#because like that's right before you actually die so

[redjaybathood]

They were probably talking about people not being able to afford heating or having a decent place to live. Like, I know everyone - but the people who actually lived through it/had talked with their grandmas and grandpas about their childhood and youth - believes USSR was some kind of paradise, ditto with communist China. Nobody talks about slavery, about not having enough food to eat - and I am not talking about the famous famines/Holodomor even, just the scarcity of food, unless you are in the party elite - about how people were forced to live in barracks (not like military type barracks, but the cheap flimsy dirty cold type of communal housing with no central heating, no water, not even an indoor toilet)

"oh but USSR gave people free flats" unless you are talking about flats former owners of which, say, Jews, other minorities and types of enemies of the people, were arrested and shot or imprisoned in slavery labor camp prisons (to escape which people even resorted to cannibalism at times... This remark is directly to people who compare USSR prison system to the US one and even find the US one more harsh. How to put it? Prisons in most countries formerly occupied by Soviets are way better than back then, and excluding some more EU oriented countries, the inmates are pretty jealous of the US' prisons conditions, let's put it this way) - so their flats were freed up and up to grabs.

And sure, some people would get those flats, but not everyone.

This is called socrealism not because it realistically and truthfully depicts what's going on: a woman from lower class with a lot of children gets to have amazing luxurious flat, leisure and conditions to grow houseplants, raise a cat, buy a deficit radio or bike - all thanks to Stalin. That wasn't the reality of most of USSR citizen, especially working/farming class (which her hairstyle suggest she's from). That's a carrot they hanged before your nose.

The reality was, even if you got an apartment built by the government, this could have taken years. My family, for example, worked for thirty years before getting a 2 bedroom for six people. And my gran was what they called then, an invalid of childhood (meaning, she got a work-impairing disability from the childhood, thus she was supposed to get more social help from the government. Yeah, right). She didn't have a light job either. She was working full time. My dad, on the other hand, was doing one of the most difficult and health threatening jobs ever.

But hey, you will say, it's still a free flat! I'm in the goddamn capitalist corporate hell America, and I am paying thousands of American dollars to rent!

I feel you, Buddy, I don't have a home of my own either. With the war, I never will - I am pretty sure I will die faster than I can save for a downpayment.

But free flats weren't really free. You were still paying for them, with your labour being the least of it, bc your labour was underpaid. Like, you guys have 401K or something, right? Well, imagine you from now on have to get a pay cut, with your employer keeping most value of what you created, to themselves, and using some of it for a housing fund, where you may or may not get a flat for your grandchildren somewhere down the line. If you don't die earlier or become an enemy of the state or just being not very liked or socially adept person. "Capitalists still do that! We work, they enrich themselves! And now I can't afford to buy a flat!" so yeah, you're basically saying that there's no difference between capitalism and communism, you're still exploited in communism. You get that, right?

So yeah, you would have to pee a lot because you don't have money for charcoal or access to the market - and will be thrown into jail and or short for buying it on the black market - under maoism. And you would have to live in flimsy housing with lotsa spiders because you have to work dozens of years to build a whole apartment building by the cost of your labour, before you get even one room there.

(and that's if you don't piss someone who is sitting on the apartment distribution channel, because oh well. No housing for you, comrade)

I'm glad you two at least did not make fun of settler colonialism.

to be fair i dont know much about communism but i dont remember ever heard of something like that being part of their beliefs if im being honest with you

[alchemistc]

He's drunk when he sends it. Pissed because Buck won't just let this die. Tired of seeing his name flash across his screen, texts full of anger and sadness and hurt.

I suspect you've already met your last and it's not me he sends, and then turns off his phone and reaches for the bottle of whiskey on his top shelf.

---

If he'd been sober he would have known better. It's not even like it's been a pervasive thought - just an inkling at the start of things that seemed to be completely off base once he got to know everyone better, but looking back... He can see it. The built in life. The steadfast support. The knowledge that they'd always, always have each other's back. The kid who hero worshipped him.

The thing is he's fielding texts from Eddie, too, checking in and then circling around to being so goddamn judgmental that it's like they've coordinated their attacks to give Tommy no room to breathe.

He ended it to save himself from slipping so far under the surface he wouldn't make it back.

The fact that he's lost them both to his own fear is icing on the cake for the demon on his shoulder that keeps trying to remind him that once upon a time he'd fully thought Eddie and Buck were amicable exes.

---

He has to blink to figure out who's standing on his doorstep. The mustache is gone.

"If you meant who I think you mean, you're dumber than you look," Eddie says, and shoulders past Tommy before Tommy can even muster an affronted expression.

Tommy wanders after Eddie into his own kitchen, immediately annoyed that he looks more at home there than Tommy has felt in weeks. He'd gotten used to the loft - the space, the echoes, the lights of the city. The smell of his own aftershave on Buck's pillow.

They never spent much time here. The loft was closer - to Harbor, to the 118, to all the things in the city that tempted them out for a night. And staying at the loft meant he wouldn't have the echoes of Buck in every room, around every corner. (The echoes are in him, instead, and he still feels the absence like a lanced wound.) Tommy has always been good at making other people think he's good at putting distance between himself and them.

Eddie digs in a drawer, pulls out the bottle opener shaped like a cow and pops two tops. Holds one out for Tommy and scowls when Tommy wrinkles his nose at the Corona.

"Absolutely screw you if you think I'm driving halfway across town for you just to get the ones you like, right now."

Tommy can't argue that. He takes a drag and swallows. Stares. Is everyone else experiencing whiplash seeing him without the mustache? It looks fine but it'd taken so much fucking work to get used to it and now it's just gone. Clean shaven, an acre of skin he hasn't seen in months.

Tommy blinked and the entire world was different. Tommy freaked and the world changed.

"What are you doing here?"

Eddie's eyebrows both lift, a frank Are You Fucking Serious look on his face that makes Tommy want to take him to the mats and have it out in the garage instead of over beers.

"Buck may be spinning his wheels trying to figure out what the fuck you meant but I know damn well what you were implying."

That seems unlikely. Eddie always seems to be the last person to have a single clue what was going on, with Buck scraping in just before him. It's a tight race.

He used to find it charming.

(He absolutely does not still find it charming, he tells his heart, and wonders if he could hire some tiny asshole gnome to go stomp around in an atrium or two and get it to stop doing what it's doing. Fucking traitor.)

"Do you actually believe that, or is it some dumb excuse because you're terrified of being happy?"

Oh, that's fucking rich.

Tommy opens his mouth to tell him exactly that but Eddie just steamrolls right by him. "You don't have to point out the hypocrisy, jackass. I'm well aware of my own issues. Thing is - you're like, almost right. Buck does make me happy. Next to Chris there's no one else in the world I'd rather have by my side, rain or shine, good or bad. I love him. He's my person."

Tommy rolls his jaw. It's not a vindication to hear it.

"Except I'm not gay, Tommy. And I don't want that. I never have. And neither does Buck, just in case that argument was about to hit the airwaves."

"How do you know?"

Something sparks in the back of Eddie's eyes. Understanding. Triumph.

"You want an itemized list or a demonstration?"

Which is when Tommy knows he's stepped into an absolute minefield. No markers. Just free balling his way through a conversation that could explode with even the slightest pressure.

Eddie's got his phone out.

None of this is ideal.

When he looks up, his eyes land squarely on Tommy, who would like in this moment to be able to curl so far in on himself he gets sucked clean through the other side. "First of all, Buck may have just been improvising his entire journey of sexuality but for once I was trying to get ahead of the curve so that whole starry-eyed newly not straight vision you have of Buck is bullshit. You let him pull you along by the shirt strings for months without pressing pause and then you freak out when he thinks his speed and your speed are the same speed?"

This is feeling a whole lot like an ambush, now.

"Did you ever even try to slow him down?"

Tommy has some choice words that aren't remotely appropriate to say to someone who is at least tangentially still his friend, so he takes another swig of shitty beer. God, this shit is awful.

"You wanna know how I know I'm not his one? How I know he's not mine?"

Tommy really, really doesn't. Honestly he'd like to kick him out.

"Because he went at our friendship at the same warp speed pace he took your relationship and it never fucking scared me."

Proof in the pudding, for Tommy. He's not the sort of jackass who actually thinks he can make a different judgement call on someone else's sexuality than the one they've made themselves, but come on.

"Shannon's been dead for half a decade," Eddie says, voice dropping so suddenly Tommy feels it like an icy draft. "And maybe one day I'll make my peace with that. Maybe one day I'll get out from under it. The point is I've lost them both and the loss wasn't the goddamn same."

"Buck came back," Tommy argues.

Eddie scoffs. Wrinkles his nose. "Jeez, he wasn't kidding about how weird that sounds." His phone buzzes on the countertop, and Tommy wonders what the hell that look on his face means. "Don't change the subject. I'm not here to talk you into anything. I'm just here to drink a beer with you and tell you how goddamn stupid it is to think that an uncertain future with Evan Buckley isn't worth every second of terror it causes you."

"You don't know me as well as you think you do."

Eddie tips the bottle against his lips. Swallows. God, why hadn't Tommy just pursued the self-proclaimed straight guy for a couple weeks before he scratched the itch somewhere else and kept a friend, instead?

"Maybe." Eddie tips his head. "Maybe I do, though. Maybe in the months and months you were invited to all my mopey nights in with Buck and all the crazy crap we end up involved in at the station and all the times you couldn't shut up about him when he wasn't around and all the times I got to see you falling ass over teakettle for my best friend, I learned a fucking thing or two about Tommy Kinard." He wags his head back and forth. "Maybe."

"Is there a point to this?"

Eddie tips his eyes to his phone, and it's probably too late at this point for the suspicion to begin to creep in.

"I mostly just came to confront you about your completely off base bullshit excuses, but there's actually a pretty simple solution to at least one of your multitude of issues, so. Now we're waiting."

Tommy doesn't like the sound of that at all.

"Chris is mad at you, by the way."

It's a distraction. It's fully a - "Why is he mad at me?"

"I should actually thank you, because it's the first time he's actively talked to me in months," Eddie continues, like Tommy hadn't asked a question. "He's pissed because Buck is sad and there's literally nothing in the world that gets a rise out of the Diaz boys like sad Buck."

"You can just say you're pissed at me and go, Eddie."

"Oh I'm angry. Don't think I'm not. Mostly I'm just sad for you. You had six months to get to know Buck and never thought to yourself 'hes going to love me and it's going to hurt' until he skipped too far ahead in the program."

And that's - kind of the final straw. He's let Eddie get his licks in. He deserves it, he knows he does. Honestly it's a little cathartic to hear - to know exactly what Buck has spent his time dissecting post-Tommy. "That's all I ever thought about. Do you think I didn't know going in? I tried to put a stop to it before it even started and he just doubled down! Do you think for a second I wasn't viscously aware that I was setting myself up for -."

No. He's not gonna say it. He's not giving that to Eddie when he couldn't even give it to Ev-Buck. When he couldn't give it to Buck.

Eddie looks victorious anyway.

"And for six months you thought it was worth it."

"For six months I was too much of a coward to stop thinking about it."

Eddie drains the rest of his beer. "I'm not gonna lie. You screwed up pretty bad. Like. Astronomically bad. Giving up your location in a firefight bad."

Tommy does everything he can not to wince.

"It's salvageable, though. If you want it to be. If there's anything I know about Buck it's that second chances are his bread and butter." He's been dancing around saying anything of substance about Buck's feelings, in all of this, but the hints are there. As if the bouts of angry-depressive texts from Buck weren't clue enough.

"And what if it's not what I want?"

Eddie's eyes dart to his phone one more time. "Then you can make it a clean break in about ... three and a half minutes."

Tommy nearly tosses his beer across the room.

[moeblob]

Right and his work menaces (Brent and Karen).

I don't remember last I mentioned it but apart from crude nicknames to people (except Chris), he also just puts them in his phone really weird (except Chris, who is literally in his phone as Chris). And I bring this up because in Right's phone, Karen is saved as "Lawful Obligation".

[emilynyaesmp]

Ok so heres my idea for the “does everyone remember the life series or is it just the winners?” Debate/theory

Everyone remembers small bits of the seasons but only the winners and the canary remembers the seasons in their entirety (unless they didn’t die first in a season).

Why does the canary remember it? Well, the watchers feed off of negativity, right? So they’d want the canary to remember that they’ve died first again and again and again, over and over and over again and that this time is no different. So Jimmy remembers past seasons, all except Secret Life because Lizzie was out first.

Speaking of Lizzie, let’s explain her. In her newest episode she mentions “when I invite people to things, they don’t show up”, she mentions Secret Life, she actually talks about her failed birthday party but since neither Scar nor Jimmy even went to it (or heard of it, i think??? Idk I don’t watch their POV’s) they don’t really react, Jimmy, because he wasn’t the canary that season and he CERTAINLY wasn’t a winner and because his seabling’s birthday party was so insignificant to his POV, he doesn’t remember it, Scar, although he remembers SL since he’s a winner now, didn’t even hear of it (if he had I think he’d have gone but idk, correct me if I’m wrong) so he doesn’t react. As for Last Life, Lizzie remembers just as much as a loser would, since she’s not a winner or a canary in Last Life.

Basically, if ur a loser but not the canary, you only remember small glimpses of the past life games. like Lizzie for instance would only remember her teammates in LL, what happened when she was the boogie, the Big-b betrayal, Cleo leaving, basically any big event in her POV, but nothing more. Which is why she says “I feel safe with you guys” around Cleo, because she doesn’t properly remember what Cleo did, she remembers the fire, just vaguely. (Though I think she’d say that anyway, but that might just be my shadowrot shipping mind talking).

This even explains the Flower Husband stuff. Scott’s a winner, the first season, the last one before he won, was 3rd life, the season Jimmy was his husband. He’s attached to that (Jimmy is too guys TRUST 🙏🙏), he knows Jimmy remembers and he wants him to at least acknowledge that they loved eachother, that they were married, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t because it hurts to much to remember, because he’s worried of dying first again, because if he dies first, he’d leave Scott alone again and he doesn’t want that. (Flower husbands is canon guys!! Please!! I’m desperate!!)

Jimmy acts a bit careless this season, dying to a creeper even though like five seconds before he was laughing about how close he was to dying, he didn’t take it seriously, not until then I don’t think. For the rest of that session Jimmy is terrified that he’ll die, he’s paranoid and worries any time anything remotely dangerous comes near him. Before that session, before episode 3, i think Jimmy was completely convinced that the canary curse was gone, he believed it with his whole heart, because, well, last season he came third! Third! That’s the best he’s ever done! And what’s this new season? Wild life, where anything can happen, and they all have six lives, so it’s not like Last Life were he was given 2 lives, this time he has a chance!

Uh, yeah that’s basically my theory/idea. Also, for Cleo, since RL wasn’t a season and just one episode she only remembers the entirety of RL but the other seasons is just what a loser would remember.

[raointean]

I actually love the idea that Billy and William fused instead of just body-hoping. William would have died if Billy didn't come in and they fused! I love him saying that he has a mom because adoption right 🎉

Yes! The alternative is just too sad for me. As for the adoption thing, it's NOT just this fandom that struggles to understand bio vs. adoptive parents. I'm in the Star Wars fandom and there are SO MANY PEOPLE that refer to Anakin and Padmé as Luke and Leia’s "real" parents. Meanwhile, Owen, Beru, Bail, and Breha are called kidnappers or just ignored entirely (yes, I loved the Obi-Wan show. Why do you ask?)

I think the same problem is sometimes happening in this fandom too. We know Wanda and Vision as characters and we want them to be a happy family. We do NOT know Rebecca and Jeff Kaplan nearly as well, so there's a tendency to want to take the child from the characters we don't know as well and give him to the characters we know, like, and want to be happy.

On a slightly happier note, here's all my headcanons about Billy Kaplan's life (not Billy Maximoff or William Kaplan, but the entity that is both of them)

As William's heart stopped, his soul separated from his body and was on its way to wherever Jewish people go when they die

Billy M's soul, at the same time, was fleeing because it didn't have a body to support it

He found William's body easy enough to get into (because a soul had just left it) and close enough to alive to be fixed

However, William's soul was in between Billy M and the body

Billy M could have gone around and been the only soul in the body, but he was scared, okay?

Poor guy was only a couple days old, alone for the first time ever, and his mom had just kinda killed him and the rest of his family

Long story short, Billy M crashes into William and drags them both into the body

Billy M fixes the body just enough to keep living, but doesn't bother too much about the head injury

Meanwhile, William is stuck to Billy M like silly putty when you have two different colors and, by the time they get to the hospital, the two colors have blended entirely to form a new color

There's no way to differentiate one from the other

Billy Kaplan is born!

Because Billy M didn't fix the head injury, they both have amnesia

Billy K wakes up and it's literally "no thoughts, head empty"

(Except for some lingering sensation of loneliness... like there should be something someone? else there)

But not for long because he soon discovers he can hear other people's thoughts!

Which is really funny because he doesn't know that other people can't hear his thoughts

Poor guy genuinely thinks that humans communicate via telepathy for a solid 24 hours before he gets enough weird looks that he puts two and two together

(His parents are totally aware of this

There's only so many times your kid can answer exactly the thought going through your head without you catching on

Also, this is the Marvel universe!

Shit like this just... happens sometimes

They figure he'll come to them when he's ready, and until then they'll think nice thoughts and be supportive)

Billy K spends a solid four months trying to remember who he was before, stealing memories from his parents' heads, and pretending to recover from the amnesia

(Rebecca and Jeff try so hard not to make him feel like they're just waiting for their old son to come back but...)

Four months in, Billy's at the mall with his mom on some errands and that's where he sees it

Hot Topic

He begs his mom to go in there, and it's the first really normal teenage thing he's done since the car crash so she lets him

For the first time in four months, Billy forgets all about car crashes, and memories, and hospitals, and expectations

All that exists is spiky jewelry, ripped black skinny jeans, and a million of those cheap and hilarious pins

Over time, the family settles into his "new normal" and chalk most of it up to teenage experimentation

In that three year period though, Billy can't shake the feeling that something's still missing

He feels out of place in his body, even with the new aesthetic

(He sees that one tumblr comic about the coocoo bird and cries-- a lot. It's the closest he ever gets to telling his parents about his out-of-place feeling)

He doesn't tell them though

Instead, he digs and digs into the weirdest, darkest, most demented corner of the internet

Reddit

[kazumist]

EPISODE 28 ✦ PLEASE LOVE ME AT MY WORST

LOVE, MAYBE — A CHILDE SMAU

masterlist / prev ep / next ep / wc: 1265.

fifteen minutes is almost up; am i about to die?

ajax thoughts wander to all sorts of places as he nervously checks and watches the time move on his wristwatch. as to why he agrees so easily to your request to talk to him—he doesn’t know either. it just felt… right to agree. 

he knows it would pain him to say no to you anyway.

perhaps it was just the small part of him that still hopes. that one little speck in him that hopes this “talk” would mend the rift that had formed between the two of you. it was probably stupid to have such expectations when he was pretty sure you were dead set on your answer to him before.

so it confuses him. why did you want to talk? did you want to just slap it in his face once again? no, you weren’t like that. you would never do something that mean. but that just leads him back to square one: why?

the sound of soft footsteps growing louder alerts ajax, and he takes a deep breath because he knows it’s you. yet he takes a glance to check anyway. there you were, standing before him as he gets the familiar feeling of being starstruck surging through him. keep it together, ajax. he warns himself. 

“hi…” you softly said. 

“hey.”

hey? who the hell says hey nowadays, ajax? get a grip! he mentally scolds himself, forcing him to pull out a tight smile to you instead to save him from his embarrassment. meanwhile, you thought otherwise of his reaction. oh god, he probably hates me. he never gives me that smile. it looks so forced. he probably just felt bad and forced himself to meet me out at this hour. your thoughts ran fast inside your mind as you fiddled with your fingers.

“uhm.. i wanted to talk—”

“so why did you want to meet—”

you both paused when you realized you both spoke at the same time. “you go first,” he insisted. but you gestured otherwise and told him, “oh, it’s fine. you can go.”

“i insist. ladies first?”

seeing as this would go nowhere if you just went back and forth like that, you took a deep breath. 

“i love you.”

for the whole day (and the additional fifteen minutes ajax gave you), you thought of many ways on how to approach childe with the topic of what happened before. yet none of those really started with “i love you." the best option you got after thinking so hard actually started with “i’m sorry.” the “i love you” part was supposed to be near the end of the whole monologue you had prepared inside your head.

ajax only stared at you, dumfounded at your words. “shit, sorry, i—that wasn’t how i wanted to start, uhm—” you let out a sigh, a slightly shaky one at that because of your mistake. don’t fuck up this one up and run away again, (name). you mentally took note. but then again, fuck that monologue you prepared beforehand. if you want to do this properly, then it’s better to do this as bare as your emotions could get, right?

taking another deep breath, you decided to speak up again before ajax could. “i’m going to be honest. i actually prepared some long speech that is supposedly transcribed inside my brain right now. but i definitely think i just forgot a good chunk of that speech now that i’m actually with you.” 

“i’m sorry, ajax. i let my fear get the best of me that day. i never wanted to tell you to go away; in fact, i know that i wanted nothing more than for you to hold me at that moment.” you let out a bitter chuckle at that. ajax watches you, listening to every word carefully. he takes in your appearance as well, and the slightly swollen and redness of your eyes were obvious enough for him to know your state as of late.

“i never wanted to push you away. and god, i feel so stupid and guilty for everything that i said that day. because i know none of those were true. well, i guess minus the part where i listed my flaws... because i know those were true in some sense—but i want to—no, nevermind that. i’m trying to change my ways.” you corrected yourself.

“i asked dehya and the others for some advice. and they were right when they said that you had a positive impact on my life and that i’ve never been this happy with someone else other than them. because i swear, you’re just a different case for me, ajax. you make me happy in ways i never thought anyone could bring me joy. when i thought i didn’t have anyone by my side, you were there for me.”

“and i feel so, so, so fucking stupid for shutting you away that day. because deep inside, i knew my heart wanted otherwise. my brain wanted you to leave me alone, but i knew my heart wanted for you to stay. for you to tell me that everything is alright.”

“i guess the main gist of everything that i’m saying is that i love you; i’m sorry. i love you, ajax. and i know i’m probably late, and that you probably hate me right now, and also how you probably just forced yourself outside just so you could meet up with me, but i love you. this whole thing is honestly still scary to me, considering this is the first time i have experienced this in my whole lifespan of eighteen years right now.”

“yet i still love you despite that. i’m sorry that it took me a while. and again, you don’t have to reciprocate it—i just wanted to let this all out. and like i said, you probably hate me—”

“am i allowed to speak now?” ajax.

“i—yeah, go ahead.”

“have i told you that i’m so proud of you?” he asks. you don’t know where he’s going with this. “you might’ve mentioned it once or twice in the past, yeah.” he chuckles at your reply. it feels like your walking on thin ice because you really have no idea if he’s about to drop a bomb right now about him rejecting you.

you don’t think you could handle that anyway.

“thank you, (name). i personally didn’t know what to expect with what you were going to say. but i  don’t hate you. i could never hate you. not now, not ever. hell, i knew that if i said no to your request of having a talk i would definitely regret it. and i’m proud of you that you managed to say all of that. learning how to communicate is a big step already, you know?”

ajax takes a step closer and you didn’t take a step back this time. you let him get close to you this time, fixing the distance that grew after you pushed him away. “and for the record, i love you too” he says, a bit more quietly, as if he really wants only you to hear those words coming from him. “that fact isn’t going to change anytime soon, silly.” 

“i’m sorry again. but i’m ready now. i’m prepared to take a risk in this whole thing they call love. so please love me at my worst, ajax.”

the night ends with ajax walking you home once again—but this time there wasn’t a single residue of the bitterness from before.

this time, it was filled with relief.

extra notes.

yayyyy!!! communication!!!!

i didn't expect for this episode to be so long. i was 700+ words in when i realized that it was going to be a bit lengthy.

taglist (open): @xianyoon @mitsvriii @kizakiss @kissingkzuha @aethion @phtogravi @ell1e2010 @esthelily @b4tm4nn @hcmay @ivvieene @morganadorodo @kaitfae @kentply @scaranthropy @kyon-cherri @kookiibun @kochothehoe @mekiiiii @ibyobi @iuspired @tetsuskei @kunikuzushis-darling @morgyyyyyyy @chluuvr @scaradooche @kissmiere @a1-ic3 @bubblegum-angelquartz @tiredjxnna @levlucs-kiru @angeilix @cerisescherries @saeskiss @a-talkative-corn @briluvspnk @kamisatoyato @bbysatoruuu @viviixoxosblog @bambisz @chemiru @eternal-dokja @bflyprincess @jamieexistss @monocerosei @enjisthings @jangyung @hahalame @cupid-spams @snzhrchy @ukinya @luciledreamz @bisatanica @bananasquash @almond-t0fu @thegalaxyisunfolding @jaguarthecat [1/2]

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 致命游戏 / The Spirealm.

The Spirealm is a 2024 drama about two young men who fall in love while basically playing a whole bunch of horror-themed escape rooms that can for-real kill you.

This show/book combo has gripped my entire ass. The second I knew I wanted to watch this, almost immediately after it started airing, I muted the tag. I was so right to do this, because this is worth not spoiling yourself about. If you are a Guardian fan in particular, you owe it to yourself to watch this for reasons I think will become clear as you go about watching it.

So! If all you need to know is that I think you need this show in your life, great! You don't even need to scroll down to the end of the post for the links; go to Viki and press play. In case you need more convincing than that, though, I'm going to give you here five reasons to watch it that are as spoilerless as I can make them.

Before we start, though, I'm going to take a moment to note that I had to torrent the video files so I could make screenshots of my own, and if I hadn't, this would have been a much uglier rec post than the others I've done. Not only were there not many promotional materials or official stills released, the show itself barely stayed up two hours on iQiyi, and that's because this drama is a...

1. (Barely) Censored Adaptation Of Same-sex Original Work

Ah, you know that MyDramaList tag well, don't you? Yeah, the original novel, Kaleidoscope of Death (which has a rec post of its own!), is supernatural story about grief and loss built on the love story between the two male leads. Now of course you know already that a mainstream Chinese television adaptation of something like that is going to straighten up everything and turn the horror romance into the sci-fi platonic love of besties.

...But damn, folks, it's still real gay.

Ling Jiushi, the sweet-faced newbie, is a canonical virgin and loving cat dad who plays the mysterious video game once, then finds himself suddenly able to enter the game worlds bodily -- and of course, if you die in the game, you die in real life. He's pretty much doomed, until he meets...

Ruan Lanzhu, the cool-as-a-cucumber veteran of the door worlds, who falls pretty much immediately for the completely oblivious Ling Jiushi, then has to spend the rest of the series consumed with lust while trying to keep him and a couple other dipshits alive.

The show preserves so many overtly gay beats and declarations of affection from the novel, to the point where it's just this side of suggesting that the romance is actually, textually happening just offscreen, every time the camera cuts away. I am forever grateful that working with Zhu Yilong on Reunion seems to have perfected sweet baby Junjie's ability to look at a man with nothing but love in his eyes.

I adore so much the dynamic they have, one where a man who has never told the truth a day in his life encounters a man so sincere and naive that you cannot seduce him with anything but absolute honesty or he's never going to get it.

There are three (3) separate door worlds where they share a bed, and in every one of them, they both sleep with their shoes on. Like the absolute freaks they both are.

2. It's puzzle solvin' time!

So if you've read some of my rec posts before, you know that I am critical of stories that center around cases that are unfollowable, uninteresting, or both (e.g., Mysterious Lotus Casebook and White Cat Legend). I am therefore thrilled to tell you that the door worlds are actually (largely) thoughtful mysteries with reasonable solutions, where you care about what's happening and why.

The way each door world is set up is that you have to solve the puzzle to find a key and unlock the door that will let you leave. One of the challenges is each world's door ghost, who has the key and does not want to give it up. The other challenge is the world-specific set of taboo conditions, where violating them means the door ghost can kill you -- and you are not always told what those taboo conditions are. That means that solving a door involves 1) figuring out what will insta-kill you, 2) not doing that, 3) finding where the hell the exit door is, 4) placating and/or scamming the door ghost long enough to snatch the key from them, and 5) running like hell to the exit door with that key before the door ghost fucks you up about it.

As the show goes on, you get introduced to the concept of door-passing shepherds, which are experienced door-finishers who take through lower-level players, building them up in the process. A lot of these shepherds work for organizations, such as the one Ruan Lanzhu runs. And a lot of them are ready to reach the exit by climbing over everyone else's corpses.

That's part of the fun of the setup: You're not just thrown in alone. You show up with a random number of other players, some with very different levels of experience. At least one of you will make it out; not everyone will. So you can add a step 6) to the list above, which is: surviving all the other players who will gleefully stab you in the back in order to be the first player out the door.

The door worlds are also lovely. They all feel like sets -- and I know that's a weird thing to say about places that are literal sets, but they manage it feel it even on film. In fact, even the show's uses of clunky-ass greenscreen feel appropriate, because of how unreal everything is supposed to be. Everything looks like a dream, which is only amplified by how beautifully everything's shot.

(What's that you say? You say the guy who directed this was the editor on Infernal Affairs? No kidding.)

From a fandom perspective, what's great here is that even though there are technically just twelve doors, there are canonically way more than twelve door worlds out there. That means that whatever worlds you want to create are valid. The best pieces of fanfic I've read are the ones that dream up their own door worlds, complete with taboo conditions, key puzzles, and world-specific perks that lead to gay sex, because come on.

3. A good middle ground of horror

So at this point you are perhaps wondering: How scary is it?

And the answer is, kind of as scary as you're willing to let your mind go with it. Everything has been science-fictioned real hard, including the video game premise that "explains" what's happening with these doors. It relies on dread way more than jumpscares. The blood/gore/gross content is extremely low, again on account of Chinese content censorship. Most icky things are done with offscreen sounds and shadows. I'm pretty squeamish about pain and injury, and I can't recall a time I had to look too long away from the screen.

However, that means the show works some real conceptual horror. That picture up there is of a man forcing three young girls to hold raw eggs unbroken in their mouths. There's nothing about that image that's not technically G-rated, and it's awful in context.

The best bits are when the monsters don't need a lick of CG to become horrors. They cast a contortionist in the Waverly Hills door world, and she absolutely earned her keep.

I have a lot of critiques about how the show handles things, especially in terms of defanging the horror elements (which it does), but one thing I think it absolutely gets right is that it understands that ghost stories are first and foremost tragedies. That's a thing I've always liked about Asian horror in particular, how often you wind up siding with the ghost. Yes, sure, she tried to strangle you with her hair, but have you ever considered she's the real victim here? There's always a bit of a calculus: Can you negotiate with the door ghost, or do you just need to stab them and run? The Spirealm prefers negotiation, and frankly, so do I.

So yeah, it's about as scary as you let it be. If your horror tolerance is low, watch it in a well-lit room and focus on the unreality of it, and you'll be okay. If you're looking for something genuinely spooky, spend some time thinking about the existential dread of the entire situation, and that'll be good for a couple good spine tingles.

4. The Obsidian Family (& Friends!)

In a show where death is always an option, you have to have characters where you actually care if they live or die. Fortunately, all your allies are charming and loveable enough that you are going to be real upset every time they get put in danger!

Obsidian is one of the organizations I mentioned earlier. It's run by Ruan Lanzhu, and it includes a cool and collected doctor, a mom friend who cooks for everybody, a guy who's maybe not having the best mental health day of his life, and two identical twins who could not be more different if they tried. They all live in the same amazing big fancy house, which is where Ling Jiushi too goes to live when he joins the group. They have big family meals, they look after one another, they hang out together -- I mean, if this is the kind of setup you love, then you will love this setup.

There are also plenty of allies who aren't technically part of Obsidian, but who are our friends nonetheless, and who come over to hang out in the Obsidian house from time to time. Some of them are rivals turned friends, some of them are clients turned friends, and some of them were just friends all along! Surely nothing bad will happen to any of them, and they'll all live happily ever after, right? ...Right?

5. Toast and Chestnut!

Of course, the true heroes of the show are Toast the Corgi and Chestnut the Kitty.

Animals are so good.

Truly, I love that one of Ling Jiushi's defining characteristics is that he is a Cat Dad. He is a simple man with simple needs, and one of those needs is to pet his kitty or he'll explode.

caveat: Some thoroughly bad adaptation choices

Yeah, so I keep talking about the novel (and talk even more about the novel in its own rec post), but I assure you, you don't need to have read the novel to feel the degree to which this is an adaptation -- and one that's had its rough, nasty, spooky, gay edges all sanded off in the desperate hope of ever seeing daylight.

Now, sometimes I consider batshit nonsense janky creative decisions to be a selling point for a show (see: Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Legend of Fei, Sand Sea)! In this case, however, I'm going to have to take points off for how incoherently bad they are here. We're talking Psych-Hunter levels of Why Would You Do That-- and the answer, as always, comes down to how you write around what censorship won't allow on television.

The novel says the doors are supernatural. The show says they're a virtual-reality computer game. Now, on the surface, this move sort of makes sense -- you can't have ghosts, but you can have computer games that make digital ghosts, which, sure, okay. But then the problem quickly becomes that the plot of the novel is not remotely built to support a sci-fi premise, so a lot of things have to be grafted awkwardly on. Like, say, a bad guy who stole his corporate logo from Even Worse Twitter. Or a game-designing bestie whose face is never seen. Or [late-stage spoilers about a major character].

The eventual explanation is that this whole setup is a righteous and good game that has somehow been corrupted by evil game-designing capitalists from the West, and that's why it can abduct you in broad daylight and kill you if you fail it. There are good people who want to purify (???) the game, and evil people who want to make money off the game. And I don't mind spoiling you for that part, because it's garbage nonsense. You will be deeply unsatisfied with the show's half-assed attempt at resolving it all. (You may, however, have that disappointment tempered with the amazing concurrent display of heterosexuality that is apologizing to your best bro by coding his perfect man for him. The Spirealm is a land of contrasts.)

Look, I consider myself a mild to moderate socialist, and even I was yawning and making jerk-off motions every time someone started to wax halfheartedly poetic about how evil American capitalism is. Like, yeah, but not because some college student made a vile and wretched video game that eats people! This show is a critique of capitalism like a five-year-old crying because he doesn't get ice cream before bed is a critique of authoritarianism.

And even this, I can't be too mad at it about, you know? I just assume that this was some absolute Hail Mary attempt at getting past censorship -- you know, maybe if we make all the right "grr, USA bad!" noises, they'll let our gay ghost story slip by? And it worked! I mean, just barely, but it did.

So yeah, fair warning that the Spirealm is a show that, if you love it (and I do), you will have to love despite some glaring flaws that haunt it all the way through and hit especially hard during what should otherwise have been an amazing endgame. But hey, we're c-drama fans! We're good at loving janky things, right?

Want to enter the World of Doors?

As I said at the start of the post, Viki's got it -- and only Viki. I'm not sure what circumstances got it up on Viki after iQiyi pulled it, but I'm glad. Watch it quick, before Viki changes its mind!

Hug him! Hug that boy!

[ahamkara-apologist]

100%. It's also worth noting that Eramis's grudge with the Traveler and her intent to destroy it wasn't even entirely irrational; she wanted it gone so that people's fates weren't dependent on the whims of gods. She wanted to level the playing fields, and while she was wrong in her assumption that it was the Traveler leaving that led to the destruction of Riis, she also...wasn't entirely wrong, either. Humanity is the only instance where the Traveler stayed and fought back, and we're the only species assailed by the Black Fleet that got to keep our homeworld as a result. We're not any more worthy than the other species that were eradicated we just happened to get lucky. Eramis (and the rest of the Eliksni) have every right to be furious at this, given the amount of horrors that they had to endure on the Drift to get to Sol- horrors that are so bad that in the opening mission of Revenant, Eramis uses the Drift the same way that we would use 'hell' when she roared "Stand before me if you dare! I'll send you back to the Drift again and again!"

Eramis's goal, while foolish, was still selfless, to an extent- it was to destroy the Traveler so that nobody could ever suffer from a second Whirlwind, which, despite everything, did include us as well. She's never liked humanity, much less the Young Wolf, but she's also never given off the vibe of her hatred for us being personal. She genuinely seemed to have thought that we were being treated like pawns by the Traveler in Beyond Light, and, as soon as she unthawed in Plunder and realized that she was the one being used as a pawn, she warmed up to the idea of double-crossing the Witness right quick. I don't remember exactly when she said it, but I do recall hearing her have dialogue where she was talking about how much she hates gods in general, not just the Traveler, and how she wants to be free of them- all of them. If that means giving over the reigns to House Light, then yes, she will do that. Not willingly, ofc, and she has every right to be suspicious about how well House Light will work bc they ARE under the yoke of the Last City, but a big chunk of why she saved Eido in Plunder is bc she sees the future in her (the rest of it was bc, despite her posturing, I don't believe that Eramis would ever be able to stand by and watch a young Eliksni die. She's too much of a mom for that).

And that leads into a whole other thing that people always seem to get wrong: Eramis did not have a choice when it came to firing the warsats. Yes, the Witness exploited her, yes it was preying upon her grief and fury and depression like it did for everyone else it talked to, but she also never had any other option but to fire those missiles, because it was standing right there, staring at her. If she refused, then she likely would have either been killed and/or she would have been horribly punished via more of her people being turned into Scorn and then sent to do it themselves (likely this, bc Eramis is suicidal and does not value her own life). It SEEMED like she did it for Riis, and she likely believed that to be the case, but there was never an option for her to back away, and even if she did, there was never an alternative to the Warsats being fired. People like to bitch about her being the cause of Rasputin's death all the time and it drives me insane bc it's just flat-out not true. Her seeing for her own eyes that it never would have worked anyways was also a key pivotal moment for her character, so like...yeah if Rasputin had to die in order for Eramis and the rest of the Eliksni to get an actual storyline then you bet your ass I'm sending that man to eeby deeby. But that's just a side bit from me being salty (for the record I loved Rasputin's character and was sad he died but also I think the writers got themselves stuck in a corner with the whole Xivu thing and him, and they managed to make his death feel narrative impactful, so. works for me). Eramis's whole stint under the Witness was one of punishment, and the way that the Witness punished her was by forcing her to stand by and watch as her House- full of the people that she swore to protect- got either turned into Wrathborn or Scorn. Mara Fucking Sov confirmed that for us. Eramis had almost no agency under the Witness, and what little she did have, she turned towards helping us, knowing that if she got caught, the consequences would be extreme.

Honestly, I think that the only thing she really did horribly wrong on a personal level was opening the vex portal on her own people, but even then, that could be argued to have been done under duress. Eramis opened the portal after we killed her council (specifically with the intention of destabilizing her btw, as we know that she makes horrible decisions when she doesn't have anyone else to talk her down), in a last-ditch effort to destroy the Young Wolf. I don't count anything that happened under the Witness because nothing she did then could really be considered her own actions/intent, and I think it's really telling that the second she's out from under the Witness's control, her first action was to try to go home to her wife and kids. And then, when the Scorn started threatening her people, she gave that up as well so that she could call the Vanguard to help them. The Vanguard. The people who specifically sent out a strike team to kill all of her friends and break her House. She did all of this knowing that they would capture her and very likely kill her (actually, she's fully under the assumption that we're going to kill her, if you listen to her yapping in her cell), but that didn't matter to her. She had to get her people to safety, and she knew she couldn't do so herself, so she did everything she can to prevent that, even though it meant putting her life and her pride on the line. Sure, she's been suicidally depressed since Plunder, but that doesn't diminish the sacrifice she made in the slightest

Eramis was never selfish. She's right up there with Misraaks in terms of being an extremely selfless, caring leader who'd do anything for her people. It's just that she's not being nice about it to coddle to human empathy, which, given the track record of horrible shit that we've done to her people, we really shouldn't expect from her anyways.

I want everyone who continues to claim that Eramis was in line to be a disciple of the Witness to shut the fuck up and give me 500 dollars right the fuck now btw. These are not the words of someone who was en route to becoming a disciple, aka the most selfish entity of their entire race. These are the words of someone who genuinely does not think she has any worth left in her, but is still fighting because the alternative is that people she cares about will die. Literal opposite of selfishness right here

[respectthepetty]

The Loyal Pin - Episode 15

Before I actually began this recap, let me just bask in Patricia freaking the hell out when Kuea's pregnant wife, who she was warned about, actually shows up to the wedding she forced onto Pin.

Well it if isn't the consequences to your dumb ass actions, Patricia!

LOOK AT HER!

Oh shit! And now Pin has passed the hell out! I knew a girl in high school who would pass out whenever she got in trouble, and we all thought it was a medical condition at first, but one time, she passed out on the band field during morning practice, yet fell in such a way that her flute didn't get damaged, and the entire band spread that news like wildfire, so I, a kid who would NEVER be caught dead near the band hall, heard about it by second period, and homegirl was roasted accordingly in fourth period Stats when someone told her to pass out before the test so we could get out of taking it but to make sure not to damage her the calculator. Point is - Pin is band girl. This is triflin' behavior. This is not a medical condition.

And Prik is just rubbing salt in her wounds. "Anin was fighting all the way until the bitter end for your love, but once she realized you were still going to marry a man who had a whole ass pregnant wife, she decided to go to the beach instead of attending your dumb wedding"

I really disliked Aon at the start of this show, but now her faces with Anin on this beach trip are amazing because Anin is going through it, and Aon is just like, "You wanna put some cucumbers on your eyes since you've been crying so much." She is helping, but also judging, and I like that.

This is what a true ally looks like. Shit was going DOWN in his palace, and all he could think about was telling his sister.

Take notes, Anon! Ya sloppy!

Look how happy a Blue Beauty is when her girlfriend's wedding is stopped by the pregnant woman nobody would believe existed. She is smiling for love. I'm smiling for spite.

And Pin is wearing Anin's color as she, too, looks up at the sky. Glad Prik's little guilt trip worked.

PENELOPE, NO! NOT AGAIN, GIRL!

Okay, existential crisis Barbie. Quit being so damn dramatic.

Penelope planned to go through with that wedding, yet is acting all sad because Anin didn't immediately rush back to her. BARBARA! YOU'RE DOING TOO MUCH, SIS!

And now Patricia is wearing Pin's color to show she cares. You know what would show she cares? Her actually apologizing TO PIN! Her saying "sorry I fucked up and told you to die" or something like that. Doesn't haven't to be those exact words, but anything would be better than the NOTHING she is doing right now.

Penelope always has a dream about Anin leaving her or DYING, and even in her dreams, Penelope is too damn dramatic. ¡Cálmate, güey!

Wait. Is this green or orange? Someone needs to get the colorist on the phone because night time does not make a dress an entirely different color!

But the entire scene is beautiful, so the colorist made some decisions, and I cannot say they were bad decisions.

Anin laughing while Penelope is in pain is food for my petty soul.

Because Penelope is too smart to be this dumb! How did she not realize that Anin was upset that she was marrying a man and moving that man into her palace? Anin TOLD her that, but did she think Anin was joking? WTF, girl. Shut that pretty mouth of yours. I've heard enough stupidity come out of those beautiful lips for a lifetime.

Now Anin is laughing at Penelope in the house! Thank goodness because Penelope is still wildin' with these ridiculous questions! She knows nothing happened between Anin and these other women because she HEARD Anin crying about her MARRYING A MAN, yet has the audacity to pout. Penelope, just pass out again, so we can stop hearing you say irrational shit.

Anin is wiping her down with a blue towel *wink* but the green/orange dress is throwing me for a loop, so I cannot properly enjoy this.

For two chicks that just got back together after shit hit the fan when their relationship was exposed, they do not have any sense of self-preservation. Standing out on the balcony hugging each other after having sex is a choice. The wrong one.

WHY IS ANIN APOLOGIZING TO PATRICIA?! And why hasn't Patricia apologized to Pin?! And why is Anin still wearing green?! She is not a Green Girl! There is nothing chill about Anin!

There is one episode left and I need Patricia to apologize to Pin and for Anin to wear pink for her Pink Person because Pin is struggling with her color still. Quit playing with my emotions, show!

This mama is scared. She has me convinced that the closet is better than telling the dad. I'd listen to her, but Anin would never because she has no chill; therefore, she is not a Green Girl. GET THAT COLOR OUTTA HERE!

At long last, we have made it to the final boss. I don't play video games, but if this is anything like Kirby, shit's about to get messy!

But I know all will end well since Anin still has to wear pink to solidify her love for Pin.

Or this really will be the final stage of Kirby.

Pink. On Body. NOW!

[hopeforchanges]

if you've never read the Silmarilion, you are depriving yourself of a major old school reality tv vibes in the vain of Big Brother. Tolkien really was the G, because if you think that the Greek gods have something on Tolkien's Valar, i'm here to tell you they're not even playing in the same league. not even in the same universe.

oh? you think Zeus is detached? Poseidon is kind of a dick and Hades just could not give less of a fuck about his dysfunctional family?

what if i told you that once upon a time there was a guy who was a big asshole and who rallied his entire race to go to war cause one other guy who was also even somehow bigger of an asshole (let's call him huge asshole) stole his shiny rocks? and the Valar did a total of fuck all to stop him from leading an entire race of people they essentially helped create and lived with in harmony to slaughter.

remember that huge asshole who stole the big's asshole shiny rocks? well he also happened to terrorize an entire continent with countless lives for centuries, meanwhile the Valar largely stay out of the conflict even though the huge asshole was technically their family and therefore their problem. Despite the pleas of the people, they remained indifferent, chillin' in the west five feet apart cause they're not gay, watching an absolute carnage unfold for several long centuries. It took several more hundreds of years and devastating battles before one guy with a backbone finally said 'had enough of this shit' and sailed to their West California/Malibu hangout to tell 'em they should get their fucking asses up and work.

so the Valar eventually are like 'jesus, okay' and stop the huge asshole but if you think that they were going to send sanitation or stimulus checks to the people who were left behind and broken by the war they did not care about to stop earlier even though they were the only ones who could, you have another thing coming cause they peace out and everyone else who cannot afford to go to their West California/Malibu hangout because they are not privileged enough or don't have the right background to go there and heal can fuck off and die.

then you might think, well, the huge asshole was defeated so now at least there should be peace and quiet for a while in the house, no? fucking no because it turned out the huge asshole polled really well in the demographic of young men and one of those young men decided to take up the huge asshole's mantle and make middle-earth great again or some shit. except his own crowd runs him out of town cause he is one of those people who think they can swing but they're actually just meow meows with anger issues and a staggering lack of self-awareness who really need to get laid. (on that later)

so the young man decides to go on vacation to an island that was basically created by the Valar as the paradise for those who helped defeat the huge asshole and he realizes he really likes this island full of assholes cause that's kind of the crowd he vibes with. and slowly but surely he comes to the conclusion that not only is the island full of assholes, it's full of the dumbest motherfuckers he has ever met in his life. he gets them to build worships and temples and statues to celebrate the huge asshole guy who died on the basis of their general huge asshole-ness they have in common with him. still, the Valar do nothing as the young man corrupts this island full of dumbasses and enslaves them to his will. they only intervene when the young man rallies them to band together and attack the West California/Malibu hangout. Which ends in complete destruction of the paradise island and a complete shift of the map of the world and the trajectory of its free peoples.

and this whole tangent is basically me reminding myself that yes, Hope, you can write an outlandish new chapter where absolute crazy batshit things happen to people who do not deserve it and have the Valar ignore it completely, because that is what they do.

they are trolling. they don't intervene when entire populations are destroyed, but when they randomly see the young man and an elf vibing on a shitty raft, Poseidon's Valar equivalent Ulmo gathers the clouds and tells his little helper Ossë who is responsible for storms and waves:

.... you know what would be really fucking hilarious ....

[ijwtbap]

ㅤㅤ★ㅤA promise — Bakugō

— Bakugō x GN! reader.

You like Katsuki, he likes you — is a fact not a maybe. He doesn't seem to believe it thought.

a/n. I had to keep my promise ig. Is VERY short so im sorry, also Im bad at english and is my first one shot so have some mercy plz.

You were going insane. Just a little bit. Well, actually, you were ready to rip out your hair and scream into the void, standing naked as flames consumed you. That's kind of insane.

Every time Bakugō referred to you as his friend—even if he only said you weren’t that annoying and didn’t mind having you around (which was close enough)—you wanted to disappear.

You had done everything but treat him platonically. Sure, you could see how holding hands, cuddling, or crying together might seem platonic. But kissing in bed and saying “I love you” in a completely serious way?

You were completely lost.

At first, you thought it was a joke, then maybe just a game to him.

But now? Now you’re convinced he’s just... dense.

You could tell Bakugō you love him dead serious while looking him dead in the eyes, on your knees and with a big sign that said 'plz marry me,' and he would still think you're joking.

And it was killing you.

"Are you going to study or what?"

You were in his bedroom, "studying." Yeah, right—studying. You just wanted to be there with him. You’d barged in without warning, and yet, he hadn’t even questioned your presence.

"No."

You knew he liked you back. There was no way he didn't, but fuck, he refused to acknowledge it.

"I like you."

His eyes widen for a second before he looks back at his notes.

"Shut up."

"I really do, tho."

"Yeah, whatever."

"I love you."

"If you don't stop, I will kick you out."

"I love you."

" __________ "

"I love you so much."

"Stop it."

"I want to marry you, one day when we're adults. Small or big wedding, or none at all, whatever you prefer."

"I'm being serious."

"So am I."

You two look at each other, him holding his pen so hard that it looks like it's about to break and you looking at him as if he were the most wonderful and prettiest dense idiot you have seen in your life.

"What do you need me to do to make you believe me?"

He ignores you. Mostly because he knows that paying attention to you would just make him more annoyed (because you clearly weren't going to stop) and because he didn't want to accept it.

"Die."

A small smile comes to your mouth. How many people would get offended by that? A lot, but you knew Bakugō didn't mean it.

"You want to recreate Given now?"

Bakugō rolls his eyes, making more notes in his notebook, but you were able to notice a small smirk.

You had forced him to watch it a couple of months ago, and he swears he didn't cry. You knew the truth, though.

"Shut up."

"Shut me up yourself, you coward."

He lets out another scoff, and he continues to avoid your eyes.

"Study already."

You loved Bakugō Katsuki, and he loved you back.

No matter how much time it would take you, you were going to make sure to take his last name and hold his hand in a not-platonic way.

One day.

"I love you."

I totally didn't use like 3 grammar online correctors, and re read this like 20 times (It will still have an issue, and I know it). I also didn't copy inspired my introduction (?) from a random post.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed my bad writing style. Im not doing this again, unless I get REALLY bored.

521 words.

[hismercytomyjustice]

FINALLY MY TIME HAS COME

But no, I don’t have cleaning/organization OCD. I moreso have “pure O” where most of my compulsions are “invisible” in that they’re mental.

Shit like ruminating thoughts which turn into OCD spirals I struggle to get out of. Mostly around morality and desiring unattainable levels of perfection in all things.

Like “if I do the thing, I have to do it perfectly” and then get stuck mapping out what “perfectly” is in my head. To the point I overwhelm and mentally exhaust myself and don’t do the thing. And then I get to deal with guilt spirals! Yay!

Which is why it crops up in places like “I need to walk my dogs” and “I want to learn piano.” Because I spend so much fucking time ruminating over “the best” way to do something.

Like with piano. I started taking lessons after agonizing over whether or not I should (ex. what if I don’t practice enough, what if I change my mind, what if I disappoint my teacher, what if I’m taking a spot from a potential student who was more dedicated, etc).

But I signed up! And I actually do practice! More than I’ve ever practiced an instrument before in my life! And I minored in music (specifically violin)! Which should make me feel fulfilled and proud and happy, right?

Right???!!!

NOT WHEN MY OCD GETS LOUD.

Then I get to experience Fun Things™ like panic attacks because I “haven’t practiced enough and I’m going to disappoint my teacher.” I’m also #blessed in that I tend to be a fast learner, so a lot of stuff comes fairly easily to me. Not piano! And my brain DOES NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT THAT. Because WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’m not immediately good at something?!

Because to my OCD, me being good at something = me having value as a person. And if I’m not good at something or doing enough to get good at something, then “I am a failure, what am I doing with my life, I am a disappointment to myself and everyone unlucky enough to get caught in my orbit, I will never accomplish anything, why do I even exist (as in I have no purpose in life and will die one day knowing I never did anything worthwhile),” etc etc etc.

Which has led to having to unpack a lot of insecurities and all (see above) that I didn’t know I had. And has led to my therapist repeatedly telling me to stop being so mean to myself and to put less pressure on myself.

Lol I feel like 90% of my sessions with her are “here are all the ways I am failing to be a perfect person who gives 200% in all things” and her being like “…you know that is not actually possible right?”

Of course it isn’t! But try telling my OCD that!

So that’s how I go from “it’d be neat to learn piano” to “I will one day die knowing I squandered my life and somehow ruined everyone else’s lives in the process”!

Rinse and repeat! About every fucking thing in my life!

Yay!

But that’s what therapy is for! And OCD is NEVER CORRECT. So you just have to get up every day and live an exposure based lifestyle, constantly making yourself do or not do all the things your OCD tries to convince you are life and death should you ignore it.

And it gets easier the more you do it, but fuck it is a lot of work. And so much of it involves making sure you build a strong foundation for yourself so it’s harder to knock you off of it when life tries to take you out at the kneecaps with a baseball bat.

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[goldenhallas]

I unlocked all the memories in the Lighthouse and I'm vibrating with excitement rn! so many things me and my brothers discussed over the years have turned out to be true, or almost correct. We thought the Evanuris were also the Old Gods of Tevinter, which was close since the Old Gods were actually the Evanuris' bound dragons. We also thought Solas/other ancient elves were spirits (the way I shrieked when that was confirmed lmao). Now looking back at Inquisition it gives a whole new layer to the Cole situation... Cole chose to manifest in a physical body and he could become more physical, more human, but Solas didn't want him to and greatly disapproves if you do that, not just because it 'goes against his nature' as he said, but because it reminded Solas of when he chose to become physical and his regrets surrounding that. Damn. I wonder if it's possible for Solas to somehow reverse what he did and become fully spirit again, and if he would choose that if he could? What about Ghilana/Solavellan, would she change his mind on that? Anyway I digress. You know what really has me shook about all this... I was literally 100% certain, not a doubt in my mind, that Ghilan'nain created the Blight. I never for one second suspected it was Solas!? Like. Holy shit, he really, really fucked up on a whole other level with that one. He separated the dwarves from the titans / took away their ability to dream, and not only that, but he knew the damage it would cause and what he was doing was awful, but he did it anyway. All because he loved Mythal so much he would've followed her anywhere, even into doom. It's so tragic and romantic and terrible all at the same time, so very Solas, and I love it. I have to wonder though... how does he feel about what he did to the dwarves now? Obviously he regrets what he did, that's clear, but why didn't he give their dreams back at some point between then and now? All it took was Harding touching the lyrium dagger to get reconnected to the titan, so surely Solas could've done that? So why didn't he? I know he was preoccupied with other stuff but that's a pretty damn big deal. Maybe he didn't realise a simple touch of the lyrium dagger was all it would take to reconnect them? Or maybe - and I think this is more likely - the titan is too dangerous right now because of its anger at what was done to it (understandable) and he thought reconnecting them before he healed/calmed the titan (if that's possible?) would be a bad idea for the dwarves? My brother thinks he just didn't care but I think that's ridiculous and doesn't seem like Solas at all.

I mean Solas could burn down the entire world and I'd still love him, so whatever the case I'm his ride or die, but I do want to give him a bit of a clip around the ears and make him look the dwarves in the eye and apologise to every single one of them and FIX what he did to them. I'm also wondering if this whole thing with Rook IS part of his plan to fix what he did? He was known as the trickster god and he was known for getting out of traps, so you never know

[ai-the-broccoli]

I DIDN'T NOTICE YOU RB'D THE DEATH NOTE ASK MEME uhhh. 23 and 24 maybe?

ooooh thanks!!!

23. what was your favorite moment and why?

"oooh that's a very hard question" ...is what I might've said, if this wasn't the light yagami animanga series and light yagami makes me insane. uhhh. I do have several though, if that's allowed.

(update: when I said "several" I meant uh. a lot apparently. whoops)

favourite line / favourite moment in a "holy wow this is amazing thematically": the. y'know. "Tell me, Light, from the moment you were born, have you ever told the truth?" line in the anime rain scene. yeah. holy fuck that is amazing because I LOVE that sort of thing. as far as character traits go, there's like nothing I love more than characters that are liars who lie lyingly (multiple types of this apply). it's truly, truly the best.

favourite moments based on what I repeatedly rewatched immediately following my first watch of the anime: there are, uh. three (in no particular order)

light goes home from the entrance ceremony, incredibly stone-faced (like 😐) the entire way -> gets home, gets up the stairs, opens the door, shuts the door, sits down on his chair, suddenly starts shaking -> blows up "Dammit! He got me! Damn L! I have never been so humiliated in my life!" (even Ryuk comments internally that he's never seen him lose his composure so much) -> suddenly laughs and calms down talking about how it's a battle of wits now and he'll make L trust him and kill him, with his own hands if necessary. i rewatched this several times in a row which was definitely very normal of me.

look at him. grumpy but in like an extremely restrained way (his face is even hidden). until it breaks completely in the next page lol

the last episode. light trying so hard not to laugh/smirk in the warehouse, then he reveals himself as kira (a lot of laughing), and he loses and falls pathetically, shouting for kiyomi and mikami and misa after matsuda shoots him, and then runs in the beautiful sunset, passing his younger high school self by, and seeing a vision of L before he dies on the stairs. all this is great and i did an immediate rewatch of this episode after finishing it

the Relight scene where Light laughs on top of L's grave soil. it's conceptually fucked up in an amazing way that really really appeals to me. murder and grave desecration are really romantic/beautiful/erotic on principle.

as you can see I am very normal. as you can see I am a very normal Light Yagami fan. one of those two statements may be unironically true, but the two statements inherently cannot go together. anyway this particular selection of scenes totally doesn't actually say anything about me right but anyway I'm right those are totally the best please torture light some more everyone

favourite moments I didn't immediately repeatedly rewatch/reread like that but are still my absolute top favourites:

The entire first episode because DAMN did it hook me completely very, very fast. I did NOT know there was going to be Faustian contract + god complex&general big ego + everything else in one in this little and very infamous character known as "Light Yagami". my expectations were blown instantly and I got obsessed with DN right away

L and Light declaring war on each other over the live broadcast and L asking and taunting Light/Kira to kill him. amazing. it was really... gay. sorry I can't think of a better word lmfao

L's death scene oh my god. GOD I loved (and was really really amazed/impressed by by) Light rushing to him at once and basically lying on top of him for a second, so that he will die in his arms. GOD. it is SO. like yeah this is literally my favourite sort of thing holy shit it is amazing (it's to gloat to him and to declare victory before his death, and it's to pretend to the Task Force too, and yet it seemed like such an instinctual reaction really that I think his first instinct really IS to hold him in his arms before he dies. this is really good). and the dramatic performance afterwards. I love it

on a COMPLETELY different note. JESUS CHRIST I love Soichiro's death scene actually. because holy fuck the multi-layered irony. I really love it. actually I think I wrote about that scene long before I even really wrote anything else about DN. alright here:

idk if I still 100% agree with my initial impression but it should still overall hold and MAN. I definitely loved it (<- fan of irony) (<- extremely, extremely normal Light Yagami fan) (<- fan of Soichiro also, to a lesser extent)

favourite moment that gave me a lot of thoughts when I'm reading the manga: (even though I already first watched the anime and this stuff is also in the anime)

the moment where Rem is like "okay I will kill L" and Light, person who has been plotting this exact murder for ages, is like. Oh shit. he'll die...? which is. man. Light sure is Light

like look at his face here!

favourite manga-exclusive moments:

Light not considering killing Sayu. Light asking Soichiro to promise him to come back alive with Sayu. that scene afterwards where Soichiro is at home thinking he should die. (at least I think those weren't in the anime?)

the manga ending is also good

I like that the manga tells us he lost weight and has nightmares due to using the death note. (it possibly has happened to anime light too but we don't get to see it)

not a "favorite moment" exactly, but while the scene is beautiful I don't like Misa dying in the end despite how much I adore everything else in that episode, so I like that Misa doesn't canonically die like that in the manga

favourite anime-exclusive moments:

rain scene and footwashing scene yes obviously

everything about Light being "haunted" after L's death. aside from the aforementioned Light dying scene, I really like the anime

I love the anime ending too

also hmm this might be a less popular opinion, but personally I also love some of anime Light's characterization tidbits that differs from the manga (e.g. first episode). I would say it's because it's maybe very slightly more relatable for me but that probably sounds wack lmao so

favourite moments based on how comedic I find them: (not including ones I already included in other sections) DN is such an amazing comedy I'm not even kidding

the whole handcuffs thing oh my god. homophobic misa moment. I didn't think she'd actually call him gay, but there it was. also just fken. buddy. L??????? why and how and in what world was there an absolute need for this totally normal, totally appropriate, absolutely most safe and most ideal method of interrogating criminals. I was laughing because god. that's not even. yeah okay I'm happy with it but LMFAO YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS. and Light just easily went along with it

the... the... first date scene. I was like oh my god c'MON you two. I didn't think something like this would be so like this in the actual canon manga. first date where Misa is being thirdwheeled while Light and L sit together chained together and then they focus all energy on talking to each other and then they get into a fist fight (date activity) all over the room. combined with the later dunking on matsuda. this is LITERALLY how a fucking sitcom goes at this point.

the anime's footwashing also. not the scene itself necessarily but just the fact that it fucking exists between lawlight and is. Like THAT????? lmfao like what the hell

ALSO the. fken. Matsuda fake death scene lmfao it was so wack in retrospect

live Ryuk reactions + "hey Light can we play Mario Golf? can we play Mario Golf Light? come on let's play a match of Mario Golf"

man I can't even include all of it here because Light Yagami is so entertaining to me in 85%+ of all the scenes she appears in in one way or another like his existence itself is peak entertainment to me. it's entertaining when Light is humiliated and it's entertaining when he's succeeding. and like I mean, he's the protagonist of the whole manga / show, and I mean I can't list every moment in the series can I. lmao

favourite moments that don't have light yagami in it: I'm sorry everyone else but I am especially obsessed with light. as you can see. however I love many other characters too

Kiyomisa dinner kiyomisa fighting !!!

(technically this includes light but) matsuda shooting light

misa being unexpectedly smart (compared to her wider reputation) (the higuchi car scene! and others) is also nice

idk if it makes sense but. the scene where Rem and Misa mention the way a Shinigami can die, and Misa admits to thinking about killing Rem like it's. just very Neat. I like the vibes here and Misa is very beautiful (related to the dialogue about love and killing. yeah)

also!! I love the meronia moments

and then I recently got myself into soichello so actually yeah. the soichiro mello scenes too. very good

24. any headcanons you want to share?

uhhhhhhhhhhh hmmm. man what's a headcanon I haven't properly shared on tumblr before, and also isn't like a take that is shared and often discussed by tons of people around here already?

... fine okay let's do this finally.

neurodivergence + mental illnesses headcanons

[disclaimer: please read this post first. if you disagree, you can skip over this and skip to the next section!]

aside from OCD and autism, imo Light has NPD with some ASPD traits, and also bipolar. this is because the way his mental illnesses are is like. I feel represented lol. (not as in I have every one of those things I listed, but I probably have some/most of them, and the combinations are interesting). even though this is unfortunately Light Yagami. but I really like him for that too tbh because man. I don't get to see that stuff often. (like idk how to explain it. even though I'd never even remotely pull that kinda stuff because of differences in personalities, values, background, abilities, and manifestation and degree of symptoms, etc. however some of his mannerisms sometimes feel right on point e.g. I feel like the way he is like sometimes gives me depression + hypomanic/manic vibes, in a way where I can see myself in him if it makes sense lmao)

on that note Misa 100% very BPD I agree. I wanna say on top of autism, L also seems to have some ASPD traits imo. Near is autistic but I think that goes without saying lol. Mello has like... C-PTSD and/or NPD. and then this probably not a very unexpected take, but Matsuda has ADHD or audhd vibes. OH and! Soichiro also very much has OCD and autism, imo.

other headcanons:

not a hot take, but Mello and Near are both nonbinary and/or genderqueer (and/or otherwise trans, if not applicable) to me (could be transmasc or transfem, not necessarily transneutral; I could see either or any direction among those, although I would say I lean toward seeing Near as transfem and/or nonbinary, and Mello as transmasc and/or genderqueer).

Light is demi, and has had a covert superiority complex about not feeling attraction unlike his peers (like. you can view him deciding to use porn mag reading to prove himself as a normal teenage boy as indicative of his subconscious? mental association of his more "normal" peers as, like.... unfortunate horny perverts. in a way. if that makes sense) I know how it feels because I was kinda like this in grade 6-8

man I definitely have other ideas too but I'm drawing a blank at the moment partly because it's late and I still haven't eaten lunch lmao. I will continue to post my thoughts and headcanons in the future, so tune in by clicking on the subscribe butto- *gets shot*

ask game

[that-satireguy]

Warning. Rage-filled rant.

Ok. Firstly, yes. I know this is online discourse and that this person would be laughed out of any legitimate queer space for saying trans men don't experience misogyny, and that they are trying to 'use woman words in ways that include men.' But I read this and now you have to too.

You fucking moronic worthless imbecile.

TW severe child abuse

I want your high horse 'this is just semantics' ass to come to my house.

Look at my permanently disfigured ass, who will never. Actually never, be able to fully move past the permanent stunt in my communication abilities. No matter WHAT I do. And tell me. That when I was assigned female at birth, beaten, whipped, and burned all before the age of 10.

When my head was being slammed against doors and walls until I was bleeding into my eyes, for the crime speaking to loudly in front of my male relatives.

When I got beaten up with a plate, and then stamped on because the shards went into my cheek, because 'how would i get married now', but of course they still didn't let me get medical treatment because it was family matters. and those don't go outside of the house.

When this was permitted to go on because of systemic misogyny in the so-called western world.

That this was just because of transphobia. Genuinely. Look me in the eye and say that this is because they magically knew my ass was trans.

You fucking moronic self centred fucker. I want you to explain to my ass. That i can't use the word misogyny when I speak about being denied human rights. When there are trans men around the world, who are told they are stupider than men, they are worth less than men, trans men who underwent fgm, trans men who were and are currently being raped and beaten, sold into slavery, forced into marriages as children, and say that shouldn''t be described as misogyny.

The trans men, like me who experienced misogyny growing up and therefore had limited access to education which affects them now. Trans men who are being told they are female-brained and therefore they cannot possibly hope to enter politics.

You scum. You idiot. There are not enough english words in the universe to express myself right now but just insert something here. Idk just fucking die i guess.

[loquarocoeur]

Idk if you’ve ever said anything about that topic or if it has come up before, but could you see a scene where Charles forces Max to get himself off, full on display for Charles to watch while max is turned on and embarrassed and can’t hide? (Bonus if Max is naked and Charles fully dressed)

I mean I do get that and like yeah hot but every time i write them they're like immediately on top of each other touching each other literally everywhere they can, holding hands, holding waists, holding shoulders, just holding onto each other, touching touching touching and I literally can't make them stop

But lol Charles would think this is such a good idea until he's actually sitting there suffering trying to look and not touch, he would die, meanwhile Max would absolutely be so embarrassed but also so whiny because Charles is literally right there, why does he have to do it himself?