#but the club handwaves that away

[theerurishipper]

Hi~ Hope you have a lovely day. I want to get your opinions on my rant lol and ask.

Marinette is such a disappointment of a lead female character in a western magical girl cartoon. She isn't a good leader and all her team consist of yes men and women and sidekick Chat Noir where her real partner Alya is standing over to the side. I liked her in the first two season and maybe some in s3 but the s4 and onward just got to me ngl. It's her world and we're all just living in it. Miraculous is so weird when it comes to team dynamics because I get she's guardian but I really wished it were someone else and not her because she chooses people she already get along great with. It fun for team dynamics to add be different and broader.

The whole she's just 14 the fandom spouts only goes so far how many messes do you do until you realise you need to own up to them even at that age when you should know better on your conduct ?

I get it hard to communicate but onwards I always thought the bigger of the two in the conflict was her because of her secrecy and her controlling tendencies. I disliked it so much in the ephemeral episode and her betraying her partner disgusted me. Sorry to those who like or defend her character this much but I can't stan or like a character that does this much crap to a friend let alone a love interest and then gloss over or minimize it and not be called out for it. Like, are people standards that low they think she's a good leader or a good proper representation on feminism when this show reeks of misogyny and misandry. She's the ultimatum voice for Astruc.

A communication issue with her Chat was fine a long time ago but now in s5 she crossed it hell nah how do people still support a ship with her knowing she followed Hawkmoth command for Adrien. I literally can't anymore with this show. Every guy she likes gotta be so 100 percent in effort and like in the Shadybug special him always comforting her makes me so jaded whenever she cries what about a change in dynamics had we ever seen her comfort him in turn how are people invested in this ship? Like that time in the bench and she just thought of ways to woo or give presents instead of just comforting him is so sad to watch.

She really followed in Master Fu steps. The bar is in hell and she crossed it in the finale. There is no excuse no handwaving it away and i know in my heart they gonna minimize it for Adrien own good. Everything is for his own good huh? What good is it rooting for a ship that just reeks of pity points. Like, she was never my favorite but who knew 8 years ago she'd pull a stunt like this and people bending over and doing mental gymnastics to rationalise this insanity. She really is a good foil to Gabriel ironically to bad she has no sway in this family drama we call the Agreste.

I know she has good intentions and it's not wrong for her to wish to save her prince but like thats all that is intention. Her actions are also important and the effects she's done is so bad that if she weren't the Main character and we haven't spent the chunk of the majority in her pov alone she'd be disliked.

I feel like compared to other respective series Winx Club s1-3 Bloom, Danny Phantom, Ben 10, Totally Spies they have it much more harder and so many more all show the consequences of your actions and how you do them right and they're her age. I feel like whenever someone bring up consequences it's like people in this particular fandom think we do it to punish Marinette but no I just never ever saw it properly done in this show because she's very coddled in the narrative. I don't see other MC as coddled as her before in a show where when they MESS UP it's actually integral and important.

Rant over.

You encapsulated all my thoughts perfectly, anon. I've said so many times before that I loved Marinette from Season 1-3 and even during Season 4 as it aired. What made me fall out of love with her character post Season 4 was the utter lack of acknowledgement of her actions and the insistence in portraying her as in the right at all times. Like you said, it's not just your intentions that matter. Your actions and the effects that they have on the people around you also matter. The writers don't seem to understand this, and it hits Marinette's character worst of all. She had so much potential to be such a great character, which is why I feel so sad seeing just how badly the writing failed her. Marinette deserved better.

Thank you for your ask!

[centrally-unplanned]

(Spoilers ahead) So with the obvious caveat that the show has several more episodes to go so this all might still be addressed, I am gonna have to lay down some criticism on seasonal favourite Hibike Euphonium right now - this is my complains-about-things blog after all!

The show has an issue in that its Kumiko's story, and the story it is dealing with is that their chosen strategy of intensive auditions that swap members between performances is draining morale - plus her own defeat in said auditions is complicating her emotions and further draining morale as she is the well-liked president. Her friend and co-executive Reina is actively rejecting solutions, and the teacher Taki won't comment on the drama. So she has to solve it. Which she does with, essentially, a big heartfelt speech before their performance.

As a minor aside, right before their sectional performance? I thought the morale issues were affecting practice? Were they or weren't they? Too late to fix that now, right? Not a big deal but I did still want to note it - don't sacrifice realism for drama in a show as grounded as Hibike is.

On to the meat of the problem - Reina and Taki-sensei. Kumiko's big speech is essentially a mea culpa, being a "yeah I should have communicated my honest feelings right out the gate" deal. This choice and the presentation of it generally lines up with Reina being proven right in her stance - including explicit comments from Kumiko saying such.

The problem there is that Reina is totally wrong and also being a huge asshole about it:

You don't get to say this to your bff at the first sign of trouble and just walk away from it - you definitely don't get to do it when you are extremely obviously running interference for your teacher because you have the hots for him. At every turn Reina has made this problem worse - calling out students for casually gossiping on their own time, verbally chastising any dissent, at one point in this episode even contradicting Kumiko publicly in front of the club to argue with a student mid-rehearsal. Her idea of a solution is literally just "club members should shut their mouths and never dissent from Taki-sensei's vision", which since they are human beings and also not in love with him is not actually a workable plan. I would bet at least a third of the drama comes from the way Reina acts, which would make any student both sus of the behind-the-scenes dynamic and double down out of spite. She is a club leader and is failing at her job in a basic way.

And since Kumiko's speech "resolves" the problem, all of these failures are handwaved away; she doesn't really have to say anything, right? Her and Kumiko seem fine now. Her failure as a friend and her failure as a club leader is just sitting unaddressed. Maybe it will come up next episode, but that still doesn't make this "arc conclusion" satisfying.

Now lets move on to Taki-sensei. His "arc", as much as he can have one as a non-core member, is detailed with a lot more care. His thing is that he is just a dude, he doesn't have magic insight or anything, and even Kumiko is putting him on a bit of a pedestal. Throughout the season they have all these little hints about him being not nearly as mature as his role-as-teacher suggests, including his childish snacking habits:

Some have interpreted this as critical, but I don't personally - Taki tends to be explicit about his own fallibility, like when Kumiko asks if he is tailoring their music specifically to win the competition and he replies "idk if that is even a thing actually". And this latest episode definitely peaks at Asuka pointing out that Taki is probably not confident in his choice to deny Kumiko the solo - his confidence in it is faked for the purposes of club morale:

He knows its controversial, he knows morale is hit, and is powering through it.

That is all fine enough, but it also makes him a bad teacher. I won't harsh too much on the fact that he puts way too much in the hands of his student leaders, because its done to center the narrative on their arcs. But, for one, that falls apart when the crisis is explicitly one in Taki. Expecting a student to fix that is pretty asinine. And he definitely brings this on himself - he never explains his decision-making to the students, not even in a sanitized, authoritative way. He just expects them to deal with no guidance. When Kumiko's friend Kanade gets cut midway from a failed audition, she rationalizes the decision really well, explaining that the tuba section was weak and their numbers are capped, so they sacked someone from the already-strong euphonium section.

What a graceful, morale-saving explanation. Which Taki never gave! Kanade just inferred this. He doesn't have to explain every decision in detail of course, but some level of guidance as to why changes are being made would have gone a very long way.

Now you can say "his vibe is just to be standoffish, its his method", which imo is a dumb method but okay, I'll run with that. But if you do that and outsource all of the communication to your student leaders, then you can't also be standoffish with those student leaders. According to the text he knows about the drama; which means he knows Reina is a clusterfuck wannabee dictator and she and the vice president are having open shouting matches after rehearsal, and that Kumiko is spiraling through an indecision crisis. So meet with your damn leadership team and help them nail out a plan. And tell Reina to check her libido at the door or something. Either this above-it-all strategy is intentional, at which point you are botching its management, or it isn't, at which point you are botching being a teacher.

(And if the stakes of all this were small enough that he didn't need to bother having a meeting about it, then Reina is being a much bigger asshole and Kumiko is being a bit of a sob story weakling. I don't think that is the intended message)

I think some of this "harshing on Taki-sensi" I am seeing in the fandom is coming from noticing his failures as a teacher alongside the narrative hints about his arc. But I don't think based on this episode the narrative is going to acknowledge them. Its a "he's human" narrative, which is tonally quite different. I do expect some level of "change" in Reina at least, but it doesn't seem like a real apology is not going to be the offing. And I think it stems from the fact Kumiko is just being overly centered in a story where the conflict is not something she is driving. It has to be her problem to be her story, and this isn't quite enough to meet muster.

But I could be wrong! Lets find out I guess.

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 7 Minagoroshi pt. 12

I was going to ask the hypothetical of do you think there are any sci-fi mystery stories. But then I remembered that there's plenty of them out there, but for a second I just completely spaced and forgot they existed.

Shortly after the fistbump of manliness the TIPs that follows are the Child Consultation Center calling Oryou Sonozaki to see if the Sonozaki family is behind the visit of Keiichi and friends at the center, and whether the village has anything to do with them either. Oryou categorically denies this, because to paraphrase slightly: "Fuck Satoko Houjou."

Following this is another Teppei TIP where he's tearing apart the Houjou household trying to find the bankbook that Satoko's parents had left behind after they died. Having exhausted all of his options he assumes that the book is probably located in Satoshi's room. This being the one room Satoko actively fights Teppei when he tries to enter it.

I just had a terrible thought. Which parental figure is the worst: Teppei Houjou or Rosa Ushiromiya?

Anyway Satoko goes to school the next day and the rest of the gaming club see the state she's in and offers her the chance to stay with them for a day or two.

I find it kind of odd that no one bats an eye at Rika's comment about Satoko being her pet. And maybe I'm reading too much into this, but her earlier behavior and now this does make me question what exactly Rika's deal with Satoko is. She says she wants to be happy with all of her friends, but she seemed to fall into a deeper and deeper despair when she thought she lost Satoko. More so than the idea that Shion, for example, was about to commit murder.

Despite still being in the depths of her depression Rika seems slightly more recharged because of this showing that Rena remembers more of the alternate timelines. Also I hope you like the line about how one has to reach out to help shape a better future for everyone else, you'll get to hear it approximately ten thousand more times before the end of the arc.

Of course this all goes pear-shaped, during their temporary celebration the principal comes to see if Satoko indeed returned to school. This causes Satoko to undergo a massive panic attack, because she believes Teppei has come to drag her back home.

See, this is what I was referring to when I said the story acts like it didn't bring up the matter of how much of her medicine Satoko actually has. They're now acting like she hasn't had the shots within the past two days anyway. It's just an odd little plot point that was brought up and then summarily forgotten after the screen it was on passed. I guess maybe you could handwave it away that she hasn't had the shots because Teppei wouldn't let her leave her house so what she has is probably still in hers and Rika's house.

Since it's been established Satoko has this disease, theoretically across all of the timelines how come she was able to reel herself back in so quickly when she had this similar freakout in Tatarigoroshi? I just suddenly had like five separate questions about the way events pan out in Tatarigoroshi just pile up with some of the answers that we're told later on in this chapter. For an episode set in the Answer Arcs it sure doesn't do a very good job of explaining it all away. Well I guess that's what the eighth chapter is for I guess.

Don't read past this sentence if you don't want spoilers from near the end of this arc.

The questions are: why was Satoko able to recover herself so quickly after her panic attack. Why didn't she react violently towards Keiichi since she's presumably back around L5 of her Hinamizawa Syndrome? What was the spiritual entity she's encountered in the past that she thinks is possessing Keiichi (Hanyuu?)? Who either moved Teppei's corpse or how was he alive? Did Satoko survive the events of Operation Doomsday after she shoved Keiichi off the bridge? Was her seeing Teppei after Keiichi's murder of him actually Teppei or was this a hallucination brought on by her Hinamizawa Syndrome getting worse? Did Keiichi even kill Teppei for real, or since he theoretically snapped into action to kill Teppei did he actually kill some unfortunate unrelated individual? What exactly was going on with Rena and Mion when they wanted to take Keiichi "treasure hunting" when everything started going crazy on Keiichi?

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

When I was in college, I wasn't the quote unquote perfect activist. I am definitely not immune to making mistakes, especially in the heat of emotional moments. But...let's talk about my experiences for a moment.

-During my first semester of college I joined my university's local PRIDE club. I suggest that we do some sort of clothing drive, and have a place where anyone can give or take clothing. The intent of this was obvious and person: I came from family who either did not really understand my transness or actively disapproved of it and didn't have an income. I could not be the only one. We should be helpful in this way, to our trans brothers and sisters.

Sometime later, someone suggests changing the clothing drive into a clothing sale to fund their Drag Ball. PRIDE under that semester's leadership never does a clothing drive. My vision would not be completed until a couple of semesters later, working with my university's LGBT Center, and working loosely with PRIDE's new management.

-The one thing I failed to notice coming into PRIDE was that I couldn't find other trans women. That didn't bother me, and I was fairly popular early on. This was until someone else came out as a transgender woman. Initially I was happy to have another trans woman as a friend, but I very quickly began to notice the social effect. They were shorter, smaller, and more femme. Their social transition progressed much faster than mine, because they weren't poor. They regularly got many clothes from their friends in PRIDE, even as discussions occurred about a clothing drive. I got nothing. I was being outfemmed.

-I noticed the uplifting of drag performers and drag stars by many of my cis and nonbinary peers in the group. I often asked myself why this happened. For some of these people, drag was almost a lifestyle. The performance of hyper-femininity by someone who was AMAB in the context of a drag show was met with cheers, applause, fandom. Meanwhile, my displays of my own femininity were met with nothing. Those same people never complimented me.

-The president of PRIDE gave a presentation on the history of drag. They mentioned Ru Paul, but handwaved away their trans-misogynistic comments, saying they were unimportant.

-A considerable amount of time later, our LGBT Center did a wide survey of queer people on campus. Some responses by cis lesbians bemoaned a lack of lesbian support groups, and more importantly, that they didn't feel like they ever saw anyone that looked like them at the center. I object to this finding, because I myself am a lesbian, I am what they are looking for and am always at the center. I bring up the possibility that the comment may be transphobic. I am shot down. I was denying other people's feelings. I was a trans woman, not a lesbian.

-A dear friend of mine suggests doing a PRIDE event about learning how to do make-up. This is something I was in great support of, because I did not like the extent trans women were expected in a very short span of time to grasp all the complexities of the role of woman in today's society, when cis women get so much longer. What will not be included is tutorials of using make-up to cover facial hair follicles. They did not want to focus on tutorials about passing. I protest, in part because the darkness of my follicles is something I'm very self-conscious of, and that passing in itself is something that a lot of trans woman want. The make-up event never happens.

-A trans woman is talking about her transition experience. She is notably well off and has gotten a variety of surgeries. She explains this is ultimately the path that all trans women need to take, unless they end up looking like "fishy boys". This notably impacts my friend in a severe way.

-A series of hate crimes strikes campus rapidly. Someone spray-paints the "N" word on one of the school buildings, while conversion therapy pamphlets are deliberately left in classrooms teaching about LGBT subjects. Campus police do not care to investigate. PRIDE and BSU being to work collaboratively on a protest. The atmosphere is very good, there are a variety of different but very good conversations, and both groups work well on various tasks that were planned. The protest does not focus on what happened to LGBT students. Members of the LGBT Center and of PRIDE did not speak. We, who had been working hand and hand, were reduced to a footnote and a one-liner in a chant.

-While asking for more information about the investigation into both of these incidents, myself, the Title 9 administrator, and one of my coworkers, a black queer woman, are invited to a meeting with the VP of Student Affairs and the detective on the case. None of us were made aware of the presence of the chief of police nor of a third officer whose purpose was unknown. These investigations would never result in anything.

-In the issue of the school newspaper that reported on the hate crimes, included as well along side of it was a story about how conservatives felt like they were being silenced on campus.

-When I first went to college, I went to Housing to discuss the possibility of gender neutral housing, which they have on their website. I am told there is none, but they can make an accommodation by giving myself my own dorm room on the men's floor. I had been unable to transition before this point because of living with religious conservative family members. I am told that if I want to have a room on the women's floor, where I would have a more private showering area that was not a public shower with other men, that I would need the gender on my birth certificate changed.

Both of these were lies.

-I have a discussion with my mother about her continuing to deadname me, noting that I did not want to end up confusing my niece once she became old enough to remember my name. This does not change.

This is just, the experiences that I can recall while writing this post. It is not an exhaustive list. Discussing school administrations chronic underfunding of the LGBT Center and the resulting drama that caused over years would be an entirely new post. There's possibly even more stuff that I've simply just fucking forgotten over the years. It wasn't all bad. I met some truly incredible people and did some truly incredible things.

But there was bad. Some of it was general, but a lot of it was trans misogynistic, even if I don't think it was always intentional. A lot of these experiences changed me into the jaded bitch I am today on a lot of issues.

[fabiansociety]

yakuza 0 is one of the better plotted LAD games, but it's still making some weird choices. like, why does majima start off as the well-known manager of the Grand? particularly since the game then has him step away from that full time job to run a cabaret club in his spare time — why not just have him start the game off as the Sunshine manager, and have to work his way up from the bottom? That would let you tie the game progression in to the cabaret minigame, which would make investing in that game more rewarding, instead of a distraction from the main plot work of the game. RGG always seems leery of tying plot progression to minigame progression, which is fine and all, but you could still get around that by having him making *enough* of a profit with the smaller club after the same couple of obligatory intro missions that are in the actual game that the story can progress with some handwaving. *or* you could make the cabaret club minigame happen *at the Grand* so that you're always making progress that way. having it split the way they do is… odd. it feels wrong just because there are so many obvious ways to tie into into the main plot more cleanly. making the cabaret clubs part of the main plot would also let you spend another couple of chapters working on that, rather than running back and forth with makoto six times. Y0 has a bad case of narrative time wasting, and it all could have been fixed so easily. all the pieces were there, they just… didn't… use them?

[sergeantsporks]

I mean, you could make arguments for/explain away all of those (Insert character got away with having no identification when that really should've been a problem for them) situations.

Principal Bump allowed Luz to enroll at Hexside in-exchange for Eda doing that laundry list of tasks for him.

King seemed to dismissed as Eda's pet by most people, plus he was never really placed in a situation where a lack of identification presented a problem. (He was never enrolled in school/got a library card/etc.)

As for how he got his paws on those adoption papers... Eh, I'm sure Eda knows a guy who could forge that kind of stuff. King being her son, he would probably be aware of that kind of criminal contact. Hell, Lilith is a former government official! She probably knows a guy who would rubber stamp adoption papers, no questions asked. King could've asked her for help.

Eda's library card could stem from when she was a child.

Hunter not having any official documents despite being the Golden Guard can be handwaved away as Belos wanting to isolate him from the outside world/make it hard for him to leave him.

The GG get up is distinct enough to serve as an ID to Coven Scouts and other Coven officials, he only ran into problems once he was out of uniform. His Coven sigil was only dismissed as a fake because of his young age. Hell, later on, he is recognized out of uniform by layperson Coven Scouts and he was actually trying to be in disguise there.

During Hunter's "infiltration" of Hexside, he seemed to fly under the radar because it was some sort of club day. The only adult he encountered then was Willow’s old Abomination Magic teacher, who seemed preoccupied with besting Willow/Emerald Entrails, not wondering where one of their players (Who was seemingly from a Magic Track that he played no role in teaching) came from.

It just strikes me as a bit... odd that Belos wouldn't insist on there being official records for every citizen of the Boiling Isles. He's trying to kill everyone, surely it would be helpful to know who every person is IMHO.

And I have used similar arguments and explanations to explain away why Caleb and Evelyn have library cards, titan bless <3

There probably ARE birth certificates. I won't deny that it's SOMEWHAT tracked; it most likely is! But it's probably not failproof and I think, whatever it is BELOS wants, the actual citizenry of the Isles, who are the ones keeping the records and giving out library cards, may be more lax.

The Empire's only been there fifty years. People are alive that remember a time BEFORE the Empire, and they may or may not have identification themselves because they were born before the system was in place (so no birth certificate). If they hadn't gotten to registering somewhere or were comfortable/established where they were, registration might not have been forced because it would cause unrest (and is that really a battle you want to pick anyway? They might be DEAD by the time the DoU rolls around).

The system itself definitely still has bugs that need to be ironed out at this point; it's still a baby government. Between grandfathering people in and a general lack of total control all over the isles (Eda says they don't have much influence outside the cities), I'm willing to bet that while there may be some form of identification/population tracking, it's not super set in stone and you can get by without "proper" registration relatively easily because people will make allowances without much fuss.

[atopvisenyashill]

Dead dudes club Anon: I meant that Tywin, Rickard and Hoster dies when their kids are still young leaving their wives as regents for their sons. Like let's say Tywin who doesn't lose his wife but is so worked up that he has a dwarf son that he ends up falling down the stairs and breaks his neck. Hoster could die in a hunting accident sometime after Edmure is born and Rickard ends up with some sort of illness after he and Lyarra have Benjen.

i would like to apologize in advance for my incessant use of em dashes in this post lol. okay even with some adjustments, you run into an issue here where-

steffon, aerys, tywin, rickard, AND hoster all die within a few years of each other, and that’s going to cause a mass conspiracy. i mean JUST jon arryn dying was enough to make the twins suspicious maybe he was onto them & that man was old as balls. nearly every lord paramount dying within a few years is soooo weird. “well doesn’t this essentially happen in canon” yeah because of the political unrest happening tho lol there’s a Reason for it.

there’s no way for steffon to die in the shipwreck and cassana to be regent because robert is already 16 at that point - remember he’s a few years older than the twins! and you can’t have cassana be regent without butterflying away renly bc he’s born 277 and they die in early 279.

also hey 🤧🤧 i did the math just right there on tywin!!! the defiance of duskendale happens in 277, so the twins were only 10-11, which means joanna is regent for a few years still.

we could easily kill rickard off in a wildling excursion but brandon is 20 when he dies in canon which means he’s been lord of winterfell for four-ish years so no matter what, lyarra isn’t the one calling the shots by the time ~the plot~ really starts. i figured it might work better if lyarra is at winterfell when rickard & brandon die bc even tho everything falls to ned next, having a grown adult as The Stark In Winterfell while ned is in the wind/in the vale is interesting - unlike benjen, Lyarra can lead troops into battle. If she had been regent, it’s likely Lyarra is at Riverrun with the Tully kids and Minisa for the wedding though, which could also be interesting and i suppose also gives her more of a chance to actually LEAD because we know it takes a minute for northerners to get past the neck - as robb says, they even wind up starting the war without half their force bc a bunch of the mountain clans couldn’t get there in time. but if lyarra is there for the wedding, that puts her in a position to lead. especially without aerys there to call the parents to court - i don’t think rhaella is going to pull a stunt like that.

i think hoster or rickard is the easiest to handwave murder off - hoster is always up to some shit and both the wildlings and skaagosi have historically picked fights with the north from time to time.

and regardless of alla that, rhaella is likely to seize the regency with tywin’s help anyway - tywin has already made a name for himself, is aerys’ friend, and tyrion won’t be born until 273, which is eleven years after jaehaerys ii dies.

most of my answer still stands here - rhaella is taking the throne with tywin by her side, and you can bet in the years between cersei’s birth & his death, he’s going to be pushing rhaegar/cersei as a match, something that will be in rhaegar & rhaella minds after he dies; either minisa or cassana are likely to be the architects of the southron ambitions plot alongside jon arryn, and that alliance is still going to cause problems for the crown when rhaegar loses his mind, because the moment brandon doesn’t get a straight answer about where lyanna is, Lyarra is probably going to use the northern host to start sacking cities and searching for her daughter (since she hasn’t been brought to the capital to burn by rhaella).

the biggest change here is probably the twincest. we know joanna knows about it early on BUT. tyrion’s birth is likely going to put her out of commission for a minute or two. he’s born in 273 so if we say she’s healthy enough to start moving around by 275 (which. omg these two idiots were really out here feeling each other up at the age of like 6 ajsjs 😭), i imagine she broaches the question of jaime’s marriage at this point, which is probably also when rhaella starts asking around for suggestions for rhaegar. if tywin dies after tyrion, i can’t see her fostering jaime out because he’s lord now and she’s the regent. if she catches them together again, it’s probably cersei she sends away - maybe to lannisport, maybe to the capital (with herself, and kevan stays at the rock to train jaime). even if we have tywin die at duskendale, at that point the twins are 11, and it probably amounts to the same - cersei is sent away while jaime stays home. once he’s closer to 16, she’s going to start talking about jaime marrying elia, and cersei Will attempt to sabotage this.

the canon event goes: jaime helps defeat the smiling knight -> jaime stops at KL to see cersei -> cersei tells him about the lysa betrothal & jaime joins the kingsguard. this tracks even with tywin dead - again, likely (imo) joanna and cersei go back to the capital once she’s healed, and there will be still be an opening on the kingsguard. cersei has also spent several years with rhaegar at this point - he would have married around 176ish, so Maybe they’re married to each other or maybe she’s a lady to his wife - and rhaegar no longer has to listen to rhaella. if cersei is like “heyyyyyy rhaegar, babyyyyyy” WELL….especially if CERSEI is married to rhaegar. but even married to someone else, i mean, the first step to making sure they’re together forever is to make sure HE can’t marry lol. it MIGHT not happen - jaime has spent the last several years not as heir but as LORD and he might take giving it up a bit more seriously But he might not! if this plan is foiled, you can bet joanna is not only asking loreza if elia and jaime can marry RIGHT NOW (IF rhaegar’s bride isn’t elia), she’s also going to do something drastic re: cersei. and like idk man what do you do if your kids won’t stop fucking? send cersei to be a septa? to the silent sisters? she might, if cersei isn’t married yet, get cersei married quickly and far away from jaime but if cersei marries rhaegar, well……she’s not foiling this plot, it’s happening for sure. so basically either cersei marries rhaegar & jaime is on the kingsguard OR cersei is lady to his wife, which Might still let her plan happen.

[mielcite]

i have alot of thoughts and feeling about that last post bc it has touched my life personally and like not that that matters, not that it was necessary for me to care, at the same time * handwaves* you know? anyway i want to talk about it its under a readmore bc it kinda got out of control..

But i was a part of a community service club at school, and our whole thing was like going out into the community and figuring out what people, organizations needed and then developing and building those things for them. Usually charging for materials or if ASI covered it then doing it for free.

Last semester two members became fellows of an organization Tikkum Olam Makers (TOM), and our main project that semester was making these little mobility trainers for disabled kids and giving them to a local childrens hospital. I helped out as much as I could but honestly besides the two members no one else really had any direct contact with the org.

...Until this semester they announced the club would be joining a competition sponsored by TOM and if we could all sign up please so they could get more money? And I did and once the emails started coming in...noticed this was an org based in Tel Aviv. And my heart sank and I couldn't reconcile taking money from these people even if it was to help others and so I emailed them asking to be dropped from the competition.

Next meeting I show up hoping for another project that ISN'T related to TOM but it seems like the club has gone all in, with prev. mentioned members talking about internships that TOM offers (in israel of course) but how they weren't going to apply "because of the war" and how their mentor had been drafted into the iof and i wish i could say i did something but I just quietly left..and dropped the club and I don't talk to these people anymore.

because like..how can an organization based in a settler state claim to be for the children...helping disabled children when people WITHIN the organization are disabling and killing children, people only a couple miles away? how can they pick and choose which children to help and which to hurt? i dont know how to end this i agonized over it for a long time...

[greatbigbellies]

oooh for specific kinks I have a couple I'd be totally embarrassed to admit to. First and foremost is cmpreg, especially when it's accidental/unique and there's no scientific or magical explaination- it just happens. Like a couple experimenting in a mmf threesome, or a bicurious guy is seduced at a gay club and the boyfriend/guy inexplicably falls pregnant. Another that's tied to it is very active, very long pregnancies. Constant (and noisy) movement of an ever growing baby months or years after the projected due date, trying to pass a pregnant belly off as simple weight gain until visible movement ripples through the taut surface of an impossibly pregnant belly, or waiting in line or on the bus and embarrasingly unable to stop or control the loud sloshes and gurgles caused by squirming active young.

No need to be embarrassed here! I write fictional menus for magical science foods that knock you up for some reason! We're here to be weird.

Yeah cmpreg is one of those things that can get like... tooo bogged down in explanation to where it stops being hot. Some authors don't trust my suspension of disbelief and I'm sitting here like "I'm reading softcore pregnancy smut about a dudebro getting absolutely massive with kids I think I can handle if you handwave away the science-y stuff".

Anyway, sidetracked, YES cmpreg is fun. So are strong, audible movements. Like, I'm with you I really like those. When someone is so pregnant you can hear the amniotic fluid churning and lapping inside their womb, uuugh. And then the babies are so strong and active that they can be heard moving as well. pregnancy-based embarrassment is fun, at least in lighter doses for me!

[touchmycoat]

Temptation Tuesday oh I love it: a list of the ideas distracting you from your current WIP (tagged by @authenticaussie)

fic ideas pouring out my brain (all Only Friends TTT):

sequel to everyone bleeds, Sand catches Ray & Boeing at the hotel and has a Fucking Moment. Ray gets to see Sand's insecurities up close and personal.

Ep 12 fix-it where BostonNickBoeing bang at the club, Nick goes with Boston to the nye party, and Sand apologizes to Boston in front of the whole friend group about stealing the recording. This disrupts the "Boston needs to apologize to everyone" flow and Cheum gets competitive apologizes too for the Atom thing. BostonRay bff agenda, and as everyone gets progressively more drunk Mew also comes around. Ray and Mew catch Boston & Cheum up on the whole Boeing situation and Boston demands to see a pic. Nick is horrified he sucked Sand's ex's dick 'cause that's not Bro Code.

OF x Not Me crossover where once upon a time, Sand helps a random street artist escape pursuit by cops and as luck would have it, Dan's one of the arresting officers at the Halloween party. Problem is, Dan's more interested in shutting Sand up than taking Top's money so he finds an excuse to take Sand away (a la Dan just kidnapping Yok out of school & taking him to an abandoned building). This is where all my dark fantasies can go but point is, no good deed goes unpunished for Sand yet again and Ray has to contend with the fact that Sand's bearing the consequences for his recklessness.

Another Not Me crossover but it's just a Sand/Ray/Yok threesome, 'cause Sand trusts Yok and Ray deserves to be the filling in a First sandwich

OF x The Shipper crossover where Kim's working in heaven as *handwave* a junior in the Grace department (in exchange he gets to watch his loved ones grow old and move on, at least for a little bit, until he feels like he's got closure). He develops a little program based on A Christmas Carol and yoinks Ray to purgatory to show Ray past, present, and future: Sand's past with Boeing to explain why Sand reacted the way he did when Boeing came back into the picture; the present, some of the little things Sand does because of Ray that Ray doesn't know about; a vision of the future where eventually Ray's inability to exercise patience & self-destructive tendencies results in him really hurting Sand again. Ray gets frustrated at this point at Kim putting all this blame on him. Kim reveals that Sand's been his client this whole time, not Ray; it's Sand who needs a bit of grace. Ray's even more panicked at the prospect of failing Sand so he asks why Kim didn't just tell Sand all this instead of him. Cue Kim monologue about how he just wanted to prove something, how he'd immediately seen Sand was the type to stupidly carry the whole world on his shoulders and how he just wondered if someone Sand loved would be willing to share the burden.

Don't know if this would be a part of ^ fic or a separate relapse fic but Ray & Kim having a conversation about suicidal thoughts. Something about how Ray imagined his death would bring people relief vs. Kim imagining his death would bring about regret, very vindictive how does it feel to lose everything I do for you huh? vibes. And ultimately how both their thoughts stem out of the same desire: I wish I could stop. Ray wants to stop fucking up and disappointing his loved ones. Kim wanted to stop taking everything onto himself and resenting the world for it.

I don't fucking know I just have so much unresolved grief about Kim I want to rotate him

Tagging YOU who sees this (so I can scramble to a work meeting nsklfasjdbfksd)

[nanda-corey-wa]

vampire_story.txt

A test to see if I'm good at this still. My friends say I am so here it is, enemies.

After many long nights, it was finally a calm day at HQ - Church, and the instructors were sharing tales of their early days with the newer hunters. "No no, I can't lie to you, my first solo hunt was pristine. Absolutely by-the-book execution..." Caius paused, and smirked "But, I can't lie to you… It was undeniably because my target was stupid! I got lucky!" He finished, laughing into his cup.

But a fascinated, inebriated trainee hunter beckoned "Aw come on, at least give some details"

Caius handwaved "It's nothing dramatic, really." He looked back to the trainee, now nodding. Then to the rest of the room, looking to him, interested, if hazy-eyed. "ahhh, alright. Look"

It was a cold, dark, and wet Autumn night, and I'd been tasked to sniff out any blood-drinking bastards downtown; it was a different place back then, even only thirty years ago.

I'd just gotten the go-ahead from my mentor to go on my first solo hunt. My mentor was a brutally efficient hunter who I only ever knew as Professor. I had be observing him for a year by then and hunting with him for four months, and it took all of my best work and focus to finally get his approval, and reccommend me to the HQ. Even if in private he was quite amicable and supportive, he was an absolute hardass when it came to talking with me or about me in the presence of any HQ council members or even just other hunters. But I had just earned his approval, so I was sent to one of the most vampire-infested districts to hunt.

I took the rooftops the night before, and placed my kit at an accesible central point, easy to run and pick up if I happened up on a trail worth following. My set-up done, I then rented a room in the area and rested until the late-afternoon of the following day.

Back then, in the daylight, downtown was a horrendous place, especially at that time of year; dull, cold, and the smell was something that had to be experienced to be believed, though I pray you never have to. However, at night, all the terrible traits were washed away by a sea of people that flooded in from the industrial and commercial districts, into this technically residential district. But a residential that was so packed with bars, pubs, and clubs big and small, that the only people that lived there owned businesses, and that anyone else that didn't had moved away.

In the night, then, the dullness was gone and all its walls were flooded with lights and life. In the night, the cold was kept at bay by all that life's warmth, the dancing and shouting and fun bring a kind of heat that the sun struggles to even in summer. And, in the night, the pungent odours of sewage and rot are overpowered by all the perfumes of the women and hopeful men and all the food cooked up, for which they were drunkenly over-charged.

All that life. A prime target for parasites.

And all that I just described, all that light and joy and drunkeness, a perfect way to stay in hidden among the masses.

My first target though? He didn't take advantage of any of that, he was sloppy. Openly bragging to any open ear that he was 400 years old, that he could enslave a girl with a stare. All the kind of thing that makes you think "hey, maybe there's something weird going on here…" But to all these drunks, he was just a guy. Another weird, bombastic guy that was fun to be around, and so he earned quite a crowd. But, all that bragging, it could easily just be him hearing of what vampires could do, and deciding to pretend he was one to get attention. So I didn't go in for the kill right away, but I did go and kit up. Standard silver-edged sabre, flicker fuel and matches, and a just-in-case poison vial.

Equipped, I returned to the roof of the bar he was revelling in, and I waited. Stalking him, he'd relax in a booth and I'd watch through the skylight, he'd move to the bar and I'd move to an adjacent rooftop to get an angle on him; this game of watching, waiting, and hopping across rooftops continued for hours. Until, eventually his purse ran out, and so had the bar's patience for this drunken braggard. So now began my real hunt, stalking him across downtown until he slips up and shows some sign of vampiric abi- Wait- No- Less than three minutes and 100 metres from the door of the bar, just barely in the shadow of an alley, he pulls the girl that was most entralled into the dark and pushes her against a wall, and begins to bleed her dry, and in her drunken stupor, she doesn't even know what's happening. At least she didn't die painfully, fortunately, he will.

When he was done feeding, I tailed him from above until he started to leave downtown and the sound of partying faded away. When I was certain we were alone, I drew my sabre slow and silent and left my excess kit and scabbard on the roof, then took a drainpipe down to street level, I walked quickly to close the gap without drawing attention until I was right behind him. I was truly amazed he was this oblivious.

Lifting my sabre level to his neck, I thrust forward, splitting between his vertebrae,and piercing straight through his throat. A quick twist to align my muscles with the blade, and I whipped it out to the right, his head now attached by less than an inch of flesh. And he was still standing, definitely a vampire, though even if he wasn't, I'd still kill him for killing a defenceless woman so brutally. He was alive, but the damage and pain, in conjunction with the alcohol, he was stunned, unable to react. All I had to do was walk behind him and kick him to the ground and cut off his head properly. One more clean swing and he was dead.

Protocol though, to prevent potential healing, I sprinkled the flicker fuel on his neck stump and lit it, and the rest of his body caught fire soon after. While he reduced to ash, I spiked his head on my sabre and climbed back up to my kit, bagged the head, and cleaned up before returning to HQ - Lakeside.

"So, yeah, like I told you. A very protocol, very textbook tale of killing the dumbest damned parasite I've ever seen." Caius bellowed. "and you all know the rest of it, the tests, the accolades, and the prestige."

"Alright. What about your second solo mission?" Came a low, heavy voice from across the table. Kinick. "You told me about that one a long time ago. And you've kept it secret from everyone else. How did that one go down?"

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 4 Himatsubushi pt. 1

One last chapter to set up the mysteries before it all gets explained perfectly away in Chapter 5: Meakashi. The other five or so chapters and games are just going to open up a text document that just says Pranked LOL. Incidentally, did you know there was one more Higurashi related game released in late 2023? And that as of this writing it's not available on GOG, and only on Steam? Why yes I did consider rebuying the entire franchise on Steam just because it annoys me that I can't have all of one series on one platform.

You know, come to think of it, outside of it coming up right near the end of the first chapter, and the second half of the second, the characters don't seem particularly bothered about solving the mystery. But I figure that could be handwaved away because Rena and Mion know who's behind it in the first chapter, and in the third Keiichi is more obsessed with killing Teppei than trying to come to understand his new curse killing powers.

"He just didn't have anything to do after everyone in Hinamizawa died." Also hey, good for him defying the official death report and not actually dying two years ago. Also also, his given name being Kuraudo amuses me, because I'm pretty sure that's close to the romanization of the pronunciation of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII's name.

I like the idea fact we're not in Hinamizawa 1983 again. It's only been going about five minutes and I'm on board.

For readability sake I want you to know you go to "it was a year that had been strangely hot even though it was only June..." The Early Summer, title card, then back to the dialogue.

Just like with Tatarigoroshi we're starting off quick, with a kidnapping. Hope they meet a better fate than the inciting element of Tatarigoroshi.

You know, I'm gonna tempt fate here. Since our narrator this time is a police officer working a kidnapping case I would like to think this won't get slowed down with the usual gaming club antics, and it'll keep a pretty brisk pace. "Akasaka, let's play mahjong!" Me: "noooooooo..."

Our guy Mamoru Akasaka here (I just know at some point I'll make a crack about him actual being an Arasaka, and make a lame Cyberpunk joke) is one of a bunch of Tokyo Metropolitan police officers who is investigating the kidnapping of the Minister of Construction's grandson. They're keeping it quiet because of the notion that if the general public knows a government officials relative got kidnapped it could ruin their career. Also to keep in mind the idea that the kidnapping could be a communist plot.

Honestly, up until this line I forgot this was set in the midst of the Cold War. Given that the rest of the series had been set in a small rural town in Japan it makes sense, but suddenly seeing the Chief there go on about the Commies was a bit of a shock.

Mamoru, since he's a rookie agent I'd assume, is being shunted off to go investigate the Hinamizawa Dam protests. A no doubt small occurrence that won't be involved with the kidnapping at all.

I'm sure this is all just going to be a wild goose chase.

Since this has gone back in time to 1978 this means there's a pretty good chance we'll get to see the first of the Watanagashi murders. Well... "first" you know what I mean, the dam foreman who gets killed and chopped into bits. I wonder if we'll get to see young hooligan Mion? That would be neat seeing a wildly different, more aggressive/violent Mion. Given the time I know it's pretty unlikely a young baby Keiichi or Rena will be there, but young punk Mion is a definite possibility.

[in-tua-deep]

I have seen some fics of Five going to high school (and often falling in love with a 13 y/o oc girl which icks me tf out bc that’s an old man, guys) to socialize which gave me the idea of Five befriending old people who are also physically old. For example, Hannah, the German lady in her 80s who poisoned nazis when she was a child. Then there’s Joan who spent his life fighting to achieve his goals despite having to deal with near-constant racism. Just. Five getting along with all these old ppl

you’re RIGHT and consider: Klaus decides it’s a good idea to take Five along to his weekly ladies over fifty stitch ‘n bitch and is surprised and delighted to find that Five actually genuinely gets along with all of them

there is, of course, Hannah who poisoned Nazis and her and five trade poisoning methods the way other people might trade coveted family recipes. Hannah declares Five to be a “nice young man” and the fact that she is in her 80s or 90s means that she is absolutely allowed to get away with it

Fiona is a 60something butch lesbian who proudly displays her mugshots along the walls of her house for everyone to gaze upon in awe when it’s her turn to host. Her wife, Mandy, always makes snickerdoodle cookies and fondly talks about the time her and “Fee” got arrested because Fee kicked a cop in the balls or something. 

Doris was an army nurse during her youth and can curse well enough to make a sailor blush and has the bawdiest sense of humor to match. She spends most of her time knitting baby socks and hats to donate and volunteers at a community center where she sneaks food to any hungry teens who have all adopted her as their odd aunt.

Nada immigrated in her teens with her parents and has had to deal with Islamophobia her entire life. She wears a khimār that she knitted herself and laughs when Five genuinely offers to kill any assholes who harass her. Instead, she starts teaching him Arabic since her own grandchildren unfortunately do not speak it

Edith was trans before anybody even knew what that meant and she teaches Five patterns for interesting dresses and fancy sweaters since Five expresses some interest in diversifying his wardrobe (Five personally stands by the fact that skirts and dresses are the best because!! if you lift up front you have INSTANT POCKET/BAG which was very useful in the apocalypse!! of course now his family protest about him flashing underwear or whatever. Edith just introduces him to wearing leggings under and calls it a day)

Kathy killed her first husband and everyone knows it even if she was never convicted. She spends her days volunteering at centers for domestic violence and working with abused women and children. She tells Klaus and Five quite plainly that if Reginald were still alive she would kill him, and they laugh but they absolutely believe her. Five sincerely tells her he would kill her husband if he were still alive as well, and Kathy grins and winks and says she beat him to that one

and all the others. Sally who worked customer service her whole life and lived to tell the tale. Ruby who was widowed young and raised four kids by herself. Alice who is deaf and signs slowly because her parents thought she needed speech therapy to appear normal more than she needed an actual way to communicate. Becca was a teen during the civil rights movement and witnessed schools being desegregated, and is quick to remind everyone that it wasn’t as long ago as they think - she remembers the white kids jeering and the protests like it was yesterday. Susan’s husband died in the Vietnam war and she is very quiet when she finds out that he was in Klaus’s unit. 

A rotating cast of women with vibrant and brilliant and unique lives who parade through. Some are fixtures, some come when they’re able which isn’t often, some only pop in on the rare occasion when the planets align.

“Go get the salsa dip, Five.” Kathy orders.

“Why do I always have to fetch everything.” Five complains, even as he stands up.

“Because you can teleport.” Kathy says with a shrug, “If I could teleport then it would be me going to get the salsa, wouldn’t it?”

Five goes and gets the damn salsa.

One time a new woman is very confused and asks about Klaus and Five’s presence at the Women’s 50 and over knitting club (“It’s the stitch ‘n bitch,” Klaus mutters under his breath and is ignored) and everyone just kind of shrugs. 

“Women and nonbinary old person support and knitting group?” Edith suggests but everyone agrees that that’s a bit of a mouthful.

“But they’re too young?” The new woman asks again, helplessly.

“Actually Klaus fought with my husband in the Vietnam war.” Susan interjects cheerfully before Klaus can start his theatrics, passing the oatmeal raisin cookies to Hannah who is cackling delightedly, “And Five assassinated President Kennedy, I think.”

“Allegedly assassinated President Kennedy.” Five corrects with a flourish of his knitting needles as Kathy nods in approval. 

“Oh.” The new woman says, faintly. “Oh, I think I need to sit down.”

“Don’t worry, dear.” Sally comforts, “It’s only that family which doesn’t make sense. You can probably count on the rest of the world to be at least a little bit sensible.”

“I find it offensive that no one here thinks I’m not too young to be here.” Becca interjects and that sets everyone off laughing and falling over themselves to assure her that she’s as pretty as a picture and fresh as a daisy

i’m having a lot of fun with this as you might be able to tell. Just. Five and Klaus joining in old people things because Five IS old and Klaus fought in the vietnam war so you bet your ass he is demanding the senior citizen discount at restaurants

i feel like Agnes should join the group after her romantic tour of bird sanctuaries with Hazel. Hazel himself is not sure how to feel about Klaus and Five being in the same knitting club as his girlfriend but Agnes is clearly having fun and she makes homemade doughnuts for meetings which means the club isn’t letting go of her voluntarily anyway

AND THEN YEAH i always loved the concept of Klaus meeting up with some of the guys from his old unit and all of them just being kind of like “ah klaus you fucker i never actually took you seriously about the time travel shit i just thought you were on some serious drugs” and immediately just adopt klaus back into the fold

and i mean five is also a soldier in a low of ways so i feel like he would also really fit in with their gallows humor and serious knowledge of weapons. Of course, both Klaus and Five also look young enough to be their grandchildren so they also highkey just straight up adopt them and are fully willing to loom ominously at anyone who bothers them

the hargreeves go to pride and Klaus is like “oh I’m meeting up with some friends as well :)” and the others assume they’re like. party friends he made or ex boyfriends or something and then this big gang of old war vets materialize from the crowd decked out in rainbows bc they do this every year - originally in honor of Klaus and Dave but now klaus is again so Time To Party B)

Five “volunteers” in a nursing home and all the staff think he’s adorable and precocious but actually he complains about technology and reminisces about the great depression and beats the occupants at checkers as he and his opponent trade stories about which joint and bones they can feel storms coming in

just AGE APPROPRIATE FRIENDS

[mielcite]

i have alot of thoughts and feeling about that last post bc it has touched my life personally and like not that that matters, not that it was necessary for me to care, at the same time * handwaves* you know? anyway i want to talk about it its under a readmore bc it kinda got out of control..

But i was a part of a community service club at school, and our whole thing was like going out into the community and figuring out what people, organizations needed and then developing and building those things for them. Usually charging for materials or if ASI covered it then doing it for free.

Last semester two members became fellows of an organization Tikkum Olam Makers (TOM), and our main project that semester was making these little mobility trainers for disabled kids and giving them to a local childrens hospital. I helped out as much as I could but honestly besides the two members no one else really had any direct contact with the org.

...Until this semester they announced the club would be joining a competition sponsored by TOM and if we could all sign up please so they could get more money? And I did and once the emails started coming in...noticed this was an org based in Tel Aviv. And my heart sank and I couldn't reconcile taking money from these people even if it was to help others and so I emailed them asking to be dropped from the competition.

Next meeting I show up hoping for another project that ISN'T related to TOM but it seems like the club has gone all in, with prev. mentioned members talking about internships that TOM offers (in israel of course) but how they weren't going to apply "because of the war" and how their mentor had been drafted into the iof and i wish i could say i did something but I just quietly left..and dropped the club and I don't talk to these people anymore.

because like..how can an organization based in a settler state claim to be for the children...helping disabled children when people WITHIN the organization are disabling and killing children, people only a couple miles away? how can they pick and choose which children to help and which to hurt? i dont know how to end this i agonized over it for a long time...

[tuiyla]

Accidental Bartie analysis because why not

So now that I rewatched all of season 2 one of the things I’ve gained a new perspective on is the Bartie relationship. I think they’re fine as a couple, just fine, and even cute at times but there was always this thing that made me think they were much better off as friends. And yes, part of that thing is admittedly my Brittana bias, that’s fair. But even beyond that what I realized during this rewatch and especially in Rumours and Prom Queen as we bury romantic Bartie, is that I think Artie has always loved the idea of Brittany.

Artie is the uncool guy at school, not just because of his wheelchair but his general nerd status and, I’d argue, because of the way he sees himself as thoroughly uncool. He, like the other original Glee Clubbers is a misfit who finds belonging with the other misfits. And after his first relationship with Tina falls apart - because she leaves him for cool guy Mike, no less - Artie begins season 2 bitter over the breakup and wanting bigger and better things but not knowing how to get them. And then Brittany enters the picture, completely unrelated to anything Artie has done before. And sure they’ve been in Glee Club together for a year but with Artie more than most there’s a sense that him and the Unholy Trinity are still two wildly different worlds and it’s safe to assume he’s yet to spend some quality time with the Cheerios at this point. So when Brittany shows sudden interest in him, he can’t even believe it at first. Before he knows it they go from zero to sex real fast, which is a casual thing to Brittany but a big deal for Artie. Huuge deal. Cheerleaders have barely acknowledged his existence before and now he’s in Brittany room, having sex with her?

It doesn’t take long for Santana to push him down from that particular high and it hurts. Of course it hurts Artie because he felt special and to find out he isn’t, not to Brittany, it just sucks. But he can’t help being hung up on her because the meaning to him still remains. But even here, do you see that it isn’t really Brittany he’s after? By Never Been Kissed Artie talks about her as if he’s in love and desperately wants to have something with her for real but it’s that high he chases. The high of being the special one for once, and not in the way he ususally is where he has special needs and has to raise extra funds for a bus that could take him to Sectionals. No, this time a girl made him feel special and not just any girl, but one of the most popular Cheerios who’s beautiful and funny and chose him, even if his illusions of that being a unique encounter were shattered. But Artie still feels like what they’ve started is special so of course he takes Puck up on his offer to help him get Brittany for real.

And it is real, for a while. My goal with all of this isn’t to dismiss Bartie as a couple completely or to say any and all feelings Artie might have had for Brittany are invalid just because he liked the idea of her more than the actual person. Why would I say that, anyway? Sure, at first he might have been overwhelmed by the notion of her being this hot and popular Cheerio and failed to realize Britt’s perspective - just as she failed to see his - but that doesn’t mean that moving forward he didn’t love her. Well, I think Artie loved Brittany but never in a romantic way. I think he grew to care for her as a person and accept and even like her eccentricities, but honestly I think most of that was post-breakup. He accepted her while dating, too, but that was less of the kind of love you have when you’re truly in it for each other. When Brittany’s quirks aren’t just things to be handwaved away but things you actively look forward to. A cat fun fact brightening your day or her slight confusion and subsequent outside the box approach making you go “shit, she’s right”. I think Artie liked her to begin with and liked hanging out, but when it came to being in love it was the idea of the hot popular girl paying him attention and wanting to be with him, of all people, not Brittany the ditzy genius.

And you know, Artie was what 15 or 16 at the time? We all project at some point in our lives. We all have those relationships where the person paying attention to us is more important than the person themself. Because Artie was a nerdy, outcast teenage boy whose first relationship with a girl ended in her leaving him for a much ~better~ guy in all regards he thought he could never have. And I think Brittany loved Artie, too, although once again I don’t think I’d say she loved him romantically. Brittany can be very open and honest with her heart and even though there is the situation where, while she was with Artie, she spent much of the relationship also sorta-kinda being with Santana. And all conversations of how well she realized it was cheating aside, that hurt Artie and his pain is perfectly valid in that. But I think the beauty of Bartie as a midgame is that even though they end up hurting each other in some ways, it’s never malicious and there is genuine care there.

The final reason why I think we can say Artie loved Brittany as an idea rather than a person is in those last two episodes, in the breakup itself and the catalyst for it. Whether calling Brittany stupid was really that severe of a mistake is not my question here and not something I ever liked debating - because ultimately, it hurt Brittany and she made the call to end their relationship because of that. And I think her holding her ground like that is admirable. But what’s interesting to me is that yes, Artie does say it out of frustration and yes, he has a right to be upset about the Santana situation. The issue with calling her stupid is, even if it was born from rightful frustration, that it reveals what I talked about earlier. That Artie liked hanging with Brittany and did like her, but the quirks are more things he tolerated to be with this hot girl and things he looked past in those earlier days of limerence. Not things he actively loved, just things he tolerated. And yes, here Artie isn’t calling Brittany’s everlasting confusion of words stupid; he’s calling what he perceives as Brittany’s naivety when it comes to Santana stupid.

Even though he’s rightfully frustrated by all that, this crosses a line for Brittany because understanding her, loving her, means loving all those quirks and understanding that she’s not gonna turn her back on or betray Santana in any way. Not because she’s being manipulated or is acting stupid, but because she believes with her whole heart in people she loves and she loves Santana, whether they’re sleeping together or are dating or are best friends or not. Diminishing that, even in the heat of an argument is not cool in her book and not something Artie should have done. And I should note here, before anyone asks: so should a partner just accept and actively love all of Brittany’s oddities? Should they stand by as they’re being cheated on, as this other person in Brittany’s life takes and takes without, seemingly, giving much? And the answer is no, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m sure Santana will get frustrated at Brittany at some point in their married life. I’m sure she’ll snap and say things she regrets and I’m sure, like she did just before their wedding, she’ll put her foot down when Britt’s eccentricity gets too much. But Santana loves Brittany not despite; she loves her because. With, including all of that. And in that way, Bartie couldn’t compare and wasn’t mean to be.

Even though Artie loved what Brittany represented and she brought to his life, she was still a valuable person for him and there’s no bad blood between them moving forward. Artie’s last attempt at getting the girl who’s made him feel so special back fails, but Brittany doesn’t reject him in any way I’d consider to be malicious or bitter. And sure, Artie overreacts and says he has nothing else to live for, because he’s a teenage boy surrounded by overly dramatic people. But their moment at the end of prom proves so much. He shyly goes up to Brittany and she smiles and beckons him. They end up getting the dance and even their picture taken. They aren’t back together and they never will be. But they are friends and, perhaps, moving forward they both know themselves just a little bit better. Artie is more honest with himself about the things he’s looking for in a relationship, even if being honest with his partners needs a little work.

[meadowmines]

WIP: The Bit, chapter 3

[the morning after the end of chapter 2, in which we begin the tale of Goro Majima and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Mental Health Day with Nightmare Sagawa being awful (things do get better later but fuck this day in particular)]

It’s dark and there’s nothing to look at and Majima is staring out the car window anyway, because it’s that or look at the hand on his knee. 

They must be on the way to Kamurocho. That’s the only drive like this he can remember, with the same dark road and the same dark window and the same dark cloud of impending doom hanging over his head and the same hand on his knee. That’s all it is, when it’s just a hand and not a fist. That’s all it’s ever been. All it’ll ever be. Just one casual hand on his knee, or his shoulder, or his back. But the message is always clear. 

I could, it says. I could do anything I want to you. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

The car hits a bump. Majima tries to use that to his advantage, to jerk his knee out from under that hand without looking like he’s doing it on purpose. It doesn’t work. It never does.

“Easy there, killer.” There’s a little chuckle, like he thinks this is funny. He probably does. “Got a long way to go. Might as well get comfy.”

“You want me to drive a while?” Majima asks.

“You think I was born yesterday?” Still no real heat in that, but that doesn’t mean shit. “You oughta be excited. I sure am. Can’t wait to meet your new boy toy.”

This isn’t how it happened. Majima knows this is wrong and this isn’t how it happened, but there’s nothing he can do about it. These things go on rails and all he can do is hope he wakes up before it gets ugly. “Whatever you’re gonna do to him--”

“Relax,” that chummy voice goes on. “I’m not gonna touch him. Even if I wasn’t hanging out at the bottom of the Sotenbori with a bullet in my head, I wouldn’t have to.”

Just for a second Majima thinks he smells something familiar, murky water and soggy garbage and dead fish. It’s gone almost before he notices it, but now he really doesn’t want to look.

“Ever notice how you only catch feelings for two kinds of people? Ones like Makoto--”

“You keep her name out of your goddamn mouth.”

Oh, that gets a good hearty laugh. “Fine. The kind you’re bad for, how ‘bout that. And the other...” That hand on his knee slides up and in, just a little, just an inch or so, but more than enough to get the point across and Majima shuts his eye tight and chokes back the urge to do all the things he knows are just going to make this worse, nightmare or no. “The kind that’s bad for you.” That hand slides back down to his knee proper and gives him a little pat. “That sweet little piece of Dojima ass would be the best thing that’s ever happened to you. You know what that leaves. And personally? I can't wait to see it--”

“Nii-san?” 

Majima snaps awake at the sound of Kiryu’s voice and thinks, for a moment, this is actually worse. 

There’s a whole crew of nasty little goblins banging away at the inside of his skull with crowbars and baseball bats and sledgehammers. There’s a dried-up sponge where his tongue used to be. Every joint in his body feels like it’s full of crushed glass. And just for a hot second, he can still feel that hand on his knee.

“Fuck,” he wheezes. 

“Bad dream?” 

“Uh huh.” Right. Shitty 1K. Early morning. A little humid from the shower. Smells like soap and drugstore aftershave. Majima catches his breath, or at least enough of it to handwave this off as no big deal. “Wha’ happen?”

"You came stumbling in about four in the morning,” Kiryu says. “Then you threw up in the sink and passed out on the table." 

Okay. It's coming back now. Some of it, at least. Mainly, the part where he stopped at the first bar he saw between the video club and the apartment. He doesn't remember why, exactly, this sounded like a good idea at the time. Something about making good and sure his dick stayed down for the rest of the night, he thinks. 

"Sounds about right," Majima groans. There's a soft little snort. He guesses he can't blame Kiryu for getting a sensible chuckle or two out of this. 

"I put some rice in the thing for you," Kiryu goes on. He doesn't sound mad or anything. Just mildly concerned and maybe a little amused and yeah, that's fair. “And... yeah. I read the instructions this time.”

"How'd I get..." He flaps a clumsy hand to indicate the futon he's sprawled on.

Kiryu just shrugs and mumbles something like don't stress about it as he goes out the door.

“Hey,” Majima calls after him. “You rinsed that shit, right?”

There’s no answer. The door shuts. It takes way too long for Majima to realize how he got into bed like a normal human person, and Kiryu is long gone by the time he does and all he can do about it is lie there and seethe about how goddamn stupid he is. 

It's enough to ruin a guy's whole day, you know?