#but also i hate living off other people so bad it feels horrible

[kowaindar0u]

//

Yeah okay so ... I'll be moving in with my sister sometime in the next few weeks and her living situation right now is a little odd, which includes the Internet situation, so... unless she winds up getting a big hotspot thing, once I move my activity might indeed be a bit slower than usual u_u;;

I'm hoping she gets one but like I can't really complain about stuff like that when I don't even have a job to help pay for it y'know 😔

But I don't imagine it being tooooo bad, I'll just be more sporadic I guess.

That said I'll probably be watching the myus/stages I have a lot since they're on my computer lol so maybe my inspiration will be higher ?? ssjfjsjdj we'll see

[our-lady-of-mcr]

everytime i think im done ranting i remember something else LMFAO this one is extra long i hit tag limit god mf damn

[milo-is-rambling]

I am so high I love you dabs I love you big bong rips I love you huge heavy bong I love you only having 20 dollars to my name and no plans but getting high and ignoring it I love you oh no I’m thinking about it

[waokevale]

Introducing Follower gang!

There. Finally did all the Bishops follower designs!

The 7 deadly sins

And some other follower gang, done with lineart this time because the other 2 pieces made me lose my soul for how long they took.

(Also a small HC if I may: Dr. Sozonius is trapped inside the mushroom on Sozos head, while the actual mushroom is controlling his body)

+ some more doodles

Info about the 7 Sins and more doodles below:

Jeg represents Greed - he was one of the first of Lamb's followers. (At first, it was very difficult for Lambert to indoctrinate people, due to their inexperience, this guy was like the 5th or so) Jeg has...a very specific personality to say the least, yet the Lamb can't help but be fond of him. They eventually nominate him the Tax enforcer role and...That might've been the worst decision of their life. But they did not take the role away. Jeg acts smug 24/7 and relishes in his new power, but deep down, dudes pretty insecure, ( but don't tell anyone!) He used to have a huge crush on the lamb, but then Narinder and eventually the other bishops came, and since their leader was for some reason head over heels for the ex god of death, Jeg grew bitter and often got into fights with Nari, as well as charging him and his other siblings more than the average follower. Though he's mostly mellowed out since then.

Brash represents Gluttony They despise Helob, since they used to fight for "food" a lot, and eventually Brash got really injured and was found by the Lamb. She tried to eat them, but was quickly disarmed. Despite this, they decided to spare him and bring his sorry ass back to the cult to indoctrinate. They were very cunning and didn't trust the lamb either, but eventually they cooled off and accepted the new life. She still eats people tho, just not from the cult, otherwise jail or *worse*

Yara represents Pride She is one of the core followers. She's very strict and somewhat self-centered, she likes things done her way, or if not her way, the lambs way. Period. No one else can boss her around or even give a helpful advice. She's actually a pretty stand up deer, and despite being incredibly stubborn still makes a good friend. She gets along with most people though Brash annoys her, since he keeps snatching body parts off corpses. She has always been extremely devoted to the lamb and will be annoyed if any follower dissents and tries to preach against them. She wasn't surprised in the slightest when they eventually took down all the bishops.

Thorn represents Envy He had a pretty terrible life before the cult. When he was brought in, she was bitter about her newfound situation. He wasn't very trusting of the lamb and thought they expected something out of her (which technically they did, but it's just work). He envies the fools who are so oblivious and just do everything as they're told and let their lives be guided by some amateur god. Similar to the other two, he puts on a mask, He often acts overly saccharine to hide his true feelings, but doesn't have any bad intentions. (Most of the time) She does genuinely like some people, but others, he only pretends to like to appease the lamb or to blackmail them. He hates when the people he actually cares about are threatened.

Jermo represents Wrath Jermo absolutely does not trust anyone. Similar to Thorn, and most other followers tbh, their life was absolutely horrible prior to the cult. They trusted some people, they got betrayed, and almost died several times because of it. It was extremely difficult for the lamb to make them stop dissenting. They legit had to give them the loyalty necklace in order for them to finally stop dissenting. Jermo keeps getting into fights with other followers, because they feel as though everyone is always against them or is constantly judging them. (They're technically not wrong) They've died 5 times, because they keep getting into fights with other followers. Lamb strongly considered keeping them dead, but decided to challenge themself with them (also they're too cuddly to just be killed off) Despite their many, *many* flaws, Thorn has a huge crush on them, since he's one of the people who managed to see their soft side. Jermo, deep, deep, deep down actually cares a lot, but they've been hurt too much by everyone, so they retaliate for the same stuff to not repeat.

Herett represents Lust At some point, she passingly heard about the cult and since it seemed like a peaceful place from the rumors (and also had hot people in it) she eagerly joined in. She's usually in the kitchen area, if not hanging around the love tent or babysitting some kids. She crushes on almost everyone, but for some reason she hates Kallamar (legit in my actual game she rejected him so hard, despite having the lustful trait and not caring prior)

Mateo represents Sloth Is perhaps the 1st or 2nd of Lambs followers, so they're absolutely not letting go of him, dudes lived 4 long lives and is tired of it, he keeps switching jobs since with age he's been slacking off more. He's currently stuck as a janitor (he hates it) He's also one of the few people who managed to befriend Jermo, his mellow, don't care attitude is somewhat comforting to them. Aside that, he gets along with almost everyone, as best as he can at least.

Not much else to say about the gang in the third pic but Riley and Dannie are platonic bffs and were forced to babysit kids when the lamb was crusading. The lamb was a little incompetent here to give carnivores children to take care of, but thankfully they actually managed to be good with them and got used to being on nanny duty.

The capybara (Beige) is a retired teacher and adopted a little owlet to take care of (Chip)

While Femur is our below yellow cat, and that's my HC name for him. He's a gatherer here.

[naamahdarling]

Maybe it isn't that I actually hate medical professionals? They just suck and are weird sometimes, and a lot of them shouldn't be practicing, but I don't hate them as a group, like, personally.

What I hate is their ability to make my life harder in ways that are often completely opaque to me, and a lot of the crap things they do are not really possible to challenge. And I hate the fact that holding them responsible fort dogshit behavior in any way that will actually benefit me is almost always impossible.

And I also hate the fact that they have to do stupid things sometimes because that's how the system is set up, and those things sometimes mean patients actually get harmed. They aren't fond of that part either! They don't want the system to be the way it is! But they don't have a choice, so sometimes people like me get forced by bureaucracy into doing things that are re-traumatizing. And I can't imagine that feels good for them at all, knowing that their patients are sometimes only "consenting" because that bureaucracy will not let them be helped in any other way. Which isn't consent at all. I imagine that must be pretty traumatizing for them, too, sometimes.

If it were easier to actually access medical care without tremendous delays in this country right now I would have much less trouble finding providers who are good at what they do and are not horrible people, and who have clinic staff who can do their fucking job.

Oh and I also don't appreciate how evasive and unwilling to commit they are out of fear of being held to an answer that turns out to be inaccurate, but I can't make an informed decision about my own care unless they give me at least some information about probabilities and trajectories and typicalities. Genuinely, how the fuck am I supposed to navigate that shit. I get that some patients are really fucking difficult, but I should be able to get a special stamp on my file or something that says I understand that sometimes medicine isn't an exact science and the best answers that my doctors can give may not always prove to be accurate in the long term. I know they don't like being in that situation either.

A lot of medical professionals are fucking assholes, and unfortunately the ones who are not are still hamstrung by a system set up to actively prevent people from getting care.

I miss my old doctor. He gave no shits about anything that wasn't the patient. He prescribed scheduled meds based on what the patient needed and not based on fear of consequences potentially being imposed on him by the punitive patient-hostile drugs-are-bad moral panic machine developed to force suffering people into buying more dangerous drugs off the street in order to prevent far fewer people from maybe getting high off of drugs that at least weren't laced with lethal substances. (The purpose of a system is what it does.) Did he get sanctioned and become locally unhireable? Unfortunately yes he did. Does he now provide concierge care to rich people? Yes he does. He found a way to make it work, God bless him.

Everything about the medical system in this country is fucked. Hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacies, pharmacists, pharmacy techs, phlebotomists, clinic administrative staff, insurance companies, medical schools and schooling, licensing boards, drug advertising to both providers and patients, pharmaceutical reps, researchers, research, publishing, medical trials, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers and distributors, medical equipment, charting software, billing and billing codes, diagnostic criteria, charity and low income services, accessible transportation, home care, the lack of independent individual patient advocates, dietitians and nutritionists, access to physical and occupational therapy and physical and occupational therapists, the massive bigotry of every kind rampant in every corner of the medical field, social work, senior care and assisted living, deprioritization of informed consent and harm reduction, disability applications, inaccessibility of medical records, especially psychiatric notes which are specifically allowed to be withheld from patients, lack of continuity of care for disadvantaged people, care that is equitably accessible to disabled people, telemedicine, patient portals, phone systems, clinic hours, every single aspect of inpatient and outpatient psychiatry, facility security, all sorts of things going on with therapists who are nevertheless probably the least malicious group of people in this entire charade, aaaaaand patients themselves.

Also hospital toilets that are too tall and make it literally physically impossible for me to poop while I'm there waiting for somebody to come out of surgery. I just needed to take a crap, guys. You didn't need to make the toilets so tall that my feet didn't even touch the floor. It is very clean but there is no shitting for short people at St Francis.

[barrenclan]

Ok so I adore basically everything about the most recent issue but my absolute favoritest thing is Slugpelt's section because like. Despite everything a part of her is still grieving over him. It doesn't undermine her anger if anything it probably adds to it but it still hurts so much more than if the betrayal wasn't there

There's a lot of loaded behavior in four short panels for Slugpelt and Rainhaze. He betrayed her horribly, murdered her daughter, and joined the villains attacking her. But he is never going to stop being her brother, no matter how much she wishes he could be. He's never going to stop being the person who held her when she was little while she cried. It's completely impossible for her to separate those two parts of him in her mind. Pinepaw also struggles with this;

Because Rainhaze was such a different person in very formative parts of both of their lives, there is just a part of them that will never be able to fully let that image of him go. And being aware of that is horribly painful, because they want to hate him so badly and simply for what he's done.

Slugpelt also has extra complicated feelings because of her relationship to Dustfeather and Rainhaze. Without going off on rambling tangents, the emotional abuse she endured while growing up led her to form an idea in her head of herself as the "broken one", while Rainhaze was the "good one". Despite how fragile she felt herself, she could always rely on him to be the one who had everything together - no matter if she resented or appreciated him for it, depending on what she was going through. But if Rainhaze was actually just as "broken", what does that make her?

Slugpelt doesn't think of herself as good, or whole, or happy. Dustfeather's parenting constantly posed them as opposites to each other, Rainhaze doing everything "good" while she did everything "bad". That dichotomy became a part of her fundamental understanding of who she is as a person. But if things have been so rapidly, utterly destroyed, she's left on shaky foundations while still trying to build and mend relationships with other people, like her children. Rainhaze was such an importat part of her life that him being torn out of it leaves her unsure of what to even think. Does that make both of them "broken"? Who's she supposed to be now?

[love-note-musings]

˙✧˖°📷 ⋆｡˚꩜ toby x reader // creepypasta oneshot

request: HelloI May i request a oneshot where toby pins the reader against a wall and maybe threatens her but she lowkey can't focus BC she's thinking how pretty he is? The reader has a love hate relationship with him. Sorry if it's confusing.

word count: 3.6k

─── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ──────

     As the last costumer of the day left, your shoulders dropped as the tension ebbed out of your body, dropping the “customer service smile” you had plastered on for the last couple of hours. A lengthy sigh left your mouth and you shook out the tired feeling from your muscles and with a swift lock of the doors, you began your nightly routine of cleaning for close. 

      Working the night shift wasn’t so bad, you had thought, it was generally pretty uninteresting, living in a small town and all, the clientele were the same, jobs were casual, it wasn’t that horrible. Having worked at this quaint restaurant for a couple of years, you knew the ins-and-outs pretty well and you operated most of the tasks you needed to on autopilot. However, the job was one thing, and daily living was another. Of course the pay was less than what you needed to live on realistically, what with housing, insurance, and feeding yourself. You still didn’t mind the nightshift, you found it rather relaxing.

    Wiping down tables, sweeping floors and mopping, cleaning out cappuccino machines, all of it went by as fewer cars passed on the road. You could hear the breeze start of as a small gust here and there until it picked up into a violent wind that rattled the building. Soon, you figured it would begin storming, with big raindrops pelting down and you surely wanted to be in your own home underneath thick blankets before then. 

     Unlocking the back entrance, you began dragging the heavy trash-bags out in the back of the parking lot, the last thing you’d need to complete before heading home for the day. You could feel how the cold nipped at your skin and willed your legs to go faster. 

     The city was always quiet, it was still except for the symphonies trees played nearby in the forest, clanging against each other from the wind. There were stories of course, about people going in and never coming back, but there were lots of people who did come back, more so than the latter, so the locals knew it as folktales. In reality, it was just another ordinary small town, with small-towned people, small-towned restaurants, and small-towned ideas. Forest or not, it was also another small-town ideal.

     Swinging the bag into the bin, you closed it with a sharp bang just as the back door to the restaurant flew with a clang. The weather was worsening overhead with dark clouds hiding the moon and the wind was threatening to take you away with it. Your feet carried you back inside as fast as they could, one pounding after another. //

//     He crashed into the back door with a thud as his legs gave out, one arm trying to hoist himself up and another trying to stop his wound from exuding any more blood. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle, but the exhaustion was creeping up his body, the lights had looked like crystallized diamonds hanging off of his eyelids, and he stumbled into them with reckless abandon before collapsing on tiled floor… somewhere. Vision swimming, legs crumpled underneath him, he sat there, body trembling and nauseated, trying to grasp onto his abdomen in an attempt to convince his body to let him back up, to keep moving. It wasn’t even that bad of a wound despite its length, it wasn’t anything he couldn’t  work with, but there he was, slipping on himself in the back of some beat-up building. The lights slightly flickered every few seconds, the buzzing of electrical appliances seemingly rang through his ears in tenfold, there was nothing in his stomach but his body forced him to empty it anyway, spilling out nothing onto the black and white tiles besides the gagging noises coming from him. He couldn’t stop the movement from racking his body once again as he dragged himself forward. 

     There was a scream, a crash maybe, all he saw was a figure with their arms raised high, ready to pounce on him, everything else was foggy besides the lights. Big, bright lights. Groggily, he looked up with lidded eyes, mouth slightly agape, nostrils flaring, trying to allow more oxygen into his lungs. He yelled at his brain to move faster and to process the situation, finding nothing once again but some static sound that filled it. Their mouth moved, and the sound flowed back into his ears, slowly, and then all at once.

     “I said—“ they cleared their throat “do you need me to call the authorities?” There was an umbrella raised threateningly in their hands, knuckles already turned white. It looked like their breath was caught in their throat and their body shaked. He slowly registered the information piece-by-piece, stringing together some semblance of thought. 

     Slowly, he forced his head to move side to side, shaking ‘no’. 

     “Are you hurt?” They asked authoritatively, despite the tremble in their knees.

      Again, another rather slow nod, another no. Hurt was subjective, after all. 

     Sighing, they lowered the umbrella just a little more to their side. “What do you need? Are you in trouble?”

     He ended up coughing violently, his head was spinning and he was mentally whacked. “b.. bath- can I use your b..athroom.”

     They stood off to the side and pointed towards it, watching his movements as he tried to force himself to stand upright. He managed to get up to his knees before crashing over again. 

     “I’m going to help move you there, okay?” they said as they set the umbrella down against the wall and moved closer towards him. He nodded once and they hooked an arm underneath his and guided him to the bathroom. 

     They turned on the light inside, indicated him to ‘be careful’ and that ‘there was a first aid kit under the sink’, before leaving him alone with a soft close of the door. 

     Toby gazed at himself in the mirror, bracing his weight against the sink before shakily turning the knob and splashing himself with cool water. How many days had it been since he had first left? He couldn’t even recall how long he’d been out, but it was long enough for his body to put the brake lights on his activities and start naming demands. And one of the demands was water. He earnestly started to drink the water from the faucet, cupping his hand and bringing it up to his lips over and over again.//

//     Meanwhile, an exasperated worker decided to flick back on the lights to the dining room and begin preparing a small meal to share with the guy who just stumbled into their restaurant. They didn’t really know what his deal was, nor did they care to know, they just wanted to give him something to eat before sending him back out into the storm. If he wouldn’t talk then maybe he’d eat and be able to go back home or something like that. Whatever the case was, it wasn’t your responsibility to know, but you’d also be damned for not trying to help him out just a little bit. 

     It took awhile, but the bathroom door finally clicked open and close again. Toby stumbled along the hallway and followed the light into the dining room. There were bandages wrapped around his abdomen and minor scratches on his legs and arms. His body was exhausted and his mind was more or less alert. 

     “Hey,” when you saw him feebly inch his way, you quickly went over and offered a hand, to which he shaked it off. Regardless, you told him where he could sit in the dining room,  a little booth by the kitchen door, and watched to make sure he settled himself well. You made a note of how determined he was despite his body practically shutting down, and he hadn’t tried to stop himself yet. Even as he fell into the booth, you watched as his body relaxed and his eyes stayed vigilant, always looking this way and that, carefully observing. It was fascinating. But again, it wasn’t your business. 

     You placed a plate in front of him with leftover food from the fridge and a pastry you had been saving to take home. “You have a drink preference? I can get you water.” He shook his head and you got him a glass of water anyway, of which he eyed a bit oddly, sipping little by little. When he saw the food, however, you noticed that he immediately went for the pastry.

     He was…strange, at the very least, that’s what you gathered as you watched him from the kitchen picking at his food and glancing around every couple minutes to double and triple check his surroundings. If you had to admit to yourself, you just wanted to go home, and by now it was raining, evident by the sound of raindrops pattering onto the rooftop. You were tired too, having worked all day, cleaning up and waiting on people, and now doing it all over again for a second time. Thankfully tomorrow you’d have a day off. 

     When he drank all of the water in the glass, you went over to refill it. “My name’s Y/n, what’s yours?” You asked with as much normalcy as possible, hand settling on your waist as you stepped back to watch his expression. 

     “Toby.” He muttered, before eating more and ignoring you. 

     “It’s nice to meet you, Toby.” 

     Sometime while you were re-cleaning the kitchen, you heard the bells on the door open with a clamor and close. Shrugging, you supposed he would have left, and you didn’t expect anything more from him. But now that you were thinking about it, it was kind of weird for someone to stumble in from the back of the building, but lots of things happened out in the forest. People go out with their friends, some people like hunting deer, who knows? Some kid could have just gotten mixed up with the wrong people and left out there. You don’t consider it much, but you sealed it away in the back of your mind as a little note for later as you left the restaurant and headed home. Personally, you had never experienced anything bad out there. //

//    It became more common for ‘Toby’ to show up after closing hours. Every few days or so, he’d show up looking tired and miserable, he’d ask to use your bathroom and then lug himself out to the dining room while you gave him the leftovers. You didn’t push him to talk about himself and settled for short conversations about the weather, or asking if he needed you to call anyone this week. Whenever you asked if he needed anything, he’d say no and continue eating solemnly, playing with his food and acting almost disinterested with it. 

     “What’s your favorite food?” You asked while chewing a piece of bread from the pantry. 

     Toby shrugged, “I don’t really have one.” 

     “There has to be something that you like at least? Can’t you think of something? I can try to make sure we keep some of it here.”

     He pondered for a moment, putting his fork down. You never questioned his sudden movements or verbal outbursts at all, figuring it’d be best not to pester him with questions since he obviously couldn’t control it, other people probably bothered him enough. Toby answered you quietly, “I liked that pastry you first gave me, I..I don’t remember when that was.”

     “Hmm.. okay. I can get it for you next time.”

     And the next time you did, and the time after that, until you were sure that he was sick of it every time you served it to him. But he never said anything and accepted it without a word.

    Perhaps you could say that the two of you had come to a mutual understanding, maybe a friendship, and you wouldn’t admit it to yourself that you looked forward to your short and awkward meetings. You didn’t know much about each other, but you felt comfortable despite his out-of-the-normal appearance and habits. It was non-judge mental, as far as anyone else was concerned, nothing happened here after-hours anyway.

     You found yourself tracing his facial features in your mind, promising them to memory and making mock-paintings in your mind. He had pretty eyelashes, his skin was pale and light, he had deep scarring on the side of his mouth, that’s why you assumed he wore the mask in public, you couldn’t be sure though, and you could be less sure about the googles attached to his jeans. The only thing is that you’d wish he’d eat more since it was obvious his health wasn’t the greatest. Whenever you saw him, he was almost always exhausted and almost ready to pass out. Although, besides the first time you met, you didn’t see him with any more wounds, so you supposed it was just some off-handed accident and nothing intentional. 

     Yeah, you politely admitted to yourself that you were quite fond of your new and odd friend. Perhaps attracted, whatever attraction meant. You found him nice to be around. And maybe, just maybe, you wanted him to feel the same. It had been a long time since you’ve had a proper friend. . . 

     Rock songs played from the radio atop the refrigerator, melodies soft and sweet, they played from collections of the classics and you loved it. During your shifts you’d lose yourself in the tune, pretending that you existed inside music videos and getting lost in a world where the waiters and waitresses were the main characters. You had asked Toby a while ago if he liked the station you left the radio on, hoping it was to his tastes. He had replied affirmatively, and you had kept the radio on that station every time he visited. 

     “Come on, get up.” you instructed, coming around the bar and onto the dining room floor. 

     “What?” He asked, nonetheless getting up from the barstool and following you along. 

     “You like this song, I like this song, let’s dance.”

     “But I don’t know how—“ Toby insisted as you took his hands anyway.

     You scoffed with a fool’s smile, “Neither do I.”

     At first you dragged him along around the dining room floor, navigating between the tables and chairs, tapping to the beat. He was awkward and didn’t know how to move his legs, flinging this way and that, but eventually he fell into your pattern and moved along. You both laughed, rocking your bodies to the beat hand in hand. Swaying left and right and once or twice trying spin each other. At one point, Toby almost toppled over into a couple of chairs, but you grabbed on tight to his hands and didn’t let go. A silly little smile spread across your faces and the two of you turned giggly as a new song started playing and the dance continued. 

     It was true—the two of you really didn’t know how to dance, and if anyone were to look into the windows they’d see two people who were wildly uncoordinated. You felt like you owned the world and that your body was perfectly aligned to the songs, you saw Toby and how he finally looked relaxed, mouthing along to the lyrics and shaking his arms around freely with his eyes closed. When you started screaming out the lyrics yourself, belting out notes pitches too high or low, he didn’t hesitate in joining you, resulting in one grand cacophonous harmony. 

     When Toby left later that night, it hit him in the face. Realization, fear, all of those types of things that crept up his back and settled into the crock of his neck before lodging itself into thought. That feeling, it settled inside of him and wouldn’t leave, it overwhelmed him and gnawed away at his stomach lining. Toby was never still, and it was more apparent now as the anxiety rose up his cheeks. He gulped, drank from the water bottle you had given him, slipped his hatchets into his belt loops and disappeared back into the forest. He always left his hatchets hidden behind your restaurant whenever he visited you. Just so you’d never see them with all the dents and stains that’d scare you away and leave him alone again. Toby really hated being alone sometimes.

     And Toby also knew who he was. It was evident by those same stains. It haunted him. He would never be able to sleep without seeing all of the things he’s witnessed, that he’s done. While knowing who you also were, he knew that you wouldn’t need him, that you’d need to help other people that got lost at night, who just need a helping hand. He’d hope you’d be able to help a lot more people than just him. You’d need to forget him, or at least you would, eventually. //

//     The night was quieter than normal. There was no radio playing, there were no cars passing by on the road, and there was no rain or wind, clear skies all day and all night. In short, it was boring. You were propped up by your elbow as you leaned over the bar countertop, idly skimming through the contents in some magazine left here by another customer. Only one customer remained, a pleasant old man who stopped by during the weekdays to watch the news on the television here. With a yawn and a tip, he left too, and you weren’t bothered to immediately lock the door after his departure. It had been a slow day.   

    He was behind the restaurant, hunched behind some garbage cans and waiting to hear the last car pull out from the parking lot. Everything was still and he was seeing the place for the first time with orange-tinted lenses.  He shook and shivered, bones rattling, and he couldn’t stop his arms from jerking even as he held himself together tighter. The last customer was gone. Now he just had to wait for you to come outside. Rocking back and forth to calm himself, he toyed with the fraying strings on the edge of his sleeves, occupying his mind and trying to distract himself from the bloodstains forming on his shirt and pants, not to mention the uncleaned hatchets that hung by his side. It wasn’t until a rather loud clang that he was snapped out of his trance.

Shooting up from his hiding spot, he made his way over to you without even a trickle of a sound. 

     All of a sudden you were shoved back towards the building, the air was knocked out of your chest from the force and you stumbled back. Toby had one hand blocking your exit, and another raised high above your head with a hatchet threatening to crack your skull open. 

     He stared at you, questioning himself, looking at you and then the hatchet and then you - you were terrified, and trembling, and god he wanted to disappear right at that moment, to drop everything and cling onto you. And he knew it wasn’t going to happen, but still his arms wobbled and there was a hitch in his throat. One hand slowly went to his mouth to stop the whimperings from escaping and the other slowly lowered his weapon until it fell onto the pavement.

     How could he be so stupid? He caved for the niceties, any inking of kindness and he instantly folded his hand. It wasn’t the terror in your eyes that had stopped him, it was just you. The way it felt to be so close again, how his body responded by going weak, he wanted to stay like that for a long time, he wanted to stay by you for as long as you’d let him. But he couldn’t do that, could he? Trust is a delicate thing. He knew that lesson well.

     You stood there with your back pressed painfully against the wall, your heart was beating frantically against your chest, your muscles were tense, your eyes were glued on Toby as he lost his resolve and crumbled down onto the ground in a heap with his head in his hands. Sobs wracked his body up and down and he heaved. Kneeling down next to him, you grabbed the hatchet and threw it as far as you could, considering for a moment if you should comfort him or not before placing a hand tentatively on his back, rubbing circles once he responded to your touch. The goggles on his face were fogging up, and you carefully found the clasp underneath a topple of tangled brown hair, letting it fall onto the ground as you wiped the tears falling down his cheeks with your hand and slipped off his facial mask. 

     His eyes did not meet yours, leaning over and making himself seem small. He sobbed until there were no more tears left, and even then his chest just heaved wildly as he struggled to find an even breathing pace. Kneeling closer, you wrapped your arms tighter around him, embracing, whispering in a soothing voice. 

     Toby wrapped his arms around your waist, slowly at first before completely enveloping you, resting his head into your lap. You felt nice, and comfortable, safe. He hung onto you for dear life.

─── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ──────

originally posted on quotev/citrusyfruits, reposted with permission

[mooluvs]

Dating Bakugo Katsuki would include:

Requests: open | masterlist

Warnings: none | genre: fluff | fic type: headcanons

Being the only person he is soft for

He has a reputation to uphold

But he loves nothing more than coming home and letting you sink into his arms

He absolutely loves just holding you

And gently kissing you

He’ll hold your hand in crowded areas

And check you’re okay every night before bed.

You’re the only person who knows his insecurities and weaknesses

He hates nothing more than being perceived as weak

However, he knows that the two of you are stronger together than apart.

Understanding his angry affection

At the start of your relationship, he’ll probably give you some horrible nickname

As soon as you realise he does this to all his friends, you realise it’s his way of being affectionate

After awhile, he starts calling you traditional pet names too but that horrible, lovely nickname never left

You’ll also notice how he never lets anyone insult you

So much as one bad word and he’s blowing them up.

He’ll buy you the cutest, most thoughtful presents and still try and act like he thinks it’s stupid

He’ll act all angry at you, but the hand holding yours says otherwise.

He may call you an idiot, but your HIS idiot.

Always feeling safe with him around

You know he’ll always protect you.

I mean, anyone who hurts your feelings better fear for their life.

He never takes you anywhere you are uncomfortable.

And he’s so quick to remove you from a situation your uncomfortable in.

Also, if you ever ask him to watch your drink, he treats it like the most important job in the world.

Walking around with him is like having a guard dog.

Any weirdos who try and approach you have to go through him first.

And god forbid any villain comes after you.

They’re probably not going to live to tell anyone about it.

Always supporting each other

You always support his dreams of becoming the number one hero.

And you’re always there to encourage him when he’s doubting himself.

In return, he’s always there for you.

He’ll help you up when you fall - both literally and metaphorically.

He will happily carry you of you fall over.

He will laugh at you first, though.

If you are training to be a hero like him, he’ll train with you and give you advice on where to improve.

And he’ll always help you study and do your homework.

Even if you’re not training to be a hero, he’ll still help you with any homework.

But he will deny going out of his way to learn more about the subjects you need help in.

Or learning entirety new subjects to try and help you.

Can’t have people knowing he’s so thoughtful, it’d ruin his reputation.

Once you’re r working, he’ll always be free to come to any of your work events.

Despite the fact he’s a very busy hero, he always seems to have the day off when you have an important event.

Him thinking the world of you

Boy is down bad.

Like you can tell he absolutely adores you.

His eyes go soft every time he looks at you.

And he’s proud of every single one of your achievements.

He adores you

He loves having a person he can be totally open with.

And how you don’t judge him when he tells you his weakness and fears.

When he tells you about the drawbacks of his quirk

Or how everything that has happened to him has affected him

Or about the pressure he’s always felt to be the best and be the strongest

He expects you to scold and judge him like everyone close to him did growing up.

But instead you just hold him and tell him it’s going to be okay

And that you love him.

And god

He just wants to be with you forever.

[ginnysgraffiti]

Paul Atreides x reader? Where the reader does not believe in the prophecy of the Lisan-al-Gaib or in any god or Messiah that they say will come, to which Paul is interested in her but also feels anger because the reader does not show fear or submission, and when inquiring about why she has no faith in anything she reads or gods is because she went through many horrible things and when she prayed for it to be a nightmare but it never happened, and that's why she believes in nothing but herself.

thanks for the request! sorry if i hadn't answered before :(

PAUL ATREIDES x yn.

your people lived on arrakis under one name: the fremen. people who have inhabited arrakis for many millennia, originally arriving after an interplanetary diaspora.

your planet became the center of immense interests of the empire following the discovery of the powerful drug called melange or spice, capable of significantly extending the length of human life and increasing.

you have been trained in guerrilla warfare since childhood, reason why you're considered among the best fighters in the universe, the only ones capable of holding your own against even the emperor's ferocious sardaukar.

people can comfortably call you interstellar nomads who follow a particular philosophy, people who live together in desert tents and who are more like a big big family or army.

therefore, you don't hide the fact that you get along very well, despite the fact that fremen have challenging, ambitious characters, and you often want to prove our superiority by fighting or calling sandworms.

if someone has already heard the famous prophecy "blessed be the creator and his water" well, that's you, these are the fremen. that's your prophecy or the thing people think you believe in. or at least, your people believe in.

you worship shai-hulud, the sand worm, a gigantic and dangerous creature that populates the deserts of arrakis and is the source of the spice cycle. your religion, like almost all those of the primitive worlds of the empire, was profoundly influenced by the bene gesserit missionaria protectiva.

if you ask stilgar, he will answer you by saying he believes in the arrival of the messiah, of the lisan al-gaib. so please, don't ask stilgar.

lisan al-gaib, in your fremen language, "the voice from the outside world".

in later use the name messiah specializes to indicate the "anointed one" par excellence, sent as a savior of the fremen, the chosen people, and to turn the desert into the green paradise it used to be. this is how stilgar would happily explain it to others.

bullshit.

the biggest lie you've ever heard.

you have waited ages for the messiah, and the only conclusion you managed to get was that even foreign people made fun of you all by saying they were the famous messiah you had been waiting for. really funny, right...

"the walker of the golden path" they say, just they don't know how much you have suffered or how different you feel about your people's adamant beliefs.

you know paul since a few weeks, and you hated every second of it, and you knew he did too.

at first you avoided him, dodged him or threatened him with your eyes as if he were an harkonnen. or, if you were in a bad mood, you ignored him completely, especially when he entertained stilgar with inappropriate and absolutely not funny jokes but that made the whole for-dinner-tent laugh.

you knew that everyone was at his feet, that they would even lick the sand he walked on.

you often heard your fremen friends talking or chatting about him, and you could have sworn some of them even wondered out loud of it would be to have sex with him.

you had never thought of paul as someone to have sex with, mostly because you hated him on principle.

for the first week you loved showing off your fighting moves when he looked, or throwing barbs at him to shut him up.

you knew that he was intimidated but also angry towards you, that he was curious about your people, and therefore you could show yourself superior anyway. you wanted to crush it like a desert fly and rejoice while it dies under your sole.

then, everything changed.

it was afternoon, and the wind was gently blowing, but not enough to make the sand rise.

he was a little too snuggled up next to you, on the highest dune you could reach from the fremen camp.

at first, you didn't even like the idea of starting a conversation, but paul was the one who talked first.

he told you about his visions first, about his nightmare correlated, about the mental torture he had to kneel upon when he used to live on caladan, because everyone thought he was the kwisatz haderach.

he told you about his training, his father's death and how he felt so alone, abandoned by the little people he loved and betrayed by the ones he barely knew.

something about it woke up a new feeling inside your chest. you felt understood.

and he was not there forcing you to go on your knees and pray the messiah and his rise to power.

he was simply chatting, his eyes almost tearing, playing with some sand in his right hand.

he wanted to understand you, to understand why you were the only one who refused to believe the prophecy and yet the only one who captured your attention.

your mind returned to the morning where a few of your friends wished to have sex with him, but right in that moment, when the sun was melting under the dunes, far away, you could only wonder how plump and soft his lips could become against yours.

that same evening, you got confirmed paul atreides was the best kisser you had ever known.

in your tent, with a slight scent of spice and body

skin and sweat, he held you close as if you were

his only lifeline, as if you were about to become

small microscopic grains of sand, and he would no longer be able to hold the right ones in his hands.

you stood there, under his slim and perfect body, stroking his curls in a slow and sleepy gesture, until he closed his eyes and let his cheek rest against your breasts.

messiah or not, you believe he was the love of your life.

[nightcolorz]

Armand could definitely 100% have prevented Claudia and Madeline’s death like obviously he is so full of shit 😭😭 he just chose not to. I dont think he was lying about being held captive, though. It seems more likely to me that he allowed himself to be imprisoned bcus the ultimate outcome would be desirable, rather then like, he was secretly orchestrating it all like a devious Master mind and was only pretending to be a prisoner to trick Louis. I think Armand was genuinely being imprisoned, but he could have easily escaped (as if the vampire Armand couldn’t win in a fight against Sam The Twink), and chose not to because it’s in his best interest for Claudia and Madeline to die 😭. While part of his betrayal I think comes from a comfort Armand takes in learned helplessness, where taking action feels less safe then leaning into victimhood, so armand chooses to accept helplessness rather then play the hero bcus helplessness is comforting, it was also definitely part “I want these two people to be gone from my life and this seems like a sure fire way to let it happen while I get to remain mostly blameless” 😭. Armand finds Claudia’s whole existence horrific and cruel. I don’t think he particularly likes or dislikes her as a person, he doesn’t seem to know her very well nor care to know her (he actually says this in tva lol), so I don’t think he considered letting her a die an act of spite.

Armand thought of Claudia as a suffering, rabid, sick and diseased animal that needed to be put down for its own well being. He considered her death an inevitable tragedy that “could not be prevented”, and bcus of his perspective on vampirism as a horrible curse that can only be spared through very specific very calculated and clean cut means, he wanted her death to come as quick and painlessly as possible. From Armand’s perspective, if he saved Claudia from death by execution, he’d only end up watching her excruciatingly loose her mind and self until she eventually killed herself or got put down by Armand or someone else Nicki style so that she wouldnt need to live in agony anymore.

Which, his whole perspective there is flawed, and fucked up, and dehumanizing of Claudia, but it makes sense why he would think that way. Armand considers vampirism to be always bad, regardless of the subject turned, and always smth he would hate to inflict on someone. So claudias turning, is not only cruel to Armand, but unforgivable and unsalvageable. He’s seen a lot of fucked up vampires in his time, a lot of botched turnings, and he knows from his experience how much of a toll vampirism takes on anyone, let alone someone in the body of a child. His whole “I will never turn someone into a vampire ever in my life” thing comes from this. So, of course he won’t save claudia from such a clean cut, blameless death 😭. He considers it an act of mercy, when he pictures the alternative as “Claudia clings to Madeline as she painfully looses her mind and eventually dies”. Which, comes into why he didn’t save Madeline either lol

Armand doesn’t particularly value life as smth to be worth preserving, he is very willing to view other ppl as commodities when it helps him. But he does value preserving peace and limiting other’s suffering (which is why he kills so gently). Armand is so horrified by Madeline being turned, partly bcus I think he saw himself in her. He sees a fledgling who he believes will inevitably loose her maker, the only person she rlly cares about, to horrible gruesome death, and he knows that once she experiences that her life as an immortal will be cruel and unbearable. So once she is turned, Armand sees another lost cause who will be better off if she is killed before it can get bad. What Armand misses when it comes to Claudia and Madeline, obviously, is that they r more resilient and self sufficient then he sees, and taking away their agency by deciding they have no hope and must die isn’t the mercy he sees it as but is actually like, fucked up and horrible. Armand is so blinded by his trauma fueled dog eat dog view of life as a vampire that he can’t see that.

I think the reason armand considers the perks of Claudia and Madeline’s death a priority over Louis’s happiness (and horrible grief that will ensue when his loved ones die), is bcus Armand considers Claudia and Madeline’s death an inevitable consequence of Louis’s unforgivably cruel actions. He doesn’t resent Louis for it I don’t think, but he definitely thinks that Louis will need to atone for what he’s done whether Armand wants him to or not. So, Armand is ok with Louis grieving (as long as it doesn’t turn to resentment of Armand), bcus it was ultimately inevitable, and comparatively less cruel then what he would have to witness alternatively. It’s a rip the Band aid off type of thing 😭😭

in conclusion uh Armand is bad but Armand has his reasons and Armand isn’t one dimensionally villainous, he has a ton of complex trauma induced reasons for the way he thinks, and his actions r more often then not coming from a warped view of “the kind thing to do” that comes from his lack of understanding of how kind the world actually is and can be (dog eat dog mindest etc), bcus of how horribly traumatized he is. thank u good night

[lowkeyrobin]

Curious about MCYT with a partner that's usually calm and collected, suddenly being super angry at someone bothering them, maybe almost fighting the person brothering them? (Btw i really love your writing, it's super fun to read!!)

ooooo okay !! I see the vision, hopefully I pulled it off LMAO ; also thank you so much!! that means so much to me, I feel like my writings really corny and dumb sometimes and too boring so thank you, it means a lot to me 🫶🫶🫶

MCYT ; fire in the twilight

includes ; tommyinnit, ranboo, badlinu, nihachu, & quackity

warnings ; language, talk about SA/perverts/men being weird

masterlist

TOMMYINNIT

you're a very calm person

but when you get mad you get maddddd

he's surprised you haven't beaten the shit out of him yet

someone was being kinda weird at a meet and greet at vidcon and you were already stressed and overstimulated from taking pictures with everyone and signing merch and youtooz (guys should I try buying the slimecicle plushie? I don't wanna support a bad company but he's so cute :()

someone took a picture of you stretching where your shirt lifted a bit and showed off your midsection

Tommy saw and immediately called them out while you were taking a solo pic w a fan

when you heard him you just froze and nearly yelled

"Hey, please delete that. out of your trash too, seriously"

"Dude, fucking delete that shit. that's not okay, actually."

you end up nearly beating the shit out of the person....

then comes the Twitch apology 😭😭

you nearly went into a spiral explaining that it's never okay to take photos of ppl without them knowing, no matter when or where

he feels really bad for you but you're able to sit down and calm down to your usual self 🫶🫶🫶

RANBOO

you were getting fed up with how people were treating you and them online and just kinda lost it on stream

your chat was filled with assholes wondering where people were and why you hadn't publicly talked to them in over 12 hours and what your plans with everything were etc etc

"Dude, please stop. all of you. for weeks this has been going on, stop putting me and ranboo on these pedestals and expecting shit from us. seriously, it's horrible for both of us and our health. if you wanna see Tubbo or Tommy, go watch them! they're both live right now. Seriously, it's not funny and it's not gonna make us pump out more content and do what you want. we're people too, we get sad and burned out and tired. eventually content creation gets unfun and you won't get what you want. behave yourselves and do better. we don't owe you anything"

ranboo literally tears up a bit because he was watching the stream in the other room and could hear you, and you were visibly tearing up

you could feel your hands shaking and you just kind of ended the stream because you were so worked up and didn't wanna do it anymore

he immediately wrapped you in a hug because you were just so angry

gave you a pillow to punch and left you be for a while

you're usually very calm but your emotions exploded when you were bottling it up too much

they understood that but their heart bled for you after that, especially w all the hate that came from it :/

FREDDIE BADLINU

people were throwing things at you on stage during Tommy's live show

you played it off as jokes and were fine with jt because they were doing it sneakily in a fun way, roses, kandi bracelets, plushies etc, until someone threw their bra at you

"Okay, can we not?" You scrunch your eyebrows, looking into the crowd as you throw the bra back into the crowd. "That's fucked, don't ever do that again, learn event etiquette. never throw your bras on a fucking stage, it's weird and disgusting"

Freddie looks over at you, standing next to Tommy, giving you a "Holy shit are you okay?" look while also looking for the culprit trying to get their bra back

Tommy instantly stopped the show to reprimand the person

meanwhile Freddie was whispering to you to make sure you were okay

you were pissed but put your big kid pants on and continued the show

you apologized on Twitter after the show because you were really loud and kind of humiliated the people but you were justified with the situation

the people (and the girl who owned the bra) apologized and the situation was over

Freddie feels so bad bc you're so calm and laid back but ppl always have to test your limits :(

NIKI NIHACHU

people were filming you two out in public and taking pictures and you kinda lost it that they weren't listening to niki, telling them to kindly stop

"can you stop taking pictures? she's uncomfortable, please stop." you speak in a stern voice

the fans just like stare at you in shock because you're usually very calm and chill and you basically yelled at them (you reprimanded them because one it's the law two you both didn't want to be disturbed on your walk)

you're in a miserable mood the whole way home because yk how twitters gonna act when they see that

you quickly make a statement before any video leaks or anything, addressing the situation and apologizing to the strangers

ppl got ur back tho and showed support considering they were filming you on a nice walk without consent

she feels so bad seeing you get upset about it and feels like it's her fault

lots of reassuring her that it's never her fault and you're always happy to defend her and you don't mind getting a little loud to defend her

ALEX QUACKITY

you got really upset with someone harassing a bunch of creators during the qsmp Brazil meetup

"Dude, leave them alone. they don't want to take a picture with you and they don't owe you anything! you're being creepy to all those women right now, do you not realize that or something?"

you were furious seeing that many on your friends, even while on a trip, couldn't just not be harassed by men

the weirdo scurried off but you were literally this close to fighting the fucker

you were seething dude, like, shaking because you were so astonished someone could actually be that pushy and that much of a dick over a picture

Alex wrapped you in a tight hug and just squeezed you until you calmed down while the poor people who were harassed had reassured you that they were okay and that they appreciated and thanked you for standing up for them

Alex genuinley apologizes because the way you reacted just proved to him that you definitely are calm and laid back but when you got angry, you got angry

he feels so bad because you had to stand up for your friends and watch them be harassed and shit

[txttletale]

yo i really like your content and agree with you on most things but i don't really know what you mean with that last one. my friends from ukraine both oppose the war's existence but would rather not be violently annexed by an imperial power so of course they, with little other options, support resistance efforts.

it's really hard for me to understand what you're going for because if ukraine stopped fighting back it'd just get taken by russia. maybe i just have bad brainfog, but it's hard to understand what you're asking us to do and believe. should we try and take out both the russian and american imperialist powers at once? but that's unrealistic and unlikely to happen in the near future, no matter how much i personally support it, which i do.

i guess my question is, what's an actual realistic thing we should support in the meantime? we can't just pretend that somehow revolution will take out both american and russian imperialist interests immediately, so. it's like, well yes we should have a better world playing by better rules, but how do we do the right thing when we are bound by the rules now.

i have friends who have family who died in the war, and sometimes it feels like bloggers i otherwise trust say things that sound suspiciously close to "ukraine should stop this pointless fighting and give up." which i am aware isn't your intention, and i want to be an effective anti imperialist and have the correct and informed opinions on stuff like this, but i am having a very hard time understanding what you are trying to say.

i really promise i am not a concern troll or nato apologist or anything, i just also have personally been struggling with what to support and how to save innocent lives. i hate war and i wish we could magically create a situation in which ukraine didn't have to rely on horrible things for self defense. i just don't know what to do or believe because my friends would rightfully hate me if i said ukraine should stop defending itself.

i mean, first off: don't worry, you obviously don't sound like a concern troll or a nato apologist. this is an eminently reasonable question -- healed's law strikes again. & i certainly don't blame you for worrying that marxist-leninists are apologists for russian imperialism, because unfortunately many self-proclaimed marxist-leninists have been deceived by the frankly paper-thin figleaf of 'denazificaiton'--even as putin, puppet of the russian bourgeoisie denounces lenin & the bolsheviks & the soviet union with every speech he makes. it sucks!

first of all, i think the important thing here and the central point of disagreement is on what constitutes 'ukraine'. liberals and nationalists alike consider nations to be fundamentally one whole: that all the people of ukraine together constitute 'ukraine', and so 'ukraine as a whole' has consistent interests, and acts as a one--the ukrainian government represents this unitary ukraine armed forces of ukraine fight for this ukraine.

but the marxist analysis of the nation is completely different. from the marxist perspective, the nation is split across class lines. ukraine is not 'ukrainians', but in fact 'the ukrainian working class' and 'the ukrainian bourgeoisie'. now, of course, there are further contradictions even within these classes--there is a faction of pro-Russian bourgeoisie, and a faction of pro-Western bourgeoisie. but remember, we must apply the same analysis to these countries too: the 'pro-Russian' Ukrainian bourgeoisie do not wish to submit to Russia's working class, but to their oligarchs. the 'pro-Western' Ukrainian bourgeoisie are not opening the nation's economy to the European and USAmerican working class, but to their bourgeoisie. so the bourgeoisie are, in every case--even when split among themselves--only ever in league with other sectors of the bourgeoisie.

so, through this lens, how do we see the war in ukraine? well, i think that the union of communists in ukraine must have a far better handle on this than i, because they're living through it: so i will quote their analysis and then elucidate on it in relation to your question.

The puppet regime in Ukraine participates in this war in the interests of Ukrainian oligarchs, who have made themselves completely dependent on big capital of the West and NATO, who have turned the Ukrainian army into an advanced military unit of the Western bourgeoisie. The war is not about "the Ukrainian nation," not about "the Ukrainian language and culture," not even about "European values". It is a war for the united interests of the Ukrainian and international bourgeoisie, which coincide in their desire to destroy the economic and political power of the Russian bourgeoisie. No interests or rights of Ukrainian workers are protected by this war. Both Ukrainian and Russian workers in this war have only the right and obligation to go to the front and die so that one group of the world bourgeoisie defeats the other and gains more monopoly rights to oppress the workers, both in their own country and in the defeated countries. […] For the working class of Ukraine, this imperialist war has the most tragic consequences. It lies on the shoulders of the workers the role of "cannon fodder" and the inevitable deaths in the fighting, mass impoverishment, unemployment, complete restrictions of rights and freedoms for the sake of protecting the interests of the Ukrainian big bourgeoisie, the oligarchs and the interests of the Western bourgeoisie in destroying and robbing Russia and seizing its natural resources. This will inevitably be accompanied by the destruction and seizure of Ukrainian industrial and natural resources, including in the case of Russia's success. The same fate awaits the vast majority of the Ukrainian petty bourgeoisie. The big bourgeoisie has already bought its children out of the war and taken them abroad, just as it took its capitals out. But that is not the main point: the big bourgeoisie is profiting from the war under Zelensky, just as it profited under Poroshenko: stealing finances, making money from reselling weapons, supplying the army with uniforms, food, repair work, humanitarian aid, etc. In war the bourgeoisie makes billions of dollars, while the mobilized people have to be equipped and fed by relatives, friends and volunteers – which is clearly not enough. As in peacetime, but even more brazenly, the bourgeoisie is getting rich off the bones of the working class!

—Union of Communists of Ukraine, On the War and the tasks of the working class

that is to say--the russian army, which is funded by the russian bourgeoisie, is fighting to establish the exclusive right of that russian bourgeoisie to oppress and exploit the ukrainian people. meanwhile, the ukrainian army, funded by the ukrainian and western bourgeoisie more broadly, are fighting to maintain the exclusive right of the ukrainian and western to oppress and exploit the ukrainian people. already, ukrainian public assets are being put up in a fire sale for western buyers--(and of course, should russia's offensive have been as succesful as they'd hoped and this war already over, they'd be doing much the same thing for the benefit of buyers among the russian bourgeoisie).

this is what is meant by 'inter-imperialist' war. it's easy to say 'well, the ukrainian army isn't imperialist--it's fighting for the nation's independence!' but in terms of real economic interests there is no 'the nation'. the ukrainian army isn't fighting for the ukrainian working class (which of course includes themselves!)--the government that pays them and the states that equip them wouldn't do so out of any sense of interest in the well-being of the working class. we can see this clearly as the western imperialist powers now start to equip the ukrainian army with depleted uranium shells, which will poison swathes of ukrainian land and cause sickness and death among the people this army purports to be fighting for. the goal of the ukrainian state and army isn't to protect any working class people--only to protect its total right to the economic exploitation of those people.

it's this that the ukrainian state is afraid of when it fights not to cede territory, not the (surely real, to be clear!) brutality from the russian state that would face the inhabitants of any such ceded territory. in fact, funding nazi groups that operated in those areas before the war and will surely continue to operate afterwards, the ukrainian govenrment makes it clear that brutality against the inhabitants of its eastern provinces alone does not phase it, so long as the ukrainian bourgeoisie (& their western bourgeoisie patrons) continue to be the ones profiting off the region's people and resources.

elsewhere in the article the UCU observe the same thing that can be observed by those outside of ukraine by listening to the words of zelenskyy and the ukrainian government's allies--that even the goal of 'protecting its people' [read: protecting exclusive economic/extractive access to those people] has been sidelined by the dream of a total or partial obliteration of the russian bourgeoisie entirely--not for any moral or anti-imperialist reason, but simply so that the ukrainian/western bourgeoisie no longer have competition.

[...] the goals of warfare are changing. If at the first stage of the civil conflict the Ukrainian regime aimed to restore state control over the Ukrainian territories, where this control was lost, then at the second stage it aimed to destroy Russia as a condition for the existence of Ukraine.

—ibid.

so--now that i've really dug into the precise nature of this war and why it's being waged on both sides, i'll answer some of your points directly:

if ukraine stopped fighting back it'd just get taken by russia "ukraine should stop this pointless fighting and give up."

both of these positions, both the one you hold yourself and the one you worry about others expressing, assume that what the ukrainian armed forces with NATO backing and full-throated embrace of fascist paramilitaries is doing constitutes 'ukraine' 'fighting back' against 'russia'. but it doesn't--it represents the ukrainian bourgeoisie fighting back against the russian bourgeoisie.

so, the big question--do i think that the ukrainian proletariat should abandon armed resistance against the russian invasion? absolutely not!

genuine popular resistance against the russian invasion is heroic and commendable--i am under no belief whatsoever that in the face of imperialist war the ukrainian people should not arm themselves and fight against the imperialists. i just reject the framing of the actual war as prosecuted as constituting this, because, to go back to what i've already established, there is not in fact one 'ukraine' but two--only one of which constitutes in a mieaningful sense the ukrainian people. i don't believe (and neither do the UCU, whose analysis i base mine on somewhat) that 'the war' as you ponder 'supporting' constitutes the ukrainian proletariat arming themselves or fighting against imperialism on their own behalf, but rather being armed by the bourgeoisie and fighting on their behalf.

and obviously i'm not an idiot who's blind to the actual numerial and material realities. the communist, anti-imperialist movement in ukraine, just like in most of the world, is completely dwarfed by imperialism and its footsoldiers. 'the ukrainian proletariat as self-armed acting organization rising up and challenging both imperialisms and freeing itself from both sets of bourgeoisie' is not something that's gonna happen tomorrow, and it's not an immediately actionable plan--no ukrainian communist can wake up tomorrow and say 'well, today i shall hit the big proletarian revolution button'.

the realities are that as the meeting ground between two imperialisms, ukrainian communists have to make decisions about which one they can most ably fight, might need to temporarily align themselves with or allow themselves to benefit from the ukrainian bourgeoise state--but never support it. like any bourgeoise state, a communist should know the ukrainian state is an enemy of the proletariat. yes, the pressing material realities on the ground might well make cooperation with that bourgeoise state the best temporary option--but 'cooperation' should never mean 'support' or 'loyalty', and should be done only tactically with ultimately loyalties remaining above all else with the working class.

in fact, refusing to offer the government and army a show of support and valorization is a key element of creating the conditions--radicalization, agitation--that would allow the proletariat to effectively rise up and truly combat imperialism, rather than choose under which imperialist heel they would rather be ground into dust. don't support an end to the war on either imperialist bloc's terms, but rather on proletarian terms--understand that the state of ukraine is not on the side of the ukrainian people, except tangentially, in individual moments of necessary alliance. raise awareness of the true war, the class war, and resist the ukrainian state's claims to stand with the people when it pursues the interests of the bourgeoisie.

tldr: the anti-imperialist position is not that the ukrainian proletariat should not be fighting, or that their fight is not worth supporting. the anti-imperialist action, therefore, is to draw the most awareness possible to this division within 'ukraine' among the working class themselves, make them aware of the realities of the economic condition. this is of course the foremost anti-imperialist and communist task across the entire world, because it is only through creating organizations of the working class that will fight for the working class can international imperialism be dfeated.

i'll leave this answer off by adding what the UCU said about this very topic in the same statement i've been quoting:

We understand the complexity and danger of these tasks, which inevitably cause repression on the part of the bourgeois political regimes. That is why workers' and communist organizations will need to develop illegal forms of class struggle along with legal ones in order to set and implement such tasks. The UCU has been forced to conduct its work in illegal forms since 2014. Many workers' and communist organizations may consider these antiwar tasks impossible because of their organizational weakness and lack of influence on the working class. However, historical experience shows that a correct and honest formulation of the tasks of the working class in conditions of war – real, not momentary tasks – may not yield success immediately, but will yield gains as the revolutionary situation intensifies. Since the task of destroying capitalist social relations is an international task, the international coordination of workers' and communist parties' actions, including the joint elaboration of tasks for the struggle against the imperialist war of the twenty-first century for the sake of uniting the international struggle against this war, for a communist reorganization of society and world peace, is becoming increasingly important. Proletarians of all countries, unite! 

[incesthemes]

first and foremost i'm blown away by jared's acting in born under a bad sign. he plays meg so well and it allows me to really see and interpret the differences between sam and meg so well, and maybe it's because i'm not an actor but the fact that he can make such a profound yet subtle distinction between "sam" and "demon who's pretending to be sam" feels extremely complex and difficult to pull off, and it's so impressive to me.

what's most striking about this portrayal of meg is how subdued she is while acting as sam. she never has any bombastic or dramatic reactions to things, she's calm and collected and very in control of herself. she seems to be rather incapable of showing extreme, human emotions, and this shows up in her sluggish and matter-of-fact responses. she's extremely committed to her bit and only breaks character when dean is for sure not looking (and only goes so far as a few eye-rolls), but she's not actually sam. they're different people with different emotional capacities and this is evident all throughout the episode. when sam finally regains control of his body at the end of the episode, the change is instantaneous: he's animated and jerky and wildly emotive again.

the other thing that strikes me is that while pretending to be sam, she's unfailingly obedient to dean. i think this reveals a lot about her character, particularly in how she sees sam. it's no secret by now that meg hates dean—even before she was exorcised she showed a heavy disdain for him in both scarecrow and shadow, even going so far as to suggest fratricide. she considers him overbearing and stifling, controlling and cruel, and meg watched sam trot back to that overbearing, stifling, controlling, cruel brother with his tail wagging happily. she sees sam as being suppressed by his brother, especially since the alternative (leaving dean and embracing his fate as boy king) would make sam stronger, larger, more powerful.

so she sees sam as weak, as someone with no will of his own, who's been so beaten down by his horrible older brother that he can't make his own decisions and live his own life. and this is how she portrays sam, following dean's orders, staying in the background, never being too forward.

this all changes drastically when she's confronting jo. she's much more animated and erratic, lacing her words with acid and acting much more physical and dominating. meg can be more of herself around jo because jo doesn't know sam as well and jo won't think to question her the way dean would. this soggy, pathetic, subdued, obedient little brother act is a performance for dean only, so it displays not only how meg sees sam, but how meg sees dean.

it's all such an elaborate ruse, and it reveals a lot about meg's character, and also how sam and dean look from an outsider's perspective—at least, an outsider who wants sam to hurry up and embrace his destiny already instead of letting himself be hold back by his brother. it's a really unique perspective on the story that's been unfolding, and it's performed with what i'd say is a rather high level of skill. seriously, it's amazing how jared pulls this off.

[dominos-pizza-squad]

"You're going to have to."

I don't usually write meta on account of doing my best to avoid Fandom Drama like the plague and even a hint of Star Wars meta is like a siren call to Drama but. I have Thoughts about this scene and now I'm going to share them and if you're here for anti-Mace Windu thoughts this is not the post for you my friend.

Every time I see meta or reference to this scene it's used as more 'proof' that Windu was totally the worst and we shouldn't feel at all bad about him being maimed and thrown to his death which sure is a take, and on the surface I can understand why. When you don't bother to look more into that scene it does come off as Windu being a rude bitch to a child whose dad died in front of him, which is pretty uncool.

But this is a meta post and I am here to look more into this scene. I want to start with the concept of forgiveness, because when I go, I go big. I feel like a lot of the antipathy toward this scene (and by extension toward Windu) come from the fact that again, on a surface-level reading, it looks like Windu is demanding Boba's forgiveness for Jango's death, when we all know that's not how that works. That is, in fact, a concept that to most of us is viscerally offensive- our knee-jerk reaction is something more along the lines of "screw you i resent you more now" than it is "well okay that seems reasonable". Because you can't just demand somebody's forgiveness and expect it to happen. All that is is another wrong against the person you've already wronged. It's pure conceitedness and self-interest.

It's also not what Windu was trying to say to Boba in that scene. Not even remotely, in my opinion, and I'll explain why.

Think about the way the Jedi teach, particularly the way they teach philosophical concepts- they don't simply tell their students what to think, they tell them something and then make them think about themselves. Jedi are always expected to look deeper into a lesson to see what they can get out of it, this is the way Windu's lived his whole life, of course this is the way he speaks to Boba even though Boba's not a Jedi.

It's not exactly a hot take to say that Mace Windu and Boba Fett have very different ways of approaching the world. This is important to remember, though, because it guides the way that Windu interacts with Boba in this scene. When Boba swears he's never going to forgive him, Windu looks him in the eye and says, "Well, you're going to have to." And when he says that he's not saying that as some kind of ultimatum, he's saying that as a statement of fact.

What Windu is really saying to Boba in this scene isn't "forgive me 'cuz i said so". What he's saying is "your father cannot come back, and you will have to find a way to live with that so it doesn't consume you". Because what was Boba saying when he said "I'll never forgive you"? It wasn't just "I hate you", it was "I hate you, and I hate you so much that I don't care who I destroy in the process of destroying you". Sure, he expresses regret for all of the actual human beings that died because of his actions, but he follows it up with an utter refusal to acknowledge that those actions were wrong. What he was saying was "I hate you, and I hate you so much that I don't care who I destroy in the process of destroying you, even if it's myself."

Boba has done some genuinely horrible things by this point. He's put other children's lives at risk. He's crashed a star destroyer and killed who knows how many people. Maybe he didn't shoot the injured clones himself when they went in and took their hostages, but they wouldn't have died there if it weren't for him. He is directly responsible for the death of a man whose only crime was walking through the wrong door at the wrong time. He has charged headfirst down a path of death and destruction that will spread misery everywhere he goes.

And now Windu- who has just lost all of these men, lost Ponds, nearly lost his own life to Boba's actions- is looking down at this twelve-year-old boy, and he doesn't want this for him. He so badly doesn't want this for him, but he cannot make Boba's choices. All he can do is try and tell him "this path you're on is not worth it".

Because that, in my opinion, is what he means when he says "You're going to have to." He's not saying that he's entitled to anything from Boba (because he might have killed Jango in self-defense, but his motives and intentions don't change the fact that his actions hurt Boba), he's saying that Boba has to let go of that hatred before it ruins his life.

Which is exactly what it does! What happens to Boba in the end? He continues alone down his path of hate and misery, until he gets eaten by a sarlacc and enslaved by Tuskens. He had so little, and he loses even that. And it's no one's fault but his own.

But.

But. Finally, so many years after he started down that path, he does what Windu said. Finally, he lets that anger go. Finally, he gets to become what he could have been if he hadn't let himself be consumed by his rage. And that's why I liked The Book of Boba Fett, despite its flaws, because we get to see that change. After forty-odd years of strife, Boba finally gets to be a man at peace. And that's exactly what I think Windu would have wanted.

[battlemaiden13]

Since HND part two have been going on for a little while now. I am curious on the HND skeletons relationship wise with reader as it's been a little while since it was last asked about. The latest update to this being at chapter 135. How do they feel about the MC romantically and such up to the most recent chapter 171?

HND Feelings chapter 172 since I just posted that one XD

Sans -His crush is still going strong but he also still has no idea what he should be doing about it. He’s not great when it comes to these sorts of feelings and they always leave him feeling sick with nerves. When you came back into the skeletons' lives he realized just how strong his feelings were and seeing Papyrus also be in love with you was killing him, that was until the two of them talked. He still feels horrible about ruining your date by confessing to his brother but he doesn’t want to push down his feelings for you anymore either. 

Papyrus -So his brother threw a bit of a wrench in the works and being apart from you for so long made him feel odd about just asking you out right away as more than a friend but he still plans to. He still needs to find the perfect moment though and he now wants to make sure he doesn’t hurt his brother's feelings in the process. It’s a very complicated thing but he is working up a plan. 

Red -So he doesn’t think you hate him anymore but he is still convinced that he's not good enough for you. He ended his casual thing with Casey over guilt and he couldn’t bang someone else knowing the love of his life is right there. He’d seriously do anything for you but has convinced himself that you would never like him as anything more than a friend. 

Edge -He actually feels much better about himself and feels ready to ask you out, if only he could find the words and a way to do it without dusting his brother by accident (From breaking Red’s heart accidentally). Seeing you again and you being so excited about him made him feel like all of his hard work payed off. He’s still unsure about whether or not he could actually protect you but he wants to be with you. You just make him feel safe and seen. 

Blue -He’s working on it. Honestly the Interview boosted his ego on this a lot. If people thought you were dating already perhaps that idea could begin to sprout in your head. He already knows you're attracted to him but he doesn’t want just attraction. He wants love. So he’s being patient and building that up first.

Orange -Has it bad. He gets so jealous over every interaction you have with the others it’s driving him insane but he feels like you wouldn’t date him if he asked. He feels as if he has been nothing but bad luck to you and that he always ruins or makes things worse. This of course won’t stop him from getting jealous when you flirt or mention being interested in someone else. Like Kal. He hates Kal for no other reason than he thinks you were going to sleep with him 

Berry -Still in love with you and very much working up the nerve to kiss you and propose a poly relationship where he can share you with his brother. He has been working a lot since you came back into the skeletons' lives so he’s missed seeing you but his feelings for you haven’t changed in the slightest. 

Syrup - If he hadn't of made that deal with his brother he would have asked you out the moment that you admitted that you loved him. He still can’t think straight whenever your around and knows he’s going to go back to making an absolute fool of himself if you spend time together. If it wasn’t for Charm telling him he’s an idiot and that he would scare you away he would be in full stalking mode. 

Axe -Still doesn’t remember your real name but he knows he likes you. He can’t say how much he likes he just knows it’s strong. He can’t remember the last time he felt so strongly about anyone. He wants to protect you and keep you safe. The others have noticed Axe will often ask about you even if he hasn’t seen you in weeks proving just how much you are on his ever slipping mind 

Crooks -He still has a crush on you and still doesn’t have a name for it. If asked he says that he likes you a lot and will gush about you but he believes this is just a strong admiration. He doesn’t understand why he feels bad hearing your hanging out with other people or why when you tell him he’s hot it’s the first time in a long time he actually believes you. Even if he can’t name his feelings as a crush he knows he wants to be around you as much as he can. 

Error -Is still trying his hardest not to fall in love with you. And he doesn’t. You're annoying and an earworm. His only saving grace really is that you were hardly around but now your back and he finds himself wanting to see you and also wanting to stay as far away from you at the same time. When he heard about your trip to the hospital it really got to him and now he keeps checking in on you which is just pissing him off. He’s probably going to be annoyed the next time he sees you purely because of the happy feeling that will spread through his chest when he does. 

Ink -He still is conflicted about you. He doesn’t feel a rush of love or anything for you but he is still very curious. Surely there is more to you than what you are showing him. More than anything he misses the version of you he knew. He was probably one of the only skeletons unaffected by your absence and sudden return into the skeletons' lives. 

Nightmare -Still in love with you and still is trying to not get involved. He doesn’t want you to get hurt, he couldn’t do that again. After checking in on you at the house and seeing your face again it’s all he could think about. He wants to spend more time with you but his scared. What if you aren’t what he thinks? What if you get hurt again? Or what if he loves you more than he did when you were his sacrifice? 

Dream -Still likes you and has no idea what to do about it. As such he's in a sort of waiting period where he won’t do anything, not even seek out your company but whenever you are around he gets all giddy and happiness floods over him. He has never actually acted on his own feelings before in the ways of love so he’s not even sure what his supposed to do. 

Killer -Fuck he missed you. He didn’t realize how much he missed you until he saw your face, until you snapped him out of spiral with a simple touch and how you had grounded him so easily. Killer also knows as much as you ground him you also make him insane. He wants to be near you but couldn’t bear the thought of you getting hurt. Whatever he chooses though doesn’t stop the fact that he is very much in love with you. 

Daydream -He thought he would be ok. He thought he could just be friends with you but after that kiss the memories of his wife flooded back. He is still madly in love with you but being near you hurts too. He knows he could get you to fall in love with him again but feels greedy for wanting that. He is going to avoid you as much as he can until he can get his thoughts straight. 

Mint -Still hates you purely based on the fact that you are a human although there is something itching at him. You don’t disgust him as much as some other humans in fact he finds himself being comfortably numb in your presents. He’s always numb but you seem to make him falter and he’s not sure how to act near you. 

Mango -He might have a small crush. He hardly knows it's there though he’s just happy to have another human friend. He’s so excited that you seem to want to talk to him more that he’s going to send you a million messages and then get embarrassed that he sent you that many. His crush will only get bigger the more the two of you talk and the nicer you are to him.  

Roulette -He is no longer concerned for your safety, well, he is to a point but he’s no longer concerned about you getting involved in his job. It's obvious you can take care of yourself but he still thinks you should avoid getting dragged into their family business as much as possible. His crush has grown the more he spends time with you and he’d be happy to date you but would actually feel more comfortable if you were dating some others as well. That way there's more people looking out for you and you wouldn’t be lonely when he’s away at work. 

Sniper -He’s completely and utterly embarrassed. He now knows he loves you, he wasn’t sure until he tried to apologize to you at dinner again and you shot him down but even though he knows you can take care of yourself now he still doesn’t want you to have to put yourself on the line and if you were dating he knows you’d have a strange obligation to do so. He’s trying to come to terms with the fact that the two of you won’t ever be together but it’s hard to get over someone you are madly in love with. 

Colt - Next time he sees you he is going to ask you out. The only thing that will stop him is if any of the others get in the way but he’s made up his mind. He was in love with you long before he knew it was you and ever since meeting you that love has only grown stronger ever since meeting the skulls. Seeing you in action just gave him the push he needed. He wants to be with you. 

Musket -You telling him off for saying he needs to be stronger for you really made him fall harder, which he didn’t think was possible. He likes that you told him how you felt about the gang and actually enjoyed being a part of it part time. He wants to ask you out too but is planning his moves very carefully. 

Carbine -Is still convinced himself that this is just a little crush and nothing more. You are literally the only being who can make him put his work down but that doesn’t mean you're special or anything. Of course if you asked him out he’d say yes but you have so many skeletons to choose from he is doubtful that you would even pick him. 

Rifle -Fuck he has it hard for you. He will still go out of his way to listen in to any conversation that might be about you and will full on fanboy about you when he has a moment. He snuck away from work to visit you in the city and even almost got a kiss. Now the two of you are planning a beach trip. Even if it won’t happen for a while he’s excited to spend time with you. He won’t ask you out though, convinced you’ll say no and just see him as a friend. 

Lust -He’s interested to say the least. He thinks you're very attractive and would like to do many things to you but there are moments when his attraction feels like more. He’s not reading too much into it though. Love doesn’t really exist after all and even if it did he would be far to horny for a single partner. He would very much like to kiss you. 

Charm -Is still very attracted to you physically. Personality wise he thinks your lovely and he can see why the others hold you in such a high regard. He would still love to explore that physical attraction but with Syrup being his best friend it feels wrong to ask so he’s content to stay on the sideline and help his friend make better decisions to win you over. 

Wine -So that kiss may have fucked him over. He wasn’t expecting it to be as good as it was nor turn him on as much to put you in your place. He wouldn’t call it love or anything though. Just an attraction that he would very much like to see more of. He’s more shocked at how fast you have gained his attention more than anything else. No one has been able to catch his eye as quickly or efficiently. That slap you gave him must have knocked out some brain cells. 

Coffee -He was in love the moment he laid eyes on you. He never really believed in love at first sight until then. Because of this he also had no idea how he was supposed to act around you. What is he supposed to do with his hands? He gets so embarrassed around you he just doesn’t know how to act. He’s never been in love like this before

Black -He’s so very annoyed that he likes you. Mainly because he hates you at the same time. He’s also very much still convinced you hate him. Sure you called him a friend but the two of you argue so much that there’s no way you actually like him as anything more than an annoyance, which is making him even madder about his feelings. After all you never actually said you didn’t hate him, you were clearly putting on some sort of act for the other monsters. 

Mutt -He liked you from the moment on the train. Now he’s just trying not to make a complete ass of himself. Him and Coffee often talk together about you as neither know what the fuck to do. Mutt may come across like he has a lot of experience in dating but he has very little. Either way he fell quickly for the human and now he’s stuck with these feelings. 

Vi -There might be something there but he hasn’t registered it yet. Sure he panicked when he saw you having a panic attack and his soul feels lighter when he sees he’s scheduled to work with you for the day but that’s purely just because your nice and nothing more. Probably. 

Money -He likes teasing you and thinks you're cute with how obvious your crush for him is. He doesn’t have feelings beyond friend for you though and is convinced he won’t develop any more as it’d be too much work with the amount of other skeletons trying to get with you. 

[anxiousdreamcore]

May I humbly asks for your interpretation/opinion/view of the Spider & Quaritch as well as the Spider & Sullies relationships/dynamics ?

Sure! I’ve complained about how my opinion of the characters changed throughout the year of being engaged in the fandom so I might as well share! 🤭

Spider: An audacious, frat-boy-ish teen who stinks of dirt, sweat and will eat a live bug to gross you out. Kiri said that he bites and she was 100% honest because this kid will fling his mask off and tear into your throat if you mess with his baby siblings 😤 at the same time, he’s more than capable of being responsible and gentle, especially when it comes to Pandora, its wildlife and cultures, all of which are clearly very important to him. A menace with a heart of gold and an iron fucking will, untameable. Unbreakable. No authority scares him.

Quaritch: A man so damaged he can’t be repaired. He’s seen too many horrors, killed too many people, watched too many comrades die, has been infected with too much poison. It runs in his veins and destroys everything he touches…which is precisely why he is only likeable as a father. He has never been one before and that part of him is completely new, not yet damaged. The only part of him not yet tainted by the rotten creature that is the rest of him. A mangy, old army dog that will burn Pandora to the ground if its chain is broken, but will lie down and wag its tail for his child, and only him.

Oh, and he’s mentally ill too, at least to some extent, canonically. It’s not to say that his mental illness makes him a bad guy. No. It’s the lack of care he puts into coping with it that contributes to the dumpster fire that is Miles Quaritch. My personal headcannon is that he needs mood-stabilisers yet regularly skips them.

Spider & Quaritch dynamic: Two outcasts who bond over being isolated by their respective groups. Also, Lima and Stockholm syndrome duo! Quaritch gets an instant liking to Spider that soon grows into fatherly love, as Spider brings out the best in him; his most pure, childish and kind traits. Does the rest of him, the rotten, the poisoned, hate it? Oh, absolutely. But he can’t, won’t stop the wild-child from worming his way deep into his decaying heart. Spider meanwhile battles his own platonic feelings and holds onto his resentment as much as he can. He wants to love Miles but he doesn’t. He loves him but he wishes him an agonising death. He wants to be hugged by him and sink a blade into his chest. He wants Miles to prove him that not all grown ups are rotten and he can still be loved. He wants Miles to love him.

Spider & Sully siblings dynamic: “A family disappointment and local cool stoner to his siblings, who are more than happy to take after him because they think his utter freedom and lack of care for authority is cool” kinda vibe. Will play fight with his siblings and bite their noses before kissing them better and shoving them away. Calls Tuk a little gremlin affectionately. Brings Lo’ak back down to Pandora when he spirals into his insecurities or gets too bold and self-sacrificial. Is platonic soulmates with Kiri and feels a profound connection to her, as she does to him. Resents Neteyam for abandoning their little group to become a "respectable warrior". Wants him back. Wishes things could be like when they were kids.

Spider & Neytiri dynamic: She she sees him as a pesky, dangerous demon child that…that didn’t do anything but stay loyal, through all the torture and horrors. A lot of guilt is present between them after the final battle, and they will definitely have a horrible, explosive argument about it sooner or later, but for now they are content at silently sharing space, at time quipping and taking light jabs at each other, because that is their cycle. Playfulness, fear, resentment, until it all explodes and they scream at each other, then the cycle repeats, fuelled by guilt. Is there a chance to stop it? Will they ever be okay?

Spider & Jake dynamic: Hero worship turned disappointment. Spider idolised him for his status and incredible feats as a child but as he grew, and Jake consistently kept him at an arms length without establishing clear boundaries, the constant pining to have him as a father became a never-ending, aching pain in Socorro’s chest. Jake gave him an empty hope that they might one day be a family, without ever clarifying that it’ll never be true, confusing the boy until he was proved not once, not twice, but thrice, that he isn’t needed, isn’t missed, or loved by Jake. He’s a stray animal, and that is all he’ll ever be to him. He knows better now than to wish for something that can never be…doesn’t even want to. Quaritch might be a horrific monster, but at least he genuinely loves him. He doesn’t need Jake’s pathetic scraps of affection anymore. He doesn’t need him anymore.

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