#also the author keeps using assault without actually addressing it

[obstinaterixatrix]

out of boredom/curiosity I read 60 eps of a webtoon. it was not good.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill requiring every public school classroom to display the Ten Commandments after bragging that he “can’t wait to be sued” for this outrageous assault on the Constitution. But the legislation package does a lot more than force Christianity on children. For example, it also removes requirements for COVID-19 vaccinations and limits other vaccinations. Not only is the overall package a hodgepodge of religious right thirst traps, but the part about the Ten Commandments includes plenty of outright strange.

[...]

6. SCHOOLS ARE PROHIBITED FROM EVEN ASKING ABOUT STUDENTS’ VACCINATION STATUS 

While the first five items were all crammed into the single bill about the Ten Commandments, Landry actually signed off on a package of items, including a prohibition on COVID-19 vaccine mandates. But that doesn’t really matter, since another bill in the package entirely eliminates school officials’ authority to check vaccination status.  To put a double underline under this prohibition, teachers aren’t allowed to ask about vaccination status, but if they somehow become aware, they’re not allowed to seat students in a way that might prevent the spread of disease in their classrooms. They also can’t prevent unvaccinated kids from participating in any in- or out-of-school activity. Because that would be “discrimination.” And you know how much Southern Republicans hate discrimination.

7. TEACHERS CAN BE SUED FOR USING A STUDENT’S PREFERRED NAME OR PRONOUNS

The legislation requires that students only be assigned pronouns according to what is called their "immutable sex" as found on their birth certificates. They can also only be addressed by the name found on their birth certificates or by nicknames “derived from that name.” Is Betsy okay for Elizabeth? How about Bess? Lizzie? Can you use Jack for John? Is Rory really an acceptable nickname for Lorelei? Teachers better be on top of these things because the bill makes them personally liable, allowing them to be sued if they don’t keep those nicknames and pronouns straight.

8. A “DON’T SAY GAY” BILL WORSE THAN FLORIDA’S WAS ADDED ALMOST WITHOUT NOTICE

The “Let Kids Be Kids” act protects delicate ears from any mention of sexual orientation, gender identity, or sexual orientation all the way through grade 12. No teacher, coach, or other school employee is allowed to engage in any discussion on these topics. They’re also not allowed to reveal their own gender identity or sexual orientation.

While Louisiana’s infamous 10 Commandments in schools law (HB71) has generated lots of rightful criticism for inserting religion into public school classrooms, the bill was passed as part of a package of education items, including enacting an anti-LGBTQ+ Don’t Say Gay or Trans law deceitfully called the “Let Kids Be Kids” Act to apply to all K-12 school classes (HB122), prohibiting the inquiry of a student’s vaccination status or ways to safely contain the spread of diseases (HB908), and a forced misgendering law that students can only be assigned pronouns based on the gender assigned at birth and can only use their birth name or derivatives of it. (HB121)

[trans-axolotl]

hey do you have an antipsych reading list or anything like that? i’m trying to learn more about the topic. thank you!

yes!! This is more a list of mad studies books than like, sociological theory from the 60s because disability justice + mad pride is more what I vibe with, but if you want some more in-depth theory recommendations I can do that as well. blanket trigger warning that all of these books discuss psychiatric abuse, institutionalization, and many of them candidly address topics of suicide, mental distress, and sexual assault. If anyone wants more specific trigger warnings please feel free to ask!

Books:

The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang: This book is a fabulous collection of essays based on the author's own experience of schizophrenia, and explores the complexities of diagnosis and institutionalization.

Brilliant Imperfection by Eli Clare: This book is incredibly important to me and explores the concept of cure, what it means to have anti-cure politics, and all the nuances of cure. Truly a beautifully written book and I really recommend it.

Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the United States and Canada edited by Liat Ben Moshe: This book is an amazing exploration of institutionalization and incarceration from so many different perspectives, including the special ed to prison pipeline, segregation, psychiatric medicine within prisons, and how institutionalization functions as incarceration. This book can be challenging to read as a psych survivor, but I highly recommend it.

How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity by La Marr Jurelle Bruce: I highly recommend this book. It really delves into complex meanings of madness, how that's tied to radical tradition, aesthetics, art, liberation, so much more, and also really engages mad studies and Black cultural studies.

Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill by Robert Whitaker: I think this book can be a good foundation for learning the history of psychiatry in America in particular, and although I don't necessarily vibe with everything in this book, I think it is still absolutely worth reading and engaging with critically!

The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease by Johnathan Metzl This book does a really good job looking at the history of psychosis in the context of the United States, the civil rights movement, and how pyschosis diagnoses connects to eugenics and slavery.

Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates by Erving Goffman I have not actually read this yet, but it is a classic and it's been on my reading list since @bioethicists recommended it to me!

Open in Emergency: DSM II: Asian American Edition edited by Mimi Khúc This collection of essays has so many different fabulous perspectives on mental health, disability justice, community, and resistance.

Miscellaneous:

Girls do what they have to do to Survive: Illuminating Methods used by Girls in the Sex Trade and Street Economy to Fight back and Heal by the Young Women's Empowerment Project I'm including this on the list even though it might not connect as clearly to antipsychiatry as some of the other titles, because reading this was transformative to me for understanding my own experiences and the ways in which social services like the medical system are not our friends. I also view liberatory harm reduction as essential to building alternatives to psychiatry and YWEP is so completely foundational and groundbreaking in many ways.

Harm Reduction Guide to Coming off Psychiatric Drugs

Cutting the Risk: Harm Reduction and Self Harm I want to add an extra trigger warning for in-depth discussion of self harm and anatomy, including anatomy diagrams.

Asylum Magazine

Mad In America Website--this can be a good place to keep up with psychiatric news in America.

This is very much not a complete list, so followers PLEASE add on!

[lemotmo]

I love reading that anonymous OP answers about both Buddie and bummy. They are so well spoken and put my feelings into words that make sense. They also make connections and put things into perspective that I would never think about. Which is something you do as well, just for the record.

What are the canon parts of the show that you hate(d)?

For me one of the answers is the lawsuit arc as well but for the very opposite reason to you. I hate how they made Buck the only bad guy in the ordeal when he was only reacting to Bobby who actually created the mess. And I hate that Buck was the only one to apologize when there were two more apologies to be had. Which is why the kitchen scene, as gay as it is, is not my favourite (I love to watch it without the dialogue, though), and why I will never read enough fix-it fics to soothe the frustration.

Another thing I hate is the way they turned Buck's sexual assault from S1 into a joke. (They often use his trauma for levity but this one just makes me seethe) This year I read 2 fics that addressed it beautifully so s/o to the authors and thanks for their service.

And I also hate KR's insistance on redeeming the shitty parents without them putting in an ounce of work. Just expecting the audience and the characters to roll with it. And not letting the kids - namely, Buck, Maddie, Eddie and Chim, and to an extent Hen and Karen, to just have non-relationships with their DNA donors. (It should have been Buck walking Maddie down the aisle and I will die mad about it.)

Sorry for the rant but also thank you for the question.

Thank you for sharing. 😁 There's apparently a lot of canon storylines not all the fans agree on. Love this. It keeps us talking.

Don't worry about ranting. This is Tumblr. It's all we do here. 😋

[tizzyizzy]

Izzy and his Outfit

So, listened to a podcast with an interview of the OFMD costume designer. Izzy wasn't mentioned, so I thought, why not speculate about the design of his outfit and it's intended meaning?

Izzy's outfit is one of the more distinctive ones compared to other pirates in the show. While his clothes show some signs of wear, perhaps having been patched up and adjusted to suit his frame, the overall impression is one of neatness and formality. There aren't ragged edges, holes, or dirt stains from wear. He's got a "full" outfit, complete with a vest over the shirt and the equivalent of a tie. Everything is black, and all his skin is covered with the exception of one hand.

So, what might this indicate?

Negativity, Evil, Darkness

Black is the color most associated with villains, which suit members of Blackbeard's infamous crew. The wearing of black is a very conscious choice from them all to appear intimidating. And of course, black is also associated with death.

The formality and the darkness actually create a kind of amusing contrast. Izzy is dressed in a cool way, but he also looks a bit like a manager, and he is also a cringefail henchman.

BDSM & Kink

Well, he does wear black leather! He is also literally a masochist submissive.

Asceticism

That is, the rejection of self-indulgence and material comfort. Wearing all black is the sort of thing you seen in monastic orders sometimes for this reason. While Izzy's clothes are elegant, they lack showiness. They suggest he isn't indulging in "frivolous" vanity. Notably, in the show, he is almost always worrying about practical concerns opposed to enjoying himself. (Though he does enjoy that steak in the cringiest way possible.)

Professionalism, Formality, Authority

Nothing about Izzy's outfit is loose or casual. In fact, with a cup of coffee on his hand, he resembles your classic middle manager type. The first time we see him with Blackbeard, he literally calls Stede "unprofessional". This more formal attire compared to his subordinates suggests his authority over them as first mate. Even his insistence on Ed being addressed as Blackbeard is a kind of professional workplace etiquette.

We also know that Izzy is, in general, a follower of rules and upholder of traditions. There are Ways Things Are Done, and those Ways (proper pirate behavior, oaths of loyalty, dueling rules) must be upheld.

Guardedness & Repression

Nakedness is vulnerability, and Izzy covers almost every inch of his body in tight fighting clothes. The fact that it's all one color draws attention to this; we don't look at Stede or Jackie covering equal amounts of skin and get the impression they're hiding with their clothes as much as they are expressing themselves. The one time we see Izzy without clothes, he is asleep in bed before being assaulted, totally helpless.

When Izzy is upset, he uses aggression to keep others at a distance. This is a guy who was literally near tears while stabbing a guy out of frustration.

He does not air insecurities or cry openly, and he immediately hides emotions like sadness with anger. (watch him go from tearing up and heartbroken to aggressive after being choked by Ed).

Showing neither skin nor color, Izzy's clothing doesn't give away much. He's literally all covered up. Beyond anger, Izzy seems like he doesn't give much away either. Vulnerability is dangerous for a pirate. Just look at what happened to Ed when he fell in love. And, of course, this can mean sexual repression too. I think episode 5, uh, showed that might be an issue for Iz.

[winns-stuff]

I thought in 2023 we were past this trying to make excuses of what consent is..like we were having so many tell us about "no means no" and how some will manipulate the victim to eventually give up, which is so messed up to consider this "as an agreement".

It's common sense actually when you read this part of Persephone assault it was really hard to read it, it was painful how hopeless and lost she felt about the situation. And also Apollo later took her photos without her consent and blackmailed her! The problem is how the author handled the plot.

Rachel for some reason focused on adding new plots and referred to P assault as something small which is not! The series tried to make her "heal" fast which is huge red flag for survivors. Trauma doesn't just go away, victims can be fine one minute then have panic attacks for just thinking about it! It takes time and they should be given all the time in the world to heal. Like how can someone say it was "consensual" when mentally it destroyed her?

I recommend people watch the Emmy winner series "I May Destroy You" it tackles into the themes as the protagonist herself is a sa survivor.

I’m sorry for taking such a long time with these inboxes, I’ve just been in such a state today but now I’m feeling good enough to actually answer them.

But I agree with all of this, it’s basic human knowledge or at least it should be at this point to understand what consent is and what’s not consent, but of course with how some of these serious topics are handled especially on the internet the very definition of consent gets thrown around in the hands of those who have the least information about what the meaning is as a whole. Normally they’re not the best people to listen to with this sort of stuff too, so sadly I feel as though we’ll have to keep having this same discussion until the people who keep saying otherwise actually learn from their mistakes of spreading misinformation and harmful messages and grow their mindset.

With all of that being said, as much as I personally hate the way that SA and trauma as a whole has been handled by LO it’s very clear that Persephone indefinitely got assaulted there’s no ifs ands or buts about that and if there is you’ll need to recheck the panels and deeply analyze it before making such a weak ass argument. But once again I do agree with you, the SA in Lore Olympus as a whole is treated small and can easily be missed by the audience because the comic never treats the assault like it’s anything but a bad memory. A inconvenient if you will, yes there is some good depictions of the trauma that comes with things such as the assault but at the same time it’s rare that it gets addressed and fully fleshed out without being pushed to the side for fluff and possible NSFW.

Again, this is all disappointing but the SA still happened regardless.

[psychewritesbs]

Chapter 201: Direct Negotiations, part 2—THIS IS AMERICA! 

Happy JJK-Sunday. 

Actually... not really... Our boys are about to walk into insanity... Get your Kleenex box ready. Gege is up to no good...

He also made fun of and called out “America” and I love him all the more for it. Makes me wonder whether he’s keeping up with the USAmerican fandom and wonders how we’re reacting to the chapter.

We love it!

If anyone cares to read... I got super political and opinionated and personal. That’s what happens when you are a First Generation USAmerican born in the US but raised outside of the US--you see things differently.

THIS IS AMERICA

Also, if you haven’t, go listen to the song by Donald Glover, This is America, a fantastic satire of a song and music video loaded with symbolism. The song and video were released in May of 2018 and depicted the deeply rooted societal problems plaguing American society. 

TW! The video is very graphic.

Not featured in the song and video, however, are...

The American Healthcare System: The fact that I can't afford to go to the Doctor or have a medical emergency without getting into ridiculous amounts of debt... 

Student loan debt: Not to mention the mountain of Student Loan debt I have because... #this is America and in the American Dream you get into debt to go to college to get better jobs. It’s a literal scam and millions of us bought into it. 

Far Right Christian Fundamentalism: Also, a group of judges took away federal protection for abortion laws. It’s feeling really Handmaid’s Tail up in here. 

Guns guns guns, USAmericans LOVE their guns: Did I mention my neighbors aren’t scared to publicly say that they’ll shoot you with their assault riffle if you trespass into their property and they assume you are suspicions? #Texas.

Talk about being a progressive society.

But hey...

I think the biggest irony about the internal societal problems tearing down American society is intimately related to what Gege is addressing in this chapter... instead of focusing on fixing our internal problems, American leaders are hell-bent on colonization, conquest and dominating the political landscape outside of its borders. 

Cue Killing in the Name of by quintessentially American Rock Band, Rage Against the Machine.

Yes, Gege. Say it.

And the whole implication about how the US uses its army to pursue this world domination agenda?

I don’t care how cliché these American Villains are they’re painfully cliché... this whole thing is so on point.

As a First Generation USAmerican, I honestly had second-hand embarrassment reading this chapter.

Side note: I drive a 13-year old Honda Civic. I highly recommend Japanese cars. USAmerican cars are not that great.

I am totally not surprised to see Gege addressing how the US government and media will manipulate public perception of certain political issues. 

“We’re not experimenting on Japanese citizens, we’re protecting them” reminds of the war in Iraq in the search for weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

Similarly, if you Google Project A119, the formal definition about it was presented to the public as having benign reasons. But who is to say it wasn’t about establishing dominance?

Curious to learn more? You can read more about Project A119 and Operation Fishbowl by doing Google searches on these terms.

But I think most poignant is the implication that American leadership would think that it’s morally correct to experiment on humans.

And Kenny totally has the USAmerican leaders eating right out of his hand by saying everything he knows they need to hear.

We know Kenny is going around stirring the pot and getting countries pitted against one another.

But we haven’t seen what he has told the Japanese government. We also don’t know if Gege will write about the kinds of atrocities the Japanese government might have committed against its own citizens.

Like other authors, Gege certainly doesn’t hold back his punches.

And, again, what’s most poignant about this whole ordeal is that we’re talking about governments and how they justify their actions while manipulating public perception of these issues.

That’s why I really appreciated the symbolism used to depict the ideal of what it means for USAmerica to be the world power that it is today (or at least was once upon a time).

This is America.

And I love that, again, Kenny was just like...

“Calm down USAmerica, you might have guns and muscle, but Japan has psychic warriors. Duh!”

That smug look on his face too... Let’s not forget that Kenny has been planning this ordeal and waiting for the right set of circumstances like an idiotic USAmerican President in office for at least a millennia

Anyways...

Yes, world. The clichés about USAmerica are mostly painfully true.

Ura-ume

Talking to @justafrenchlondoner​ we were both wondering whether Ura-ume is going to turn on Kenny since Ura-ume appears to have a deep allegiance with Sukuna and Sukuna had a change of plans.

Similarly, if I remember correctly, Kenny was ok with doing away with Sukuna... something like that. Gotta go back to re-read parts of the Shibuya arc.

Either way, gotta wonder about them...

And then the chapter ends...

The perfect recipe for disaster.

800 soldiers with USAmerican guns and muscle against a comedian, an Angel, and two high school-aged Psychic Warriors.

I fear that here comes the culmination of this cozy feeling of safety that Gege created during the first half of the arc... and it is legit giving me anxiety.

I’m literally going crazy because I can see it coming. There’s a Gege-twist coming. I can feel it. And idk if I’m being paranoid but that’s how Gege rolls.

This man kills and hurts beloved characters without remorse just after you thought everything was groovy.

The Culling Game so far...

During the Culling Game, a literal Battle Royale twist on the Battle Tournament trope, with some exceptions, most of what we’ve gotten so far has been very lighthearted moments and battles and no significant deaths.

The Culling Game is about death but we haven’t experienced any deaths that we care about. Think long and hard about that.

Instead, Gege has bombarded us with Gege-style irony and humor.

Who could forget Yuta kissing a cockroach?

Not to mention Yuta and Ryu’s bromance to wrap up the arc.

Have we forgotten how incredibly annoying Charlie Bernard was?

And how Kashimo vs. Hakari literally ends with them teaming up, stroking each other’s ego, and acting like they weren’t just trying to kill each other moments ago?

What about Takaba’s awful jokes?

Then there was Kappa-guy and Katana-guy...

And now that Naoya has died again... we’re back to where it all began: Yuji and Megumi willingly going on a suicide mission to save each other and their loved ones.

Now, during Shibuya, Yuji walked away scarred, not just physically, but emotionally and psychologically. Megumi, on the other hand, was protected by Sukuna.

This also just reminded me that, from my perspective, Megumi has shown us on more than one occasion that he doesn't seem to have much regard for the life of others. 

So I kind of have to wonder whether we’re about to find out just how much Megumi doesn’t value human life in general given the whole thing about how the most powerful sorcerers have an overwhelming sense of self and have no regard for others.

Who knows! Can’t wait to see how the rest of the Culling Game arc unfolds because when JJK is good, JJK IS GOOD.

Anyways. Happy JJK-Sunday! If you’ve made it this far, thank you again for reading my rant about USAmerica.

This is America

You know... the political rant about USAmerica aside, I must admit that living in USAmerica is quite the privilege that I am grateful to have.

I think that inasmuch as we, USAmericans have a bad reputation, we really are just like everybody else--doing our best with what circumstances we have been handed. 

For some self-disclosure: I lived in Houston, TX for a decade. Houston is a criminally underrated yet quintessentially USAmerican city...

Houston is no Manhattan, but it is the cultural capital of the Southern US and is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the country. And amongst the things that are quintessentially American are the immigrant communities that have made this country what it is today.

I understand that when Anthony Bourdain recorded the episode for Parts Unknown in Houston, despite Houston’s incredible gourmet foodie scene, he specifically asked to visit the hole-in-the-wall-type cultural nooks in the city because he wanted the episode to focus on the USAmerican experience of being an immigrant in this country.

I can tell you that while I lived in Houston, I had friends from Mexico to Nepal, and worked with people from Spain all the way to Korea. 

The private school I worked at had children enrolled from at least 50 different nationalities from the world over. What I loved most about working there was knowing that these children were being taught that it didn’t matter where you’re from because in the end we’re all just human.

Similarly, when Hurricane Harvey dumped a year’s worth of water on Houston in 2017, Houston was practically under water. The outpouring of support from the community in the midst of the chaos, however, was beautiful to behold. Your nationality or skin color did not matter, what mattered was helping other Houstonians get back on their feet.

This is USAmerica. 

... and we’ve got deeply rooted societal problems, but we really are just doing our best with what we’ve got.

One final jab at “America”

I didn’t want to couldn’t help myself...

[gallus-rising]

So You Want To Write Johnny Fic

I have read many a Johnny fic that, while still being excellently written, have had passages that made me want to tear my hair out. I don’t attribute any malicious intent on the part of the author, it’s just that generally speaking, people don’t know how to write for disabled characters. So I’ve made a little guide here to hopefully help out my fellow fic writers :) And even if you yourself are not a fic writer, I hope you still give this thing a look! I wrote this with fic authors in mind, but I also addressed a few things that I feel are a problem with the wider SBR fandom.

Two things before we get started. First, a disclaimer: I myself am not physically disabled. I have several close family members who are, and they’ve used a variety of mobility aids across my lifetime. They’re what drove me to write this, as I’ve grown up just knowing some of the ins-and-outs and thinking, “well duh, that’s just common knowledge! Everyone has a family member that uses a wheelchair!”. That said, everything here is going to be second hand, so please, just think of my post as a primer! Go out and find advice written by people that are actually physically disabled. And to any wheelchair users that might come across this post, please don’t hesitate to correct me if I’ve misspoken at all!

And second: I’m not going to go into detail on the “Magic Cure” trope. That’s a whole other can of worms, and I don’t want this to get too bogged down. For anyone that’s already familiar with the trope and would like to avoid it, I offer a few alternatives to canon towards the end :)

Okay! Some general things first.

DO NOT USE THE WORD ‘CRIPPLE’ IT IS A SLUR.

Yes, in the time period SBR takes place it might’ve been a commonplace medical term, but there are many hurtful words that were used then that are now considered slurs. If you aren’t physically disabled yourself, don’t use it. Don’t have other people describe Johnny using that word, don’t have Johnny use it in a disparaging or sarcastic manner, do not use it. I can’t stress enough how hurtful some people consider that word to be, so avoid it entirely.

A few miscellaneous things about wheelchair use.

The term “wheelchair bound” has more or less fallen out of use. Most people don’t feel “bound” to their wheelchair, it grants a great deal of independence after all! If you ever find yourself needing a word to describe “person that uses a wheelchair” then just “wheelchair user” is your safest bet.

It's incredibly rude to start steering someone's wheelchair without them asking you first. Imagine you're out shopping and you stop to ask someone what aisle the soda is on, and instead of just telling you, this stranger grabs you by the hand and drags you to it. How would you feel? Now crank that up by 11. Many people consider having their mobility aids touched without their consent to be a form of assault. The only situations (outside of major injury, of course) I can think of where Johnny would ask someone to push him would either be to go up a steep incline, or to help get up-n-over a bothersome step.

Even in 2021 America, 30 years after the ADA, most buildings aren't accessible. Next time you're out and about, pay attention to the architecture around you. How many buildings have a small step at the entrance? How cramped are places like public bathrooms? Are the sidewalks even? You don’t have to go super in depth into these things, but if you're like me and sometimes get a bit hung up on, like, room layouts or whatever, it’s just a few things to keep in mind!

They make bags specifically designed to fit on wheelchairs, either off the back, or under the seat. Just like other handbags/backpacks, you can get ‘em in fancy patterns or more plain/nondescript. What would Johnny keep in such a bag? I don’t know, what kinds of things do you take with you when you're out and about?

Don’t describe Johnny entirely by his disability.

Oftentimes I’ll be reading fic, and come across a sentence like this:

“But, Gyro, I love you,” declared the wheelchair user.

Or this:

The paraplegic held his middle finger up, not even looking up from his book

It’s rude, it’s clunky, and did I mention it’s rude? Think of it this way: what if instead of using a wheelchair, Johnny was incredibly nearsighted and had to wear glasses? Would you still write about him like this? That doesn’t mean you need to ignore his wheelchair entirely, of course. Much like glasses, it’s a physical object that can at times get in the way, be lost/broken, or used to help identify someone. An example:

“Wait a second, have you seen this guy?” Gyro asked, “Blonde, stupid hat, wheelchair and a grouchy face?”

Be careful you’re not infantilizing him.

Yes compared to the other protags Johnny cries a lot. But Johnny is also; competitive, ornery, determined, sarcastic, and 19 years old. Be careful when describing him as a 'boy', and don’t make a big deal about him having youthful features. Don’t have the other characters coddle him either. Gyro respects him as someone that can hold his own, Diego and Hot Pants see him as a rival in the hunt for the corpse parts, and Valentine views him as a legitimate threat. I understand in hurt/comfort and more shippy fics we tend to go overboard sometimes, I feel I’ve been guilty of this as well, but keep in mind the extra connotations surrounding Johnny. The infantilization of disabled people is a huge problem that affects all of us across the board.

Tread lightly on the topic of his self-image.

Johnny does canonically have some self esteem issues in regards to his injury, but unless you’re working very closely with a beta, I’d steer away from the topic. Injuries and illnesses that result in lost mobility are intensely personal things to go through. Unless you have firsthand experience, it is an incredibly difficult topic to navigate.

If you do want to explore Johnny’s self-image in your fics, remember his injury isn’t the only thing he’s gone through. Johnny also; feels responsible for the death of his brother, was all but disowned by his father, regrets the hedonistic rockstar lifestyle he lived at the height of his career, and didn’t have any real friends before he met Gyro. Our poor guy has been through a lot! ;u;

It’s really not necessary to talk about any bowel/bladder dysfunction he might have.

Again, this is just one of those things you shouldn't touch on if you’re not disabled yourself. This is another problem that affects disabled people across the board, and it’s weird and gross how fixated ables can get on this. And yes, this includes jokes I've seen about him wearing a diaper. It's very insensitive, and it needs to stop.

Yes, paraplegics can have sex.

Quadriplegics too.

Sorry, smut writers, but I'll be of no help here. I don't exactly spend a lot of time talking with family about our sex lives. I'm also Very asexual. Just know that yes, many wheelchair users are consenting adults, and yes, that means they have sex. Here’s a disabled sex educator I’ve been recommended to help get you started though! (Note: she has chosen to reclaim the previously mentioned slur. This is a personal choice, not a free pass for you to use it in your works.)

DO NOT USE THE WORD ‘CRIPPLE’ IT IS A SLUR.

Once more, if you didn’t get it the first time.

And now here’s some rambling more specific to Johnny’s injury.

(And when I say this is a ramble, I mean it. Sorry lol.)

So Johnny’s paraplegia (we’ll get back to that term in a second) is the result of a spinal cord injury (SCI), but there’s a lot of different things that could mean. Spines are complicated, and I’m gonna try here to not only work out what happened in canon, but also how you could translate it into your various AUs!

Here’s your spine.

As you can see, it’s sectioned off into four parts, and each vertebrae is numbered. SCIs are roughly identified by the specifically affected vertebra. So for instance, if you break your neck you might have a C1 fracture, C2 fracture, C3 fracture, ect.

Now here’s Johnny immediately after being shot.

Just eyeballing this, it looks like he’s been shot through the abdomen/mid back, which would mean his injury is lower thoracic/possibly upper lumbar. Injuries to these areas can result in loss of sensation below the injury site, lifelong chronic back and abdominal pain, some difficulty breathing, and yes, complete or incomplete paraplegia. (See, I told you we’d get back to that.)

Complete paraplegia is pretty straight forward, it means all of the nerves at the site of the injury have been totally severed. That’s it. Absolutely no sensation, (though some people still experience nerve/phantom pain, because the human body plan is only slightly better designed than the horse’s). This is probably what most people think of when they hear ‘paraplegia’. Even with modern medical science, there’s not really anything that can be done here. Nerves are complicated, man.

Incomplete paraplegia is a lot more varied. All it means is you at least have some sensation in one or both of your legs. This can range anywhere from; total paralysis in one leg and completely normal function in the other, total paralysis in one leg and reduced functionality in the other, reduced functionality in both legs but not full paralysis. The possible experiences here are vast, and I again want to encourage you to seek out blogs/vlogs/books/ect by physically disabled people. Someone with incomplete paraplegia might use a wheelchair full time, walk with crutches or a cane, or switch between mobility aids depending on their pain and energy levels.

It’s also possible for incomplete paraplegia to degenerate to complete paraplegia later in a person's life, either due to inadequate medical care, further health complications down the line, or simply the slow and inevitable march of time that comes for us all!

Okay, here’s where things start to get more subjective.

My personal headcanon is Johnny is an incomplete paraplegic who (assuming he gets proper treatment), would be able to walk with the help of some kind of mobility aid.

From what little we see of Johnny's time in the hospital, we can tell it's absolute dogshit. I'm not qualified to speak on what may or may not have happened surgically wise, but I feel like it's safe to say he never received any kind of physical therapy.

When Johnny wakes up, he's almost completely unable to move. That's most likely due to spinal shock. Once someone with a SCI has been stabilized and is, you know, no longer dying, the injury site becomes inflamed. While the vertebrae and surrounding tissues are inflamed, any signals from the brain are going to have a very hard time traveling past the injury site. Spinal shock can last anywhere from about a week to over a year. After the inflammation subsides, a person may find that they have more functionality than they originally thought. But, in all that time spent healing, the person is losing muscle mass and the nerve pathways are going unused.

My idea here is with real post-op care, Johnny would've been able to walk, either with crutches or a cane. Though he would still have his wheelchair for high pain days and days where he would otherwise have to be on his feet for longer than would be comfortable. Given that by the end of SBR Johnny has both the power of god and anime on his side, I don't think "Jesus retroactively gives Johnny physical therapy" is too outlandish of an idea.

It’s important to remember that the spectrum of experience here is massive! Even if you decide to go along with my specific headcanon, the scenario I outlined here could lead to anything from "Johnny can walk with mobility aids, but it's very painful for him", to "Johnny can walk with mobility aids, and he rarely needs to use his wheelchair", and anywhere in between!

Keep in mind all of the terminology I've used here is very modern. I don’t know much about medical history, so I’m afraid I’ll be no help in keeping your fic 100% historically accurate, but I’m sure few will fault you for that :P

Welp, I think that's it! Thanks to my awful sister @heartattackkidd​ for reading over this, and thank you for sticking with me all the way through! And remember, just think of this as a primer on the topic.

I hope I've been of some help to you, reader. Reblogs are highly appreciated <3  Now go forth, and write fic!

[captainsimagines]

To Topple A Giant || Finale

Summary: You had made it your mission to destroy even the smallest evils. When the opportunity arises to finally take down your own family after years of gaining their trust, you reach for it. And so does Steve, the man who represents a symbol of everything you hate.

Pairing(s): Steve Rogers x Reader || Avengers x Reader

Part 10 of 10 ~ Mini-Series

Warnings in this Chapter: strong language; slight reference to past sexual abuse; fluff 

Word Count: 6,700+

Author’s Note: Guys... the finale! I’m crying actual tears lmao. Thank you for reading my words. It means the world.

~

The New Compound, July 2025, 7:09pm

      The extra hour of sunlight this time of year was the easiest excuse to use for lounging on the roof to watch the sun set slowly. The compound no longer touches the clouds, but it still provides a rich view of the landscape across. There is no blowing of horns or shouts of the road hecklers; it’s a simple hour of solace to rest your chin against your arms, eat your snacks, and watch the sky change colors until nothing remains but the possibility of counting the stars. 

“Hey… can I sit here?”

Your heart does a little jump at the sound of his voice. Traitor, you want to say to the pesky organ, but remain quiet as Steve wanders over to stand by you. He’s close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from his body. 

“Do what you will, Captain.” It’s simple enough of a response, you figure. You look down at the granola bar in your hand, turning it over a few times before rolling your eyes at the silly gesture. “Granola bar?”

He nods, watching as you snap it in half, and grabs the piece. “Thanks.”

You eat in cooperative silence. You take small bites, saving the granola bar so you have something to focus on during the length of time Steve decides to stay up here. He seems to be doing the same. “So what brings you out here? Another depressive episode?”

“I happen to have the perfect amount of depressive episodes, thank you very much.”

You snort, “Ditto.”

He takes a small bite and rolls the granola over his tongue. “No, I uh… I actually came out here to watch the sunset.”

“That’s sweet.” You shrug and admit your reason to him without a second thought. “I came out here to be sad, so.”

“Thor’s visit isn’t doing you any good?”

Thor is genuinely looking better. He’s started braiding his hair again, exercising with the help of Quill and Bruce, and participating in conversation without being addressed first. Seeing him makes you happy, but there’s still a glint in his eyes that reminds you of the lowest point of his life. And his lowest point was also yours. Sometimes you just want to forget. “He looks better. Healthier, got some light back in his eyes. It’s just whenever we look at each other we think of the same thing, I guess.”

Steve hums low and his shoulder brushes yours. “Loki.”

“It’s good to reminisce and all but I’ve got my limits,” you say.

“What was the special connection between you and Loki anyway?”

You grin at such an innocent question. Steve had never been close to Loki, didn’t really like him much, but he tolerated the God wandering about. You figure he genuinely wants to know. “I met him a little bit before I was assaulted. Everyone in the compound had their suspicions but no one asked. It was like they were avoiding me but also trying to help, I don’t really know. It was a weird time. And Loki, after we caught that dragon thing and really, really properly met, just straight up asked me why I was so distant all of a sudden.” Your chest warms at the memory.  “I told him. And you know what the first thing he said to me was?”   

Steve shakes his head a little and his eyes follow the tilt of your mouth. “‘What a cunt’.”  

He startles himself into a laugh, the rough word not expected. You continue, “It was the first time I laughed in four months.”

Steve follows your gaze out to the sunset. He suddenly feels guilty, out of the loop, sad. You had only mentioned your assault to him once when you discovered Tony’s afterlife gifts, and he never brought it up again. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice you were-”

“Bucky had just moved into the tower and all of your attention was on him. I don’t blame you for not seeing me.”

It’s true, but Steve doesn’t forgive himself. He’s had two years to check up on you and because of his own selfish choice, he’s let you slip from his fingers. A question bubbles from the back of his mind — one that he doesn’t think twice about finally asking. If he does, he won’t ask.  “Do you miss… me?”

“That’s a stupid question.”

“Sam put the idea in my head and—”

You sigh, “Steve, it’s the fact that he had to put the idea in your head. I can lie and say I’ve been all fine and dandy, or I can tell the truth and say I’ve been all fine and dandy. Take your pick.”

Steve stares at you for a long moment, mouth parting around invisible words. You’re staring at the sunset, avoiding his gaze but aware of his eyes on you, and he misses you. He truly, terribly, misses you. He decides he’s got nothing more to lose — he’s already lost you. “Well, I miss you. Do with that what you will.”

The two of you sit in silence for a few minutes: wind in your ears, legs shifting when too much weight has been applied, tiny sniffs of the nose. You don’t really know what to do with that information. Steve misses you. And you miss him. But he doesn’t deserve to know that. There’s been no apology from him, just things he’ll do to appease Sam. 

At the three minute mark, you groan quietly and turn to him. “Are you seriously still going to watch the sunset up here?”

Steve smirks and watches you from his peripheral. He really has missed being on the receiving end of your various tones of voices. “I have been told that I’m impossible to get rid of, so yeah.”

His company isn’t all that bad.  

Present Day, 2025, 9:07am

      Perhaps there were good things that came from being locked up for over two weeks, alone. Last time you were locked up with the team and there was absolutely no special treatment after that. Now you’re resisting the urge to burst out laughing as Steve piles on the seventh massive pancake on your plate; or rolling your eyes as Sam keeps asking if you want more maple syrup — ‘What flavor? We’ve got six!’ — and Peter’s drowning Bucky with questions about who he encountered at the wedding. 

“Is it the same as Netflix Narcos?”

“No,” you say bluntly. 

“Is the Amazon series legit? Like, did Omar really kill the DEA agent?”

“No.”

“Is Omar as evil as they say?”

“No.”

“Damn,” Peter groans, piling a forkful of pancakes into his mouth. “Nothing’s as exciting as it seems, huh?”

Everyone looks to him, then to each other.

Steve clears his throat, “I was literally shot.”

Mouth full, you follow. “And I was abused for years.”

“And I had to deal with them while with HYDRA,” Bucky says with his mouth full too.

“Man, they shot at me. That counts,” Sam adds.

“And I finally got to use the shield. While being shot at,” Scott says.

You interject, “Technically I was being shot at.”

Even with such a cloud of violence, with gruesome memories — memories that would just be shoveled into the pile of things that no one is ever going to talk about again  — you all begin laughing. Poor Peter missed out on a lot, but he can put two and two together. He knows this is his only chance to ask before you all lock it away and call it just another mission. It doesn’t hurt to humor him. 

And even though you won’t mention it to any one else unless they ask — this wasn’t just another mission for you or Steve. Things have changed and the both of you know it. The aches within your chest are no longer negative or a bother, but instead are blooming flowers that have laid dormant for years. You’ve been plucking petals for as long as the two of you can remember, and it’s about damn time you both end up on the same page. 

Everything has been quiet. Sure, there are bounties on everyone’s head but when is there not? You’ve pissed off more cartel leaders and gang leaders and political enemies than you can count on two hands, so this enemy territory is not all that foreign. You recognize the high trees, the gray skies, the mud beneath your boots. But you’ve got friends on your team that know how to climb those trees; friends on your team that know how to move the clouds and make the sky the talk; friends on your team that would hump through mud and snow watching your six. 

You can’t believe you even thought about leaving after the mission in the first place. This is where you belong, where all of you belong, because you’re the only ones with good hearts who qualify for the job. 

As breakfast winds down, Steve takes the opportunity to sprinkle in moments of long-awaited public displays of affection. When you go to refill your orange juice, he sneaks a kiss on your cheek. When you go to wash your plate, he makes sure Peter is looking the other way before patting your ass. And when you’re the one to envelope his slim waist from behind, he melts in your combined warmth.  

“So, about our date,” Steve inquires, cheeks turning pink but voice unwavering. He looks brand new, refreshed, and there’s a shine in his eyes that you haven’t seen since forever. You can’t remember the last time you have, but you figure it must have been back when the world hadn’t yet swallowed him whole. Now, he’s burning bright with the youth his soul has missed. 

You jump up and down, “Ooo, exciting!”

Steve takes you by the waist, swinging you in every direction. It’s uncoordinated, messy, and not exactly dancing but it’s pure. “Chinese? Pizza? Just fries?”

“¿Por qué no los tres?” Pursing your lips, you wait for his answer. 

“That can be arranged.”

You gasp dramatically, “You’re spoiling me.”

“Well I have two years to make up for it.”

That startles a laugh from deep inside your chest. “That’s gonna be our inside joke now, huh? Two of the worst years of our lives and we’re joking about it.”

He blushes along with you. “I think that describes our relationship perfectly.”

“Our relationship…” Your voice comes out like a melodic whisper and Steve feels it in his bones.

He grins down at you but before he can respond, someone enters the common room rather cautiously. 

“Oh, now what the hell are you doing here?” Steve demands, pushing you to stand behind him. The gesture is nice, but completely unnecessary. Friday would have alerted the team if someone entered the grounds armed. 

Agent Kavert raises his hands, “Relax. I’m not here to arrest you or anything.”

Steve tries to move his shoulders in a way where Agent Kavert can’t see your head. But you maneuver around him, somehow ending up peeking your head through Steve’s underarm. “If I know the law, and I think I do, you can’t really arrest someone in their own house anyway, right?” You pat Steve repeatedly on his side. “Right?”

Before Steve can respond, Agent Kavert speaks. With Steve guarding you, it seems the only thing Agent Kavert wants to do is get in and get out as fast as he can. “I just came to apologize. Ballistics came back and the evidence does show that you didn’t kill Ernesto Vega. It was Ramirez’s issued gun.”

Yeah, you think. The gun Seda stole.

“Oh, what a breath of relief! I almost forgot I was there.”

He sighs and his lips pull into a small smile. “You’re not gonna tell me where Ramirez is, huh?”

Steve takes this as his cue to leave you two alone, but not before squeezing your hand on his way out. He nods over to Peter, who’s still crouching in the kitchen, unseen by Kavert. Peter gives him an enthusiastic thumbs up,  happy to spy for his Captain. But you know he’s really asking Peter to take care of you while he’s gone.  

You let out a heavy sigh. Omar has been wanted for years for another murder he didn’t even commit. And now, he’s wanted for another. He may be a giant with morals, but even he can’t escape the gruesome reality that plagues the wicked. 

“I don’t even know where he is. If you came looking for answers—”

“No, I just… Everything’s been so fucked up since half the universe came back. And the possibility of an Avenger being bad, having played us for years — I think it just scared a lot of people.” Agent Kavert actually looks sincere. He adjusts his footing and chuckles a little under his breath. There’s a fine line creasing his forehead, but it isn’t formed from stress. He’s smiling, an honest look, and his eyebrows pull inward. “And Shakespeare? Really?”

Rolling your eyes, you shrug and lean back against the counter. “When half the world disappears and takes your family and friends with it, there’s really not much else to do.” 

And besides, Loki was really into Shakespeare.

You continue, deciding at the last second to throw Agent Kavert a bone about your past. “Shield didn’t know but Nick Fury did. So did Pierce. And when Shield fell, Fury just hid it even more.” You give him a half smile. “We weren’t helping the cartel. We were slowly taking it apart.”

Agent Kavert nods, thinking it over. “The deal Jackeline made with us was pretty simple. She’d tell us all the inside secrets that she knew and in exchange, no charges against her and none so serious for you.”

Your shoulders slump and you shoot him a blank stare. “Was it really that simple? Like, I could have just used her as my one free call?”

“Joke all you want. You should have called us when Shield fell. The double agent thing was risky and everyone needs help taking down a giant like that.”

“I did have help. Involving more people was never planned.”

“He was just as much our mission as he was yours.”

Agent Kavert, as sorry as he looks, still doesn’t seem to get it. But that’s fine, you think. Not everyone can. And you’re not in the mood to argue anymore. “No… he wasn’t.”

He seems to read your mind because he simply accepts your answer. “I really am sorry for accusing you. And for the government arresting you alone and letting the white man go free.”

A tiny snort tickles your nostrils. Agent Kavert is white, and it’s even more amusing considering he’s being serious. “Thanks… I guess.”

He turns to leave, seemingly normal, until he spins on his heel and claps his hands. “Oh! And by the way — don’t leave the country. The charges of conspiracy and murder have all been dropped. But there’s evidence of drug smuggling. So, you’re on house arrest.”

Your eyes widen and you reply with a sarcastic yell. “Thanks!” He turns to leave again. “You’re fucking with me, right?”

He glances over his shoulder, “Could not have let you just get away with it. Some of that smuggling was under no order from Shield at all.”

“You know I can easily disable that ugly ass ankle bracelet you’re about to give me?”

He chuckles low, and finally waves goodbye. “Goodbye, Agent Y/LN.”

You stand dumbfounded, slightly annoyed, but you figure it’s better than actual jail time. Peter rises from his hiding spot and walks over to you, blowing air from his mouth. “Friend of yours?”

You whip around to point a finger, scream and laugh mixing into one. “No friend!”

Peter finally hears that accent Steve can’t stop talking about.

       It’s a tiny portrait, sealed in a tiny frame and hidden in a tiny room. The frame is black with professional wooden carvings that make the sides look like perfectly detailed tree trunks. It’s in between the portrait of Tony and Natasha’s bracelet. Tony wears the same AC/DC shirt Steve has somehow stolen and claimed as his own. He’s got this sarcastic grin, some type of wrench in one hand while his other rests on his hip. He stands in his lab, glasses pushed up onto his head and black soot smudged on his cheek. You think Peter snapped the photo back in 2017. 

But the middle portrait is your favorite. It’s the only photo he ever allowed to be taken of him. Brushing your index finger against the glass, you trace the small outlines of Loki’s jawline, to his thin pink lips, to the bulb of his nose, to the waves of his hair. He sits caught off guard, book in his hand and in regular human clothing. He shoots a rather annoyed but joyful look over his shoulder as the camera was shoved in his face. You know for sure Wanda took that photo.

“You’re not dead,” you say as you study the blue of his frozen eyes. A God doesn’t die, you remember him saying. Loki was wrong about a lot of things, but you pray he wasn’t wrong about this. There’s a small part of you that wants to speak the same words to Tony and Natasha, but there’s only so many times the world’s axis can shift for a miracle. You tap the glass, sighing a breath of acceptance, and finally let go. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Smiling up at the ceiling, you think you’re right about this one.

      It’s quiet. The only sounds are the mild ripping of wrapping paper and small ‘thank you’s’ from the team. Everyone got each other something — granted, everyone got something small for everyone. No matter how much Tony joked about still splurging on Christmas shopping, his promises weren’t exactly kept. He’s gotten everyone things they actually need or wanted. Steve, a new drawing pad; Natasha, a bright pink knit sweater; Rhodey, a new watch; Bruce, a pair of sunglasses; Nebula, a dark blue knitted sweater that she immediately presses against her cheek, eyes focused on the ground as she savors the soft brush; you, the full collection of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. And he finally presents the baby’s crib to Pepper, constructed three weeks after she originally asked him to. 

“I know how much you like to reenact A Midsummer Night’s Dream in your room,” Tony grins at you. Biting your bottom lip, you throw yourself at him and hug him tight. He returns the hug with just as much strength, if not more. 

As the night goes on and midnight rings, your small group exchanges tight-lipped merry Christmas’s and happy holidays. Natasha retires to her room, a distant look in her eyes as she says goodnight. No one knows where Clint is.

Steve nudges your elbow with his once the room empties. He holds out a box with festive wrapping — snowmen with carrots for noses and a variety of pebbled smiles. “From me and Okoye.”

“You got me a gift?”

Steve’s brow furrows as he nods like it’s obvious. “Of course. You’re my friend.”

“Well, now I feel inadequate,” you laugh. It comes out wet and it’s then that you realize you’re tearing up. “I promise to reenact Midsummer for you, okay?”

Steve chuckles, “You got it.”

You unwrap it slowly, half wondering why Steve and Okoye teamed up to get you a present. You. Your stomach churns an innocent whirl. 

It’s a long sleeved vest… or sweater. You can’t really tell until you pull it from the box. It’s intricately designed and it takes a moment for you to finally see it, to finally understand, and the moment you do you exhale a wracked breath. 

It’s not Wakandan fashion. It’s threaded with the colors and swirls of a place you haven’t called home in years. It has red flowers down the vest portion and multicolored rows down the sleeves and back. It’s made from a thick fabric that’s rarely used this century. Vintage — home.

“Steve…”

Steve clears his throat, “Now, I only did the flower parts. Okoye found it unfinished in… um…”

And there, where tags from brands would usually be, is a small threaded engraving. 

‘From Bucky, To our muñeca.’

“He didn’t get to finish it so I thought I would — you know, help? — so it’s really from Buck. Probably an apology for not letting you visit him in Wakanda.”

Steve tries to push out a laugh at his poor joke, but you can see how he’s faltering. You reach up and wrap your arms around his neck, dragging him down so his knees bend, and pour as much nonverbal thank you’s into the hug. He hesitates at first, arms floating awkwardly, until he swallows his fear and wraps his arms around your waist. He holds you to him tightly and breathes in the sweet scent of your vanilla shampoo. 

“Thank you.” Your voice is small, but Steve regards the delivery as powerful.

You wear it once, that Christmas night, enveloped in its warmth as you slept. In the morning, you hang it in the back of your closet. 

        A knock on your bedroom door sounds through your headphones. Bucky peeks his head in, “Is now a bad time?”

Sitting up, you pull the headphones from your ears. “Nope. Just thinking about how I’ve lived several years in the span of one week.”

Bucky lugs in a sports bag in one hand and a manila file in the other. He places them at the edge of your bed and proceeds to bounce in the available space near you. “Yeah, that can be annoying.”

You attempt to shove him away as he tries to steal your blanket. “Did you need anything?”

“Yeah.” He lets you take it, and simply turns on his side to face you. “What’s gonna happen between you and Steve?”

It’s an innocent question, but you know Bucky well enough to notice when he’s stressed. Steve probably told him to mind his business. “We’re good.”

He inspects your face with squinted eyes, “I know what you’re thinking so cut that shit out. This isn’t one of those missions where the feelings will just go away.”

“Funny thing is, I believe you,” you admit, watching as his face does something unexpected. His smile drops suddenly, like he didn’t expect you to agree with him, and then it’s immediately back full force. 

“Peggy and Steve - right person, wrong time. You and Loki - right person, wrong time. You and Steve, all those years ago — right person, wrong time.” A weird thing happens: you agree with him again. “But now, after everything — right person, right time.”

“It’s just weird feeling like it’ll actually work.”

“That makes us seem like we’re all broken, doll. We’re not.”

You turn so you’re facing him; two mismatched parentheses. “We’re just tired.”

“We’re just tired,” Bucky agrees, smiling. “I’m not saying don’t look over your shoulder whenever you feel like it. Hell, I still look over mine.”

Snorting, you roll closer to hug him. He pulls you into his chest. “You give amazing pep talks.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why they gave that trophy to Steve.” Bucky shares the intimate moment for as long as it takes before the blanket starts overheating. He groans as he sits up to retrieve the things he brought with him.  “By the way, our mutual friend sends one last warm regards.”

Bucky throws the sports bag onto your lap. “What’s this?”

“Your shit.”

You don’t even want to ask him how he packed your things without your knowledge. “Kicking me out, Barnes?”

“Clothes, toothbrush, shampoo and conditioner, pads, the quilt I just finished knitting thank you very much,” Bucky lists and hands you the file. “Maribel found him.”

“Ramirez?”

“Your dad.” 

You snap your head up to look at him. Bucky expects to see anger, hurt, maybe even betrayal. He was prepared for it. But you just look confused, lost for words, maybe even scared. “Goes by Richard these days. Lives with his wife in Wisconsin, no kids, keeps to himself.” 

You flip through the files, holding your breath. The file is small, Richard’s information only covering the first page, the rest just drabble. He seems relatively normal, looks normal even; normal job, normal credit score, normal upbringing. It doesn’t even seem real. You close the file and set it aside. “So you are sending me away?”

Bucky smirks, “It’s a suggestion. But I took the liberty of doing the hard part for you.”

“Yeah, because packing my lady products is the climax of this story.”

It didn’t go unnoticed that Bucky called Richard your ‘dad’. Everyone either referred to Ernesto as ‘your father’ or by his name. Steve had said ‘dad’ a few times before he met him, then he never said it again. Hell, even you did sometimes. 

It’s a sweet distinction and you’re certain Bucky said it on purpose. Bucky takes your hands in his, “It’s been a long time coming. But at least we can both say that the people who hurt us can’t hurt us any longer.” 

You can. You really can.

       Bucky’s already packed Steve’s shit as well. Steve’s just shoving extra socks into his bag when someone knocks on the door. He expects Bucky or Sam, final words of encouragement, but it’s Scott. And he’s standing there grinning like a mad man. 

“So, what’s the verdict, Rogers? You going after her or not?”

Steve huffs a laugh, “Think you already know the answer to that, Lang.”

Scott closes the door behind him and leans back against it. He shoves his hands in his sweater pockets, “Not that it should matter, shut me up if I cross any line, but everyone supports this.”

“Weirdly, I think it does matter. We’ve had you guys picking sides for two years. Selfishly. Like we were having a fucking civil war after everything.”

“Yeah, well.” 

Steve huffs a laugh. It’s always going to surprise him just how comfortable Scott is around him now. Not afraid to tease him or call him out on something he doesn’t agree with. It’s refreshing.

“I’m not giving up on her, Scott. Not again.”

Scott nods. Perhaps breaking the mission ethic code wasn’t a bad thing after all, Scott thinks. He gives Steve a proud smile, genuine. “Then I hereby declare our hanging conversation officially closed.”

        Steve wanders from his bedroom, to the conference room, to the main living room without an end destination in mind, seeming to just follow his quick feet as they lead him around the halls of the compound. He’s proud of himself, really, because he truly believes he’s learned to swallow his pride, has opened himself up to the possibility of being happy, and accepted that the world has changed and will continue to alter whether he likes it or not. He was, is, and will always be a man out of time — he’ll never fit but goddamn does he feel settled. He hasn’t felt this sane since before the war — which one? — so he relishes in the feeling for a few calm seconds. 

He feels tears well-up on his water line and feels the pressure in his temples. He’s at a crossroads — both proud of himself for finally choosing the path he wants and relieved that this week, this mission he has dreaded for almost ten years, is over. He doesn’t know if he should sleep for a month or occupy his time with other things awaiting repair. A build up of five years, grief and loss and happiness all weirdly mixed into one pot, and Steve simply hasn’t noticed the improper portions of each ingredient. 

It’s too much.

He thinks about his mental health. Shot to Hell, he jokes with himself. He’s already got the virtual therapy appointments scheduled. He figures he’ll get better with time and if Steve knows one thing for sure, it’s that he’s got a whole lot of that.

He thinks about Sam and Bucky and Scott — his three best friends that have gone to the ends of the Earth and back for him, and who would proudly do it all over again. He thinks about their kind words, their gentle touch, their devotion that Steve still sometimes feels he doesn’t deserve. 

And he thinks about you. To anyone else, this was written in the damn stars. No, there wasn’t anything extremely obvious in the first few years. You were friends. Friends that grew to consider each other teammates. Teammates that drew a drop of blood while fighting on opposite sides. Teammates that recognized the true endgame, teammates that helped each other escape, teammates that went silent for two years. Two years of no contact, no signal of survival. Then again, teammates who stood by as their world crumbled around them. Teammates who grew to be friends again, leaning on free shoulders and seeking help through happy conversations and long nights. Friends that brought the world together again, only to rip each other from their own. Friends into the most bizarre of enemies. And enemies back to teammates. 

Steve wipes a hand down his face as he fixes the strap over his shoulder. The common room is empty — he likes it this way. That means everyone is either napping, getting food, visiting friends or family, simply living life. The silence is therapeutic. 

His eyes fall on a crooked picture frame near the television. He tries to ignore it, almost to the door and ready for another road trip, but he steps back. Then forward, then back again. He groans in frustration of himself and moves to turn the frame back in place, holding it for a few seconds until it stays. But as he lets go, it tilts once more. He tries again — it tilts back. 

He pulls the frame from the hook and turns it over. He rightly freezes, the presence of a small pink paper airplane taped near the edge knocking the wind from his constricting lungs. He pulls it off, careful to not tear the delicate post-it. 

He never found it. Natasha probably placed it behind this very picture frame in the other compound for him to find. Surely the explosion should have destroyed it — but it didn’t. It’s right here, perfectly intact, just a smudge of dirt on one of its wings. The frame hadn’t been damaged either. It’s real. 

He holds the thin piece of paper like it’s the most precious thing in the world. 

Steve turns it over between his fingers a few more times, before he carefully folds it back in half and puts it in his wallet. “You’ve got some nerve, Nat. But I hear ya.”

       Steve decides to write you back. He hides the letter in that sweater he knows you don’t wear anymore, in the far back of your closet, and marvels at the intricate stitching while he can. He poured his heart out, even if it’s not guaranteed you’ll ever see it. 

     ‘Yes, I found your letter. I found it when I was looking for perfume in your suitcase. The tape was loose and I violated your privacy. I’m truly sorry for that. 

But I felt compelled to write you back, in case the reverse happened and I died instead of you. I didn’t write it then, when you were drying your hair in front of that impossibly small mirror you so weirdly called ‘a stupid little bitch’. And you looked so beautiful. But I’m writing it now and maybe I’ll share it with you in person when we’re both ready.      

When the world turned to dust, I held on to you. I know exactly why. Natasha bugged me about it also, teasing me whenever I would glance at you too long, or give you the last remaining Oreos I was planning on eating, or whenever I would leave your room in the mornings after a nightmare. She knew nothing was happening between us, but she had this smile whenever she caught me. Like she was happy I was comforting you, and in turn seeking comfort for myself. 

You remember how her smile would tilt up more on the left side? 

There isn’t a proper way to truly apologize for hurting you. But I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for it. You at least deserve that. 

I returned a different man. And I think that was for the better.

Yes, I wanted the quiet life. I still think I do. And I think you know this — you have always seen right through me.      

I now know what Natasha saw. You irritate me, you damn near make me want to choke myself out, but I care for you. We hold each other up, and I’m always rooting for you, and I’m always by your side. No matter how annoying and smart-mouthed you may be.      

You’re my best friend — I hope I’m one of yours.

Steve.’

       There’s no one currently in the compound who really knows how to change the battery in your car. Bucky tries, does a rather good job too, but he claims he’s winging it and that you should call a mechanic just in case. He leaves you there with two random batteries on the ground, hood of your car open, and without any idea of what to do next. So you chill and wait for the mechanic you hope isn’t going to jack up the price just because he knows who you are. 

But he doesn’t seem fazed by you at all — or at the fact he just had to drive through countless checkpoints and security checks just to get on Avengers property. He changes the battery and changes the oil, hooking you up with as many upgrades he can. He even offers to wash it until you thank him repeatedly and that Really, really, you don’t have to do that. Thank you so much!

“Quite a garage you got here.”

There are unfinished projects and random wires falling from the ceiling and enough tools to supply five garages. It’s messy, but it was Tony’s. You accept the compliment and see him out. 

“Eh, make sure those windshield wipers work. I hear it’s gonna rain tomorrow.”

You thank him again. The clouds to the west are gray, getting darker as the expanse stretches, but from where you’re standing everything’s blue. You figure the mechanic was right: it’s gonna rain, and it’s gonna rain hard. 

The mechanic did good, all things considered. You never thought your old, beat-up Honda could look a few years younger. You flick one of the wipers lightly, testing its strength. It holds, as does the other, but when you go to lift it up it stops halfway. Without wanting to break it, you don’t force it. There’s something blocking the switch. 

You grab it before it can accidentally fall into a deep slot; the figurehead of a man, curly hair and beard that matches Steve’s, who also has a prominent and strong nose. You turn the coin over a few times before looking around the garage, down the street, at the remote area where the mechanic has just left. Standing there, mouth agape, you wonder just how in the world you missed the mechanic placing it there.

You were lacking in the spy department nowadays. Oops.

You know you’re not going to find Ramirez. But him giving this back to you? It was his way of saying he’s alright and that he owes you many thanks. 

You pocket the coin and accept the fact you just got bested.

It should take a few hours before you hit the first motel. Wisconsin isn’t that far, but you do have to pass through about hundred “middle of nowhere’s”. You pull out of the garage and check your mirrors — completely unaware of the super soldier running full speed to the passenger door. Steve carefully throws it open, somewhat aware of his strength, and lands into the seat beside you.

You hit the brakes hard. “Oh my! Rogers!”

Steve sucks in a few heavy breaths, like he literally ran across the compound to make it. “What? I startle you?”

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing? Aren’t you on house arrest?”

You squint at him, “Touche.” Putting the car in park, you turn your whole body to face him. “Answer my question.”

“Thought you were just gonna leave without saying goodbye?” Steve asks, expression much more teasing than serious.

“I’ll be gone for three days tops,” you say, waving your hand in the air. Steve smiles at you, seemingly waiting for you to speak again. You roll your eyes, “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

Steve lifts up the small duffel bag you hadn’t seen when he first got into the car. He throws it into the backseat and smiles lovingly at you. “I’ve been told that I’m impossible to get rid of, so yeah.”

“Rhodey said that the ankle bracelet they gave me wasn’t a trusted model. Easy to break off, like they did it on purpose.” You lean toward him, holding your chin up with the palm of your hand. “Should be able to drive free for a few weeks before they suspect anything.”

“Already booked us a cabin for Thanksgiving.”

“What makes you think that I even want you to accompany me on this road trip? Did you like the first one?”

Steve clears his throat and mimes like he’s writing on paper. The next words out of his mouth make your legs turn cold. “No matter how annoying and smart-mouthed you may be, there’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be than here, there, and everywhere with you.”

You blink multiple times, as if that would fix your ears. “...You. Fucking. Didn’t.” Steve reaches over to try and hug you. “No, don’t.” He squeezes harder, smooshing your face in his chest. “Steeeeve!”

“It fell out of your suitcase during the mission and I just… looked,” Steve reasons. He allows you to escape his grip.

“You just looked?”

Steve sighs. He really does look guilty. He pushes a strand of your hair behind your ear, letting his fingers tickle your skin. “I’m sorry I read it. I’ll get out of this car for real if you want me to.”

You arch an eyebrow, “You’re a little shit, but I’m not mad. No one understands privacy these days.”

Steve smiles wide enough for his dimples to pop and his eyes to crinkle. “I’d follow you anywhere, doll.”

“Anywhere?”

“Just name it.”

Humming low, you lean forward. He follows your direction like you’re a lighthouse beaming with light, capturing your lips with his in a sweet kiss. He hooks a large hand behind your head to press you to him harder. You smell like that vanilla scented shampoo he loves so much and feels his heart constrict with a pleasant pulse. 

You pull back for air and smile against Steve’s soft lips. 

“Well, I’m headed for the middle of buttfuck Wisconsin—”

“Just drive!”

Bursts of laughter fill the car until you’re past the checkpoints and well onto the long roads. The clouds continue to turn darker but they’re inviting, alluring, and it’s not insane that both of you desire thunderstorms because they remind you of family. 

Steve watches you from the passenger seat, memorizing the contours and edges of your profile. The roots in his heart begin spreading again; the meat of his heart filling with a soothing promise that his time on earth is no longer rootless. He’s dug his feet in, he’s watered all he’s needed to water, and he feels it spreading within him like newly blossomed flowers in the spring. He has a sudden urge to take out his drawing pad to immortalize the way your mouth tilts higher up on the right side when you smile, to record it forever. 

But he’ll remember it. He’ll remember well into this timeline, several years down the road, and even when he’s resting in his grave. So he leans his head back against the seat and chooses to watch the curves of every expression you grace him with. He immortalizes the sound of your voice, the taps of your fingers against the steering wheel, and the accented way you say his name. 

There’s a long drive ahead, but he’s excited for it. He’s excited for you. Steve promises himself that he’ll ask you a million questions, and give you a million answers, and share a million more stories. 

Right now, he just needs to sleep.

~

THE END.

Taglist: @dumb-ass-3 @justab-eautifulmess @supraveng @mycosmicparadise​ @missnighttigress​

[whitehotharlots]

Things really are this bad

Yesterday, Freddie posted an excellent piece titled “People of Color Have Agency.” It’s free and I encourage you to read it all the way through, but its gist is found in the title: contemporary anti-racism regards non-white people as having no control of their actions, nor any moral culpability for anything they themselves do. Why? Because white supremacy is such an all-encompassing causal force that it prevents non-white people from having human agency. Freddie points out, correctly, that far from being liberating, this conceptualization of race and racism flatly dehumanizes non-white people, and, in doing so, centers the actions and experiences of white people as having determined the entirety of human existence.

From the piece:

I suspect that placing all of the blame for historical crimes on white people is strangely comforting for white leftists: it advances a vision of the world where only white people matter. It says that the sun rises and sets with white people. It suggests that white people wrote history. It assures white people that, no matter what else is true, they are the masters of the world. That all of this is framed in terms of judgment against the abstraction “white people” is incidental. I think if you could strip people down to their most naked self-interest and ask them, “would you be willing to take all the blame, if it meant you got all the power?,” most would say yes. And of course in this narrative people of color are sad little extras, unable even to commit injustice, manipulated across the chessboard by the omnipotent white masters whose interests they can’t even begin to oppose. All of this to score meaningless political points in debates about inequality and injustice.

I don’t have anything especially poignant to add (you really should read the whole piece). He repeatedly assures his reader that some of the more absurd aspects of anti-racism being described actually are real and quite pervasive. This move is necessary because, although his descriptions are objectively correct and plainly obvious, they cannot be articulated with appropriate harshness without it sounding like the writer is exaggerating (a poisonous rhetorical milieu made all the worse by conservative critics who could have a field day simply describing wokeness as it actually exists, but instead understand it in the most idiotic manner imaginable.)

But no, Freddie was not exaggerating. Everything he describes I have seen in person and in print multiple times. There exists, believe it or a not, a sizeable faction of the left that does not believe Imperial Japan was an imperialist power, that expecting non-white people to adhere to basic standards of decency is akin to slavery or genocide, and that black people are so inimically traumatized by historical racism (that such trauma is even literally embedded into their genes) that they cannot follow rules or obey laws. This is the state of liberal antiracism in the early twenty-twenties, and it doesn’t become any less ugly by us pretending that it’s not as bleak than it actually is.

Basically, people belong to two groups: Non-whites are non-entities and therefore sympathetic, blameless victims. Whites, conversely, are all-powerful and therefore the horrors faced by most people all across this blighted planet are caused by the very existence of whites. This understanding is racist, chauvinistic, narcissistic, and dehumanizing. And it’s utterly dominant in anti-racist discourses right now.

I have made this point before, but it bears repeating: whiteness and white supremacy have become conceptually indistinguishable. The former was previously understood as a description of a people’s racial markings and was therefore fluid and inchoate and, progressives once believed, a complete social construct, a fabrication, something that we faced an imperative to stop taking seriously. The latter concept, white supremacy, was used to describe myriad aspects of a pervasive system of racial inequality. A small child can suss out how weakening the conceptual status of the former is an absolutely necessary prerequisite for addressing the urgent concerns posed by the latter. 

Instead, however, the contemporary anti-racist left (call them what you want: corporate anti-racists, wokes, neoracists... it’s all the same stuff) has done the exact opposite. Racialization is calcified to the extent that we consider the presence of racial markers to be the sole driving force behind all human interactions. This makes malignancies unchangeable, but that’s beside the point. We’re not actually looking to reform systems and improve the lives of everyday people of color: we are, instead, concerned with burnishing the image of the Democratic party, helping dull grad students get their PhDs, and assisting the book sales of a small handful of the most cynical authors the human race has ever seen. 

But this is just all so incredibly absurd. Like... Jesus fucking Christ people, fucking think about this shit for a second or two. Take this piece for instance. It’s not from everydayfeminism or some random tumblr: it’s from the New York Times. It describes an incident in which two black middle school girls were very badly harassed--even urinated upon--by 4 middle school boys. The headline reads “A Racist Attack Shows How Whiteness Evolves.” The catch? The perpetrators of the attack were not white.

Just because the boys weren’t white doesn’t mean they weren’t doin’ some whiteness. Oh no. As the author explains:

While it’s tempting to see the reported ethnicity of the boys suspected in the assault as complicating the story and raising questions about whether the assault should be thought of as racist, I look at it through a different lens. Instead of asking what the boys’ reported racial identity tells us about the nature of the attack, we should see the boys as enacting American whiteness through anti-black assault in a very traditional way. In doing so, the assailants are demonstrating how race is a social construct that people make through their actions. They show race in the making, and show how race is something we perform, not just something we are in our blood or in the color of our skin.

Herein, race is not only real but inevitable, all-pervasive, and unchangeable. And race does not correlate with traditional markings like dialect, place of birth, or skin color. Nosir. Race is behavioral. The stuff this writer dislikes (rightly or wrongly) are what constitute whiteness. The stuff this writer loves (victimhood, and also presumably the Marvel Cinematic Universe) are what constitute non-whiteness. 

This idiotic conceptualization leads inevitably to all matter of malignancies--from petty inconveniences to world-historic atrocities--to be understood under the same umbrella, and emanating from the same magical force--a force which, it just so happens, we’ve already established cannot be altered or changed or even understood in a coherent manner. Whoops, sorry. But, hey, this is why it’s good that we don’t want to reform anything even though all we talk about is how bad everything is. Biden 2024, y’all: Keep America Entropic.

If this understanding of anti-racism had been explicitly designed to worsen and perpetuate racism, it could not have done a better job. But it wasn’t--maybe in the upper corridors of the liberal political and NGO sphere some people realized this was a great way to pretend to care about racism without actually changing anything, sure, but a vast majority of the people peddling and accepting this bullshit are earnest in their desire combat racism. They just can’t conceive of doing so in a manner that hasn’t fully internalized the deranged, neurotic mysticism that’s drilled into our heads from birth in order to make us accept the brutal inhumanities of neoliberalism. 

[chibimyumi]

Autopsy of Weston Arc

A few days ago I visited a beloved friend @sweetbunny8, and we were bitching about the Boarding School Arc together. That friend is so incredibly smart, she brought up amazing points I never thought about... and so we spent the afternoon facepalming, discussing how many missed potentials there were. The below are the 5 points we talked about, on FIRE🔥🔥🔥!

1. The Arc owes us a thorough Power Dynamic Swap

I think the biggest draw of Kuroshitsuji is the unusual power dynamic between our protagonists. It would have been amazing to see a thoroughly explored power dynamic swap between master and servant.

The manga did touch upon this swap, and it gave us a delicious appetiser of what this Arc could have been. I really would love loved to see more of how Sebas and O!Ciel would deal with their cognitive dissonance of role.

Our Ciel

O!Ciel was raised in a world where the roles of servant vs master are very distinct. To O!Ciel it must have been very weird to now suddenly be subordinate to his servant. I would have loved to see if O!Ciel found it uncomfortable, or just really fun to try something new without stakes, or how his habits would slip through. In the Circus Arc we saw very clearly how both Sebas and O!Ciel still succumbed to their habits, thereby accidentally drawing unwanted attention.

Doing so in the Weston Arc would not have been a carbon copy of the Circus Arc, because unlike at the circus now O!Ciel would be performing in a more familiar environment with people of comparable status. I really wish we could have seen more of that.

Sebastian

Sebas would also have been a blast to see in a likely unprecedented role for him. In this post I argued how Sebas was probably never given opportunity to interact for real with humans on close proximity, and how he was probably not ever considered more than a mass-destruction weapon. It would have been very interesting to see how Sebas would handle suddenly being surrounded by people who don’t just interact, but are also subordinate to him as a teacher!

I find it unlikely Sebas ever had the experience of playing a superiour role to his own master. Sebas loves testing his limits with his master, and it would have been a blessing to see how Sebas could now “legally” exploit his own position of power over his master. I’m sure he would have gotten a kink out of it.

2. Planning and Calculation???

It would have been logical and responsible if the Queen just told her Watchdog what House Derek was in for O!Ciel to investigate. A “P.S. He’s in Red House according to the latest information btw, loves - Vicky” would not be too much asked. She knows Derek’s parents, and I can’t imagine the March of Arden being secretive about what House the kid is in. But even if Victoria didn’t do the efficient thing, we still would have loved it if O!Ciel had to discuss with Sebas and strategically choose a House to get into, rather than him just being planted in Blue House.

My friend thought O!Ciel would have chosen Red House regardless of whether he knew for sure where he’d be, because as the nephew of the Queen, Derek being in Red was the most logical. As an actual Lorded Earl himself, O!Ciel would have a decent chance holding down a position in Red House. And considering how Redmond has a talent for choosing awful personalities for fag, O!Ciel would have fit in perfectly too!

Then O!Ciel’s goal could still have been to become a prefect’s fag, but then the showdown with Maurice would at least have direct, immediate conflict, rather than... whatever it was the manga did. Maurice had NO reason to neutralise O!Ciel as long as they’re in different Houses! Maurice you... boring, inefficient, redundant twat...

3. Yana... is Edward a joke to you?

Why didn’t O!Ciel/Yana capitalise more on Edward being at Weston?! It would have been a perfect chance to develop Edward further and show O!Ciel’s interaction with family! I love Lizzie, but it would have been amazing to see Edward interacting with our protagonist without his sister being the reason for interaction. UGH 💔

Also, the cricket drag could have been shortened dramatically if O!Ciel had thought of using Edward. Edward has been at the Weston for longer, and he is a prefect’s fag to boot.

Sure, O!Ciel didn’t know that at first, but he finds out BEFORE the cricket was set up. The moment O!Ciel would learn that he’d need to win cricket to meet the principal, he should have gambled on Edward. If O!Ciel explained to Edward that he is investigating the disappearance of the Queen’s relative, I can’t imagine Edward not being willing to help by winning cricket in becoming “the chosen one” through gentlemanly play. That’d be what Edward would be aspiring to become, anyway.

4. Why Cricket ANYWAY!?

Even IF Edward for some reason refused to help, the cricket would still entirely have been unnecessary. It wouldn’t matter at all who would win, because as the prefect’s fag, Edward had the privilege to attend the Midnight Tea Party ANYWAY. All four prefect fags are present, as we all can see. O!Ciel would only have needed to ask Edward to act as his agent, and tadaaa.

Besides, even IF Edward didn’t exist in the arc it’d still be entirely fine, because all the prefects would SURELY have access to the Party. That is known. O!Ciel only needed to tell Sebas to keep an eye on where the definitive participants would be going, and track them. When push comes to shove, Sebas could just barge in like he did anyway (and bring O!Ciel even if he’s uninvited), and the case would still have unfolded the way it did.

5. PLOT HOLE!?

My friend also brought up a humongous plot hole so large it became a space on its own that I didn’t even notice it was a hole. Why did the prefects react so differently to Agares and Derek being “alive” respectively?

So, my friend and I both watched the musical adaptation as the last thing, and in the musical the prefects were all being totally chill about Agares being around, but shocked shitless to see Derek back. All four prefects were present during the killing of Derek AND Agares, so they should all know both are dead. It had not been addressed in the musical that the prefects have knowledge of corpse reanimation, so they shouldn’t have been able to act so normal next to Agares, but freak out about seeing Derek. (This is yet another example of WHO IS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE, KUROMY21!?)

In the manga it had been addressed that the prefects have knowledge that reanimation of the dead is possible. And it seems like Redmond arranged for the reanimation of at least Agares. But why didn’t they arrange for the reanimation of Derek too? (@chibmib​ Thanks sis, for checking this for me so I didn’t have to suffer through it again)

Derek is the Queen’s relative, his disappearance would really have invited suspicion, as it indeed did. The reason the P4 didn’t arrange for Derek’s reanimation can’t be because the they considered Derek too evil to bring back. Agares was namely arguably worse; he was an adult and the vice-principal! It was his literal job to be responsible.

The P4 couldn’t have decided to not reanimate Derek for fear of him ratting them out for assault. There are plenty witnesses of Derek’s crimes, and the P4 would be first-hand witnesses too of Derek’s lying. If Derek told the authorities he was assaulted, all witnesses could have helped testify for the P4 against Derek.

The only reason I can make sense of the double standard in the P4′s reaction is that Undertaker told the P4 he only succeeded in reanimating Agares and not Derek, because the technology is still very young; which would have been true too. BUT THEN THE MANGA SHOULD HAVE ADDRESSED IT.

Even if that’s what happened though, the P4′s reaction shouldn’t have been such horrified surprise. They should be relieved to see the Queen’s relative alive, because then they wouldn’t have ‘murder of Queen’s relative’ on their résumé. All they had to do instead then is explain why they attacked Derek in a moment of lost control at the sight of a future-prefect being a lowlife. And again, the victims could have helped testify...

And this all would only have happened if we momentarily accept the unlikeliness of Sebas coincidentally having a plugged nose and not smelling Agares’ corpse stench the entire Arc.

[fantasiesofthesea]

This isn’t new... Rachel had to repeatedly tell people on her Patreon to stop sharing the vip content and it pissed me off every time because her posting those reminders meant people were still stealing her work - and yes, sharing pay-to-view content with people who haven’t paid the artist is stealing.

I fast pass because of shitty impulse control as of late, but I don’t mind because it does support the artists. If I can provide even a little bit of support and give back to the people who create art that I get this invested in, then yeah, I’m definitely going to do that. Which is why it sickens me that there are people who spend a couple bucks a week to profit off of the unreleased episodes. My spending a couple dollars to unlock an episode doesn’t come close to giving me, or any of the other fast passers, the right to share that content with *anyone,* and that’s doubly true regarding charging those people. You do not have a right to steal the small profits from these artists.

And for anyone doing this because you “just need to share it with someone,” No. There are plenty of other fast passers out there and on here that you can talk & squeal to. There are plenty of us having fun with spoilers without context posts which don’t actually pirate the artwork and can in fact be more entertaining to share (but even then, always include spoilers tags (lo spoilers, lore olympus spoilers, lo fast pass, lore olympus fast pass, etc) - there are plenty of non fast passers who don’t want that level of spoilers, and that’s absolutely legit). Your wanting to obsess with people doesn’t give you a right to steal that artwork either. In fact it is downright inexcusable to try and claim that as an excuse... fanning out at the expense of the artist(s)... I don’t have the words for how backward and messed up that is. Either pay for the fast pass and keep your obsessing restricted to other people who have also paid for the episode, or wait until it legitimately gets published for free.

And lastly, Rachel has been catching a lot of hate lately for some of the plot lines or because people don’t think she’s focusing heavily enough on the “right characters.” Kindly shut up and fuck off. It isn’t your story to dictate, you don’t have the entire picture of said plot lines or character arcs, and even if you did - IT’S NOT YOUR STORY. And I’d just like to say, she deals with a LOT of difficult topics in this story - rape, sexual assault, PTSD, depression, anxiety, physical/mental/emotional abuse, and gaslighting to name a few. I have personally really appreciated seeing these things presented the way she’s addressed them. She approaches them with respect and works to make the characters’ experiences reflective of what these things look like in real life... it’s honest and thought through rather than purely included for a single plot point and then abandoned like the character never actually experienced it. This is a complex story and yes, as a result there will always be plot lines and characters that you really don’t like and, perhaps even makes you feel angry or upset at the author, but that’s no reason to blindly send hateful criticism or threats at her. Grow up. Take some time to cool off and think through the underlying reasons it’s setting you off so much, and then if it’s something you really feel needs to be addressed, take the time to write out a level headed explanation that’s actually constructive in nature.

[petri808]

We’ll Take Back Heaven a Nalu Yakuza Au

1 | 2

—

The moment Lucy left the room, Natsu simply turned and gave a silent look to his lieutenant Gray who nodded back in acknowledgment and left with one of the men. He sat back in his chair, fingers steepled below his chin in thought. Could it really be one of his own men? Some of the lower level guys didn’t always follow the rules, but it was rare for them to utterly disregard them! Oh! That really pissed him off, because they knew better then to test Natsu’s patience. There’s a damn good reason he was able to create such a lucrative gang in the heart of Tokyo when so many others would kill for it. By the age of 21, his father retired and left the position of Oyabun leader to Natsu. But, Natsu wasn’t satisfied with the old way of doing things. This was the 21st century and times must change.

It was well known that the Yakuza traversed a dangerous underworld full of illegalities. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, shake downs and extortion, theft, or in other words the seedier side of society. So that is where Natsu focused his attention. Some of the very first of the changes were to reign in unauthorized violence or any crimes that utilized it. Such a move sent a utter shockwave through the order and those that refused to let go of the old ways were swiftly eliminated to instill an image of power and fear that Natsu Dragneel was not to be messed with. His logic behind the move was simple. Do not do anything that brings attention to the gang and attacking someone on the street for a few yen is a quick way for the authorities to show up. So, in a way, Natsu was lucky it happened to be one of Lucy’s employees and not a random person, because they would have immediately called the police. Though it also brought up another question. Were there other crimes he just hadn’t heard of yet?

“Well, she’s still as feisty as ever, gihi.” Gajeel broke the silence of the room when he returned. “Could’ve cut the sexual tension with a sword.”

Natsu crossed his arms in feigned annoyance. If it were any other underling, they would have received a harsher response, but Gajeel was one of his oldest and trusted friends. “Pfft. I don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s a rival, that’s it. You know that.”

“Mmhmm.” Gajeel snickered. “So, now what?”

“Gray started working on finding who it was. I want you to call your contacts at police and see if they’ve had any reports of recent robberies in the area, and if there were, any details we can use to figure out who it might be.”

“Can do boss. Anything else?”

“You think it could one of our own?”

Gajeel looked up for a couple of minutes as if he were running their personnel through his mind. Finally, he rubbed his chin. “There’s a couple of newbies, a bit young and dumb that might be stupid enough to break the rules. I’ll call my contacts first before helping Gray press the men for info. Someone’s gotta know something.”

“Good. You do that and let me know as soon as you get a lead. I want this dealt with as quickly as possible.”

“Gotcha.”

Between Natsu’s two lieutenants and their best men, they interviewed all of the most likely suspects. Gajeel’s police informant let him know that there were a couple other robberies that sounded similar a few blocks away from where Lucy’s employee and client had been accosted. He also learned those two victims gave a similar description of the robber. With the new information, along with other snitches, they narrowed it down within a few days to a low-level street guy in the organization. But unlike Gajeel’s initial hunch, it wasn’t one of the newbies. Instead, the male had been with them for a couple of years now and never caused any problems. In fact, the guy fashioned himself as a smooth talking ladies’ man who supposedly disliked violence. So, it was a bit surprising it was one of the ones they’d least expected.

Gajeel and his men found the man named Bora Prominence laying low at his girlfriend’s apartment after he’d heard the gang was looking for him. Not the smartest move. The woman gave him up without a fight, fearing the Yakuza more than her boyfriend. So, once she’d let them inside, they quickly found Bora hiding in the bathroom and dragged him out.

“It wasn’t me!” Bora screamed as the men beat him to the floor. “You got no proof I did shit!”

Gajeel planted his foot into the small of the man’s back and held him down. “Two of the witnesses saw the tattoo on your face. That’s enough evidence for us.” He growled. “You knew the code and what would happen if you broke it, so stop being a bitch.”

But Bora continued to resist the four men, pushing off the floor with his arms unsuccessfully against Gajeel’s massive weight or fending off kicks from the others. They pummeled him with fists and kicks over and over until one clear blow finally knocked him unconscious long enough to be tied up. Despite a heavy beating bad enough to leave him bruised and bloodied, he continued to scream about his innocence. Back at headquarters, they dragged him into Natsu’s office with hands bound behind his back and forced him onto his knees.

The room held Natsu sitting at his desk, along with both lieutenants, four of their men keeping Bora restrained, and lastly Lucy with the victim to Natsu’s right side. He had contacted her as soon as he knew the suspect was being brought in. And thought they were pretty certain of guilt, the woman’s immediate reaction when they’d brought Bora in of cringing back and moving closer to her boss spoke volumes.

“Is that him?” Natsu questioned to gain a verbal confirmation.

“Y-Yeah,” the woman squeaked out. “He’s the one who pushed me down and robbed us.”

Natsu’s eyes stayed narrowed and glaring at Bora as he addressed the women. “Thank you, that’ll be all. Heartfilia you both can leave now I’ll handle things from here.”

“You’re a doll,” Lucy giggled and gave Natsu a quick teasing peck on the cheek before ushering her employee away. They’d done what they needed to do, now it was his job to finish it.

“Tch, so that’s what this is all about.” Bora sneered, spitting out a clot of blood. “Cause that bitch got you all worked up over a measly few bucks?”

“Watch it!” Natsu roared. “It ain’t a good idea to piss me off anymore then I already am!” There was a fire burning behind Natsu’s stare because when he looked at this man Bora, he doesn’t see the crimes themselves, but the disobedient threat he posed to their organization. How dare this selfish ignorant punk threaten everything they’ve worked hard to build! And to accuse him of weakness in doing Lucy’s bidding just sealed the man’s fate.

Bora snapped back defiantly, though the crack in his tone gave away the fear brewing beneath. “What does it matter, I know what awaits me.”

“You’re right.” Natsu relaxed back into his chair once he sensed the man’s inevitable compliance. “You knew the consequences for crossing me. What does it matter if my rival is also benefiting in this way? Because I know there are other victims. Dumbass, how do you think we linked you to all this? Those other victims reported it to the police! Which is exactly why I have the rules I have in place! You put all of us in jeopardy by pulling this kind of stupid low level bullshit!”

“Pfft, you act like we’re saints. If the cops really wanted to, they’d look into the other illegal shit we do regardless.”

“No, it’s you who fails to recognize there is a hierarchy to the kinds of crimes that bring heat on us. Drugs? Prostitution? The cops don’t care as much, but assault? Robbing people, murders, now those are things they will pay attention to, and I will not tolerate it!” Natsu sat forward with a malevolent grin. “Welcome to the modern Yakuza.”

Drugs and prostitution were a part of the gangs dealings, but the bigger scheme was in shaking down the local business owners for protection money. Thing is, Natsu’s gang actually did the protection part causing crimes in that area for customers or businesses to drop down to nearly zero. So, while the business owners weren’t thrilled to cut a portion of their profits, they also appreciated not having to worry about security. That and because of the gangs connections, they had pipelines of cheaper priced products which helped to keep their costs down. This more symbiotic relationship is why they didn’t go to the authorities and why the gang could hold such a control over the area. Making sure the areas streets were protected from violent crime is a testament to the gangs power and would insure that these businesses stayed compliant.

“Tch.” Bora retorted. “You’re just young and dumb. Eventually you’ll realize there’s a reason why things were done a certain way in the old days.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but your days of worrying about it are over.” Natsu motioned to Gajeel. “I’m done. Get him out of my face.”

Gajeel then motioned to his men to haul Bora to his feet and drag him away to an unknown destination never to be seen from again. Cliche as it may sound, even in killing off a problem like Bora, Natsu’s gang didn’t follow tradition. Bora would be held as a prisoner until his wounds healed then his death made to look like just another suicide statistic. In the seven years that Natsu has reigned, not one murder had been laid at their doorstep and he intended to keep it that way.

Now that the Bora business was over, Natsu closed his eyes and fully relaxed into his chair with a sigh. He didn’t exactly enjoy playing the tough guy bit and only did it out of necessity. This was a life his father groomed him for since birth, but he’d love nothing more than to just settle down with a wife and start a family of his own. Not that he couldn’t already do so, but that required finding the right woman to settle down with and no one other than his old flame has ever evoked I’m him more than a passing glance.

He didn’t know how long he’d been relaxing when there was a knock on his office door. “Yeah? Come in.”

“Sorry to disturb you,” the man spoke as he quietly entered the room. Invel Yura was Natsu’s Saiko-kamon, the top advisor and managed the administrative side of the organization. “I wanted to go over your schedule for tomorrow in case I need to make any changes.”

“It’s fine.” Natsu gestured to the chair fronting the desk. Invel had been the advisor to his father for the last few years of his tenure and he fully trusted the man’s diligence.

Invel sat down and opened up a calendar. “Tomorrow morning, we have a new shipment of prescription drugs coming in as well as some ecstasy, so you’ll need to appoint someone to oversee inventory processing.”

“Hmm, who should I have work on this?” Natsu asked for Invel’s opinion.

“Might I suggest Rajeel Ramal? He’s gruff but meticulous and has done a good job so far.”

“Is that so? Then that’s fine, let him continue. What’s next?”

“Okay,” Invel scribbled the orders in his book. “Next, the only other thing you have is a party to attend with one of our high end clients.”

“Which one?”

“The son of Yuuji Katsunuma of Katsunuma industries.”

“Ah yes, the one we supply with cocaine. Such a spoiled brat, but he spends a lot with us.”

Invel chuckled. “That’s the one. It starts at 8pm.”

“Okay. Thank you, Invel. Is that all for now?”

“Yes. If anything, else comes up I will let you know.”

“I’m sure you will. Oh. Have an appropriate suit pressed and ready for me for the occasion.”

“Very well, sir. Is there anything else you need from me?”

“No. You may go.”

Invel nodded and returned to his own office. He made a few typical phone calls such as to Natsu’s house staff regarding an evening outfit and the transporters bringing the morning inventory to make sure everything was on schedule. Aside from the Bora issue, the going’s-on of business continued as normal. The final call he placed before he’d leave for lunch was to Rajeel of a simple a five word instruction. Nothing more needed to be said, knowing that his associate would understand. Invel sat back in his chair with a smile. “It’s almost too easy…”

[may-b-a-u-shewritestoo]

Chapter 2 | | Lamplights and Lonesome Bridge

warnings; mention of assault (being bullied)

word count; 3k

Tapping the end of her pen on her bottom lip, Zuli took a moment to close her eyes and breathe in the fresh air. She sat cross-legged upon her burnt orange blanket on a grassy square outside the Astronomy and Astrophysics building, writing pages and more pages for her thesis.

The transference of energy in the universe and its inability to be created.

So far she’d handwritten sixteen pages, the words just flowing from her mind but now she’d hit a wall. Slowly laying down onto her back, Zuli looked up at the sky. How could it hold so much space? Matter, particles, chemicals, stars, meteors, planets. And yet all she could see was clouds; aerosols consisting of liquid particles and crystals. The sky is just plain azure; like a door hiding so much beyond it. A crisp orange and brown leaf swivelled down from a nearby branch, landing only centimetres from her head.

She was truly fascinated by everything the world and the galaxies had to offer, intrigued by discovery; obsessed with learning. Letting out a deep exhale and closing her eyes, she almost began to drift off; her brain realising it needed a few minutes to reboot and recover. But a ruckus of sarcastic laughter and shouting stirred her from her relaxation.

Sitting up and shielding her eyes from the glowing sun, Zuli looked around to see where the noise was coming from. Sight finally following Sound, her stomach dropped as she noticed what was happening.

All too familiar she recognised five grown seniors underneath the arches by the Mathematics classrooms surrounding somebody, whoever it was being thrown around like a rag doll. Passed between each student, they were being shoved, hit, laughed at and verbally abused. While she knew she could be quite assertive and intimidating, that really only applied to people her age or younger. Seniors were different.

Continuing to watch at the same time as keeping an eye out to see if any staff were walking past.

“Ha ha, won’t be able to read your sappy love letters without these huh?” One older guy shouted, holding up a pair of clear framed glasses. Oh no. Her heart sank. Something began tingling in her stomach, flowing through to her feet and her arms and hands; she grew angry, scared, overwhelmed.

Collecting her textbooks and notepad, Zuli stood up and marched straight over to the group of boys. Adrenaline and dopamine worked evilly beside each other, triggering Zuli’s instincts of fight or flight; both of them somehow coming into play.

“If you don’t leave him the heck alone, I’ll report you to the dean of the CARE team. I know you. You,” Zuli addressed two of the group, “are from Chemistry. You others are from Mathematics. It’s not a threat, it’s a promise. Back off.” She spoke with such a seething tone to her voice, regardless of her being a small 15 year old kid; the boys listened, gathering their things and jogging off in a different direction.

“Spencer?” Zuli’s tone changed immediately, as she whispered to the boy curled up on the floor clutching his bag. His glasses were thrown just a bit away from him so Zuli picked them up, wiped the lenses with the hem of her sweater and handed them back to Spencer. He snatched them, scrambling to get himself together and stood up.

“It’s a silly question, but are you alri-�� Zuli couldn’t even finish the sentence before Spencer ran off, the back of him becoming a small shape as he got further and further away.

Shrugging her own backpack on her shoulders properly and adjusting her own glasses on the bridge of her nose, she tried to tell her brain not to take it personally. She probably wouldn’t want to talk to anybody after being exploited like that in public.

As she took a step forward to follow him, her foot nudged against something thick on the floor. A book covered in tight lavender coloured woven cloth lay on the floor, as if discarded like trash. Picking it up to observe, she noticed it had S.R embroidered down the spine. Holding it to her chest, she looked up to see if Spencer was still visible.

Watching as he became a little dot in the distance, she watched as he stopped underneath a junction of trees. Go left. Go left Spencer. He looked to his right before running off to the left and Zuli sighed with solace.

*********************************************************

The sunshine and clear sky was quickly a thing of the past as the weather turned into what should be expected of the fall; darkness creeping in early, and light raindrops hitting the ground. And as Zuli creaked open the recognisable doors to the library, it was the rain against the windows that made the soft sound of sniffling even more melancholic.

Following the soft sniffles to where she hoped in foresight Spencer would be, she sighed at the confirmation. Curled up in one of the big leather armchairs in what they’d both christened as ‘their’ corner of the room, Spencer had his knees tucked into his chest and his head tucked into his knees.

Arms wrapped tightly around his legs, he squeezed himself tighter at the sound of soft footsteps creeping toward him. He wanted to be alone. He didn’t want to speak to a dean or a librarian or another student.

But as he peeked underneath his elbow and saw Zuli’s maroon Doc Martens standing by the chair, he lifted his whole head to see her smiling down at him.

“Hey you.” She spoke, for the first time, truly gently.

“Hi.” Spencer sniffed hard, clearing his throat and wiping his eyes with his sweater sleeve and trying to sit up properly.

“You don’t have to get up for me Spencer, I’ll sit over there,” Even though her instinct was telling her to give him a huge hug, she knew he wouldn’t want it, “I think this is yours though.”

Holding out the mysterious book, Spencer’s eyes widened and he let out a breathy chuckle of disbelief.

“I thought they took it,” You shook your head as he took it timidly from your hands, “It was a birthday gift.”

“Wait. Did I miss your birthday?” Zuli asked, eyes widening and mouth open in surprise. Had she been so caught up in her thesis she didn’t notice her own friend’s birthday? As her brain attempted to figure out his birthday, he spoke.

“It’s today.”

“What? Why didn't you say anything?” Zuli supposed also, how hadn’t she noticed from the years before? She would’ve got him gifts, made him some cupcakes, anything.

Spencer shifted in his seat a little, fingernails stretching at a loose bit of cotton on his pants. He was evidently uncomfortable, for reasons that Zuli didn’t know and didn’t want to press on. Looking over Spencer’s shoulder at something happening outside in the hall, Zuli let out a little giggle.

Joining her in looking, Spencer too giggled at the sight of some students carrying a range of pumpkins and running down the hall with them.

A tradition they’d both learned takes place every Halloween at Caltech; students dropping pumpkins from the 9 floors up, watching them smash into tiny pieces at the bottom. It was one of the first things that Zuli and Spencer had done together besides study, laughing at the atmosphere of excitement and madness as the pumpkins shattered on the ground.

Zuli had picked miniscule bits of pumpkin out of Spencer’s hair for hours after.

“Shall we go watch?” She asked, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and holding onto her bag straps, “It might make you feel a little better.”

Spencer smiled at the doorway before turning to look at Zuli, overwhelmed by her kind soft voice; also wanting both to feel better and see the tradition.

“Let’s go.” Spencer stood up, brushing down his pants and running his hands over his face, removing evidence of his upset minutes ago.

As they both walked towards the doors, Zuli nudged Spencer’s shoulder with her own; getting a little chuckle out of him. Reaching down to turn the doorknob, Zuli leant her full body weight on the door to push it open.

But it wouldn’t. Jiggling the door handle over and over, the realisation creeped in that it wasn’t going to budge. Turning to Spencer, she let out a splutter of anxious giggles, his eyes wide however returning the same laughs.

“Well, looks like we’ve been locked in.” Spencer said, attempting to look through the glass and down the hall in case anyone was still walking around. He knew that everybody would be outside watching the pumpkins, but surely they would’ve seen them both in there.

Looking over to the corner they were sat in, he realised that the chairs were tucked in a corner behind some bookshelves, out of sight from the entrance door. Brilliant.

“Let’s just use the desk phone and call the caretaker or somebody?” Zuli suggested, pulling out her planner from her backpack and heading over to the phone sitting on top of the librarians desk. She’d taken all the emergency numbers of staff and authorities down in case anything ever happened. Preparedness was a relatively strong suit for her.

Spencer paced around the front of the desk as Zuli tried different numbers, stopping only when she began talking to somebody. It wasn’t that he was worried about anything, he adored the library; however he was exhausted and wanted to go to bed. Spending his birthday trapped in a library almost sounded fun, and it was only counting on the fact that Zuli would keep him entertained and busy.

“Okay, that’s fine. No it’s not that bad actually. See you soon. Thank you sir. Bye.” Zuli sighed as she put the phone down, hopping down from where she was sitting on the desk, “They’re sending a caretaker out to come and unlock the doors, but they won’t be for another two to three hours because of the rain.”

“I suppose that’s significantly better than staying here until 7 tomorrow morning.”

“The lady asked if it was cold in here, because the heating turns off at six-ish, buuuuut-“ Zuli unzipped her backpack and pulled out the blanket she was sitting on earlier, “I came prepared. Oh my god! I have an idea!”

Spencer just smiled and pulled his bag strap back over his head, settling it down on a nearby chair as he watched his hyperactive friend begin to push one of the leather chairs forward. He had no idea what she was doing, but whatever it would be he was going to just leave her to it.

*********************************************************“Is your neck hurting too?”

“Yeah. I completely misjudged the size of the blanket, and the distance between the chairs.”

They were both crouched underneath Zuli’s blanket that she had draped over the backs of two chairs; attempting to make a small fort in which they could hide from the cold threatening to creep in. But the blanket was only a small kind of throw, the chairs were absolutely huge and she and Spencer were squeezed so close together they might as well have been fused.

“I’ve got shoulder cramp, how is that even possible?” Zuli chuckled, rolling both shoulders back and wincing. The sudden movement tugged on a part of the blanket dipped behind them, and it soon fell to cover them entirely.

“If a muscle is overused or held in an awkward position over a long period of time, it can spasm. While only temporary, it seems like yours would be in the trapezius muscle, so before it entirely locks up I’d recommend a few stretches.” Spencer spoke, voice muffled by the blanket covering his head.

Bursting out into laughter, Zuli pushed the blanket back off of their heads, letting it sit around their shoulders. Rolling her head around in semi-circles, she sighed as the pain began to drift away. She knew it wasn’t just the way she was sitting, her posture had grown awful. Constantly hunched over books, or telescopes, she barely had time to stand or sit straight.

“Spencer…” Zuli mumbled, her voice coming out in the same way a person would sneak down the hall to the fridge at midnight.

“Mm?”

“May I ask what was so important about your book? Is it a first edition?”

Spencer smiled sadly as he reached for it, the spine poking out of his bag. If only he just told her everything with his mom; she wouldn’t have to ask these things and he wouldn’t have to answer them. He knew she would be kind and considerate - that’s just her in general - but he felt like it was too much to offload to somebody else. He didn’t want a pity party, he didn’t need one. But at the same time, if there was somebody to understand a tiny part of his struggle, it could make it easier. He wasn’t sure what was harder. So he calculated the simplest, vaguest answer possible, so as not to attract any further questions.

“It was a gift from somebody special. My favourite poems, mostly romantic, sonnets etcetera. Those seniors thought it was funny so used their own insecurities to lash out.”

There was a sadness behind his words, Zuli knew he wasn’t saying everything but trusted him enough to know if he wanted to share, he could. Deflecting slightly, her brain held on to the words ‘somebody special’ and ‘romantic’. No, it wouldn’t be something like that, he’d tell her. Surely?

“I feel like I can hear your thoughts, Zuli.” Spencer snapped her out of her thinking, eyebrows furrowed with intrigue, “It’s not what you think at all.”

“No, oh my god, it’s fine, I was just thinking that's all. I want you to feel like you can talk to me if you need to, but also you don’t have to, I just can see that you’re upset by something and I’m here if you-“

“It’s from my mom. She’s um…she’s not well. But she remembered my birthday and sent it to me. I read hundreds of books, but this one means the world to me.”

Zuli watched him with intense eyes. She felt full of adoration, sadness, love and contentment for Spencer. She could see he was hurting, but the lavender book gripped tightly in his fingers clearly brought him fondness. Spencer looked up at Zuli to see why he got no response, to find her smiling with enamour. Two lamplights on the table next to them cast a tuscan glow over the two of them, and he suddenly felt overwhelmingly warm.

“Do you know what?” Zuli sat up quickly, keeping the mood from dipping down and switching it to popping up, “I have something that makes me feel like that.”

Reaching into her own knapsack, she pulled out a medium sized leather book and handed it over to Spencer.

“You can look inside if you want.”

Spencer ran his fingers over the carved outline of a tree on the cover, the flat grain of the leather smooth and cool underneath his fingertips. It was beautifully made, and he could tell from the feel of the leather bindings and the smoothness of the handmade paper. He laid it down in between them both, gesturing for Zuli to open it herself.

She excitedly unravelled the leather strips wound round the outside and opened it up to her cover page. Written in magnificent calligraphy the words;

My Dream Adventures

lazuli aged 6

“It was a gift from my mom too. I’ve written a lot of hopes and dreams here, some of which I’ve achieved and some I’m yet to. She used to say to me that ‘adventure is out there.’” Zuli articulated, flipping the first few pages and pointing at different coloured writings.

“Own a lemonade stand and make fifty dollars.”

“Achieved,” Zuli spoke proudly, “age eleven. Made ninety dollars and bought this new backpack.”

Spencer laughed with true merriment before going back to some of the other scribbles.

“Keep bees and sell my own honey.”

“Yet to.”

“Quite the businesswoman it seems, Zuli.” Spencer giggled at her straightforwardness. Zuli’s smile was wider than the Amazon river, her passion and true self coming out as she expressed herself through her past stories.

“This one looks cool, I like your artwork. To fly a house to Lonesome Bridge and live there forever. Where's the Lonesome Bridge?” Spencer asked, trying to rack his brain and think where this ideal living space was.

“It’s in Utah. I love how you don’t care about how I get there, just where I’m going.” Zuli smiled, looking down at the drawing she’d made as a young kid, a white wooden house with multicoloured balloons poking out of its chimney.

“Not to crush your dreams but how do you expect to fly a house. If I’m not mistaken, Utah is at least six hundred and seventy miles…” Spencer’s voice trailed off as a dark frown dropped over Zuli’s face.

It was replaced with a burst of laughter and an excited flap of Zuli’s hands. “Okay so, I estimated that my dream house would be roughly around one hundred thousand pounds in weight, and if I used balloons that were around six feet in diameter, I’d only need, oh what was it..” She hurried to flip to the next page, covered in scribbles of calculations and more drawings of coloured balloons across the page, “Ah! Thirteen thousand, two hundred and eight balloons.”

Spencer watched as she smiled down at her drawings, continuing to explain how the impossible was actually possible. Although he definitely didn’t have a life threatening disease in which this was a symptom, he felt as if his heart was swelling. Unfamiliar with this feeling, he should’ve been uncomfortable but he couldn’t feel more at ease and peace as he did then.

Zuli felt the same unknowingly to him, her heart pouring out of her mouth within her words as she unravelled her future and shared it all with Spencer. She hoped deep, deep, deep down inside that he would stick around and see these wonderful things with her.

[ao3-sucks]

An Archive of Someone’s Own: my experiences being groomed in fandom circles on AO3

TW: Childhood sexual abuse, grooming, mentions of incest and rape.

I used to be a big writer of fanfiction. It was the logical choice for me. I loved to write and create bold and immersive worlds, and I craved an audience who would enjoy my work as much as I did. Since my writing wasn’t actually good, I needed a community of other amateurs who wouldn’t mind that, and by tweaking my characters and settings into ones from canonical media, I got the audience I so craved.

I started writing fanfiction online when I was 14, posting initially on FanFiction.net and then moving to AO3 a few months later. As I got back into writing original fiction towards the end of high school, I lost interest in this community, and it’s been a long time since I posted anything much on AO3.

I’ve always struggled with the fact I display a lot of symptoms of CSA, and for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why. Throughout my teen years, I refused to get changed or bathe when anyone was even vaguely nearby, constantly paranoid about being spied on; I developed a severe touch phobia, and would have frequent panic attacks from something as small as brushing arms with a passerby; I resolutely identified as asexual and refused to get into anything resembling a relationship with others because the very concept disgusted and repulsed me.

Weird, considering I had grown up pretty normal and all of these symptoms had started around my early teens. It was only when I told my friends about my friendship with a 30 year old I had met online that the pieces started falling into place for me.

Child grooming is usually discussed in the context of one adult going out of their way to befriend a child with the goal of lowering their resistance to sexual abuse, through normalisation and friendliness. I’d like to talk about how that worked on the fanfiction website AO3. Since it’s an open website and most communication takes place between anonymous users or accounts in the comments section of a work, there is very little delineation between spaces for adults to discuss whatever dark topics they like and spaces for kids to do the same.

This frequently leads to pretty inappropriate conversations between people of widely varying ages and life experiences, which is how I ended up talking sex as a fourteen year old with people ranging from a couple of years older than me, who were generally okay, to more than twice my age. The 30 year old in question listed on her profile how many pedophilic ships she loved, and she knew my age but pushed me to keep discussing sexual topics with her. Sounds like a red flag, yeah? Well. I was 14, and very stupid.

This 30 year old woman, who I will call Aku (because it’s similar to her screen name and because it’s funny to name her after the bad guy from Samurai Jack) would start conversations with me whenever I posted anything to AO3 and would refuse to take no for an answer when I tried to back out of conversations with her, and since these conversations were public and occurring within comments, I didn’t want to be rude to her since this was taking place on content I was trying to promote.

I told her my age multiple times and she would either pretend she forgot from last time (saying her memory is super bad) or continue as though it was just trivia about me and not a sign she shouldn’t have been pushing me. My primary objection to what she would say to me (since most of it was just her being annoying) was her insistence on sexualising everything I wrote, and her determination to push me into writing pornographic content, which I eventually gave in to.

Yes, she was a terrible person. She emailed me using her personal email address, so I know her full name and place of residence, because she’s an idiot. These emails also contain sexually explicit materials. Nothing much ever happened between us except for these very creepy interactions and the fact we remained online friends for a few years. But here’s the thing: she wasn’t the only person pushing me into creating sexual content. Lots of people would comment on my writing demanding that I show explicit sexual content when I really didn’t want to.

After a while it felt like I couldn’t write a longer, romantic fanfiction without including explicit sexual content. Like my work wasn’t valid without it. Other, more popular writers were usually sexual in their content, and I wanted to be like them and bring in the views, right? So, when I look at my back catalog of works, I can see how my content moved from completely non-sexual to featuring sexual content over time, and the views usually came with. In this way, I was in an environment that was encouraging me on many levels to sexualise my own work, which impacted the way I thought about my creative process.

Here’s another example I remember. When I was a young sprout, I remember reading down someone’s list of fanfiction recommendations and seeing a work called Hug Therapy, which I promptly read. While the work is marked as explicit and containing the Loki/Thor pairing, the use of relationship and rating tags on AO3 is so poorly regulated that it didn’t really mean anything to me to see either of those. People tag hardcore material as non-explicit and tag friendships as relationships, because there’s no motivation to tag properly. Plus, someone I followed here on Tumblr had recommended it to me.

Now, you wouldn’t know from the listing, but while this piece starts out as comedy, it turns out in the end to include rape, incest, and BDSM in very explicit terms. The fact it was tagged as being explicit didn’t slow me down, because the liberal use of these tags could mean that an explicit tag was just there because sexual content was implied or mentioned, which I thought would be the case based on the rest of the listing. Out of curiosity, I recently tried to report this work to the moderators for containing no warnings about incest or rape, and I got this in response:

“Selecting “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” satisfies a creator’s obligation under the warnings policy. Users who wish to avoid specific elements entirely should not access fanworks marked with “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings”. Our Terms of Service note: “You understand that using the Archive may expose you to material that is offensive, triggering, erroneous, sexually explicit, indecent, blasphemous, objectionable, grammatically incorrect, or badly spelled. ….. This decision is in accordance with our policy of maximum inclusiveness; we have therefore closed this case and will not be investigating further.”

Which, yeah, I guess. The frustration comes from how ‘Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings’ is an extremely commonly used tag, and most things that it’s used on are totally harmless.

This fanfiction, which I was recommended by a friend, is hugely popular, in the top 60 most read fanfictions in the entire fandom. You wanna hear the kicker? The author, Astolat, is one of the founders of AO3. They’re not just some random author who isn’t following the rules. They’re a creator of the whole website, and they made the rules. This is pretty telling about how seriously the website actually takes protecting their users.

My final example I want to give is one of fetish content. People in fetish communities generally (not always) say that fetishes are probably something one should work up to after the onset of sexual activity, especially potentially harmful stuff like BDSM. In the circles I was running in, if you weren’t sporting a fetish or two (no matter your age) you were a boring bitch.

Maybe this isn’t true of everywhere in the fanfiction community, but I used to feel that bizarre pressure until I got out. Bear in mind that my main time in this community was from ages 14 to 17. I never made my age a secret, either. I told people outright I was that age, I was in high school, I was playing hockey and studying The Great Gatsby when I wasn’t online.

Since I was in the Avengers fandom and I liked Loki and the Asgardians, I was frequently exposed to incestuous content between Loki and Thor, and a lot of it came out of nowhere or was poorly tagged. This was considered the norm, and while I at first felt completely horrified and repulsed, within a year or two I no longer gave a shit. It’s only in the last few years as I’ve begun to unpack everything that I’ve started to get that strong revulsion reaction to incestuous content.

In the circles I was in, it was relentlessly normal. Normal to the point that people who disliked it were usually shouted down. Even to this day, debate rages on in fandom spaces about whether or not content like this normalises this kind of abuse. In my own personal experience, which I don’t usually like to talk about, it absolutely does.

In real life, this normalisation started to have serious consequences for my mental health and interpersonal relationships. In fanfiction, any occasion when you are alone with someone could become sexual, any familial relationship is possibly sexual, and it doesn’t matter if you like it or not. I became incredibly anxious around male family members for fear of being sexually assaulted, and my OCD, which I had been developing since I was a child, turned from thoughts of physical violence to thoughts of graphically sexually assaulted by anyone and everyone around me.

My fear of being touched got to the point where I would have panic attacks if anyone came anywhere close to touching me. I quit sports, fucked up my romantic relationships, and didn’t hug anyone, not even members of my family, for years. All the while, I had bought my first laptop and was consuming more fanfiction than ever before. I struggled with my sexuality growing up, as I am bisexual, and while fanfiction provided LGBT content to help me, the content was frequently so disturbing that I viewed any expression of sexuality as something evil and predatory.

The community on AO3, whether you like it or not, is often sexual, and provides no barriers between the casual user looking for content and extremely intense fetish material. It’s sometimes called the Pornhub of fanfiction, but considering the wide range of people who use it, it’s more like if you opened Youtube and saw niche hardcore fetish videos just on the front page, recommended and trending.

Sure, you have to click a little button to confirm you’re 18 before you can actually read a story, but the tags and descriptions of readily available works can be extremely explicit. Fanfiction also brings you into close contact with fellow readers and the author, and encourages you to become a content creator, which in some ways makes it more dangerous.

I was affected much more strongly by what I saw than most people would be, because I was already treading shaky ground. But I’m also not the only person out there who has been hurt in this way. Most of my friends who grew up in fandom can report the impact that fanfiction culture had on them. One of my friends from high school knew a panoply of porn terms at age 14 or so due to reading fanfiction, and another of my other friends at high school almost exclusively read rape porn because it was her favourite. I didn’t have friends who watched porn; I had friends who read fanfiction. These are just as troubling to me as any other accounts of young people consuming visual porn from a very early age.

It’s frequently cited that fanfiction gives minority groups the opportunity for creative outlet. It was a great place for me to cut my teeth as a content creator, and a source of acceptance and kindness when times were tough. Fanfiction communities have historically been the domain of women and minorities, and create a space for these people to tell their own stories.

It’s largely because of this that fanfiction communities fear censorship and strict moderation, as they have been attacked in the past on homophobic or misogynistic grounds, resulting in mass deletions of works or the shutdown of websites. But there must be some middle ground between total censorship and the kind of free rein that puts vulnerable people in danger, and I strongly encourage the board of AO3 to seek this middle ground out.

But it’s the community itself that needs to shape up; AO3 is, after all, a community-led website built by fans for fans, so the fact that this website has such issues is a reflection of the issues that run deeply within the people who created it. Aku didn’t talk to me with the intention of doing me harm, or so I believe at this time, and she didn’t pursue me as a lone wolf or in isolation.

She was simply a particularly brazen member of a community that was used to having inappropriate conversations with young people and sexualising everything they did. Even people my own age were jokingly pushing me into discussing and consuming extremely sexual content. It was just normal. That’s what I want to say here. Inside the world of fandom on AO3, the grooming of children with sexual content is normal. And that’s scary.

- Mod Daft

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 15 of 26

Title: Tehanu (Earthsea Cycle #4) (1990)

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Third-Person, Female Protagonist 

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 6/24/2021

Date Finished: 6/30/2021

Decades after The Tombs of Atuan, Tenar decided to settle down and live an ordinary life on the shepherding Isle of Gont. Now a farmer’s widow, she adopts a disfigured and horrifically abused child, who she names Therru. When a giant dragon deposits a grief-stricken Ged at her doorstep, Tenar finds herself in a strange situation as she cares for her old friend and her adopted daughter. But threats from Therru’s past and a malevolent force on the island soon threaten Tenar’s small family. 

Despair speaks evenly, in a quiet voice.

Content warnings and spoilers below the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Violence and death. Mentioned murder. Severe child abuse. Descriptions of traumatic injury and disfigurement. Mentions of r*pe, including of children. Trauma, sexism, and ableism are explored in depth. 

Tehanu is a much different book than the trilogy that precedes it. Perhaps this is unsurprising, considering the 17-year gap between this book and The Farthest Shore. I’d describe the Earthsea series as “grounded fantasy”. While all of them take place in a magical world, the thesis of each book is universal; the fantasy always comes second. Tehanu takes this idea to an extreme. The story is about everyday life as a common woman in the Earthsea world, with fantasy barely factoring in. The pacing is intentionally slow and introspective, which is something I normally don’t like, but Le Guin is a consistent exception. 

Key characters from the previous books make an appearance. Obviously Tenar is the biggest return, absent since The Tombs of Atuan. The Tenar in this book is older and much more mature, having decided to live a simple life in spite of her adventures and accomplishments. Ged returns, but he’s a shell of his former self, as he mourns the loss of his magic and the man he used to be. Even King Lebannen (formerly Arren, the main character of The Farthest Shore) makes a brief appearance, and is quite a palate cleanser after the horrible men throughout the rest of the book.  

Probably my favorite aspect of the novel is the fact that these characters stand well on their own without magic to prop them up. Tenar explored the terrifying freedom she won in The Tombs of Atuan; got married, settled down, had kids — but still finds herself at a loss on what to do with her life after her husband dies. Ged is in a similar boat; he’s gone from an almost mythic character to an ordinary man, and like Tenar finds himself at a crossroads in life. Other characters embody this idea of transformation and uncertainty; Therru’s escaped her abusers and now has a loving mother, but what does the future hold for someone with her appearance? Stuff like that. 

The idea of metamorphosis and new beginnings is well-trodden. But what makes Tehanu interesting is Le Guin primarily examines this with the middle-aged characters. Tenar and Ged are legendary figures in the world of Earthsea, but life has taken them to an uncertain future. The thrust of the novel lies in finding a purpose and becoming someone new. I also like that Tenar/Ged is endgame; I got Vibes from The Tombs of Atuan, but neither character was in a position where it would work. Seeing them form a romantic relationship much later in life is touching and cute. But it’s not the reason that either of them grow as people; finding one’s purpose is something one has to do on their own. Their relationship only develops once both parties have done so.   

My main complaint about A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book, is the sexism inherent in the setting, which is never examined below the surface level. Perhaps Le Guin’s outlook changed, or perhaps the publishing environment did, because often Tehanu reads like a response to this criticism. The central theme of the book is misogyny, the patriarchy, and its debilitating effects on women. Le Guin examines everything from micro-aggressions (“common wisdom” that happens to paint women as inferior) to domestic issues (“women’s work” and how much that actually is) to outright sexual assault (both in threats and actual acts; it is heavily implied this is part of the abuse Therru endured). She even goes into how powerful women are only considered as such because a man gave them that power. 

While I appreciate the fact she addresses these issues in such a frank, blatant way, at times reading Tehanu felt like reading a basic feminism primer. These subjects are all things I’m familiar with, and I feel like anyone who’s studied key feminist ideas would be aware of them also. Maybe 1990 was different? Le Guin doesn’t add any insights to the bleak reality of patriarchy and sexism, which is a little disappointing compared to previous books. That being said, this book is aimed at young adults despite its dark subject matter. Tehanu could be the first exposure to these ideas that many children receive; looking at it that way, it makes sense that the analysis comes off as basic. 

I also found the book’s examination of gender to be very cishet-normative. That’s definitely not surprising, considering the book was published in 1990, but to a 2021 reader this hasn’t aged super well. There’s a lot of discussion about the relationships and differences between men and women--whether there are any or not, how magic differs between them, the ability to bear children, and so on. There’s a weird sexual component to this, like how wizards (who are exclusively men) have to remain celibate in order to… keep being wizards? But women who are witches don’t have to do that, and that’s an advantage women have? (There’s mentions of male witches too, iirc, but it’s not expanded upon— do they have to remain celibate? Who knows.). I found this whole bit pretty odd and unnecessary, although I realize a lot of my perspective on the matter comes from a modern view of sex and gender (and, y’know, being trans). Not all the gender takes in the book are bad, but they are limited. 

I found Le Guin’s exploration of trauma and ableism through Therru to be more interesting. There’s a lot of examination about how society treats Therru, a survivor of unspeakable abuse. Her trauma is visible due to severe burns along part of her body, leaving her with a missing eye and disfigured hand. Tenar spends much of the novel wondering what future Therru has; no matter how capable she is and how much she acts like any other little girl, strangers gawk at her, or assume she “deserved” what happened to her. Therru becomes happier and more independent over the course of the novel, but relapses into a traumatized state when she encounters one of her abusers. As a survivor, it’s heartbreaking and distressingly realistic. As much as I like Tenar, I almost wish the novel was from Therru’s perspective (other than the brief jump at the end), but I realize it would spoil the ending.  

I’m torn on the ending because, while I thought it was cool and had some interesting revelations, it’s a jarring tonal shift. As I mentioned, Tehanu is a slow novel with a heavy focus on everyday life, and the trials and tribulations both Tenar and Therru experience. There’s even a climactic event a few chapters before the end; the only thing left is a persistent loose thread from earlier in the novel. That subplot explodes to the forefront a bare chapter and a half before the end of the book, and a lot of action-y fantasy stuff happens. It doesn’t come out of nowhere; it’s set up throughout the novel, but it is sudden. 

That being said, I do like that the subplot with dragons vs humans is hinted at as early as The Tombs of Atuan. When Tenar tells the legend about the origin of dragons early in the story, my mind immediately went to that one room from the Labyrinth with the sad winged humanoids painted on its walls. I’m curious if there are hints elsewhere in the series. I also figured out Therru’s true name and how she relates to that subplot based on context clues. While it’s not a shocking twist, it is a satisfying one. Though parts of it gave me a “magical destiny” vibe which is counter to much of the series so far; I do wonder how the last two books will address this. (Also… did Le Guin imply Kalessin is Segoy? AKA God? What did she mean by this. So Ged literally like… hitched a ride from God, who promptly yeeted out of the story until the end? That’s kind of funny. Maybe I misinterpreted something.) 

I probably sound critical of this book, but I did genuinely enjoy it. It just didn’t speak to me the way the previous two did. The next book is a short story collection before the conclusion to the series, so we’ll see where it goes! Tehanu set some stuff up that I expect will be expanded upon in these volumes.