “Can we kiss… first?”

He looks surprised for a moment, and you worry you’ve fucked up. 

“I just feel like we should do that,” you say, much quieter.

“Yeah,” he says. “I guess that makes sense.”

His hand cups your cheek and he looks you in the eyes like he’s trying to find answers somewhere in there. 

“Has anyone ever kissed you before?”

“Not really, not the way I want you to kiss me.”

“Feels a bit rude of me to have put my dick in your mouth before you’d even been kissed.”

Still, he leans in and kisses you, but it’s soft, gentle. It’s not a peck on the lips, though, it’s more. It gradually gains momentum and passion. Eventually, he slips his tongue in your mouth and you take it in stride. 

“You’re very good at this,” he says. “If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t think this was your first time.”

“Is that a compliment?” you ask, doubting Joel is capable of such things.

He ignores your question, and sighs. You know it’s not directed at you because you’re fairly sure he’s not listening.

“I know I said I was gonna do some things with you, but I don’t wanna take things too fast, okay?”

“Are you saying you’re just going to kiss me?”

“I think that’d be the right thing to do.”

“That’s not fair,” you whine.

You wish you could sound sexy, or whatever, but you probably come off like a bratty child.  

“Excuse me?”

“That’s not fair. You said you’d make me feel good. I thought you were gonna return the favor.”

“I was.”

“Then, why are you backing out?”

You’re shocked that he’s the pussy — pun-intended — in this scenario.

“I thought it might be too much for you.”

You grab his hand and slip it under the flimsy fabric of your shorts. 

His eyes go wide. 

Fucking hell, you’re wet, is the only thought on Joel’s mind. It makes sense. He’d be offended, maybe even worried if you were dry as a desert down there, but he’s barely touched you. Either you really enjoyed kissing him or you actually liked sucking him off too.

He gently presses the pads of his fingers against the wet spot on your panties.

“You’re right, baby. It’s only fair if I help you out.”

He’s able to get your shorts and your panties down in one swift pull. You look impressed by the action. Just you wait, he thinks. He’s not an expert by any means, but it’s not too hard to learn if you pay attention — and sex is one of the only times Joel does listen — it’s also not a skill you lose over time. It’s muscle memory, or maybe it’s innate.

His thumb rubs your clit lazily as he watches your face scrunch up in pleasure, your eyes fill with need. When the first finger slips inside you, he hears a breathy sigh come from above — it sounds like relief though he knows you haven’t come yet.

He’s never had a woman have such a strong reaction to his lips on her clit. It almost startles him at first. You’re frantic from the moment his lips meet your skin, crying out for him like you’re scared he’ll stop.

“Hey,” he says, “I’m right here. Don’t have to get so worked up. I’m gonna take care of you.”

He can’t say another word because his lips are occupied, so he relies on his hands, his soothing touch, to tell you that everything is alright. He gets the urge to tell you how good you are for him, how good you taste, how pretty you are like this, but he knows it’d be cruel to let up now. He’s callous often, sometimes harsh, but rarely cruel.

His instinct tells him to drag this out, to make your thighs shake, to have tears running down your cheeks, to tease you. To be the asshole that he tends to be when you’re around (and when you’re not). This is a version of Joel you might come to like.

He’s lived long enough to be well-practiced in this field of life. Doesn’t matter if he’s particularly romantic or even sociable, it’s just happened enough times over the course of fifty plus years for him to know the ins and outs. He can get you there quickly and lead you through it slowly.

He’s so used to you saying his name in a tone he considers pestering that he’s begun to hate the word itself. But when it’s drawn out and desperate like this, it sounds wonderful.

You’re at his mercy, he thinks. Which means he’s in control. And, as much as he’d hate to admit it, control does not mean he can kill you, control means he can care for you.

When you come down from your high, Joel is looking up at you from between your thighs with messy hair and kiss-dark lips. His smile looks like one of pride. Your cheeks heat up, only half-remembering what just happened. You could describe the event simply in a cause and effect relationship — he went down on you, so you came. You know what an orgasm feels like, but that was something beyond anything you’d ever experienced before. You fear an addiction may be coming on.

Your voice comes out shaky, which only makes your first words after a long silence sound stupider. “Thank you.”

He looks confused, and it takes him a moment to respond. “My pleasure,” he says, and you swear it might be when you see a semi through his sweatpants.

You’d offer more ‘help’ but you truly don’t think you can manage it. You can feel your body pulling you towards sleep. Your eyes have barely opened and they want to close again.

Joel notices because how could he not, you’re completely naked in every sense of the word.

“Get some rest,” he says before standing up.

He’s leaving.

“Where are you going?” you ask, instinctively.

“Downstairs.”

You do not want to say it. The fear of rejection is too strong, but so is the sudden urge to cry. Holding back tears is a strength of yours, though, so Joel never sees them. Somehow, after doing one of the most adult things, you feel like a baby in the wake of it. You are supposed to be taking care of him, and you are failing.

“What?” is his response to your refusal to meet his eyes.

“I just assumed you were going to stay. That’s all.”

“I can. If that’s what you need me to do.”

You don’t say anything. He climbs into bed anyway after picking up your underwear and handing it to you.

He doesn’t hold you but he doesn’t leave either. What he does do is kiss you on the forehead when he thinks you’re already asleep. It’s a compromise between your fear and your desire.

It isn’t as weird as one might think it would be — acting as if you’ve never done anything remotely sexual with one another. It’s easier because you don’t have to go back to being friends. You never really were. It was always awkward. What’s new? Only your knowledge that at least some of your feelings are mutual. Only the fact that you think about having sex with him every time he’s in front of you. It’s really just out of curiosity sometimes. What would he be like in bed? Does he want it too? How would you even broach the subject?

Sometimes, it’s not just curiosity. Those days are harder to navigate. You have to pretend like every little touch — most of them accidental — fuels the fire. It’s not the sensation itself. It’s just the acute awareness of his body, how close it is to yours, how easily you could reach out and touch him, that enters your mind.

“You’re staring.” Joel says from the other side of the couch.

“Sorry. I zoned out.”

“Got something’ on your mind?”

“Not really.”

“C’mon, what is it?”

“Why do you suddenly care about my thoughts?” About me.

“You think I didn’t care about you before? You’ve been in my house everyday for months now.”

“So?”

“And, I haven’t tried to kick you out yet.”

“You’re not allowed to kick me out. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay. How ‘bout this: I’m down here sitting with you because I know you don’t like to be alone.”

“So you pity me?”

“No, if I pitied you, I’d have told Tommy to give you a new job.”

“Okay, so, you expect me to believe you care but you refuse to talk to me half the time.”

“I’m not much of a talker. But, now that I’m trying to talk to you, you’re shutting me out.”

“I’m not— It’s just not a big deal. I don’t even remember what I was thinking about anyway.”

“Bullshit.”

“What?”

“I said, that’s bullshit.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll talk.”

You take a deep breath before speaking, one long enough that he gestures for you to go on.

“I was just thinking about what it would be like if we had sex.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, since we, you know, we did that stuff… it’s not like it’s a totally crazy thought.”

“‘That stuff’? Be more specific, honey.”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I do, but you can’t be thinking about having sex with me when you can’t even use big girl words when you’re talking about it.”

“It doesn��t even matter.” Your face is burning. It so, totally, does matter. “I was just curious.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Mm-hmm. Go on thinking, I’ll get back to reading.”

“Wait, what? You just made me tell you that to make me embarrassed? You’re not even gonna—”

“What? Gonna fuck you?”

The word slips out of his mouth so easily.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Truth is: he’s been thinking about you every day since. He only caught you staring because he was doing the same. He tries to restrain himself because it feels like the right thing to do.

But he still, he acquiesces and takes you upstairs to his bedroom.

He lays you down on the bed and undresses you slowly like you’re a gift and he doesn’t want to tear the paper. He places your clothes atop the dresser, but leaves his strewn across the floor.

Wonder fills your eyes as he reveals his naked body. Hesitation and awe wrapped up in one.

“Wow,” you say, breaking the silence, “it’s, um, you know— do you think it’ll fit?”

It’s not the first time he’s heard that. It no longer brings him that bashful pride that it did when he was younger. It’s just a fact. A nuisance sometimes.

“Not if we don’t get you ready first.”

“Do you need to get ready first too?”

He looks down at his cock, rock-hard and eager.

“No, baby, just looking at you is enough to get me ready.”

A thought crosses his mind — one he thought he’d left in his teenage years — what if he comes too quickly?

He lies back on the bed next to you and reaches for you, waits for you to let him maneuver you.

“Come here,” he says.

You sit up and face him, slowly inch towards his arms that beckon you.

You’re fairly sure you know what he wants you to do. Sit on his face. But god, something about it seems awkward in the amount of control you simultaneously give up and are given in turn.

“You trust me, right?” he asks.

“Of course.”

An answer you wouldn’t have ever thought you’d give back when you first met.

“Then, come sit on my face.”

You swing your leg over him and steady yourself above his face.

He grips your thighs to guide you. You grip the headboard to save yourself from passing out the moment Joel’s mouth meets your skin.

Joel wouldn’t be the man you’d have thought would have such a talented tongue based on how little he uses it. You can’t blame him for not talking right now. Your moans echo off his bedroom walls and permeate the balmy summer air. The windows are closed and the curtains shield your naked bodies from the neighbors but even if you’d left them open, you wouldn’t have the sense to care.

You’re an incoherent mess of moans and half-words, trembling thighs and sweat. Your orgasm comes on strong, and if your eyes weren’t screwed shut, maybe you’d see the gates of heaven.

It’s been a while since he’s done this. Tess never liked it like this and the last woman before her was one from another lifetime, pre-outbreak, an inconceivable world despite having once called it home.

He’s not really thinking about that, though, in this moment, all Joel can think of is you. Your skin, your sweat, your heat, and the pretty noises you make. At one point, he swears he hears his name though your thighs are covering his ears. And he doesn’t mind it one bit.

“I’m gonna pass out,” he hears from above him.

“No, you’re not. I’ve got you,” he tries to say, though surely his words are muffled.

“Don’t let me go.”

He doesn’t. He carefully helps you lie back on the bed. When he meets your gaze, he swears he’s never seen adoration like that in anyone’s eyes before. At least, not in a long time.

It terrifies him, but in spite of his hesitation, he holds you close.

A blanket of peaceful silence settles over your bare bodies.

You speak quietly, trying not to awaken Joel’s senses. The ones that pull him away from you. The moment feels like glass in your hands.

“Are we going to have sex?”

“Hm?”

“We were going to, right? You were getting me ready for it.”

“I thought I wore you out.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I want to stop.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’d tell you if you were.”

He hesitates.

“I’ll be good. I promise.”

Those are the words that awaken his arousal. In an instant, you find his body looming above yours. He kisses you until your lips are red and puffy. He doesn’t break your gaze as he positions his cock at your entrance. Your green light is your needy hips begging him to fuck you.

He starts slow, even the head is a stretch. You scrunch up your face and hold back the urge to squirm.

“It’s gonna be a little uncomfortable at first, baby, and that’s why we’re gonna take it slow.”

Slow is an understatement. It takes ages for him to give you another inch — or maybe you’re just antsy. This one makes you whimper, makes you clamp down around him.

“It’s okay, baby. You’re gonna be fine.”

Joel’s voice is tender and sweet, and it gives you enough hope to ask for something you think he’d usually deny you.

“Can you hold my hand?”

He interlocks his fingers with yours. It feels oddly natural. He doubts he’s heard someone ask to hold his hand since— not now, he’ll go soft if he thinks about her. He’ll close in on himself and you need him — in more ways than one.

He continues slowly as he promised he would until he hears your moans of pleasure and your pleas for more, more, more. More is a little bit faster, a little bit harder, as deep as you can take it, and most importantly, his thumb tracing circles on your clit.

You squeeze his hand with yours as your inner walls clamp down around him.

“Just let it happen. It’s okay. I’m right here.”

When you come, he does too — the most blissful mistake he’s ever made.

Curses fly out of his mouth through his orgasm, stopping briefly as he catches his breath, and resuming when he pulls out and watches as his come drips out of you.

“Fuck. Shit. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you insist. “I liked it.”

“I’m glad you liked it.” Because I fucking loved it. “But, it’s dangerous. We’ve gotta be more careful.”

In the future — it’s implied. Another time is nothing when the lines have all been crossed and when the other side brings him a warmth the hot summer never could.

You have more power over him than the sun.

It becomes a routine — briefly — and you are more careful. You discreetly buy condoms, but when your next period doesn’t come, you fear it might be too late.

You don’t tell Joel, not at first. Sometimes, they’re irregular, and you don’t want to give the man a heart attack. But then a week passes, another week passes, and eventually you have to — especially when you’re beginning to feel a bit nauseous and have no other explanation for it. It’s better to say something before he asks.

“Joel,” you say, “I haven’t gotten my period yet.”

A look of horror crosses his face before he asks, “How late is it?”

You take a breath before admitting, “A few weeks.”

“How many?”

“Almost three.”

“Fuck.” He sighs in preemptive defeat. “Have you taken a test?”

“No, I thought it would come so I didn’t want to overreact.”

“We’re going to go get one.”

He stands up immediately and turns towards the door.

“Wait,” you say, stopping him in his tracks.

“I should probably get it. It’ll look less suspicious.”

No, it won’t. Those who suspect something is up with you, will have their suspicions, and those who don’t, won’t think to pay attention.

They recommend taking multiple because false negatives are common.

The first one is a clear positive, so clear you think it might be a false positive, so you wait to freak out until you see two lines come up on the second test.

Joel is silent, even when you hand him the test.

But, so are you, because what more is there to say? The tests say it all.

“I’ll do whatever you need me to,” he says, and you’re surprised until he clarifies.

“I doubt they’ll make you pay for the pill or the procedure — however they do it, but I’ll take care of you while you’re recovering. I’ll be there through it all. Promise.”

The pill or the procedure. The abortion that he expects you to have. Truth be told, you hadn’t really thought about what you’d do until now. It’s probably the right decision. Do you really want to bring a baby into this world? Can you even take care of one?

“Okay,” you say. “I’ll make an appointment.”

You save your tears for Maria. She approaches you in the clinic. You’d be delighted to see her at any other moment.

“Making an appointment?” she asks.

“Yeah, just a checkup,” you lie.

The woman at the counter clarifies with you. “Just a checkup? Is that what you’d prefer?”

You turn back and forth between her and Maria.

“Um, no,” you say, “keep it as is.”

Maria raises an eyebrow and there is nowhere left to hide. You might be able to outrun her, but she knows where you live and isn’t afraid to confront you at your doorstep.

She saves you some of your dignity when she whispers, “How about a chat at my place? I have some tea that helps with nausea.”

The tea is persuasive but you’d have to go anyway. You don’t speak on the walk to Maria’s. She brews the tea and you sit across from each other in the kitchen before she finally speaks.

“What’s the appointment for?” she asks. “And I’m not here to judge you, I just want the truth.”

You’re not my mom, you could say, but she’s the closest thing you’ve had to one since your own passed.

“An abortion,” you say quietly, looking down at the table, at your hands around the mug.

“Okay,” she says, gently. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

You try to reply but all the comes out is a sob.

Eventually, she pries the truth out of you. You explain what happened when you told Joel the news.

“So, he made the decision, and then told you he’d be there for you if he did what you wanted?”

“I guess. But, I think it might be the right choice. I mean, it'd be hard to raise a child in this world…” You cut yourself off when you look at her bump. She’s gonna be a mom, a good mom. And, stupidly, you’re jealous.

Even though it’s not there yet, you swear you can see a high chair in your periphery. You could be holding a warm bottle instead of a hot mug of tea. Maria could be feeding her child his first bite of baby food next to you.

“Let me ask you something, and I want you to really think about it, and be honest with me.”

You nod and wait for her question.

“If Joel had said he’d support you no matter what, even if you wanted to keep the child, if he said he’d step up as a father, would you have made the appointment?”

“I don’t know.” Oh, but you do. Maria waits for you to come to a conclusion, for you to spit it out.

“I like the idea of having a kid. I love kids, and I sometimes think about what it would be like being a mom, but I know that I can’t be one. Not right now.”

If there is one thing Joel can’t be, it’s a father. Not again. He’s too old, too grouchy, too cynical. He’s not the man he used to be. He was never good at it anyway. He couldn’t save his own kid. He’s already a failed father — once, if not, twice.

You’d be a great mother, and that’s the greatest tragedy. He’s failed you already. He’s not good at the kinder things of life. He shouldn’t have indulged in you, in the love you gave him when he cannot give it back. There are a lot of things Joel can’t quite get right — being a lover, a father, a good man.

Every night since the outbreak began, he’s watched Sarah bleed out in his arms. Sometimes he sees Tess, Sam and Henry, Bill, even Tommy which feels like an augury. Ellie is there almost every night, losing consciousness. Only sometimes is she in that hospital bed, often, she’s lying in the show, with blue lips and almost no pulse. Now, you’ve begun to enter his subconscious. You’re always too far out of reach, screaming his name until he’s shot dead, and the last thing he hears is you shriek as you watch him die in front of you.

Another person is another tragedy once they have the misfortune of coming into his life. There cannot be another person, especially not a child.

You should be back by now, he thinks as he splashes water on his face for the umpteenth time, hoping it’ll wash away all the mistakes he’s made.

He can tell it’s Maria by the way her knuckles rap on his front door. He can tell she’s pissed too.

When he opens the door, he sees you in standing behind her, like you’re afraid of him.

“Unless you want to have this discussion on your doorstep, I suggest you let me — us — inside.”

He does, reluctantly.

“Joel Miller, when do you plan on becoming a man?”

“What?”

“You just told her to make an appointment, didn’t even give her a chance to think about it? You managed to run away from your problems while you’re on house arrest. Impressive.”

“I thought that was what we both wanted,” he says, looking past her, to you.

“I guess, maybe,” you shrug.

The one thing he’s grateful for is Maria’s suggestion that you talk privately.

You sit further from him than usual, you refuse to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask what you wanted. I thought I was making the right choice.”

“It’s okay. I don’t even know what I want.”

But the tears suggest otherwise.

“Do you want to keep the baby?”

“Maybe, but I can’t. It’s not a good idea.”

“That’s what I think, but Maria’s right, it’s your choice.”

“But I don’t know how to make that choice.”

“You’ve got a good heart. Follow it.”

You spend a lot of time thinking, remembering, and trying to convince yourself that there is no part of you that wants to be a mother. But, in your bedside drawer, there is a handful of photos — all from before the outbreak. You see your mom as a child on a swing set, and as a teen blowing out candles on her birthday. Her mom is in that one too, sitting next to her, smiling. You wish more than anything to have pictures of you and your mom.

You think about the little girl who pretended a ratty old stuffed bear was her baby. You can hear your mom telling you that you’re doing a good job, how you’ll be good at this one day. Your bedtime stories were never about fairy princesses, but about your family, the ones you didn’t get to meet.

“I wish I could have that,” you’d say.

“One day, you might be able to — the world is scary right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna be like this forever,” she’d insist.

In retrospect, you wonder if she really believed that, if she really believed that teddy bear would one day be a baby that you’d be the one carrying, and she’d be the proud grandmother.

“I told her I wanted to be a mom like her,” you explain to Joel, and he understands.

You know about Ellie, but not about Sarah. Joel never brings either of them up to you. Until now. It’s a fair trade, he tells himself. Photos for photos, info for info. But it’s more than that.

“Hold on for one minute, I’m gonna go get something, and I’ll be right back.”

It’ll only take him a second to grab the pictures, but he’ll need a moment to compose himself.

“This is Sarah,” he says, pointing to the little girl in the photo. “My daughter.”

You’re silent for a moment, gazing at the photo, at a younger Joel you’ve never met.

You’re the first person not to tell him that you’re sorry for his loss, and he is relieved not to hear the empty sympathies once more.

“What was she like?” you ask.

It’s hard to explain, and for that reason, he talks for at least a half hour about Sarah. All her likes and dislikes, all his favorite moments from the day she was born until the day she died. He tells the story of that too.

When you try to tell him that he sounds like he was a good dad, he has to explain why he wasn’t.

“I couldn’t save her,” he says.

“I couldn’t save her either,” you say, pointing to your mother in one of the photos.

“You were just a child,” he says. “It’s not your fault.”

“And, you were just a man,” you say. “It’s not your fault.”

“A grown man.”

“Doing the best that you could.”

And you’re right. He did try his best. He stops arguing not because he’ll ever concede but because the weight of the present falls upon him all at once as he meets your eyes and remembers why you’re here.

He can’t have Sarah back, he can’t have Ellie back, but you’re right in front of him — and he loves you. It’s too late to turn back and kick you out on your first day, it’s too late to never speak to you, it’s too late to not love you.

It’s not too late to fail you like he’s failed everyone else. It’s not too late to do the opposite either.

You tell him your decision, and wait for his disagreement, for him to dissuade you. But, he doesn’t.

“Okay,” he says.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try my best.”

You cancel the appointment and make the final decision, but it doesn’t feel real until Joel finishes building the crib in the spare bedroom. The most unexpected part is how excited you feel even when you’re nauseous, even when your feet are bloated, even when your back is killing you.

You’re also terrified, particularly when you hear Maria’s account of her labor and delivery. For someone describing how painful it was, she seems oddly unfazed, happy even. She’s too focused on her baby boy, and you get it — he is pretty cute.

When the day comes, you find that you’ve underestimated the pain entirely. The wounds you’ve gotten in combat are nothing compared to this. Every hour that goes by feels like a full day for you. Every time the doctor checks your dilation it’s still not yet time.

Until it is. And everything becomes a million times more chaotic. You swear the only thing keeping you sane is Joel’s hand in yours. (You have to apologize later for squeezing it so tightly.)

Finally, the telltale cry comes, and it feels like you’ve run a marathon by how exhausted you are and by how proud you are of yourself for doing it. This will go down as the greatest feat of your life and you are more than satisfied with that fact.

The doctor announces that it’s a boy and though he said he’d be fine with either gender, Joel’s smile is wider than you’ve ever seen it. You’re smiling almost as big. It hurts your cheek muscles but you can’t stop, especially when they hand you your baby boy. Though he doesn’t know how to speak, his hand wrapped around your finger tells you that it’s going to be okay.

There is so much pain in this world, but not in this room.

[letteredlettered]

feedback and fic in fandom (3 f's of our own)

This conversation about feedback on fic says everything I’ve been wanting to say better than I could say it. But I’ll go ahead and try anyway.

Over the last five years or so there have been some great discussions around the rise of commodification of fanworks and decline of fandom community. This commodification looks a bit like enshittification of the internet: a cool site exists; its popularity makes someone realize they can get money from it; it has more and more ads; the site adds features to drive engagement, including The Algorithm; the things that made the site cool start to fall away. The site exists now as a vehicle purely to get clicks, and the people on it are on it solely to get clicks—to make money, to be successful, for some kind of social cachet.

AO3 doesn’t have advertisements. It’s not making money. But what is happening to fandom is proof of concept that enshittification changes the way we as humans engage. A cool website in 2004 was often a community space where you could meet people, have conversations, find cool things, and make cool things. A cool website in 2024 is either a content farm that will continually feed you enough content to hold your attention, or a social media site where your participation will come with stats to show you whether you are holding the attention of others.

AO3 wasn’t built to be a community space. It doesn’t have great functions for meeting people and having conversations. The idea was that, because fandom community spaces already existed, AO3 would serve the part of that community where you can find the cool things and store the cool things you made. It was meant to be a library in a city, not the whole city itself.

But it was also never meant to be a website in 2024, a content farm constantly generating content solely for your clicks and eyeballs and ad revenue, or a social media site where the content creators themselves vie for your clicks and eyeballs.

The most common talking point when people discuss the enshittification of fandom is the folks out there who are treating AO3 as that first kind of enshittified website: the content farm. This discussion is about how people treat fanfic as a product for consumption.

The post that kicked off the discussion on @sitp-recs’s blog was about someone who wasn’t getting very many kudos or comments on their fic, and was feeling pretty demoralized about it, then joined a discord server and found an entire channel dedicated to people loving their fic. But those on that server had never come to share that love with the author, which the author found really discouraging.

There are more and more stories like this. Someone on tiktok pulls a quote from a fic on AO3 and makes a 10-second video with them staring at a wall, the quote pasted at the bottom, music playing over it. It has 100,000 hearts, and 100 comments with people gushing over the fic, which has 80 kudos on AO3. Overall, people notice more and more hits on their fics, but fewer and fewer comments or even kudos. Fewer and fewer people seem to feel the need to interact with the author, instead treating the fic like a product to be used and discarded—which the enshittified internet (a stunning feature of late-stage capitalism!) encourages. The fandom community is dying, these stories conclude.

I agree. 100%. Both of the stories above have happened to me—viral tiktoks about my fic, secret discord channels to follow and discuss my fic—and let me tell you, it fucking sucks.

But from these observations about fandom enshittification, the discussion continues in a very odd direction. The solution to the death of fandom community is our favorite enshittification buzzword: engagement. We should engage the authors. They’re producing these products for free. We consume them at no cost. We must demonstrate our gratitude by paying them back.

It’s as though the capitalist consumption that the enshittified web encourages is so ingrained within us that we must think in terms of payment, in terms of exchange, transaction. Or as though, by forgoing payment, authors are some kind of martyrs defying capitalism, and the only way to honor their great sacrifice is comments and kudos.

Indeed, the discourse around this sometimes does veer away from capitalist rhetoric into something that smells almost religious in desperation. Authors are gods who bestow us mere mortals with the fruits of their labor benevolently, through love; the least we can do is worship them. Meanwhile the authors adopt the groveling sentiment of starving artists: I produce great art; I only humbly ask that you feed me in return.

These kinds of entreaties make my skin crawl for a number of reasons. I’m not a god. I’m not writing because I love you. I don’t expect your worship or even your praise.

I think the thing that disturbs me the most about it is that it suggests that authors (or, if the OP is feeling generous fan work creators) are the most important people in fandom. I’ve even seen posts stating that without creators, fandom wouldn’t exist—as though readers aren’t just as important. As though conversations where people discuss characterizations and plot points and randomly spin out interpretations and ideas and thoughts related to canon are meaningless. I’ve even seen people scramble to include folks having these discussions as “creators,” as though realizing that these people are necessary and integral to fandom communities but unable to drop the idea that the producers are the ones who are important. As though that person who just lurks can never count.

Is this what community is? When you join the queer community, are you expected to produce a product of your queerness? If not, must you actively participate and give back to the queer community in order to be considered a part of it? Or is it enough that you are queer, that you exist as a queer person and want to be around others who are queer, you want to be a part of something? What is community, anyway?

The problem with people raising the authors above everyone else in the community and demanding that tribute be paid is that they are decrying the “content farm” style of 2024 website out of one side of their mouth, but out of the other side are instead demanding that AO3 become a 2024-style social media website. Authors are influencers. “Engagement” and clicks are the things that really matter. They are in fact suggesting that the way to solve the commodification of fanfic is by “paying authors back” with stats.

Before anyone comes at me with the idea that comments aren’t just “stats,” I will clarify what I mean. There are literally hundreds of posts on tumblr alone claiming that any comment “helps” the author. Someone replies that they are shy to comment. Someone else replies that incoherent keyboard smashes, a single emoji, or the comment “kudos” are all that is required to satisfy the author, all that is required as tribute—all that is required as payment to keep this economy healthy.

I’m not condemning the comments that are keyboard smashes or emojis or a single kind word. I receive them. They make me happy. If anyone wants to leave such a comment on my fics, I’m really grateful for it. But this is not community-building. This is a transaction. In @yiiiiiiiikes25’s excellent response in the post linked at the beginning, they point out that “you have a cool hat” is something that is “perfectly nice” to hear from someone—and it is! We all want to be told we have a cool hat! But as they go on to say, what builds community is interactions that are deep and specific, interactions that are rich in quality, not in quantity. A kudos or a comment that says only ❤️are lovely things to receive, but they don’t build community.

My reaction, when I see people begging for kudos and comments as the only means by which to keep fandom community alive, is very close to @eleadore's. I want to say, “No. Readers do not need to comment or kudos. Believe not these hucksters who claim to know the appropriate method of fandom participation. Participate as you feel able, or not at all; nothing is required of you.”

I’ve been told before (several times) that I’m not qualified to participate in such discussions because I am an established author who has some fics with very high stats. It doesn’t matter that I have also been a new writer with almost no one reading my fics. It doesn’t matter that I still write in new fandoms where no one in that fandom knows me. It doesn’t matter that I, like any human being, still care about receiving recognition and attention and praise.

And maybe that’s correct. I personally don’t think that billionaires have a place in deciding the direction of the economy, and--if we're really going to consider fandom an economy--in fandom terms, if I’m not a billionaire, or even a millionaire, I’m definitely in the infamous “one percent.” So, just as no one wants to hear Elon Musk say “money isn’t everything,” maybe it’s not my place to say “kudos isn’t required, actually.”

That said, I’m not the only one who has a problem with the stats-based discourse around fandom community. However, the main counter-response to this discussion I see goes something like this: you shouldn’t be writing fic for validation. If you’re writing for attention, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Authors should write fic because they love it without any expectation of return.

This is, in my opinion, missing the point of what is meant by fandom community.

I wrote fanfic before I knew that fanfic, as a concept, existed. I read books; I wanted them to be different; I wrote little stories for myself with new endings, with self-inserts, with cross-overs, with alternate universes. I did it for myself in the 90s. It never occurred to me that anyone else would do this, much less that people would share.

As @faiell points out—creating and sharing are two different things. I created fics for myself, but I decided to share them in the early 2000s because other people might like them, too. And of course, I wanted to hear whether other people liked them. How could I not? I might decorate my home just for me and not for anyone else’s preferences, but when people come over and say my house is nice, how can I not enjoy that? And if a lot of people think my house is nice, which encourages me to post pictures of it online, isn’t it understandable I might do so with the hope that more people will say my house is nice? And, honestly, if no one is appreciating my pictures, I probably won’t continue to go through the trouble of taking them and posting them. I’ll just enjoy my house that I decorated without sharing, the end.

When I found out there were whole fannish communities where people discussed canon and tossed ideas around about it, made theories and prompts and insights into the characters, fics they had written and recs for other fics and analyses of fics and art based on fics and fics based on art—I wanted to be a part of that, too. Now, sometimes, I write fic not out of an internal need to do so but out of a desire to participate in that community.

The idea that we write fic only for the love of it, then post it only because we possess it, is a process entirely centered on the self. It’s fandom in a vacuum. The idea that we share this thing, that we feel pleasure if someone likes it but feel nothing at all if no one says anything about it, that it’s completely okay to be ignored and unseen—that’s not what a community is either. That’s some weird sort of self-aggrandizement through self-effacement—because yes, there is often a weird kind of virtue-signaling in this kind of discourse.

I say this as someone who has virtue-signaled in that way: “some people write for stats, but I write for myself.” It’s bullshit. Sure, I write for myself, but why post it on the internet? Honestly, said virtue has a whiff of the capitalist machine, which would like you to produce for the sake of production, work for the sake of work. The noblest among us expect no recompense for that which they give!

The reason that I’m bringing this back around to capitalism is that capitalism actively works to dismantle community. The reason that folks are out here pleading for “engagement” in order to “pay back” authors for the products they give us “for free” is because people no longer even have the language to discuss how to participate in meaningful community. And frankly, how to build back fandom community, in the face of enshittification, is getting harder and harder to see.

But I do think that if we value fanfic and the fanfic community, it’s really, really not constructive to judge whether someone’s reasons for writing fanfic are valid. It’s also weird to me that it would be considered wrong that someone’s reason for sharing fanfic is because they would like to receive some recognition for it, when in fact that seems to be the most natural reason in the world for sharing something so private and vulnerable with the world.

Let’s go back to that idea of how hurtful it is to find out your fanfic is trending on tiktok without anyone from tiktok saying anything to you about your fic, or how it can be painful to find out there’s a secret discord channel dedicated to your fic. The people who respond to that with, “Ah, but you shouldn’t be writing to get attention!” are missing the point. The fic did get attention. It got lots. Attention obviously wasn't why the writer was writing--they were writing to participate, and they didn't get to. At all.

However, if your conclusion is that the author was upset because these particular stats were not accruing under this author’s profile, thereby preventing them from achieving the vaunted status of BNF and influencer—I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I don’t think that’s why I, personally, have been hurt by these things, and I doubt it’s what hurt the people in these posts either. They’re hurt because they want to participate, and they have been systematically excluded by the very people they thought were part of the community they thought they could participate in.

Sure, if those folks from tiktok and the discord server all came and showered the author with kudos and comments that said “kudos,” the author might have felt satisfied enough with the quantity of this recognition that they would continue writing. But in the end, this still does nothing to address the problem of fandom community, in which the deep, meaningful recognition, interactions, and relationships in fandom are getting harder and harder to have and to build, as a result of how people now expect to engage in online spaces.

So, how to address the problem of fandom community? You probably read this long, long post hoping that I had an answer, and for that I must apologize. I don’t have solutions. My intent was to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. I wished to outline the problems that I’m seeing in what was hopefully a slightly new or at least thought-provoking way, rather than offer solutions.

But, now that I’m talking about being prescriptive, maybe I can offer one suggestion, which is—maybe the solution to this isn’t about prescribing behavior. I do understand the irony in writing a prescription saying we shouldn’t prescribe people, but I’m going to write it anyway:

Maybe we shouldn’t be telling anyone the appropriate reasons for writing fanfic or for sharing it. Maybe we shouldn’t be telling readers they need to kudos or need to comment. If we’re going to go pointing fingers, we should be pointing at the institutions of capitalism that have made the internet what it is today—but I don’t think that’s going to solve the problem either.

But I do think that describing this problem, understanding what it actually is, not blaming readers for it and not blaming authors for it—I do think that helps. The discussion I linked at the beginning of this post is what I think of as the fandom I miss, the fandom that's now harder and harder to access, the fandom that is dying. That fandom was a social space where people had opinions and disagreed and went back and forth and gazed at their navels and then talked about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In the words of @yiiiiiiiikes25, it was a fuckin’ discussion about hats. And we’re hungry for it.

[haru-dipthong]

Did you know that the english word “star” and the japanese word 星（ほし）don’t actually mean the same thing?

Language does not simply name pre-existing categories; categories do not exist in 'the world'

— Daniel Chandler, Semiotics for Beginners

I read this quote a few years ago, but I don’t think I truly understood it until one day, when I was looking at the wikipedia article for “star” and I thought to check the Japanese article, see if I could get some Japanese reading practice in. I was surprised to find that the article was not titled 「星」, but 「恒星」, a word I’d never seen before. I’d always learnt that 星 was the direct translation for “star” (I knew the japanese also contained meanings the english didn’t, like “dot” or “bullseye”, but I thought these were just auxiliary definitions in addition to the direct translation of “star” as in "a celestial body made of hydrogen and helium plasma").

To try and clear things up for myself, I searched japanese wikipedia for 星. It was a disambiguation page, with the main links pointing to the articles for 天体 (astronomical object) and スター（記号）(star symbol). There was no article just called 「星」.

It’s an easy difference to miss, because in everyday conversation, 星 and star are equivalent. They both describe the shining lights in the night sky. They both describe this symbol: ★. They even both describe those enormous celestial objects made of plasma.

But they are different - different enough to not share a wikipedia article. 星 is used to describe any kind of celestial body, especially if it appears shiny and bright in the night sky. “Star” can be used this way too (like Venus being called the “morning star”), but it’s generally considered inaccurate to use the word like this, whereas there is no such inaccuracy with 星. You can say “oh that’s not actually a star, it’s a planet”, but you CAN’T say 「実はそれは星ではなく惑星だよ」 (TL: that’s not actually a hoshi, it’s a planet). A planet IS a 星.

星 is a very common word, essentially equivalent to “star”, but its meaning is closer to “celestial body”. I haven’t looked into the etymology/history but it’s almost like both english and japanese started out with a simple, common word for the lights in the sky - star/星 , but as we found out more about what these lights actually were, english doubled down on using the common word for the specific scientific concept, while japanese kept the common word generic and instead came up with a new word for the more specific concept. If this is actually what happened, I’d guess that kanji probably had something to do with it - 星 as a component kanji exists inside the word for planet, 惑星, and in the word for comet, 彗星, and in the scientific word for “star”, 恒星, so it makes sense that it would indicate a more general concept when used standalone.

This discovery helped me understand that quote - categories don’t exist in the world, we are the ones who create them. I thought that the concept of “star” was something that would be consistent across all languages, but it’s not, because the concept of “star” is not pre-existing. Each language had to decide how to name each of those similar star-like concepts (the ★ symbol, hot balls of gas, twinkling lights in the sky, planets, comets, etc), and obviously not every language is going to group those concepts under the same words with the same nuance.

Knowing this, one might be tempted to say that 恒星（こうせい） is the direct translation for “star”. But this isn’t true either. In most of the contexts that the word “star” is used in english, the equivalent japanese will be simply 星. Despite the meanings not lining up exactly, 星 will still be the best translation for “star” most of the time. This is the art of translation - knowing when the particulars are less important than the vibe or feel of a word. For any word, there will never be an exact perfect translation with all the same nuances and meanings. Translation is about finding the best solution to an unsolvable problem. That's why I love it.

[wonderjanga]

Marvel Breaking the Fourth Wall

Only, he’s not. He’s talking to the Divine Twitch Chat, but just to be a little shit, he’ll talk to them on some Dora type of nonsense. They eat it up cause they don’t know what Dora is. They’re just happy they get to interact with the stream.

A great example of this was when Billy got kidnapped by Sivana for the 50 million time. He got out of his binds, transformed into Marvel, busted through the doors and knocked out some guards. He was then met with a decision. He could either go left or right. Right lead somewhere unknown, and left lead to an exit. Time to consult the chat!

Marvel: *talking in Dora/Amanda the Adventure voice* “Hmm… What do you think?” *Turns to a random direction as if he’s talking to someone* “Should we go left or right?”

Solomon: “I believe it would be wise to go left, Billy-”

Heracles and Achilles: “RIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!”

Atlas: “No, stupidheads. That’s probably gonna lead him to robots.”

Mercury: “That’s exactly why we should go.”

Zeus: “I agree with Hermes.” *just wants to spite Atlas*

Marvel: “The votes are in! It looks like we’re going… right!” *starts walking right*

He in fact did run into a bunch of robots. But hey, at least he found Sivana. Back to jail he goes.

Also, someone recovered this footage from a security camera and they saw Marvel ask the question and just stand still in complete silence for a solid minute before saying the thing about the votes. They posted this online and he got called a schizo like twenty times over. Marvel was later brought in so Black Canary could have a little session with him.

Marvel: “Ms. Canary, I’m not crazy I swear.”

Black Canary: “Cap, I’m not saying that, but well, this footage suggests that you might have some… problems.”

Marvel: “But I don’t. Pinky promise. I was just talking to the gods in my head. That’s it.”

Black Canary: “Mhm. Mhm. I see. I see.” *scribbles down on notepad*

Marvel: *concerned* “What’re you writing down?”

Then, there was another incident where some guy tried robbing an old, homeless man that Billy knew. Marvel took him up to a building and let him dangle by his leg off the side of it. What could he say, the old man gave him a buck anytime he could. Billy’s loyal like that.

Marvel: *does the Dora/Amanda voice again* “Hmm… It seems we’re stuck with a decision.”

Heracles: “He’s doing the voice! He’s doing the voice!”

Marvel: “What do you think we should do?” *turns to no one again* “Should we drop him?”

Robber: “WHAT?” *stops flailing around*

Marvel: “Or should we turn him into the police?”

Zeus: “DROP HIM.”

Solomon: “Do NOT do that, Billy.”

Atlas: “I agree, drop him.”

Achilles: “Drop.”

Mercury: “Ooh! Ooh! Drop him, then catch him just when he’s about to hit the ground.”

Heracles: “I second that.”

Marvel: “Just kidding! This isn’t up for vote. Alley-oop!” *slings robber over his shoulder and flies to a police station*

Gods: “BOOOOOOOOOO”

The police report for this got leaked and now the residents of Fawcett got to know their lovable teddy bear hero dangled a man off the side of a building. Also, this is a recent thing by the way. Billy only started doing this about a couple weeks ago so all of the Fawcett citizens are so concerned because he never used to do this before. They’re all like, oh my God, is Cap going crazy? Point is, they’re worried.

One of their ways of showing they care that’s still fresh on Billy’s mind is when he was taking a dealer to the police station and the man offered him some of his stash because and he quotes:

Dealer: “Hey, man, you saved my kid brother from getting kidnapped. You’re good in my book. You gotta help people out especially if they help you.”

This stunned Billy a little if he was honest. He didn’t know if he should’ve been touched or offended. He was offered drugs, but I was as a token of appreciation. He’ll go with a little bit of both instead.