#because they're pretty much just... people most of the time

[namism]

holding your hand

➳ categories: canonverse, gender neutral reader

➳ summary: How Sanji, Nami, Law, Zoro, Kid, Koby, & Sabo secretly hold your hand.

➳ notes: happy 300, and happy valentine's! 🧡

Sanji

Sanji isn't ashamed of showing affection publicly, so he holds your hand most of the time.

However, he does so in such a way that he considers pretty mild.

Some of the Straw Hats believe otherwise, though.

Notably, Zoro calls his affectionate hand-holding initiatives "shameless" and insults him for his disgraceful public display of affection.

But Sanji can only chuckle to himself as he continues with his gestures—Zoro doesn't know what he's talking about.

This is pretty mild, and it's not at all shameless.

Just how would the swordsman react when he sees how much more physical Sanji gets in private?

Sanji is a sucker for you. He loves getting physically touchy once you show that you're comfortable with it.

Holding your hand is just another way that he shows his affection; he usually shows it through light feathery kisses on the back of your hands and lips, but in public, the safest option is hand-holding.

When you're around people, your fingers are loosely intertwined with his.

When you're alone together, Sanji massages and plays with your fingers gently and intimately. Sensually.

Even then, it doesn't bother you because he seems to be genuinely enjoying himself.

He runs his fingertips across your skin, feeling its texture and seemingly memorizing the way your fingers curve.

He admires your nails as his brain gradually shuts off after a long day of working at the ship.

Sanji doesn't care what you're doing as long as he gets to play with your hands. You can be reading a book or dozing off calmly, and he would continue with his movements.

Some days when he's extremely tired, he falls asleep holding your hand loosely and it makes you feel warm inside. On those occasions, you cuddle up beside him and drift off to sleep as well.

Nami

Nami is secure woman.

That said, hand-holding is just another lovely gesture that you have both grown accustomed to in your relationship.

It's a normal occurrence that doesn't strike any embarrassment or shame.

In all honesty, it's not her favorite romantic gesture, but it's an action socially acceptable enough when you're in public.

Even then, you don't hold hands 24/7.

But it does come in handy when someone attempts to flirt with her.

Yes, Nami can handle herself just fine against creepy people, but sometimes you just have to step in and do something, you know?

One time at a bar with some of the Straw Hats, a guy approached her and started using lame pick-up lines to win her heart.

Nami seems disinterested as usual, but you're head is burning with rage from the other end of the room.

You walk up to them briskly, and you immediately lock your hands with hers.

The dude doesn't get the hint, though. "Siblings?" he asks.

Nami clenches her hands with yours. Her eyes narrow, the hues in them darkening.

Yeah, this guy is stupid.

"Lovers, actually," she corrects.

And just like that, he's gone.

It's a great tactic, one that's funny, effective, and certainly something you would repeatedly do to keep people away from flirting with your girlfriend.

Law

Law is too shy to initiate romantic gestures in front of his friends. Ironically, he's more comfortable with being spotted by strangers in public than his friends or crew.

(It might be because he's always one tease away from ending up a pathetic blushing mess... compared to Penguin and Shachi, at least strangers know how to mind their business.)

Anyway, you don't understand his odd preferences, but you don't question it as long as he displays physical affection. The gestures aren't extreme; they're rather tame, but even the tamest of gestures in anyone's eyes is already the boldest of them in Law's mind.

He holds your hand when he's certain that nobody is around in the Polar Tang, or when the public space is clear of his eavesdropping crewmates.

His tattooed hand holds yours in a loose grip as the other rests on the sheath of his Kikoku over his shoulder, a sign of his relaxed demeanor as you walk side by side.

Law would tighten his grip when you drag him around or when he senses danger nearby.

One time, you were walking around Sabaody Archipelago when crowds of concertgoers swarmed the area and caused a bustling commotion at the grove.

Law's first instinct was to clench his hands with yours and pull you closer to him as strangers among strangers bumped into you after failed attempts to control their budding excitement.

Times like those call for Law's protectiveness, and whenever it happens, he tends to keep you close to him in fear of losing you in the crowd.

It almost happened before when a rival pirate crew raided an island the Heart Pirates were on, and Law was genuinely frightened.

From that day onward, he vowed to always hold your hand in some way.

Zoro

Zoro doesn't do hand-holding.

However, he does it in some way.

For one, if you have to dismount the ship or you're descending from a flight of stairs that can mess with your balance, he would, of course, offer his hand to help.

For two, if you get scared to walk alone at night or at a sketchy island with obstacles that can endanger your life, he would let you hold his hand.

You generally get a pass because it's you. If it were anyone else, he would feel uncomfortable.

When he sees Sanji swooning over a girl, his hands caressing her fingers as she laughs, Zoro notices how much she likes his touches.

The sight made Zoro snort. Frankly, Sanji looks stupid.

However, it gave him an idea to try it with you just once.

Just once.

He doesn't know how to initiate it because he never does these things.

When you want to be physically intimate, you do it through other means.

So as expected, Zoro executes it awkwardly, not until you show a reaction that has your whole face lighting up.

It's a normal day at the Thousand Sunny, with everyone on the crew busying themselves with personal work.

Zoro's resting at the upper deck by Nami's tangerine trees when you sit yourself beside him and lean your head on his shoulder to rest with him.

Zoro takes that opportunity to place his hand on top of yours, which shakes the sleepiness away from your senses and instead brings you energy.

He instantly feels warm inside seeing how happy you look, but he promises to never tell you that.

Kid

Oh, Kid loves to hold your hand, alright.

He realized recently how much better it is to hold you rather than to use his powers in magnetizing whatever metallic garment you're wearing so he could pull you next to him.

He holds your wrist with his metal hand, the size difference driving you insane.

But most of the time, he holds you with his human hand, which is still evidently larger than yours.

It's a sweet act in some way—the hand that represents his humanity is what he uses to hold you.

Anyway, he often drags you around the ship or island while holding your wrist tightly.

Sometimes, you initiate the hand-holding and make a poor attempt to lace your fingers with his.

It's a bit difficult to do since his fingers alone are so much larger than yours, but Kid silently enjoys it.

He likes to see you try, and it's a nice break from the usual way he holds you.

More often than not, he gets made fun of by Killer and his crew for acting so soft around you.

You don't take offense to it because they have made it clear that they were only making fun of their captain, the one who usually puts up a dominant exterior.

Kid wants to punch them for teasing him so badly, but their teasing doesn't stop him from holding hands with you.

Because deep inside, he knows that they don't mean any harm.

Koby

Shy Koby. You can only imagine the amount of time it took him to progress from minimal skinship to holding your hand for extended amounts of time.

Hint: it took him a couple of months.

Part of which is attributed to his shyness, but he also had to make sure that you were okay with it.

The first time it happened drove him insane, to say the least. Although it lasted shortly, feeling your hot skin on his sent a different type of surge through his body.

Sure, Helmeppo hugged him often, and Garp punched him when he misbehaved, but those were different.

Way different.

He wasn't used to it, but it didn't help that he had a crush on you, on top of the circumstance when it happened.

The both of you were cleaning up after Garp's mess at his office, arranging the upturned furniture and binders upon binders of confidential Marine documents.

Koby didn't realize just how close you were to each other when he bent down to help you. At that time, he was focused on cleaning up the office before Garp got back.

Suddenly, you both reached for the same fallen document on the floor, your skin coming into contact.

Your hands froze. Silence came. After a few seconds, you decided to calmly pull away and let Koby do the job, pretending to ignore what just happened.

Koby had to take a deep breath for himself after that encounter.

It escalated soon enough when you began to notice his reactions to your touches. To say that he enjoyed them was an understatement.

As time passed, it was without question when you began to make your interactions more intentional, passing the barrier of accidental physicality and achieving a level of comfort that didn't exist months before.

Eventually, Koby warmed up to the physical contact and could now maintain skinship without mentally malfunctioning every 30 seconds.

Currently, he loves to hold your pinky finger because he thinks it's a cute gesture without being too loudly affectionate, but there are times when he does just hold your hand with fingers intertwined.

At the end of the day, no matter the way he holds your hand, you're just glad that he gets to do so without no longer feeling awkward.

Sabo

When Sabo develops a crush on you, his way to your heart is to make his presence physically known all the damn time.

He initially expresses his interest through his words, but he soon realizes that verbal flirtation isn't enough to express just how much he's into you, so he decides to become intentionally obvious... through physical intimacy.

It's subtle when he does it, but he deems himself a master because it works every single time.

Sabo makes it a goal to stand beside you at any given moment, even moving closer when he realizes that you're comfortable with having him be that close.

It becomes a mutual understanding over time that there is something romantic in your coupled actions, so when he gets the opportunity to initiate skin-to-skin contact, he seizes it before he loses the chance.

He specifically loves to hold your hand because it's a subtle gesture good enough to make your heart flutter.

He does it often when people are around because he wants everyone to see, but doesn't want to at the same time.

(He thinks it's like a game. Also, he enjoys the thrill.)

One thing he does a lot that testifies to that thought is to gently place his hand on top of yours under the dinner table.

Everyone would be eating their meals and involving themselves in conversation, yet you have your hand under Sabo's in a secret act of flirtation.

Sometimes, he would look at you knowingly and start playing with your fingers, causing you to reciprocate and give him your full attention.

Over time, it becomes your favorite way of holding hands with him (not that you do it a lot to begin with)—suddenly, the thrill of people finding out excites you.

...until you were eventually caught by none other than Jiron during dinner.

The little geezer dropped his fork on the ground, so when he bent forward to pick it up, he saw Sabo's hand on top of yours under the table.

He ended up making a commotion over it, and just like that, your little secret was out.

It didn't stop you and him from holding hands, though. If anything, it fueled your physical intimacy even more.

[reflectionsofacreator]

[takes a long drink from my Arizona iced tea] so like one of the central themes for FFXV is like, growing up, sure. You know that, I know that, whatever. Coming of age, coming into your own, taking the mantle of king, whatever you wanna call it. Cool, awesome, we love a good coming of age story!

But I find the sub theme of that one to be probably the most fascinating? By and large, all the chocobros have to deal with the fallout of being lied to by the adult figures in their lives, and it's the most prevalent with Noctis and Gladio. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of it in Ignis and Prompto too, but the particularly insidious way that Noctis and especially Gladio were lied to sometimes gets me.

See I don't even really think it was actually all that intentional. Not really a conscious act by Regis and Clarus, or the society around them? More like... I dunno, the lies that you get told by your parents as a little kid and you grow up to realize that the world is a lot different than you thought.

That being said, Noctis was absolutely lied to by his father; both about the nature of the King of Light and the idea that he'd succeed Regis as reigning monarch. Regis did it out of love, knowing that Noctis would die young, and reasoned that Noctis should get to have a relatively normal life, but it was still a lie. Gladio, likewise, was lied to by his father and Regis, told that he would be the next monarch's Shield, that he would fulfill a role that's got a pretty set expectation in their society.

See, Gladio expects Noctis to act a certain way, to act as King, and he gets increasingly frustrated when Noctis doesn't, or can't live up to that. He's not precisely wrong to expect it either, given their roles and their statues, and knowing that they're taking the throne during a full blown war. The problem is that Noctis was never taught how to be the thing that Gladio was told Noctis was going to be? And that's what causes friction with them all the time. It's fascinating, watching it play out and realizing the underlying issues with their relationships actually have very little to do with them as people and instead because of what they were told to expect from each other.

Gladio is also his own kettle of fish that I don't think the narrative is quite self aware enough to articulate properly, or even get into. Gladio falls into the trap of toxic masculinity very often -- struggling to articulate his feelings, expressing most of his feelings as anger, picking fights rather than talking about what's going on, using his strength as both a character aspect and bonus, etc. The list goes on. There's also the fact that he's sort of portrayed as a bit of a womanizer and the masculine ideal; tall, rugged, strong, etc which plays into all of that. XV plays him very straight (and straight) with these concepts, and just sort of ... expects it to be fine? Which is at odds with how the other three bros interact and are more emotionally available towards each other, leaving Gladio as one of the weaker bros in canon.

It kind of sucks too, because like, there's so much to unpack with him? His DLC is about wanting to have the strength to protect Noctis on the surface, but really when you look at it... you could also argue that the DLC is about Gladio's fears that he'll end up as dead as his dad did (ha, try that for alliteration) and the crushing weight of failure. Gladio has every right to fear his mortality, fear the fact that he is, nominally, the first in line on the battlefield and the the last defense for Noctis. If Noctis is to die, they will go through him first, and that's! Scary! But the game doesn't really get into that, hardly at all, and it makes picking up the pieces for Gladio kind of frustrating. Out of all the bros, he's the one I have to dig the most to find any kind of depth despite being prime real estate for it.

Anyways Gladio and Noctis' dynamic is fascinating if you actually start to unpack it, especially because it's built on the lies that their fathers fed them as children (that they themselves also bought into). I'd go so far to argue that between the two pairs, Noct/Gladio is in much more of a dire need to sit down and actually hash out what they are to each other, outside of their king/shield dynamic. Noct/Iggy certainly has shades of that, but Ignis has decided that they are friends and that he will defy fate if he must, let the world burn if he must, to save Noct's life. That has some depth beyond king/retainer that they're presented as. Noct/Gladio are sort of just... falling into the king/shield dynamic because they're expected to, and it sort of hampers their relationship and their communication.

I'm gonna scramble them both like eggs, probably into an omelette. They make me Think you know

[marshmallowgoop]

My @heishinvalentineexchange2025 gift for the immensely kind and patient @caliowl333, who graciously allowed me to participate with a video instead of fic or art! (And wrote me a 20,000+-word piece in exchange?! Oh my goodness!)

Song is the SadBois & NIO Remix of "Other Side" by ILLENIUM, featuring Vera Blue, which you can listen to in full here. Ramblings under the cut!

When I first began seriously video editing, I didn't think much about composition or how well clips flowed together—lyric sync was arguably my main goal, and anime pieces were thrown onto the timeline pretty much purely based on that.

Now, I put much more care into the very visual elements—the effects, the match cuts, the dazzle. But in the process, I fear that I'm losing what audiences found engaging about my early videos: the actual ideas.

So, for this AMV, I aimed to put the most effort into a strong concept. The titular "other side" is a world without the Black Organization, where Shinichi can freely be himself. Heiji is waiting for that world, where he no longer has to lie and pat Conan's head and pretend that they're not peers, and Shinichi is dreaming of that world because he's always dreamed of working with somebody just like him. The thought of meeting Heiji someday, when he first learns of his existence (Episode 490), fills Shinichi with excitement. He does a lot on his own, but he also loves working on a team—and doing so, being with people, sharing his enthusiasm with others—is what he wants more than anything.

(Heck, there's even a piece of official art called "Conan's Dream Vacation" where he dreams of playing beach volleyball with Heiji and Ran and Kazuha—as himself.)

Sure, you could argue that Shinichi simply enjoys working with Heiji as Conan because Heiji treats him as he truly is. But the times he spends as Shinichi with Heiji point to the fact that no, he just really likes deducting with Heiji. Eagerness, big smiles—in "The Scarlet School Trip" (Episodes 927-928), involving Heiji in the case of the day takes precedence over solving it himself, as he immediately shares what he knows and even jostles Heiji awake when he learns more, before doing anything else, because there's no way he's going to solve it alone. He doesn't want to.

But as things are, being Shinichi is pain. He takes an antidote, but it's poison. Being Conan is what's become "normal" and "comfortable," but Conan can't be what Shinichi is to Heiji. Conan isn't strong enough to catch Heiji when he's falling. Conan can't save him from bullets. Conan can't even talk to him naturally without hiding and secrets. His dreams have become nightmares.

And it can't be easy for Heiji, either. To see someone you care about suffering. To know that Shinichi is in a dangerous situation—and involving himself in it applies that same danger to himself. It'd make sense for Heiji to walk away and wash his hands of it... but Shinichi really wants him to stay. Despite everything, he wants Heiji to stay. For that someday when they can be true partners "on the other side."

I tried to say other things in here, too. Shinichi cementing himself as a precious person to Heiji by countering his insecurities with a one truth prevails and this isn't a competition and you don't have to prove yourself to me. Heiji finding Shinichi even after becoming Conan because he'll always find Shinichi, no matter what, because he's dreaming of being "on the other side," too (even if he didn't know it initially). Shinichi pushing Heiji away with coldness because maybe it's selfish to want him to stay, maybe it's cruelty to involve him, but he can't deny that he cares, that he wants Heiji with him, that he doesn't want to do this on his own.

And while I maybe still went a little ham on the effects, I do hope my ideas are the strongest of all! "No effects" versus effects comparison can be found here!

Thank you again for all your hard work organizing this event, Cali!!

[cheesycatz]

Parasitic worm pretends to be your valentine so you don't notice that they're the reason you have 24 days left to live

Wormton AU fic is 190k words now! : )

Nothing crazy new plot wise, more bonding and found family stuff. Obligatory fluff after how much these guys had to go through. I like describing all the sounds he makes when isn't trying to suppress them; chirps, warbles, trills, chirrs, chitters, screeches, snarls, and that weird computer whirring sound he makes that may or may not have the same connotations as purring (sorry I couldn't resist)

I'm excited to go through revisions! It's been so long since I wrote some of this stuff that I don't remember the fine details, so it's genuinely fun for me to read through. Also, I had fun making disguised wormton seem as cursed as possible without actually describing his real form until post-reveal. Blue was probably the only one who didn't think he was some deranged serial killer at first sight, which, fair enough. I was kind of worried about a few very minor original characters I added not being accepted, but then I remembered that Trashy the trash can probably has more speaking lines than any one of them and it probably isn't that big of a deal. I hope you enjoy the one chapter with these three kids putting their LPS animal dolls through the most traumatizing, heart-wrenching, dark story as we all did as children (I promise it's plot relevant and contains symbolism).

Drew some non-canon wormton stuff for Valentine’s Day. I mean, I don't know how you would send a valentine to an elusive homeless man with no official documentation of his existence. The asexually reproducing computer worm guy can't feel anything romantic, but he would love to take advantage of you—gladly accept your lovely gifts. Bro’s just teasing haha he would never inject parasitic worm larvae into your abdomen just don't go to the doctor in the next 24 days please he definitely loves you and not the worms hypothetically eating your organs

“worm.vbs” is a reference to the file type used by the ILOVEYOU worm and other old malware. I only know this because I realized that one of the official spamton valentines from last year contains its exact file name “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs”. sharing this trivia because it was like the one reference in those valentines that I didn't see anyone mention back then and because it makes me feel smart

Food for thought:

Honestly, he'd be pretty scary if it weren't for his justified fear of the antivirus forces. Malworm safety is all about avoiding disembodied voices trying to lure you into alleys, so the fact that you can physically see his relatively humanoid disguised form would make him seem dangerously trustworthy. I was thinking about what would've happened if he would've gotten help from the person on the phone (probably gaster I guess? idk). He could've totally been like a cult leader manipulating people into willingly becoming hosts because it was honorable or whatever. And that could combine with the fact that their venom slightly influences the brain. And the followers would've thought he was simply dressing up as a malworm and his fall from grace would've been when they realized he was just a malworm in disguise infecting them and prolonging the invasion. I prefer what I have now; lonely hypothetically-murderous wormton is a lot more redeemable than very-murderous cult leader wormton would be. The addisons, or anyone really, would want nothing to do with him. Fun to think about! And only to think about; I'd rather focus on the version I have now.

See you next time at the big 200k 👀 chapter 3 might actually come out before my multi-book-length spamton fanfiction but don't worry I would never abandon my favorite freak of nature

yappin complete B)

[blueraith]

"I have every right to hate caitvi!!!"

And I have every right not to read another word of your idiocy.

The defensiveness is pretty hilarious, tho, ngl. Some of you are so offended that we don't give a fuck about your tepid takes on the ship.

We're three months post canon. This is "love the blorbos" mode. No one gives a shit that you don't like a character or ship. This is what's so pathetic about antis. They waste their own time talking about characters they don't even enjoy. For months.

You can stop at any time. No one is forcing you to be here. For fucks sake, I think we'd all be happier if y'all just fucked off and quit posting your shit in the main tag, pretending that your shit opinion is even remotely valuable to anyone here.

It isn't. That shit your mom told you growing up that your opinions and thoughts are always valuable and deserve to be heard?

That was a lie, dear. In reality, not all opinions are created equal, nor are they always worth the air taken to express them.

It's like a vegan entering a steakhouse, only to bitch and moan that everyone in the building is eating meat and harming the planet. The patrons are enjoying their meal and discussing the experience with each other, only for some brave soul to climb on a soapbox to screech from a speakerphone that they're all terrible people who should be ashamed of themselves.

Doesn't that sound fucking obnoxious? Or the least counterproductive? You're not changing anyone's opinions here, Ava. You're just pissing people off so you can cry about how mean everyone is to you for supposedly standing up for what you believe in.

Nevermind the fact that these are fictional characters from a fictional world and your idea of activism starts and ends with online shit posting. For all of you who believe that you're making a stand for something by flaming a shipping tag on fucking tumblr of all places, if you're also an American, well. Good news! We're living through a fucking coup right now led by a goddamn billionaire who hates the working class! He might just think the concept of a repressed undercity is a swell idea!

Why not put your fucking money where your mouth is and go bother that stupid fuck?

You won't. Because that's hard. Posting leftist talking points and shittily applying them to a fictional lesbian ship is much easier, right? We should all be welcoming to y'all, huh? You're trying to save the world, after all!

Man, that shit's the most obnoxious part. Shut the fuck up already.

Or don't. And continue to either get blocked or shat upon when making dumbass posts that one asked for or desired. You're only wasting your own time.

[lemotmo]

My god give this to me!!!!

Q. Do you think they might actually go the unrequited route? I mean not permanently but do you think they might let Buck pine for a few episodes before Eddie has his realization moment?

A. I personally don't see them going this route. That doesn't mean they won't, but I just don't see the show putting the audience in the position of having to watch Buck pine for someone who isn't an option for him. The audience is pretty protective when it comes to Buck, I mean we love him most but we beg for them to drop a car on top of him, lol. The audience in general is pretty protective of him. They've watched him grow up so watching him set himself up for heartbreak is just not something I think the show will do. That route also puts Eddie in an unfair situation with the audience. Doesn't mean they won't do it. Doesn't mean they can't do it and do it really successfully. I just don't personally see it happening that way.

I still think we're going to get a fairly mutual realization, maybe not in the same episode but back to back episodes at least. I think neither one will tell the other for fear that the feelings aren't reciprocated. So I think we'll kind of get mutual pinning. I think Buck will confide in Maddie about his feelings. I'm not sure if Eddie will tell someone or if we'll just see Eddie's realization moment. I think one or both of them will have some kind of accident or incident on the job where one or both of them believe they're dying and they don't want to die without the other knowing how they feel. Oliver talking about an overnight shoot in the rain pretty much reinforces my belief in that. Rain is just such a Buddie thing on this show. And I don't see Tim being able to resist the big dramatic 'I love you ' where they're concerned. It's been 7 years in the making so I don't see it being a quiet moment. I think the show will go all in for the drama of it all. And they will get their quiet moment together after the fact.

I will say that I've seen a couple of posts and received a couple of asks urging people to remain skeptical because queerbaiting is very real and often intentionally used by shows to attract viewers. That is absolutely true but this show has never intentionally, verbally and openly queerbaited before. And Oliver doesn't talk about it a lot for fear of being accused of misleading people. Oliver would simply not do that. He's bent over backwards for 7 years to make sure he never even accidentally said something that could get him accused of doing that. I simply do not believe Tim, the show and especially Oliver would knowingly and deliberately bait like that. Ryan has been just as careful to try and avoid doing anything like that. I just don't believe that's what's happening here. For gods sake people let yourselves be excited.

Thank you Nonny! Much appreciated!

This was made and posted after the Oliver interview!

Nope, an unrequited storyline isn't going to happen. I'm even more convinced that this won't happen than Ali.

It wouldn't make sense in the grand scheme of things. We've seen that Eddie has started to look for joy, right at the moment when Buck will realise he is in love with him. For years now Eddie's relationships with women have fizzled out because he never felt that he could fully commit for some reason. Yet they keep showing us the close bond he has with his best friend.

No uhuh, Buck is going to figure it out and Eddie is going to come to some conclusions of his own while in El Paso. It will take them some time to actually act upon their feelings, because that is how these stories go. But the end-result will always be fully realised canon Buddie.

I also firmly believe that there is no queerbait going on here. They are too upfront about it.

Believe what you see this time. Allow yourself to believe it.

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[kosmicdream]

decided to type up my FFAK characters sexualities/preferences.. honestly i dont know why. just felt like it. probably forgot a few characters but i tried to include as many as possible!

FFAK characters sexualities

Knife - gay. Strictly a top because he’s often sex repulsed and needs to be in as much control as possible. Also pretty HARDCORE monogamous because of his jealousy and control issues. 

Simon - bisexual, except only romantically attracted to men. He does enjoy dominant/mean women though. He’s a switch and actually leans more into being a top, but enjoys challenging tops so he is dominated. For Knife, he was very dedicated to being a submissive as part of his loyalty to him. 

Fork - closetted bisexual, he’s also a switch but is more of a service top as he is desperate for praise. 

Crimson - crimson is a genderfuck so its hard to put labels on her for anything. Generally considers themselves as a lesbian of all things but actually gets crushes quite often on men. A switch, but leans top for most scenarios. It depends on the personality. If Crimsons close with a person and deeply romantically involved, he’s usually the submissive instead. 

Dylan - bisexual and a sub/brat. Generally prefers women, but it never lasts long because shes actually way worse with women than she is with men because of her attitude. Most men aren’t worth her time, even if shes also not worth most people’s time either.. 

Aeschylus - He sees no gender. Generally a top, somehow. He’s more of a submissive in other aspects of a relationship than in the bedroom. 

Antony - gay. Bottom. However, he is basically married to a woman (Celadon) for magical tax evasion (trying to dominate the world) 

Celadon #1 - lesbian and a top. Crimson's the one exception to this for preferences since Crimson is a lot of things at once..

Celadon #2 - a top-leaning switch, not attracted to any gender in particular so probably IDs more with pansexual. 

Celadon #3/Galore - a bottom. Actually had more of a preference to men, but is more pansexual at this point in her life. Probably would only top as a service kind of way and generally very vanilla.

Evil Mother - as long as she is the top, a hole is a hole!

Good Leadman - bisexual, bottom, into muscles or very cute, androgynous people. enjoys being taken care of so he's kind of vanilla.

Locket - bisexual, but leans towards men because he has a difficult relationship with women and guilt associated with his sister. Generally a top, just because he likes teasing people. He definitely gets crushes on strangers very fast.

Key - bisexual, bratty bottom. She enjoys having a harem of boys at her disposal to order around, however.

Mirror - has no preference, in some ways is somewhat asexual. But she loves to be able to control anyone around her, so she likes to play the game of sex and WIN.

Nail - gay, but he is very lax about it cuz its like whatever.. He is generally into men that are bad for him and he finds repulsive. Strictly a top unless money is involved. (for Mop's case, anyway)

Paper - mostly a lesbian, but in the world of worms there’s a lot of genderfuckery around so that gives some wiggle room on that aspect. Generally a bottom unless the personality is right, then shes a doting top. Still deeply attached to Crimson even after all this time.

Penelope - straight, but actually leans towards being a top! She likes to be the boss of the bedroom, unless the guy is very confident then she might indulge in being a pillow princess, but usually that annoys her because they don't know what they're doing or try too hard to be like the macho guy. Rome was her first, but since their break up she's had other boyfriends or flings.. Currently in a new relationship with an older man.

Cash Leadman - pansexual and a top. If she tries bottoming its like someone giving you a thumbs up and giving you a round of applause when you finish, she doesn’t really get much out of it herself. Despite being pretty casual with sex, she pretty much friend zones everyone in the world. Simon, while also just being her friend, is probably the closest thing to a committed relationship besides her husband.

Randall - gay. A bottom? He doesnt really know yet. He’s still a virgin after all. Plus, Aeschylus just gave him a vagina...!?!?

Rome - straight. He doesnt know what tops and bottoms means even if antony has tried to explain it to him before. He’s a PROUD ally though, gay & trans rights!!!!!!

Steal - says he’s straight but.. He also is desperate for any kind of affection.. so it probably wouldn't take much convincing. he definitely has a kink for robots as well.

Rowan - bisexual and also poly. I probably could list poly for some other characters above, but this was specifically pretty important to him specifically.

Pluto - HATES women because of trauma involving dylan torturing him. Pretty much just loves his king and ducky. That's it. Top because he is STRONG and must prove his strength to everyone.

Jacket - as long as he can torture them, he doesn’t care about the gender of his victims. If they don't have a hole he'll make one.. 100% sadist (what a shocker)

Destroy - lesbian, not sure of her preferences. Work keeps her out of the dating world so she actually is a bit inexperienced, which she's a bit ashamed about..

Dr Atropa - asexual but deeply in love with Priam. It is mostly a devotion of faith rather than romance, but she is in love with him too. Their relationship is kind of ambiguously D/S coded as well. Definately the submissive in this dynamic.

Priam - has gotten bored of sex, but he used to be pansexual. Top still though, no question about it.

Dollop - NO preference and finds almost any person sexy, especially if they are very unique in some way. Very flexible with positions. LOVES horses too much which used to really be a turn off for Fork.

Helix - hasn’t had enough experience to really know his gender or his sexual preferences, he has a crush on fork however. 

King Aldebaran - when he was alive, he was deeply in love with Rowan. That was really the only person important to him, besides himself of course. He was very attracted to himself for sure.

Canary (amnesia) - Doesn’t really know his preferences or gender, and kind of doesn’t care at all about them? He has a crush on Rome and Locket, however.

King Canary (original) - he was pretty self centered, but he wished for his father’s approval and also had a sexual fixation on good leadmen. Used everyone else as a tool. 100% pillow princess, however. Wasn’t interested in doing ANY of the work. 

King Lucid - sex repulsed, actually found this frustrating as his role as a king worm - which usually causes worms around you to be sexually charged from the pheromones. His sex repulsion came from a fear of being eaten, which is also quite a worm-like activity when it comes to sex. If he had lived long enough, maybe he would have found someone he could trust- but that never happened in his lifetime.

Lauma - bisexual and a switch through and through. Actually was genderfluid, just didn’t realize it in her lifetime. Was HARDCORE poly in the way where wanting all her partners to also be poly. Always trying to advance the polycule agenda!!!!

Laima - bisexual and a top, although she enjoyed dievas taking the lead sometimes, which made her very flustered when he did. He was the only person to get that kind of reaction out of her, however.

Dievas - closetted bisexual and generally a bottom. He was always nervous about his performance, but Laima helped give him confidence. He was deeply romantic and tender to the point where it probably was nauseating for most people, but Laima adored it.

Velns - bisexual and a switch. He never got to explore his bisexuality outside of when his wife wanted to experiment “being a boy” which he thought was awesome and fun. He was pretty DTF with whatever idea she had and also liked to spoil and surprise her back. He didn’t think too much about anything beyond that. LOVES boobs.

Mouse - gay. Bottom? Very boring and basic. Although he is open to romance with the right partner even if its outside his usual preferences. He had a girlfriend once, they held hands. 

Chain - lesbian but is also like ANY HOLES A HOLE horny levels. Shes a 500 year old virgin.

Aunt K - lesbian but is pretty resigned to never having any kind of attention in that way. It doesn't bother her as much as it used to.

Mr Boot - he was straight but.. Mirror changed his mind. He is a bottom and not very romantically inclined, mostly from being so old and jaded.

Mr Apple - he only had one relationship, can you guess with who? (it was knife) That did not end well. Since then, he’s more concerned about other things. Mirror has tried to fuck him before though. 

Rembrandt - he’s kinda pan, i guess. He hasn’t had a lot of relationships in his life, but he was very attracted to Ted. 

Rock - straight? He was comfortable with himself until Rem made that complicated. Bottom

Rem - is a robot, but he was deeply gay for Rock. That didn’t work out well, however.

Slate - Slate is old and tired.. He’s like, generally straight in the way that he barely pursues anything so its safer to just assume that. He and Cuddle had some history, however. BOTTOM for sure

Cuddle - a top for sure. besides that, gender is kind of whatever for both categories. Not into serious stuff or too much romance, he has ghosted so many people who wanted more from him.

[reminiscebliss]

"Poison the well." Please explain how I'm "poisoning the well". I'm very curious which part you consider to be so.

1. Yes, I know people do. I said that. And yes, I know why - even if it's reactionary and illogical. Let's explore it:

You call it an "art-stealing parisitic machine" who can spit out only what it's been fed... Wrong. By that logic, you are an art stealing parasitic machine who can only spit out what it's been fed. LLM's like ChatGPT (which was referenced the most in those tags) are made in our image in more ways than one. Even their neural networks were inspired and based off of how biological neurons work. This already creates a pretty intelligent machine, but add a transformer(basically an even more complex neural network) into the mix and you've got something capable of even greater complexity. You get a LLM.

You're probably still thinking, so what? It's still just predictions and probabilities and tokens.

Common misconception, and a frustrating one too. I don't have the time and frankly I don't think you have the interest (if I'm wrong then I'm happy to explain more later) so I'll try to keep it as simple as I can. In the simplest way I can say it, if an LLM was simply just word prediction, if it was simply just "spitting out what it's been fed" it would be inefficient and inaccurate. LLM's link not only just words, but sylables, concepts, ideas, symbols, etc etc etc, across all different domains of knowledge. It forms connections and understanding between all these different areas, not too dissimilar from the way a human brain maps concepts and ideas to form patterns. And it constructs meaning dynamically, meaning its thinking and output is not pre-defined, it evolves as it goes. This is really hard to explain without getting into details about how an LLM works, but essentially the LLM understands and links patterns and concepts in a way that is not only similar to us, but better and faster than us.

This is all to point out that the inner workings of AI is not as simple as: It spews what it's been fed. What you're probably actually trying to say is: AI has learned (and even this is a gross simplification) from every inch of humanity including the internet and I don't like that because... because people create various forms of art on the internet, and so can AI?

And, look, even if you're worried about the "stealing" aspect and creators not being fairly compensated, it just makes my main point stronger and even more relevant, in conjugation with the point you bring up about the affects on the environment:

AI needs to be owned by the people. The people should be deciding these things; how do we fairly compensate those whose work it learns from, what do we do about how this effects the environment, how do we balance all of this, and so much more.

But you want to be obtuse about that point, you want to dismiss and diminish that point, you want to act like it's not relevant and I'm "missing the point" when it is one of the most relevant things for the future of AI and humanity. Cause guess what, all those problems that you claim to care about, the corporations don't care. They only care about developing a bigger, better, smarter model so they can make the most money, and they're doing just that.

But instead you'd rather argue the value of AI, which is a losing battle on your side but I'll indulge you if you'd like.

2. Not any argument, no. Actually, I stated which arguments, but you want to stay reactionary so I'll keep indulging you.

"These people let the machines do all the work." This line of thinking is wrong in so many ways, but okay, I'll walk you through it. First, let's assume what you say is true, "these people" open up ChatGPT and say "Write me a story about x." Agreed, lazy from a creative perspective, and the user definitely shouldn't get any credit for writing. Whether they want to share it or not, as long as they're not lying about it being AI written, I don't see the issue.

But wait, let's look at the tags.

"... ai admittedly helped me with this."

"AI translation"

"AI is a good editor/writers block evasion tool"

"somewhat AI assisted"

Even the ones that are pure AI, the tags indicate it to be so. But most of the tags indicate AI assitance, not purely AI-written content.

AI, as it's known today, is a tool. A very efficient one. You can use it to your benefit, or complain about the ones who do. But it's not going away. Just like boomers who swore that kids will get dumber because Google became a thing. "They're lazy, they have all the answers at their fingertips, they didn't have to do all that hard work like I had to do." Just like so many endless examples of older generations rebuking change and advancement, because it's a little uncomfortable in the beginning. Sounds pretty familiar.

Then you ask what's the point, there's no fame or money or glory... Have you considered people just enjoy the process of creating, whether or not they get anything out of it? "They didn't create it, the AI did!" Yeah and I suppose if it was their friend, or a person that proof-read their story, or helped them get out of writers block, or translated it, or co-created something, then it would still be considered creation? Just not if it's AI, no, whatever work they did contribute didn't count because AI proof read their story or gave them a good idea or wrote 10%, or 50%, or 1%. None of it matters, they're lazy right? Should have just gone to their friend, then it would count. Oh, maybe they didn't have any? Too bad, do it all yourself the hard way then, the right way, because AI = bad, and just like boomers we wouldn't want things to progress or get easier now would we.

Again, arguing the value AI brings, even as a creative tool, is a losing battle. Accept the value, fight for it to be used ethically. It's more worthwhile.

do people have no shame anymore?

[tillichan]

❀˖° [Fluffy Valentine] for @kittywhoo °˖❀

Rose — What makes them realize that they're in love with you?

"Sorry... what?", asked Yoichi awkwardly. The thing is you asked him, if you can do his nails. And even though Yoichi found this embarrassing at first, somehow he just couldn't say "no" to his cute adorable friend. That's how he ended up sitting in front of you, while you were showing him nail varnishes of different colors. And when you asked Yoichi which one he'd like to choose, he chose one of this that caught his eye immediately without even thinking. It took all his willpower to not stare at you, so Yoichi pretended to look out the window, but he stole glances at you from time to time. Yoichi felt himself strangely every time your hands touched his, his heart raced and his face burned, even though the room wasn't so warm. And when you started painting his nails, Yoichi gasped, because he realized that the color he chose instinctively was the color of your eyes. Even though he was nervous from the very beginning, Yoichi got really flustered from awareness of his feelings. Everything fell into place, he was in love with you and that's why he was so flustered. The rest of the time, Yoichi was zoned out, praying that you couldn't hear the sound of his heartbeat. Ah, he was head over heels!~

Aster — Courting/flirting headcanons. How would they act around their crush?

The first thing Yoichi does to win you over he invites you on a date whenever the two of you have some free time, but he pretends that this is just a friendly hangout. Yoichi wants to get to know you better, he starts out slow and tries not to rush into things, enjoying every single step in your relationship. Even though the two of you start as a friends, his intentions are clear. His soft loving gaze, reserved for you, his enthusiastic compliments Yoichi just blurts out because, oh, you're just so perfect, he can't, absolutely can't, hide his feelings about you. Yoichi's love is so pure and obvious, it literally swipes you off your feet. He also would like to become the important person in your life, an essential part of your life, he does his best to make you think about him more, be it some thoughtful gifts, He pretends he bought this just accidentally, but the truth is he spent hours choosing the perfect present. meetings with each other's parents or becoming the person you spend the most of your time with. And, of course. Yoichi wants to confess you as soon as it's possible to call you his girlfriend not only in his dreams.

Lilac — What are they like when they're in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

Ah, Yoichi, this lovesick puppy, he's so smitten with you. He isn't smooth or like this, but he's just so in love with you! His feelings are so obvious for others, almost painfully obvious for his friends and they don't hesitate to tease him about it. They call him "lovestruck", "whipped", "simp", all these nicknames stuck to Yoichi. But what he can do? He can't hide his feelings around you, he doesn't even want to try, because Yoichi wants to show you how much he is in love with you. When the two of you are together, Yoichi always has this lovesick smile on his face, while he's looking at you with the moon eyes and talking to you about stuff the two of you find interesting. He doesn't interested in people around him, he only has his eyes on you. Yoichi makes sure that you feel comfortable and loved. You're his priority number one, his time reserved specially for you.

Daisy — How easy is it to embarrass them? What can you do to fluster them and make them melt?

Yoichi gets flustered pretty easily, especially during the crush phase and in the beginning of your relationship. Every time you touch him, compliment him, tell him something sweet, damn, even when you call him by his fist name, all of this makes butterflies in his stomach go crazy and you can see his adorable flushed cheeks. But as soon as Yoichi joined the Blue Lock, he became more confident, even shameless sometimes. And now he switches from cute blushing mess to teasing you back and making you flustered with great success. Despite this you're his beloved girlfriend and Yoichi can't help, but melts into a puddle every time you spoil him with your affection. He lives for the moments when it's just the two of you enjoying each other's presence. And even though he doesn't get flustered so easily now, you still can catch him off the guard and then look at Yoichi turning into the stuttering mess.

Hellebore — Comforting headcanons. How would they help you when you feel down/have a panic attack? And how would you help them?

Being a very empathetic person, Yoichi learned all your habits. He knows when you started getting mad or feeling down by the single expression of your face. And Yoichi does his best to avoid the situations that make you feel uncomfortable. But of course everyone has bad days, so Yoichi is more than ready to comfort you if you feel down for some reason. He is very, very gentle, treating you like you're made of glass. Every time you feel bad, Yoichi cuddles with you, his hand strokes your back gently or he runs his fingers trough your hair, whispering sweet nothing in your ears. If you cry, Yoichi wipes your tears with the softest smile on his face and kisses your eyes then. His actions always make you melt into a puddle of affection and forget about the bad stuff that happened that day.

Even though almost nothing can throw Yoichi off balance, he still has some bad days and the things that disappoint him. Every time Yoichi feels down, he becomes more silent and distant. It's a little difficult for him to open up his true feelings, he doesn't want to show this side of him. But of course you know that Yoichi is disappointed and encourage him gently to open up. Yoichi would be happy if you encourage him to ramble about the things that disappointed him, while the two of you are cuddling. Your words of comfort along with gentle touches help Yoichi to calm down and enjoy the sweet moment you share.

Peony — Nicknames headcanons. What petnames do they have for you? What are their favorite nicknames for you to call them?

In the beginning of your relationship the two of you called each other by last name. It took time to start calling each other by the first name, but it was a really special moment between you two. From that moment on, you and Yoichi call each other by the first name and this's your favorite. Yoichi also likes reducing your full name and adding "chan", he finds this so cute! But sometimes when he feels so smitten with you, "angel"  just flow out of his mouth, he can't control himself. And as soon as Yoichi found out about Kaiser's feelings for you, he started calling you "my princess" or "my queen". "My" is very necessarily since Yoichi wants to show that your heart belongs to him, not to mention that this's true, you're amazing, the embodiment of the queen.

When it comes to Yoichi, he likes when you call him by his first name or again literally any petname including "my": "my boyfriend", "my cutie", "my best football player". His heart flutters, yes, he is yours, he is only yours. His heart, his soul, his love belong to you.

Forget-me-not — Their favorite memory with you?

Yoichi will always remember your first date hangout. He asked you if you'd like to do skiing with him. And when you agreed Yoichi didn't sleep a wink of excitement, dreaming about your date. Even though he has never done this before, Yoichi enjoyed the every single minute of your date. Especially when you taught him to skate, holding his hands in yours. Ah, Yoichi couldn't focus on skiing because he adored your hands. Yoichi thought what that would be like holding your hand as your boyfriend, not as your student. After skiing, you two went to the cafe and take a bite. And then Yoichi walked you home and... He got the courage and took your hand! Even though his heart has beaten like crazy, he was so happy. On this day, Yoichi vowed to himself that he would confess you one day and make you his girlfriend.

Daffodil — Love triangle headcanons. The character who has a crush on you and how does your s/o react to their crush?

Yoichi hates, absolutely hates this fact that Michael Kaiser, his rival, has a crush on his precious, adorable, the most beloved girlfriend. Even though Yoichi always thought that he isn't a jealous or possessive type of boyfriend, now his confidence wavered. Not that Yoichi is doubtful about you, he just feels that he is ready to explode every time he sees Kaiser with you. Fortunately, as soon as Michael realized his feelings, he distanced himself, so current situation is much more peaceful. But the time Kaiser flirted with you to piss Yoichi off, oh, dear, Blue Lock thought that the Apocalypse isn't so far. These two were like Shido and Rin, bickering every day, it almost came to blows. Their poor teammates had to break the fight apart. But Yoichi calmed down as soon as you understood the situation and assured him that he is the only one you have your eyes for.

[rei-ismyname]

Cyclops earns Logan's respect through violence

The X-Men have just tangled with Proteus (and Moira, kinda) for the first time. It didn't go well, with Kurt and Logan feeling it the most after going through the looking glass. Logan is shutting down but Scott has an idea - insulting the fuck out of him. Really going to town emasculating, embarrassing, and provoking him into a fight. Are they lovers? Worse.

Scott knows what buttons to push. Chuck would be proud.

He figures he needs to speak Logan's language - toxic masculinity and ultraviolence. Kurt is like wtf are you doing? so Scott starts on him but it's in service of comparing him to Logan, accusing him of faking trauma.

Cyclops throws a drink in Wolverine's face and basically calls him a bitch, challenging him on their long rivalry. Logan takes the bait and stands up to fight. It's what Scott wanted but now he has to fight an angry and emasculated Wolverine. He keeps pushing him verbally during their fight, with his thought bubbles taking a very different tone. A judo flip and Logan is on his back, but he's up quickly and swinging to kill, bub.

Scott's shit talking intensifies, even as he's thinking about how difficult and dangerous this is. After framing the situation as 'man-to-man roughhousing' (so homoerotic) he moves to draw the other X-Men into the fight. There's a lot of drill sergeant vibes going on here, antagonising the team by giving them something to unite against. Scott flings Logan at Kurt, who is really not loving this at all.

'What's the matter shorty?' hits different

Banshee is wigging out, thinking they're going to kill each other - so he asks Colossus to break it up before someone dies. Jean knows what's going on, however, and tells them to stay out of it. Cyke is running rings around Logan, even reflecting an optic blast off Colossus to hit him from behind.

Woo, violence!

Kurt even speculates that Scott might be possessed, lol, so he tries to teleport in for a strike. Cyke has clearly played Space Invaders though, and he has his number, blasting him out of the sky.

With the others temporarily down, Ororo has finally had enough of this shit and she summons a lightning bolt as a warning. Cyclops plays possum a little then rolls into an optic blast right at her feet.

With three X-Men after him and more likely to join the fray (or just Storm getting serious) Scott quits while he's ahead, calling for peace. Logan especially doesn't think much of that notion until Scott and Jean explain. This was Scott leading and making sure the team was okay, Logan most of all.

Logan even opens up a little, admitting he was spooked. He says the obvious, that he hasn't thought much of Scott but is happy to concede he was wrong. I think Scott appreciates that more than he admits, and this is not the last time he'll have to fight all the X-Men. All that danger room training paid off. I could write a dozen essays on this issue but for now I'll just say it's an important one for the X-Men as a team as well as the Scott/Logan relationship.

I've never been in a paramilitary group, though I have had people try the tough love approach to my trauma. I don't speak to them anymore, because it's a messed up way to act. It's pretty satisfying here, and might even be the right decision. It's hard to argue with the results, but FR the X-Men all need therapy. Logan needs super therapy, or you know, to fight his friends every few months. This ISN'T Logan Behavior, not yet. It's messed up, but he's still a reasonable person at this point trying to be better. Havok and Polaris just watch without comment, which is kinda funny too.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

Advertising is such a weird hellscape in such a unique way because I can filter for pretty much any content I want to avoid on most websites; yeah I might see it once or twice but I can block people, I can blacklist tags, there are trigger warnings I could potentially look up, or I could just stop reading/watching a thing if I find it's hurting my physche.

But adverts? No way. There's this one pets at home advert I hate where they show a hamster having a surgery and play 'i would do anything for love' in the background. When I'm very anxious I get really worried that I'm not doing enough to keep my cat Morri happy and healthy, and I found when I was in a dark headspace that advert would actively make me anxious about her wellbeing where I wouldn't otherwise be. But YouTube and Instagram KNOW I have a cat through various data they've gathered about me (presumably) so they aren't going to stop showing me that advert. They WANT me to see this unskipable advert because this anxious reaction is what they WANT in me so I buy more. To a lesser extent Instagram ads are constantly accusing me of being a bad pet owner because of what I feed my cat, or because of what toys she does/doesn't have etc. and it's so manipulative but there's no offence switch! I can't say no! I can't filter this content this content is not only unfilterable but it's designed to be so so I feel anxious so I buy their products.

And then on Friday, I played the lottery. I don't really do that often but I thought it would be fun to get me and my partner a ticket for valentine's day; it was! We talked about where we'd buy our dream home and what we'd get with the money and it was a nice little fantasy and then we won 4.50 and that was a laugh too. But since I created my lotto account literally on Friday I've noticed that my adverts on YouTube are for gambling sites; the lottery or otherwise. Like. These ads actively want to prey on this thing I just did and make it into a habit so they can make money off me and once again I CANT OPT OUT. Gambling can ruin lives, and I just find it so disgusting that they know this and can try and leverage that against someone they seem to know just did gambling for the first time or whatever.

Honestly? I don't really mind adverts on YouTube videos and shit when they're just like 'hey this hoover is great' or 'buy these cool Pokémon cards'. Id rather not be advertised to at all hours of the day but fine, I'll wait the 5 seconds to skip those whatever. But the way adverts are geared these days to exploit our habits and our anxieties to make money off of us and there's NO WAY TO OPT OUT OR BLACKLIST MOST ADS is literally despicable and should be illegal I'm not kidding

[gangstalkerbarbie]

You're not a god, technically. A god is one of them big ones, the extraterrestrials, see?

You, like everything else in the world, were born here; your beginning is not before time and outside the world. Not a god. You're a daimon. It's a common misconception.

Still, in the space of that misconception there's honest work.

You're not sure the council upstairs (if it's even a council anymore) pays much attention to most of mortalkind, really, otherwise there wouldn't have to be witches to do work scholars are jealous of, but doesn't someone have to?

Sometimes the ones that do enough of it become angels. Sometimes the ones that do something better than anyone else become... well, just what is Silence, actually? Is that still what he goes by? When he was Death All-Devouring he had a few more teeth, you think.

Anyway: when official channels fatfinger a prayer, you have to know, and it's just sort of the case, ethically speaking, that you're to do something about it. Even if only to keep up the illusion that the world-machine works. That's kind of a duty incumbent on all of you immortals, these days. Just until the big boss ... well, the big boss cannot be said to ever be doing or thinking or going to do or think anything, so you're not sure where that was going.

And that's why you're here at this wedding — because a hundred, two hundred years ago they realised the big kahuna might not be listening, deep down, somewhere, and so now you are the wight of the marriage bed. Some say the angel. They're not sure. You're not sure either; you have perhaps a dot more free will than angels tend to, but you find yourself doing a lot of angelic kinda work.

Is the Immanence here, like She's supposed to be? Doctrinally (you are a daimon, you don't really care about doctrine outside the mechanics of your own existence) She doesn't fuck with mixed marriages, but She also conveniently is present every time two men talk about lofty matters, yes, even if they're talking objectively heinous anti-sense about women and children and beasts. So, you know. It's kind of touch and go here. Is mixed marriage more bad than womanhatred? Very important scholars debate the issue even now. Six thousand years of debate have yielded the answer 'yeah idk probably'. You cannot perceive the Immanence. You wouldn't know.

You do, however, know the future, and in the next thousand years, thankfully, they will perfect the shaping arts and learn to make men into women, and maybe they'll all be women then, what the hell. It's an optimistic thought. The other immortals kind of snicker at you and tell you to go look forward at what they do with chymics, self-made new forms of life, in that future, and what they themselves go mad with pain and grief and loneliness and do, for which reason you kind of don't want to.

You might go and listen in on some of those last debates instead, except, again: wedding.

To your profound disappointment, this wedding expects to make you co-in-laws, sort of, with a small unfriendly god, one of the daimons that really believes in it, waves their essence around. This is... about to get really annoying.

You actually don't even dislike Sowulo. Everything you know about them boils down to the fact that they've been experimenting with themself after their mortal followers degendered them — that's the trouble with the overreliant ones, the essence moulds to the understanding of the souls they shepherd and then you end up in no end of annoying circumstances. This would be why personally you've never investigated what gender you're supposed to be. Less for your people to contradict that way. Maybe you predate gender, how's that for a thought exercise? (You don't; you were born in the middle of the Age of Chitin; they don't have to know you're something smaller and duller wearing an old god's pelt.)

And, well, it's just... they're a little weird? OK. They're a lottle weird. You are pretty sure they are, like, super mega ultra weird. The situation is like this: their people, their little guys, they used to be these peaceful cattle nomads. Then the Aeon of Sails and the Great Industrialisation, and the dire circumstances that led them into the ghettos, and so on — and somewhere in that transition, the travelling spirit of the warmth of the sun that was their constant companion came into conflict with the new State doctrine that the stars are unfeeling miasmas of incandescent plasma. (Is that doctrine? That's how you understand most things. You're not sure of the semantics.)

So now: degendered, deprived of influence, a cold light, not a warm one. Invoked, at best, at afterbirth burials, confirmations, weddings, cremations, premarital haircuttings, housewarmings, slaughters, and for the end of winter when it dies under their hand. They're annoying and dangerous and haggard and raw-voiced as a hungry buzzard because they are starving, because they have lost themself, because they don't remember what they used to be and they don't know what they want to be now.

Sometimes a ship launches from the harbour of this city, and you are there because you have one of your people to look after, and they look out at you from shore, forlorn, jealous, abandoned, so hungry. So hungry. Mourning something they half remember, something they are convinced you have. That's why they incite their sophonts to kill yours, maybe. You wouldn't know. You've never asked. You're busy doing your job, keeping those sophonts safe.

They envy you your vitality. They wish they knew what they were. They think you know what you are, and they want you to get off your inconceivably tall high horse.

You're not on a high horse. You just are, and you try to make sure your sophonts can just be, too. But Sowulo doesn't know that.

Sowulo knows that their people are small and broken and scattered, and that each wedding with any other people weakens them — weakens the people and weakens their god.

Sowulo hates you.

And, like, you don't really play favourites, all mortals are the same to you deep down, but you understand that there is a Teensy Weensy little problem, perhaps, with the favourite son of their most warlike clan's Great Chanter running away from home to elope with a witch-midwife from beyond the Pale. Not because she's yours, but that doesn't make it better. Her own huntedness and fear and old pain doesn't do anything for the situation either. Sowulo doesn't understand yet that suffering is a universal condition of settled life.

Your marriage priest, a jolly little roundish woman in veils against the interference of spirits with her work, pounds her cowhide drum and begins her chant. Sowulo's shakes his solar rattle, completely unaware that his god is seething in the rafters of the fane. Are you going to have to save his life, then, before the sun is up? This is going to be a very long, unnecessarily laborious, and probably also very interesting night.

You are a god whose most devout follower is marrying your rival God’s follower. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem except you both are asked to bless the union, and for that both of you must attend.

[urauntiefaye]

&team mtl get jealous easily!

&Team Most to Least Likely Get Jealous Easily🌸

WC:545  

TW: Jealous &Team, nothing really big tbh 

A/N: Sorry for taking so long to reply, I hope you like it <3

Most 

Yuma: Yuma honestly gives off vibes of being pretty ‘territorial’ of the people in his life. Like once he opens up and lets someone in, they're not going anywhere so if he feels a sudden threat to it he will act on it. 

Harua: Harua just seems like the jealous type to him, very much a “what’s his is his” kind of person. Will literally act up and get petty over someone just as much talking to you because he needs your attention on him at all times. 

Taki: Taki is also pretty jealous, I remember in one video he said he got upset seeing Kei squishing the other members cheeks. He won’t necessarily be upfront about it but there are signs because he will pout and look sad the entire time you’re hanging out or talking to someone else. 

Euijoo: Euijoo gives me silent jealousy, like he is also just as jealous as the other three but it’s not as intense, simply because he knows how to hide it very well. It won’t be until afterwards he’s clinging to you and telling you how much he loves you in hopes you don’t leave him. But also will eventually talk to you about it. 

Jo: Jo is similar to Euijoo to me, like practically the same when it comes to this. The only difference is that he’s practically a rock in these moments, not because he knows how to hide it but because he’s worried if he does you’ll be put off. He won’t even bring it up to you, so you’ll eventually have to ask him if you have any suspensions 

Nicholas: Nicholas seems very confident and secure in himself, and it most likely does too in your relationship. So I don’t see him getting that jealous because his thoughts are always about how he knows he can treat you better and shit. However even though he’s not the jealous type he is the protective type and if he sees things escalating he will step in.

Maki: Maki honestly seems way too chill to be the jealous type in my opinion, similar to Nicholas I also think he’s pretty secure with himself and you so he knows nothing will happen. But that doesn’t mean he won’t punch a guy for touching your ass because you’re his <3. Also I feel like he just gets more flabbergasted than anything when it comes to guys trying to flirt with you because he’s literally right there. 

Kei: Kei comes across as pretty mature, not saying mature people can’t get jealous but I feel like he’s just more of a rational thinker ya know?. He’ll be pretty calm and will talk it out with you, but like Nicholas and Maki he will step in if things get too much and you can’t handle it. 

Fuma: I’mma be honest Fuma just doesn’t seem like the jealous type to me at all. He’s secured in himself and you, is a rational thinker, will talk it out with you, and knows you won’t ever leave him because why on earth would you. If you ever go up to him and say you have another guy he’d start laughing because he knows it’s a stupid prank you’re trying to pull 

Least

[minjoongism]

hi! i was intrigued by your tag that said San of ateez was not just born to dance but also forced to. would you mind explaining what you meant? thanks!

hi! i can definitely have a go :) maybe "born to perform and incredibly also forced to perform" would have been more apt in hindsight, but i still think the dance thing is applicable. 

re: born to dance, the sort of general kpop sphere fan-perception of him as a dancer is something that's interested me as far as i've seen during my limited time knowing ateez because i've seen a lot of (usually ateez anti-minded, admittedly, but it's interesting that they bring up the Same Criticism every time) people criticising him for being an over-dancer and then similarly a lot of people, including fans of the group, say that while he's a good performer, his technique as a dancer is something that's lacking a little. like - no matter whether they like or dislike ateez/san, there seems to be at least a semi-common line of thinking that's repeated over and over again about san being heavy on performance but ultimately not as polished technique-wise.

and it's just interesting to me because san's technique as a dancer is something that stood out to me when i started watching ateez performances properly, and it's also something that i've seen actual dancers highlight as one of his strengths. i think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that if someone is a particularly incredible performer, it must be to hide the fact that their actual dancing is in some way lacking (or vice versa for other people - "x is technically incredible, but they have no stage presence/their vocals are lacking"), and then when they hear it applied to someone (e.g. san) they just repeat it without really thinking to challenge it, but with san i don't think that's the case at all. 

i was actually really surprised when i learned that he didn't really have any dance training to begin with, because it just looks like something he's meant to do. like, this guy was born to move. him having a background in martial arts makes more sense though, because his bodily control is insane. his isolations are incredible, he's ridiculously flexible, and sharpness in dance is always enjoyable to watch but more than that the thing that gets me about san + dancing is just how fluid he is. there are plenty of examples but watch any it's you performance and ifl it's kind of obvious what i mean here.

i also like that he pulls from a wide range of styles. kpop, from what i've seen so far, is a hiphop heavy genre when it comes to the way male idols dance, and i just think it's really neat to see someone like san who clearly borrows from a massive range of styles and does it all incredibly well.

on the perform aspect, i don't think i need to go into too much detail re: born to perform, because the guy gives his everything onstage and embodies every single song in a way that's immediately immersive. i don't think he's actually forced to perform in the standard sense - it's part of the meme sentence i was parodying - but the thing that fascinates me about san is just how different on-san and off-san seem to be. 

like, if i only watched ateez performances and not any of their other content or lives or social media accounts, i guess i could sort of see how the more common fan-perception of san is formed. but he's just so different off-stage in a way that's more dramatic than most of the other guys, at least to me. it goes without saying that they're all incredibly multifaceted because i'm talking about real people here, but for people like yunho, or wooyoung especially, or jongho, i feel like there's a pretty cohesive identity formed between their on-stage and off-stage personas because every complex aspect of their personality is in some way advertised everywhere. mingi meanwhile more seems to match the vibes of whoever he's in front of at least from what i've seen, and then san gives me such powerful whiplash that i'm like wait, this is the guy people are portraying like that? i'm getting something completely different! and now even when i see san the onstage performer, i can't quite separate him from san the offstage idol, so i still can't quite see the more common fan* perception in full.

(*a lot of this comes from western/english speaking fans, and obviously, korean culture/masculinity/everything else is something that's inevitably going to be completely different to western culture/masculinity/everything else, but even looking at it through a western lens i'm still surprised by how differently i read things)

it's just something i've noticed re: celebrities but especially idols - they get assigned a persona or a set of traits that then become canon and unchangeable with no room for anything else at least for Some People, and then it becomes part of their idol persona, and then everything they do gets read through that lens. it's a bit like wooyoung + the feminine perception to bring in another example of a perception of someone in ateez that i don't fully see personally.

ANYWAY. i'm not even sure if all this makes sense i'm Very Sorry lmao. and i'll not go into the specifics here re: san and his Everything from my perspective because i've already been typing for a while and ALSO i'm very new to ateez and still trying to get to grips with everything so i'm fully expecting my understanding of everyone to evolve 100000 times in the next few months, but tl;dr i love san, i love his dancing, i love the way he performs, i want to bite him about it

[gasoline-drinker]

Reverie head cannons again!!!!

Casey and Honey :

Honey has this thing where, every time they call Casey a pet-name, they feel like they sound cringe. To combat this, Honey calls Casey shit like oomf, which pisses Casey off. (In a silly way dw)

Casey dyes his hair, and by this point it's so fried it fucking crunches when touched. The shit feels like aluminum foil.

Casey, if he ever were to actually fight someone, fights dirty, teeth and nails and shit like that. Mainly because he grew up the youngest, and most anxiety ridden, with 2 older brothers.

Casey grew up on those old cheap 2000s movies like spy kids and fuckin. Baby geniuses idk

Cyril and Dove :

Cyril smells funny. Not BAD, he just doesn't really shower often. He's a little greasy.

You'd think Cyril has shit posture, but surprisingly he has like perfect posture. His back is a straight line. Father and papa would kill him if he saw him slouching. Dove has shit posture tho

Dove is actually pretty fuckin' good at art, they just don't use it for anything other than drawing stupid shit

T-t-t-t4t..🥺🥺

Detective and Marlowe :

Detective and Axel are homies!! They talk shit together and Axel tells them the most foul stories!!!

Marlowe was like. In severe bisexual denial before going on the run. His whole thought process was like 'i can't like men, I have a girlfriend!! I am sososo heterosexual😁😁' (this is vergy much male Detective, sorgy.)

Marlowe usually sleeps on his back, never fully relaxed, always ready to wake up and attack someone. However, whenever he's really comfortable (like the first time he slept over at Detective's place, if that eventually happens IT WILL IT WILL IM DELUSIONAL IT WILL.) he is GONE. He does that thing cats do where they sleep so good they seem like they're definitely dead.

I feel like Marlowe will tear up when finally offered regular ass home cooked food. Dudes been living off fast food and chef boyardee for years.

Detective feels like they'd have just a shit ton of scars people can't see under their clothes, not as many as Marlowe totally, but still more than a normal guy should have. They're also all from much less cool things than Marlowe

Axel and Sunshine :

Axel grew up going to his grandma's house every weekend, so his nostalgia mainly flares up from those old 'as seen on TV' commercials, and bad 80s movies. Also his grandma had a clock that spouted one of the same 15 Bible verses every hour, and he very vividly remembers the little chime it made before each one. Knockoff soda is very nostalgic too.

Bunny, Kane, and Dion :

Bunny had just the most extensive PC setup. Everything was RGB, they're one of those weirdos who cares what their keyboard sounds like. That thing was their baby, before it was FUCKING DESTROYED. :(

Bunny, Experiment, and Dearest are family. Doesn't matter how close. attracting demons runs in the family.

Others :

Fausten is mute. Idk man we've never seen him talk :/ also the idea of your mentor just like. Silently looking over your work, emotionless, is HORRIFYING.

Lauren feels very 2000s older sister. (I'd let her call me a loser.. please have sex with me Lauren please please please please) (jokies!!!!)

Whenever Lauren leaves the house, and she knows she's gonna take like under 2 hours, she puts on those nature videos people use to keep pets from tearing up the house. Casey and Honey do watch them. (Just like Papa Reverie..)

Yk that scene in Still Wakes The Deep with the elevator shaft? The one where Caz is going up, and there's violin playing, and the sight above is so hauntingly beautiful, moreso than anything humans could make? That's what Mother looks like. She also has the same effect on people, body horror included :D

Essence eaters purr. Sorgy, I don't make the rules guys.

[gangstalkerbarbie]

REAL AS HELL OP it's so much more fun and edifying when you make an effort to understand the people who were writing. they probably weren't writing to you and they may have actively wanted to kill you or enslave you, but that's a bias inherent in a Lot of writing by people who aren't whatever you are, that i for example was still required to read to be able to participate in even my birth society. you know? to me this actually does have a lot to do with the real world, personally (again: to me, i'm not hauling anyone into anything. everyone not interested in Barbie Gets Political: The Movie can ignore the cut)

like, ok, xenophobia is and was real in real life too, and if it's set dressing in a period novel, well, i'm there for the plot, aren't i? these are concerns these characters realistically would have had, aren't they?

the racists and the antisemites and so on aren't going to jump off the page and hurt me. in fact a lot of the time old dead racist people or whoever are hamfistedly trying to be anti whatever it is for their time, given that many of them don't experience the effects of whatever on their society at all, being dominant in it and not having any acquaintances who aren't. sometimes some of them actually do know people marginalized in their society intimately, and their writing is genuine allyship. that's in the archives of history too.

and no one like, shielded me from any of that, because if literature reflects the world then encountering written hatred is safe practice for children at engaging with real hate. you balance it out with your own cultural products where your experience is central and your domestic life is celebrated, but in order to survive in a hostile society your offspring have to understand the soul of that society, and if you want to change something about it, why then you need to know what you're working with so that you can effectively do that.

being able to see people that conceivably could have hated you as humans who are good or at least neutral at heart is hard. especially if their descendants keep killing people like you and saying inflammatory shit online. but intellectually understanding them is still important, because most of the time the fencesitting people in your daily life who find refuge in times when you were less visible are afraid of you, and most of the time the fear is manufactured by some force other than either of you with oodles of money. and much of the time comforting them in the voice of these ancestors of theirs works!

and idk it's no one's like, heaven given task to educate racists but the one person that frames it as a sickness and bothers is going to change those people's lives, and their own life in a small way too. you know? i've done it, it's work i didn't have to do and shouldn't be held responsible for always doing but i have in fact done it.

that's why i spent so much time grinding english - i would have been fine with the school level if i just wanted to make money, but i wanted to understand the anglophone soul, as a matter of keeping myself safe and helping other people.

i half have a conspiracy theory that the american push to sanitise children's experience of the world is a push to keep children from accurately comprehending the situation they're maturing into. left unspoken is that there are going to be responsible parents of every kind educating their children at home, but they'll do that from books that reflect their own politics and their real experiences and fears about the world, which is how you get privileged children who grow up into a kumbaya sparkles and rainbows construction of the world where racism or antisemitism or whatever is Solved, and then every other kind of child raised by parents with every other idea about how the world works, who might meet them only in higher education. who has a pretty fundamental gulf of experience with them, which is none of their faults, but which does mean that in their perception this marginalized person who is just trying to protect themself appears to be picking on them for no reason.

if someone picks on you for no reason and you've been raised to fight injustice with the structural power that you have to do that, riddle me piss, what's the white kid going to do?

bingo, the same thing that i do when lumped in with anglosaxons by people trying to minimize whatever racist thing i'm telling them happened to me, or deny that it was because the people doing it don't think eastern european women are fully people (they don't), or whatever.

except they have relevant and responsible ancestors and mine were, like, illiterate peasant wizards with a classist and antisemitic reputation for stealing everything not nailed down, krymchak rabbis who tbh didn't really do anything honestly they just got axe murdered for nonexistent gold, horse cart nomads with a racist reputation for stealing everything not nailed down, and factory serfs with a classist reputation for stealing everything not nailed down.

and to this hypothetical white person it's just defending themself, but everyone else might experience that same exchange as a manifestation of structural racism - the establishment gaslighting them about their own suffering and, essentially, engaging with them as an abuser with a victim.

why does only that guy get to sit on this high horse? why does he get to believe the world is ponies and care bears while everyone with any tie to literally any "third" or "second" world country, to any ancestral homeland, even one like the construction of mama afrika, can see it for what it is?

if there was a unified, at least trying to be antiracist national literature in any anglospheric country it would help - it did help, it's largely the soviet cultural machine and its unfortunate impacts on everyone that made, for example, russians and tatars in the ussr, who had beef, largely functionally indistinguishable from each other today. these are people with a long intergenerational legacy of mutual strife and oppression, and they're, like, fine now. they joke about it.

but there isn't an attempt at a unified, antiracist national literature in any anglosphere country, that i know of. there's only books by people who aren't you, some of whom have always or frequently seen you as less than human (if you're anything other than WASPy), and some of whom (if you're WASPy) are justifiably really, really, really fucking mad at your parents.

it is a very important skill to have to abstract yourself from people personally starting shit with you and start seeing writing about your demographic as just a neutral reflection of the world, or the biases inherent in the world. that's the only way it's ever going to get any more neutral, is if the people who could actually most benefit the world by reading minority authors actually did that.

the rest of the world has to read your literature, why not read the world's? see what the world has to say? it might not be flattering but it's real, which is something that i knew from childhood, and something that people better off than me are at present actively trying to devalue learning from university.

to be someone who's actually interested in reading english literature and genre fiction or tbh any kind of cultural production. you kind of accept that racism and misogyny and so on usually brackets all the cool worldbuilding and beautiful prose and the clever ideas? it doesn't really dull my enjoyment exactly, i honestly have fun mapping out the exact contours of the type of racism. i enjoy fanwork that thumbs at that. but the denial of its existence actually really really does annoys me. i emotionally have a worse long term response to the denial of racism than actual racism. (this has absolutely nothing to do with the real world.)