#could it have done some things better? absolutely

[poorrichardjr]

Ok, I can agree with both people here to some degree, though I think a few things should be brought up.

First, Gore actually won the popular vote in Florida. The Supreme Court stopped the recount that proved that Gore actually won, by a very slim margin. Second, instead of blaming Nader, as most mainstream democrats do, why don't they blame Jeb Bush for purging hundreds of thousands of people from the rolls who were alive and able to vote simply because their names corresponded to names of criminals in other states. This is still done btw every single election in republican run states.

Second, I don't blame all of the voters in the last election, republican or democrat. I don't blame the people who have no time to do the research because they work 60+ hours a week, have families to take care of and spend time with, or those who gladly lapped up the propaganda about Biden and Trump.

There is a caveat to that thought though. Being an informed voter is the responsibility of the people voting. Are you as a voter doing anything at all to learn about the candidates? Are you only getting your information from Fox and the like or RT or Sputnik or whatever? If so, you are slurping up that good ole propaganda and learning virtually nothing. Don't get me wrong, a lot of media outlets have some form of propaganda or slant to their news, but in aggregate, it isn't hard to determine some basic facts about a candidate even with all the partisan BS.

Believe it or not but Trump was not a normal republican president last time. He was crass, cruel, and tried numerous times to do things that his staffers said and warned him were illegal. He was impeached twice for doing things that no other president had done, especially inspiring the coup on January 6th. He also nearly led us into war with North Korea and Iran. We were on the brink of war with North Korea, and suddenly things changed when Russia spoke with both Trump and Un. What did they say that changed the heat? They probably told Trump that Kim wasn't really that bad and that he should be the bigger man and do some outreach, and they told Kim that all you had to do to get anything from Trump was flatter him, because he is an absolute moron.

Biden wasn't a great president, but honestly he really only did two terrible things. He appointed Merrick Garland to oversee the DOJ, and though he was a great prosecutor, he moved far too slowly and initially only focused on the foot soldiers of the insurrection. He never even went after all the congress people who were also deeply involved. Other than that, Biden did what he has always done his entire career and that is to support Israel. He would not use his presidential influence to curb what was happening in Israel, and that turned a lot of good people away from him.

Kamala wasn't really in the running long enough to get a good footing, and she didn't try to differentiate herself from Biden that much, simply because much of what Biden was doing worked. Jobs were up, the economy got much better than the rest of the world, and actual wages were going up for the first time in nearly thirty years.

In the end if you listened to Trump for a single hour and Kamala for a single hour their demeanor, ideas, and temperament should have been enough to get people to do the right thing, but it wasn't. The blatant racism and cruelty espoused by Trump wasn't enough. The knowledge that Trump would support anything Israel wanted in Gaza wasn't enough. The constant lying and whining about 2020 wasn't enough. In the end, if you couldn't guess that some of what is happening now and what could be happening soon was on the table, then you were a fucking idiot or so deeply into a partisan whole that you really didn't care.

Americans failed in their responsibility, and now they will be paying the price for their inability to take this seriously.

Just to be a clear, I am not a democrat, and yet I have voted for them in the last three elections because only a god damn moron couldn't see what Trump is. I hated Hilary because she was untrustworthy, despite my same opinion that she was probably the most qualified candidate for that position in decades. I hated Biden because he really is part of the reason we have many of the problems we have today, and he has been out of touch with a lot of America for years. I had no problems with Kamala, except that she was embracing the right-wingers who gave us Iraq and the quagmire that was Afghanistan and didn't do enough to try and get democrats to vote for her. You can criticize Trump all day, but republicans don't care and are going to vote for him anyway. She needed to rebuild the coalition that was disintegrating because of Gaza and the DOJ's inaction.

[stealingyourbones]

Zeta Beams are a very finicky and powerful technology that require specific conditions to work properly.

Being shot with an unknown ray from one of Lex Luthors guns mid zeta was not one of those conditions.

Superboy, reappearing out of the zeta beam, now dazed and confused, stumbles and leans against the closest solid object and takes in his surroundings.

He’s in a lab of some sort, and whoever used it knew a wide variety of sciences. Chemistry equipment consolidated to one corner of the room while a mildly cluttered bench of mechanisms, welding equipment, and doohickeys take over another corner of the room. The entire workplace was bathed in a toxic green light coming from…

Kon turned and gawked at the massive swirling green vortex and pushed off the metal edge of the tear in reality that he had been leaning on.

His mind was running miles a minute. He was meant to be at the Watchtower and he’s here in some windowless laboratory and a portal that looks like something straight out of science fiction. He doesn’t know what to do but all of his scrambling thoughts screeched to a halt the moment he heard footsteps and an unknown heartbeat coming down a set of stairs he hadn’t noticed on his quick scan of the room.

He should have flown to the ceiling and hid or used his X-Ray vision to identify the threat but he was reeling so badly he just stood frozen in place, a foot or two away from the portal casting a long shadow that cut through the violently green glow.

A man in an orange jumpsuit barrels down the stairs with- is that a bazooka?

The orange wall of a human man whipped around the barrel to face him. “DIE GHOST!”.

“I’m sorry what?”

Kon didn’t get a verbal answer but he sure as hell got a physical one. The man pulled the trigger and a glowing green bullet of *something* shot towards him. Kon momentarily debated dodging out of the way with his super speed but thought better of it. Robin would tell him to stay still and show the threat that he couldn’t be harmed to shut down the fight before it could escalate any further.

Blocking his face from debris, Kon closes his eyes and lets the projectile make contact.

He expected to be thrown back into the strange vortex portal thing or feel the impact, but to his surprise he felt absolutely nothing. Whatever glowing green and white metallic stuff he was hit with, he was completely invulnerable to as a half Kryptonian.

(It is at this point where I sped the writing along to bullet point outlines)

- Kon goes hey wtf man I’m not a ghost

- Jack doesn’t buy it it might be a ghost trick.

- Jack slowly walks up to Kon with a Fenton bat.

- Kon stares at him arms crossed. He knows now he can’t be hurt

- Jack, making full eye contact with Kon and goes ‘you can’t fool me ghost’ or something and hits him over the head with the bat.

- Bat shatters over Kon’s head as Kon stares at him and does a “are you done?”

- as he says this Jack Fenton slowly raises a lipstick lazer

- Jack turns on lazer and Kon glares at Jack exasperatedly.

- Kon’s patience runs out. He grabs the lazer from jacks hands and crushes it in his palm.

- I’m not a ghost man. I was trying to zeta to the watchtower and now I’m here now can you stop??

- Jack doesn’t understand what those words mean. Mutters that this might be a fascinating new discovery and goes over to the tech corner

- Grabs a tsa metal detector wand looking thing and waves it over Kon, who hasnt moved and is now curious to see what this man will do knowing now that he can’t be hurt. (Later found that this universe boosts his powers a tad which is making him More Invulnerable)

- It beeps and jack looks at it and his face of confusion turns to a massive grin. He turns towards the stairs and shouts to Maddie that they have a extradimensional non ghost guest and to move the ghost gear out of the guest room.

- Kon is like what the shit why did this mans attitude chanhe so much

- kon is then temporarily housed by the Fentons whilst they are delighted to start on a new big project. they plan to make an addition onto the ghost zone portal to find the frequency of other dimensions and make a gateway between them using Kon as the tuning fork to find his dimension.

[cntloup]

toji x fem!reader

angst, bold italics indicate flashbacks, parenthesis are the character's thoughts

this pic of him makes me sooo 😵‍💫🥵

if anyone knows the artist, please let me know 🙏🫶

it's a saturday night and you've been invited to a ball tonight by your close friend, shiu.

you thought what would be better than to unwind with some friends after a long week. what you didn't think would happen was to see him.

you mentally curse shiu for not mentioning anything about him coming here. you thought it was a given that he wouldn't invite both of you.

you spent months crying, trying to get over that guy. and now, he's standing right in front of you, looking dashing as ever, in a suit no less.

you suddenly feel nauseous, as if all the emotions you thought were gone kept rushing back to you.

"you'll have to excuse me..." you mutter lowly to shiu who was just about to introduce you to some clients as you ignore him calling out your name and quickly walk out of the venue, mustering all your power to keep yourself from having a full-blown breakdown in the middle of the room.

as soon as you walk out the door, you break into uncontrollable sobs and start hyperventilating, clutching your chest in a desperate attempt to calm your pounding heart.

"hey... you ok?" suddenly, the world stops... and there's only that voice, the one you know all too well and haven't heard in over a year.

"the hell does that mean?!" he barks at you, his blood boiling as pure rage fills the hollow shell of suppressed emotions, trying to bury the bitter taste of heartbreak.

"I've tried, toji. I really have, to make it work. but I don't feel like you love me. you say you do, but they're just words. I feel like I'm just a maid. and a mom to megs. I don't feel loved for me. I don't feel like myself anymore..."

you let out a gasp and your head turns around as if on autopilot until your eyes meet his.

his already concerned expression softens even further as soon as he witnesses your disheveled look, bloodshot eyes and tear-stained cheeks which he has caused.

he feels the gnawing grasp of guilt in his heart for hurting you like this, all the memories of him in the past year coming back to him, how he was absolutely and completely shattered to pieces over your breakup. and now he can only imagine how it must have been for you.

he was an absolute wreck after you; always beating himself up over pushing you away so much to the point that you doubted his love, ('how did we end up like this?') he kept drinking his sorrow away until he blacked out every night and gambled all his money away even more so than usual without a care which shiu noticed and toji figures now that must have been the reason why he invited both of you.

you were his everything. you proved him wrong when he thought he was done with love after the death of his wife. you dragged him out of the pit of despair and held him through the turmoil, in your loving embrace which became his home.

the silence weighs heavy on your chest, thick tension filling the room as the leaden weight of the words that have just been uttered settles in your heart, and his.

"y-you're leaving?" his quivering voice is laced with a bleak desperation, as if trying to grasp at even a sliver of hope that this is not happening, his worst nightmare.

"goodbye, toji." you swallow the lump in your throat, 'I will always love you...' the words play out in your mind, but they never leave your mouth.

"what are you doing here?" you wipe the tears furiously with your hands as you think he shouldn't see you like this, ('please hold me')

"I could ask the same thing." he takes a step closer to you, carefully as if not to scare you away, ('still love you...')

"fuckin' shiu..." you shake your head, ('can't live without you')

he chuckles dryly, ('take me back please... i promise to be better... for you, i will')

you both stand there, staring into each other’s eyes for what feels like an eternity, feeling yourself nearly getting lost in his eyes, before sensing a surge of emotions rushing into you and overwhelming your heart, causing you to avert your gaze from him and mumble a quiet 'I need to go' and quickly make your way towards your car before he has any time to react, ('please stay! curse me, hit me, anything! just please, stay!') still shocked by seeing you after so long when he thought he was over you. what a fool.

oh, how you wish you could have stayed. how you wish he wouldn't have let you go in the first place. and how you wish you had the heart to let it all out instead of just leaving...

you notice him running after you in the rear-view mirror, but you know it's too late now as you drive away with tears in your eyes, your loud sobs mixing with the roars of the heavy metal music playing in the car.

[eddieswritinghell]

I have a request!!

Can you do headcanons and/or a short blurb for König, Soap, and Price with a fem!s/o who constantly gets hate and bullied online for no reason? She hasn’t done anything wrong she just likes to post things that she made and is proud of, like photography, art, edits, etc. They see her reading comments and trying not to cry, how would they be in the moment?

It’s totally fine if you don’t want to or if you need time there’s no rush!<3

Added a read more because I got super into this and the post is very long. Hopefully, this is good to read, definitely had fun writing it! 💚

König:

"What is wrong, mein Schatz?" The man seemed greatly concerned upon finding you with tears in your eyes while looking at your phone.

"Just some... mean comments. Nothing bad." Your hand reaches up to wipe at your eyes but König stops you. He settles down next to you and the pad of his thumb gently caresses your cheek.

"Nothing bad? Anything mean towards you is automatically considered bad. What is it about?" His brows furrow in concern as he tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear to better hold your face in his hand.

"Just some bad reactions to a photo I posted. It wasn't the best photo, but I was proud of it and I think that's why it hurts a bit more."

"Oh nein, nein, nein. Nothing could ever be bad if it came from you. Creativity should not be judged and ridiculed, no matter the person. And it definitely shouldn't be yours either." He holds out his hand and makes a grabby motion. "Give me your phone. I will get rid of all the comments so you won't have to look at them and I will replace them with my own."

"You don't have to do that. I just need to get over it."

"I am still going to do it. Gib mir jetzt das Handy." He makes the hand motion and you hand over the phone. The man seems a bit upset about some of the comments, but he happily deletes them as he pulls you closer to him with his free arm. "This happens again and you come to me, ja?"

Soap:

"What has you all worked up?" He raises an eyebrow as he sits down on the couch next to you. You gladly lean into the arm Soap wraps around your shoulders.

"It's nothing really. Just... need to get over myself." You sniffle and move to tuck your phone away but he's much quicker. Soap snags it out of your grip as you exclaim at him to give it back.

"Nah. Nope. Not giving it back till I know what has you all worked up. Can't stand to see you upset like this, lassie. You being sad makes me sad, and that's a crime against nature."

You fight back a sniffle as you watch him scroll through the post you had open of a picture of a painting you and posted because you were rather proud of it. "You don't need to worry about it."

"Oh, I absolutely need to worry about it because it's my right to worry over my girlfriend." He begins to scroll through the comment section and his smile drops. "Is it the painting you posted? The comments from the asses?"

Your silence is greeted with a grunt and a few pings from your phone of Soap deleting the comments. You sniffle and press your face into his shoulder.

"Boom. All gone. I'd have a go with them if I could. Smash all their faces in. Your painting was absolutely stunning. Right bonnie like the artist who painted it."

Price:

Price wasn't sure what had you crossing you phone on the nightstand with a huff, had you crossing your arms and deeply sighing with a shaky breath of air. He wasn't as attached to the device like you were, didn't quite understand the importance of it other than for communication. "Did your phone die?"

"No. Still at sixty percent, just... upset over something."

Price hums in acknowledgement as he removes his shoes before sitting on the bed next to you. Rolling to face you, a hand rests on your hip and rubs soft circles into the sliver of skin that showed. "Care to share with the class?"

"It's... I made a post about this edit I made. It was the first edit I made in quite some time. It wasn't the greatest edit ever, not viral-worthy either, but I was proud of it."

"An edit?"

"Like... a series of clips of a TV show or movie or video game set to music. It's... I can't explain it well, but that isn't what mattered."

"Well, regardless of what it was, in sure it was great. You're a creative person, and if it made you proud then it made you proud. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks if you enjoyed it and had fun with it, then that's what truly matters. I'm sure people liked it, but comments usually come from people who are jealous of your abilities. Don't let them get to you, love." He smiles and pulls you closer to press a heavy kiss to your neck. "And certainly don't let them have the satisfaction of knowing they got to you. I'll fight off every one of those... haters? Whatever they're called, they don't deserve to know you."

[theiaphage]

This is a really well worded post and I generally agree! However, I think I got another angle of this same conclusion based on the idea that Amy's original redemption arc never really concluded only to backslide -- rather, that her expectations about redemption fundamentally change what that redemption arc means in-text

Like you say, it absolutely falls well within the typical narrative-trope parameters of the expected 'redemption arc,' she hits all the core points -- but, like with a lot of tropes related to pain, trauma, healing, forgiveness and so on, the typical narrative portrayal isn't often a realistic one. In that way I think Amy acts as both a good example and, with further context, a deconstruction of the redemption arc, because under further examination a lot of the arc itself isn't necessarily as positive as it first came off. In so many of her attempts, she's trying to do better according to all she knows when surrounded by the worst influences possible. She doesn't have a solid safe role model, and hasn't for her entire life. Someone to tell her that sometimes you just won't be forgiven, that not every fight ends with a hug and back-to-normal at the end.

In that way, Amy's attempts at doing the right thing in Worm, though absolutely noble in conscious intent, still betray a few of her failings and the places she was failed. Like you say, she really does try to get better, she does the things she may know broadly lead to healing or help or forgiveness, but a lot still ends up being more about her than her efforts.

The tattoo here absolutely stands out to me -- even before Ward went and had her all but explicitly say that the tattoo holds a different meaning now, even in Worm it still seemed imperfect, questionable potentially, but with heart behind it. It was a memorialization of pain and a reminder to do better -- but like so many pieces of art about pain or failure, it could inadvertently romanticize the subject just as much as it condemns it. Amy is, in a very real way, actively working this tragedy into a part of a narrative -- one she tries to use for growth, but ultimately fails in.

I'm trying not to be too harsh on Amy here, but vibes-wise I'm reminded somewhat of something like an ex-boyfriend, leaving flowers at the door of someone who dumped him, or cry-singing a song about how they were a bad boyfriend on the car drive home. Sure, the pain is real, the acknowledgement of failure likely is as well, but at some point the gesture becomes more about the boyfriend's pain than the actual relationship, or even the breakup. In this moment Victoria, a victim who literally cannot speak for herself in this instance, is 'memorialized' in a very real sense, turned into a symbol by a person that already as a base nature of their power and life can feel so disconnected from the humanity of others.

So many of these choices by Amy center her -- her attempted growth, her attempted retribution, her attempted change. It's the kind of thing that in real life really can be done for the right reasons, but can also be done for worse ones -- that ex-boyfriend working out thinking of their ex, getting a job thinking of their ex, hanging a picture of their ex above their bed to motivate them to get up in the morning. Amy's actions aren't even this extreme or pointed, but I view it as them sharing a sort of kernel of trying to do better because they really want (or even need) better in turn -- and thus, Amy's arc in Ward is what happens when the textbook redemption arc doesn't work.

When all those acts of memoriam, distance, betterment, health, are done with the kernel of hope in your mind that it means you'll be forgiven, that it all will be fine again and you can go back to how it was.

And that's why I see her redemption arc as never having completed -- she's trying, she's hitting the right steps, but ultimately at the conclusion of this redemption (which I would argue is a long period of time, starting with Vicky's new body and coming back up again for a while) would come when those attempts were tested, when Victoria refuses to forgive her and she's forced to either accept her betterment without Victoria, or let go of it and keep pushing for her -- she begins to choose the later.

In this way it's less of a backslide and more of a recontextualizing moment. She is backsliding in behavior, but it's not that she got foundationally better and then became foundationally worse again, and more so that she tried to get better, put in real effort, but ultimately failed. This version worked for me because it seems to be what Amy acts like right out of the gate; annoyed that Vicky won't accept her, continually trying to do things 'for' her or based on her happiness when Victoria wants nothing to do with any of that.

These give some context to her past actions, allow you to re-examine Worm in a way that both provides answers and adds a new layer in a way many readers (myself included) missed at first simply because yeah, Amy's arc does have all the pieces of a redemption arc, and it takes Ward to get people thinking about whether or not those pieces add up.

I do want to state to conclude that yeah, her portrayal (and especially the initial choice to tell this story surrounding Amy of all people) has its issues, many major, but the portrayal of someone who falls into toxicity and abuse because they thought they were doing everything right and still didn't get what they wanted out of it; A person who still didn't get that one selfish prize they latched onto in a moment of pain that they tried to be a saint to deserve or make up for wanting? Yeah, that's pretty unique and powerful, and despite its flaws it really hits home as an accurate-to-the-point-of-painfulness portrayal.

Okay, fuck it, I've built up enough goodwill with this sideblog - let's risk it all by sharing my opinions on how Amy is handled in Ward.

It's kinda complicated I think.

Okay, now that I've resisted the urge to immediately hit post for the bit: I think the way her interludes are written substantially flattens her character in a way that I find distasteful and unpleasant, but I find the overall shape of her arc and her role in the narrative compelling. The things I dislike have been well-covered by plenty of other people in the fandom, so I'm going to focus on the things I like.

To talk about Amy's role in Ward, I first need to talk about my interpretation of Ward as a whole. To me, Ward is, above all else, about trauma and recovery. Society is traumatized by the end of the world, the shards are traumatized by the death of Scion and their loss of purpose, individuals are traumatized by all the things individuals are traumatized by. As an aside, this reading is a big reason why I'm not too bothered by a lot of the world building choices that other people frequently (and fairly) criticize - I think many of them serve this theme effectively.

One specific facet of that reading that I find particularly compelling is Ward's interest in people who are traumatized not just by the harm done to them, but by the harm they've done. Characters don't just regret what they've done, they don't just want to be better, they are traumatized by it, and their reactions to that trauma are as messy and complicated as any other traumatized people. I don't always agree with the stances the text takes on how to deal with having done harm and been traumatized as a result, but I find the exploration of the topic compelling.

Enter The Altruistic Amy Dallon.

Amy's arc in Worm was, to a degree, a prototype of this kind of storytelling. She is repeatedly and horrifically traumatized, the actions she eventually takes in response to that experience inflict equally horrific trauma on her victim, and she is further traumatized by her own actions almost to the point of ego death. She removes herself from the environment she was in, begins rebuilding her sense of identity and ethics, and reemerges having grown, prepared to do better going forward and to make reparations for her past actions as best she can. Arc done! It's satisfying and cathartic, and we leave content in the knowledge that the part she's on will take her to better places. It's the quintessential appeal of a redemption arc, and it's a strong example of its type.

There's something people like to say a lot when talking about mental health and personal growth in real life, and that is that progress isn't linear. It's an important truth to understand.

It's rarely true in fiction. Very often, in redemption arcs, in personal growth arcs, after a series of false starts and setbacks, the character reaches a critical point where they resolve their conflict and either overcome it or succumb to it. From that point on, their nature or behavior is fundamentally changed - if they've grown they never relapse past a certain point, or do so only fleetingly, or else never improve past a certain point. This makes sense from a storytelling perspective, but it doesn't map to how growth often works in real life.

In Ward, Amy occupies the very rare narrative position of being who completes her arc of growth and redemption, who crosses that critical threshold of lasting, meaningful change... but backslides anyway, to the point of essentially losing all that progress.

It's an outcome that I find very believable for her, honestly. Her newfound worldview and conviction were forged in the very insular environment of the Birdcage - of course they would be impacted by her new environment. She says at the end of Ward that she had been able to excuse all of her worst behavior because she had convinced herself that she could fix anything - and at the end of Worm, I can see how she would come to think that! She's been pardoned and released from Forever Prison, she overcame her old aversion to brains to create Khepri and thereby saved the world, she's formed a positive relationship with the father she never thought she'd meet, she's receiving love and support from parents she never felt good enough for, she's using her powers to help people in a way that doesn't make her want to die, and she even "fixed" Victoria, when failing to do that before was the final nail in the coffin she just finished clawing her way out of! The sheer number of seemingly impossible things she's accomplished, of apparently irreversible failures she's seemingly put right, is mind boggling! It'd be the easiest thing in the world to let that go to your head!

Her social circle is also a perfect environment to enable her worst tendencies - there's no one left in it whose opinion she trusts that's willing to call her on her shit. Marquis doesn't see anything wrong with her behavior, Carol is trying to make up for a decade of neglect and unwarranted criticism, Mark just wants everybody to get along and be happy, and Riley and Rinke are pretty shaky on this whole human decency thing themselves! With a (not unjustified) pride in how far she'd come, a circle of willing enablers, a complete lack of moderating influences, and a bulletproof get-out-of-moral-culpability-free card, and two years to spiral, I find her backsliding to be completely believable. And given that Victoria is the fly in the ointment to all of this, that her continued refusal to have anything to do with Amy gives lie to Amy's belief that she can fix anything, and thereby puts the entire edifice of her self-rationalizations at risk, it also makes perfect sense to me that Amy would become fixated on her, on proving that she really can fix anything.

Of course, being believable isn't the same thing as being compelling. The thing that makes all this so resonant for me is that, at the end of Ward, after being this grasping spectre that haunts Victoria the whole book, after rejecting countless opportunities to demonstrate a hint of self-awareness or the slimmest motivation to change - Amy does. She sits down with a therapist. She rips off the band-aid - both the metaphorical one and the literal one made out of Victoria's skin, jesus christ Amy - looks at what she's done, at how she went awry, and resolves to do better. And we end with her in essentially the same place she was at the end of Worm: prepared to do better going forward and to make reparations as best she can. But the journey she has taken to get there gives the destination entirely new meaning for me. She's already fumbled her chance at redemption! But her journey gives lie to the idea that you only have one chance, or two, or any finite number! Every moment you draw breath is a chance to do better.

To me, Amy Dallon's arc in Ward shows that the most important step you can take is the next one, and no matter how many times you walk up and down that road, it never stops being true. And I find that compelling as hell.

[cosmichorrorsarestillnicerthanme]

Go, Touch Some Grass-Kokonoe Mercury X Reader

I think this is the single longest thing I have written for this blog. I might also make a part two to this later but I doubt I will.

Anywho, sorry for the inactivity as of late. I just haven't really had the energy to write and because of that I've probably gotten very rusty so this is more than likely not up to my usual standards. My apologies for that.

With all of that aside, I hope you enjoy!

Kokonoe Mercury was absolutely furious.

“Where’s Tager?” Kokonoe growled out as she stomped down the halls, glaring holes through any unfortunate researcher who crossed her path.

“Miss Litchi sent him on a wild goose chase to ensure you didn’t use him to bust into your office.” you responded as you walked behind the irate woman.

Kokonoe attempted to further clench her hands into fists but, due to the bone crushing amount of force she had already used when she learned of what Litchi had done, it was an exercise in futility.

Kokonoe wheeled around the corner and nearly barreled over some poor janitor in the process.

“Sorry about that.” was all you had time to say to the janitor before you had to leave him and break into a jog to catch up with Kokonoe who was nearing her target.

Kokonoe practically bust the door down as she stormed into Litchi’s office.

“Ah! What brings you her-” Litchi began with a smile before she was interrupted by the furious pink haired woman before her.

“Save it! Why the hell can’t I get into my office! Or the labs! Or the storage closets!” Kokonoe snapped at Litchi.

“Oh my! I have no idea! What makes you think I would have any idea what would cause that?” Litchi responded with a voice dripping with false shock and a smirk on her face as she placed her head in her hand.

Kokonoe promptly reached into her lab coat and pulled out a piece of paper that she then slammed onto the table.

The piece of paper read “Go, Touch Some Grass!” with a drawing of Litchi’s winking face in chibi form.

You had to bite your tongue to keep yourself from saying “I don’t think Miss Kokonoe knows what grass is, seeing as she never leaves the lab.”

“Hmm… This is a very flattering drawing of me, don’t you think?” Litchi asked, causing Kokonoe to let out a scream of primal rage and launch herself at the woman.

Or, she tried to at least, she only got halfway before you grabbed her by the back of her collar.

“Let me go dammit! Let me at her! I’ll show her who needs to go touch grass!” Kokonoe hissed as she thrashed and writhed in mid air.

She was concerningly light, barely feeling like she weighed more than one of the boxes of microscopes that needed to be ordered every time an explosion occurred in the lab.

“Before you do that, can you tell me this, how long has it been since you ate a meal?” Litchi asked as Kokonoe continued to thrash around.

“I had-” Kokonoe began before being cut off.

“Meal replacement bars and shakes don’t count. Neither does candy.” Litchi clarified, making Kokonoe go still and quiet as she racked her brain for the answer to Litchi’s question.

“It was… the 15th!” Kokonoe declared, seeming proud of herself.

Litchi proceed to point at the calendar, showing that the current date was the 7th.

Kokonoe scowled in response to this and crossed her arms in irritation.

“What do you want out of me?” Kokonoe grumbled.

“I want you to go to your apartment, and grow something from one of these seeds.” Litchi declared while opening one of her drawers before tossing a pack of mixed seeds onto the table.

Kokonoe looked at the seeds for a solid minute before saying “I could do that in thirty minutes in the lab.”

“I know you could, but, until you learn how to take better care of yourself, you won’t be doing anything in the lab.” Litchi declared.

Kokonoe’s face began to turn red from rage before she took in a deep breath that she held in before letting out.

“How long will all of this take?” Kokonoe grumbled.

“In all honesty? I don’t expect you to be back for about two months.” Litchi declared, making Kokonoe gasp before yelling.

“ARE YOU CRAZY!? TWO MONTHS!?”

“You could prove me wrong, but as I can say with certainty, you and nature do not get along.” Litchi responded.

Kokonoe ground her teeth together, trying to concoct a way out of this predicament.

Unfortunately, Kokonoe was pushed onto the back foot by Litchi Faye Ling.

That means no amount of death stares or threats will move her opponent.

And people had the audacity to call Kokonoe stubborn.

Kokonoe went limp, accepting defeat.

“Fine. But I’m taking your best assistant as collateral!” Kokonoe declared, hoping that this would, somehow, force Litchi into re-considering her demands.

“We have a deal!” Litchi declared before turning her attention to you and spoke.

“You can put her down now. Be sure to pack up everything you need before leaving!”

You promptly lowered Kokonoe onto the ground and began to walk out the door before being stopped by Kokonoe.

“Hey! I said your best assistant! Not MY best assistant!” the pink hair woman exclaimed.

“That is my assistant. I let you borrow them for an extra set of eyes during an experiment while Tager was off on errands and you never gave them back.” Litchi explained with a smile that held a small amount of venom.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You and Kokonoe sat next to one another as the tram followed its course down to the residential area.

The two of you stuck out like sore thumbs with the pure white lab coats the two of you wore, the scowl on Kokonoe’s face, and your relatively calm expression.

You had long since gotten accustomed to the pink haired scientist and her… ornery moods.

In fact, due to your constant exposure to her, you had the nebulous honor of being one of the few who were unaffected by her temper when it boiled over.

Speaking of the devil herself, you turned your attention to the woman as she reached into the sleeve of her coat and pulled out a piece of her iconic silvervine candy.

“I’ve got a question for ya.” the woman grumbled.

“I will attempt to answer it to the best of my abilities.” you replied.

Kokonoe grunted before twisting her head to the side with the back of her hand, causing a series of cracks to enter your ears.

“If you’re one of Litchi’s assistants, why’d you stick around to work with me?” Kokonoe asked with a suspicious tone to her voice.

“Curiosity. You have quite the reputation as a slave driving monster around the water cooler.” was all you said in response.

This forced a wheezing cackle from Kokonoe’s chest.

“You aren’t the type to mince words are you? Remind me to take you off of Litchi’s hands when we get back!” Kokonoe exclaimed as she continued her cackling.

“I will keep that in mind.” you declared as you waited for Kokone to regain her composure.

Kokonoe continued to laugh for a few more moments before claming down.

“So, did the stories do me justice?” Kokonoe asked with a smirk.

You were quiet for a moment before responding.

“You have high but, for the most part, not unreasonable expectations of those that work under you. There is no inherent problem with that as it serves as a point to strive for and to exceed. However, for many the bar set is too high. That is my assessment. So, in my opinion, no, the stories are not entirely accurate.”

“Well, can’t say I was expecting a response like that. I was asking for your opinion, not a report on an experiment.” Kokonoe declared as she put her head in the palm of her hand.

“To be fair Miss Kokonoe, I am still on the clock. Technically.” was all you said in defense to your position.

The rest of the ride in the tram was spent in a relative, semi-comfortable, silence.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

By the time Kokonoe remembered where her apartment was, night had fallen.

Despite this, you continued to carry both your and Kokonoe’s suitcases as the two of you walked up the stairs and Kokonoe mumbled to herself about keys as she struggled to recall which one of the many on her key ring was the one for her apartment.

Soon, the two of you reached the apartment that belonged to Kokonoe, though it took a while for the door to be opened due to Kokonoe being forced to play trial and error with her myriad of keys.

As soon as the door was pushed open, a robotic voice greeted the two of you.

“Good. Evening. Miss. Kokonoe. Welcome. Home. You. Have. Been. Gone. For. Ninety. Days. Fifteen. Hours. And. Thirty. Minutes. Is. There. Anything. You. Require?” a small robot roughly the height and width of a garbage can with a duster in one hand and a vacuum in the other asked as it stood at attention in the entryway.

“No. Don’t worry about the guest either. They're with me.”

The robot promptly did a small bow before turning in place and walking off.

You were then led into the living room which, in all honesty, looked as if it was ready to be shown off and sold to the next potential buyer by a real estate agent.

In other words, it looked clean, clinical, and completely uninhabited.

“Welcome to my home away from home.” Kokonoe declared as she grabbed her suitcase from you, walked down the hall, and into a room, before slamming the door behind her and leaving you standing alone.

You clicked your tongue before muttering to yourself.

“This design of this place is very… human.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kokonoe did not have any clocks in her apartment.

Mostly because if she was at her apartment, that meant one of two things.

The lab had exploded and was in the process of being fixed. She was practically on her deathbed from sickness.

As such, she fully expected to not wake up until her body declared she needed to.

To be fair, that expectation was filled, just not in the way she thought it would be when the smell of freshly cooked food entered her nose and roused her from her sleep.

“Ugh… What the hell is that smell?” Kokonoe grumbled as she rolled over and towards the window to gauge the time based off of the sun.

Based on the light entering her room, it was around ten-ish.

Kokonoe let out a sigh as she threw the covers off of her and trudged towards her door, kicking her discarded lab coat, and other articles of clothing to the side in the process.

Kokonoe yawned as she reached for the door’s handle before pulling it open.

This revealed you, your hand raised to knock on the door.

“Ah. I’ve made lu-” you began to say before cutting yourself off as you went red in the face.

You proceeded to grab the handle opposite from the one Kokonoe was holding and slammed the door shut, leaving the pink haired scientist deeply confused.

It took a few seconds for the still groggy and half asleep Kokonoe to remember that, before she went to sleep, she removed all of her clothes.

“Oh right. Most people care that other people wear clothes.” Kokonoe said to herself aloud before scratching the side of her head and turning on her heel to find something to cover herself with.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kokonoe walked into the kitchen, wearing a t-shirt, a pair of sweatpants, and a pair of slippers with a fresh lab coat over it all alongside the expression of a person who was completely unbothered by the previous event.

That expression did not stay long as she noticed something had gone missing from the kitchen.

“Where the hell is my fridge?” Kokonoe asked, trying her best and failing spectacularly to keep her voice even.

You sat at the table, your head in your hands over a bowl of soup.

“Its contents were the wrong amount of alive.” was all you said in response, a tint of red still on your face as you tried to force the memory of Kokonoe minus her clothes out of your mind.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Kokonoe demanded before the conversation was interrupted by screams.

“HOLY SHIT! LARRY!!! GET THE FLAMETHROWER!!!”

“WHY DOES IT HAVE EYES!!!!”

“It means that.” you muttered before shuddering, composing yourself, and then gesturing to the pot on the stove.

“I have made soup.” you declared.

“Is it any good?” Kokonoe asked, crossing her arms.

“I give you no guarantees.” was your response.

“Meh, good enough for me.” the pink haired scientist declared with a shrug of her shoulders.

Lunch passed in silence save for the sounds of battle outside.

However, lunch did not last long and soon the two of you were getting down to brass tacks.

“Right, we need to go to the store, don’t we?” Kokonoe asked as she put her dishes in the sink.

“Correct. We require a replacement fridge, food, and material for you to grow a plant. I will cover a quarter of the cost for the fridge.” You responded as you put your own dishes into their place.

“A quarter? Aren’t you the one who threw it out?” Kokonoe asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I was not the one who let that godless creature be born. Also, I live on an assistant's salary.” Was your retort and your defense to Kokonoe’s reasoning.

“Fine. Just know I’m not happy about this.” the half beastkin woman declared.

“Duly noted.” was your response.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

After the plan had been decided, the two of you set out and onto the town.

Much like most things involving Kokonoe V.S. The Outside World, as you were coming to find, it became an all day debacle.

Especially with what happened with Kokonoe and that poor appliance salesman.

He made the very reasonable assumption that, due to the two of you coming in at the same time and looking at the fridges on display together, you and Kokonoe were a couple.

You thought Kokonoe was going to tear his head clean off when the words left his mouth. Thankfully, she only skinned him alive with her words and not any of the knives from the kitchen sets that were nearby.

Still, the day remained profitable despite the hiccup, and by the time night fell, the new fridge was installed and stocked with food.

Soon after that, the two of you fell into a rhythm.

Kokonoe would obsess over the plant, you would double check her measurements to ensure everything was going smoothly, then you would begin the most torturous task you had even inflicted upon yourself.

Teaching Kokonoe Mercury how to take care of herself.

First, you started with the basics in Laundry which was easy enough since most of her clothes could be sorted into whites and reds.

Of course, that came with her grumbling about how she could build a robot or get Taeger to do this for the entire time, still, it was progress.

But, then came cooking.

Foolishly, you thought that she would do well in cooking since it was as much science as it was art.

This was a very, very idiotic thought to have.

In five minutes she managed to turn a bag of rice into ash.

It took her ten to completely immolate a fish down to its bones.

After this disaster, you decided to put off trying to teach her how to cook until you had a fire extinguisher on hand.

Still, cooking related mishaps aside, everything was going well in forcing Kokonoe to learn that, no matter how hard she wished or how many drugs she put into her silvervine candy, she still had a body of flesh and blood.

She was, of course, filled with enough rage to burn the world to ash due to this, but that was something you expected when you were co-opted into this debacle.

What you didn’t expect however, was your side of the emotional coin.

Specifically, your growing admiration and care for her.

This isn’t to say you didn’t admire her before this, but more so to say that before this your admiration for her was only professional.

Now though, you were admiring her as a person.

You always knew she was a stubborn person, it was par for the course in the field of science.

Now though, you saw that her stubbornness was something she applied in all facets of her life.

And as you continued to spend time with her, you also saw that her stubbornness and her care were one in the same.

Still, you knew it was better to keep all of that to yourself.

She was your boss and you were her assistant.

It would be better and far simpler for both you and her to keep it that way.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kokonoe Mercury, for the first time in a very, very long time, didn’t feel like absolute crap.

Was this the power of three square meals a day, water, and regular doses of sunlight?

If it was, Kokonoe would be… inclined to not kill Litchi the second she got back her lab access.

Just ever so slightly.

The fact she stole you to be her assistant was also helping out.

It was also causing her an immense amount of headache as, against her better judgement, Kokonoe was getting ever so slightly attached to you.

She knew she shouldn’t based on past data.

Everyone she had ever made a bond with had left her, died, or worse.

It was a quantifiable metric.

And yet, here Kokonoe was, thinking of a way to try and even the score.

As loath as she was to admit it, you had taught her things.

To her, knowledge in all its forms was something invaluable.

Sure, she never felt the need to repay someone for teaching her something before but that's unimportant.

What was important now, was finding something worth what you taught her.

Maybe she could invite you to be her research partner?

No, no, no, she already had you as her assistant, that was almost the same thing wasn’t it?

She couldn’t up your salary either since the budget for the year had already been decided.

“Wait, that’s it!” Kokonoe exclaimed, a mad grin making itself known on her face.

Sure, she couldn’t raise your salary, but she could give you a way to take some strain off your budget.

She could just invite you to live with her.

Yes, that would be perfect! It would allow for the symbiotic relationship the two of you had to continue, and it would let Kokonoe continue to operate at maximum efficiency.

Why hadn’t she thought of this sooner?

It was a foolproof plan that benefitted both you and her!

Truly, the genius of Kokonoe Mercury is unparalleled.

If only she was this smart when it came to her emotions and other people.

[maxdibert]

Hi! I love the way you interpret the books—you stick to what is canon, and it’s always great to see that.

I was wondering if you enjoy negative characters in the fandom while fully acknowledging that they are, of course, negative. I don’t justify their actions in any way, but I find them fascinating from a narrative and psychological perspective. Their motivations, dynamics, and the way they shape the story can be incredibly compelling, even if they are morally reprehensible (Voldemort, Bellatrix, Narcissa, etc…)

Do you also find some of them interesting in that sense?

I love characters who are terrible people, especially when the narrative doesn’t try to sell me that they’re good people, because they’re not, but at the same time, it shows that they’re human, and all humans can be terrible people or do terrible things, while also having a decent side. I mean, let’s take the Malfoys as an example, which in my opinion is the best: Are they horrible aristocratic elitists? Yes. Do they have a disgusting elitist mentality? Also yes. Do they invest their economic and social capital, as well as themselves, in movements that actively harm others? Totally. Are they terrible people? Of course, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have good qualities. Narcissa and Lucius are a couple that love each other, support each other, and above all, adore their son. Have they raised Draco terribly? No one denies that, but they love him. Draco is so confident and arrogant because his parents have given him a lot of self-assurance, and in fact, unlike Ron, who is TERRIFIED of the consequences his actions might have at home when Molly finds out, for example, Draco always shows a fascinating confidence in telling his father absolutely everything. Even in CoS, when Lucius complains that Draco’s grades are mediocre, Draco doesn’t seem offended or scared, he doesn’t see his father as a threatening figure; he’s just ANNOYED because Lucius said it publicly. That shows that his parents have given him enough confidence to tell them all his problems and have the assurance that they’ll always help him. Is that spoiling him? They spoil him in many ways, certainly, but at the same time, it’s quite positive for a child to feel they can tell their parents everything, whether it’s positive or negative, and we know Draco does this because it’s mentioned repeatedly in the series. Does that make the Malfoys better people? Well, no, as people, they’re terrible, but being a terrible person in one aspect of your life doesn’t mean you’re going to be terrible in everything. You can be a terrible, tyrannical boss and then be an amazing boyfriend. You could have had a terrible relationship with someone who thinks you’re the devil for how things ended, and then your next partner could think you were the best ex they ever had. You can have terrible political ideas and then love your family a lot. I’m sorry, but you can be the boss of a cartel that has literally killed dozens of people and have been a wonderful father, one thing doesn’t negate the other.

I’m very interested in this duality in characters, how some people can really have two faces, or what leads someone to commit a crime, or what happened for someone to end up on the wrong side. I like complex characters, although I prefer morally gray ones over villains. The problem is that most characters in Harry Potter are either darkened or whitewashed narratively. I’m not being picky about this because in the end, it was initially a story for children that later evolved into a young adult story, but still… meh. I mean, I think more could have been done with Bellatrix, I think Voldemort could have been explored better, I think Rowling was obsessed with selling us her moral framework for things. Honestly, I prefer books with multiple points of view where you decide if you like a character or not, but not because the author wants you to like or dislike them, but because you’ve had several versions - even the character’s own - and you can get a general idea of who they are and then decide.

But yes, of course, I’m generally more interested in morally questionable characters, I’ve always found them more interesting than heroes. As Tolstoy said, 'All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,' which implies that if there’s no conflict, there’s no story, because there’s no drama, and without drama, the story is flat. And for there to be drama, there have to be problems, and heroes never create problems.

[didyoulookforme]

1 and 29 for bf matty?? :) he’s so precious to me

from the prompt list here.

warning: smut. masturbation. a bit of spit involved. cumplay. me rambling.

so this is about a week after you both admit you like each other and finally talk it out. you agree it’d be stupid not to try, when it’s now so obvious you both want this. but you ask matty if you can wait on the sex—everything else is fair game, and god, you want to, so badly, because hello, gorgeous man you’ve been dying to get your hands on is finally yours—but you just want to hold off on getting his dick inside you. just in case. on the minuscule off chance it doesn’t work out. he obviously agrees, because at this point, he’d do anything for you. now that the love of his life is actually interested in him.

anyway, even though you’ve known each other for almost half your lives, this is all so new and exciting that neither of you can hide it. you feel like two horny teenagers again that get needy with just a single touch. when he came over tonight, it didn’t take long for the two of you to end up making out, hands all over, both lightheaded because neither of you want to waste time breathing when you could have your tongues in each other’s mouths instead. and you silently agree. that’s a much better use of your time.

you’re both so eager to learn everything about each other, and that’s why, between him licking and biting your bottom lip, you so sweetly ask if you can watch him jerk off. he freezes, finally inhaling for what feels like the first time since he arrived, before resting his forehead against yours, a grin very clearly appearing on his face. he nods, his voice barely above a whisper, but you can still hear the intrigue behind it. “‘f course, darling.”

and this is why the both of you end up on your bed again—matty seated against your headboard, his yo la tengo shirt the only thing left on his body. one leg stretched out in front of him, the other slightly bent as he gets himself off right in front of you, just like you asked. his head shifts from resting against the wall to tilting down to watch himself, and even that alone drives you absolutely mad.

“you’re so fucking hot, baby.”

he can’t help but gaze at you and smile at your words as he continues to stroke himself, not slow but not so fast either. you notice how his right hand slightly twists as he pumps the top half of his dick, every now and then using his thumb to collect some of the translucent precum for ease. his left hand either rests on his stomach, holding his shirt up, or stays loosely wrapped around the base of his length, keeping himself in place. it’s the most mesmerizing thing you think you’ve ever seen and really hope it’s not the last time this will happen.

“i’ve never done this before, y’know.”

his words shatter whatever trance you were under, and you swear your heart, mind, and body could split in half right then and there. because you both have obviously slept with other people before, never in your wildest fucking dreams did you think matty would be doing something for the first time with you. and now your mind is sprinting, running through every possibility, every other first you could be for him. but you do your best to drag your thoughts back to the present, because he's breaking apart right in front of you, and you need to watch every second of it.

once you get your head back on right—oh fuck, and now his hips are moving in time with his hand—you want nothing more than to be the reason he comes undone. so you hold your hair back, lean forward until your mouth is hovering over his tip, and look up at him through your eyelashes, asking if you can.

he barely gets out a “yes, baby” before you spit on him, pulling back just in time to watch matty’s face twist in pleasure as he uses it to stroke himself, faster now, messier. the sounds he’s making are fucking obscene, and you’re burning every single one into your brain, locking them away so you can replay them at a later date when it’s just you and your hand.

it’s just a few minutes more before you notice his hand lift up his shirt a bit higher because you know he’s close. confirmed seconds later by the way he keeps whispering that he’s coming, over and over again. you watch as his cum spills over his hand, making a warm, sticky mess of it. you take note of how he keeps his grip around himself even after he's done, even after he’s gone soft in his own hand. his face is slick with a thin layer of sweat, curls sticking to his forehead as he tries to steady his breathing. he’s so fucking pretty like this—your wrecked, ruined boy.

you shift up slowly, kneeling beside him, fingers cupping his face as you brush damp curls back from his forehead. then you finally kiss him again, swallowing the tiny, whimpers slipping from his mouth in the aftermath. when you pull back, your gaze flickers down to his hand, to his sticky, shaky fingers, and you don’t even realize you’re licking your lips until he laughs, breathless and dazed. he lifts his hand, bringing it to your face, and you can’t look away, your breath catching as he presses his thumb against your bottom lip, silently asking for permission.

so you part your lips, tongue sliding over the pad of his thumb before sucking it deeper into your mouth without hesitation. his whole body shudders at the feeling, and you grin around his finger when he moans at the fact that you’re eagerly and happily licking his cum off his hand.

"i don’t even know what i’m doing right now." matty barely gets the words out, aimed more at himself than you. because you know damn well that this is almost too much for him. he’s overwhelmed. fuck, you are too but in the best way possible. it’s like you’re floating outside your own body, just watching this unfold, completely stunned that it’s real. that it’s you—your mouth, your hands, your body—doing this to him after all these years. and honestly? you couldn’t feel luckier <3

[crazylittlejester]

I hope you are doing better cause your posts make me so happy!

I don't know if anyone has said this or not but I think Wars isn't actually that great at taking care of himself! Like he definitely knows how and knows the best tricks but he just would rather take care of the other people around him first/instead. He's the mom friend after all.

He was a Captain so he probably had a lot of younger soldiers under his command and I think he would really try to take them under his wing and help teach them how to take care of themselves properly. That definitely only increased when Mask came around (except Mask actually made sure he took care of himself too)

With the chain I think they've all kind of caught onto this so when Wars is stressed that each has something they go to him for 'help'. Like Wild asks if he can help brush his hair, Legend will ask for sewing/embroidery tips and Wind will lets him ramble about how to get out different stains from his clothes. It gets his mind focused on something else and it actually calms him down a lot oddly enough!

Sorry i definitely rambled a bit but that's my little head canon!

HELL YEAH I 100% agree with this, I have basically the same hc!!

To me it is the act of taking care of someone else that calms Warriors down, like he cannot do it to himself he cannot self care because he stresses he’s doing it wrong, but if he’s taking care of someone else he ends up taking care of himself in the process. I hc he’s a middle child (and the only boy, rip) so to me he’s got a handful of younger sisters and if he ever tried to take care of them by making sure they got extra food, they’d be like “well you have to have some too” and he’d end up being forced to go “okay alright”. Because an older sibling telling him to do something like take care of himself was just going to make him Not Want To Do That, but his little sisters guilt tripping him into it absolutely works

Mask did similar things whenever Warriors would be like “okay bedtime, you have an early morning” by pointing out Warriors ALSO had an early morning. I also hc Mask would get all into his personal space (carefully, ofc) and flop on him and get all cozy and fall asleep in such a way that made it LITERALLY impossible for Warriors to get any more work done so he would HAVE to stop and take a break and put the kid to bed, which made him put HIMSELF to bed. Also the idea that Mask would have a nightmare and be able to comfort himself and get over it and he COULD just go back to sleep, but he’ll go to Warriors anyway because he needs the hug and he knows WARRIORS needs a cuddle and will never ever ask for one, so Mask has to go over there claiming HE needs it

and i agree one billion percent with the idea that the chain will ask his assistance for easy little tasks Warriors absolutely knows how to do that are simple enough to be soothing because he cares for himself by caring for others partly because he needs to feel useful and wanted in order to ever truly relax

does he know HOW self care works? yes. he’s just PHYSICALLY incapable of it because Trauma

[skydigiblogs]

Digimon and Nostalgia

i have a habit of just kind of passing by in the tags sometimes even when i'm quiet, and i'm realizing i don't know how much i've talked about the thought behind why we decided to revisit digimon last february from start to finish.

okay so fair warning, this is gonna be rambly and a little bit semi-incoherent because i feel like absolute dogshit today but the brain worms on the subject aren't leaving me alone to rest.

i am putting it under a read more for all our sanity

so there's this category of post i always see in the tags that seems to come from a place of either not engaging with enough digimon media or not engaging with the media.

that first one is a bit easier to explain. sometimes people will talk about things they want to see in the digimon franchise, and it's kind of clear that they have a very narrow scope of what they've actually seen from it.

i'm trying to think of an example that doesn't put recent posts i've seen on blast lmao (because that's not the point of this post), but also i think some of the points brought up by this post by @starwardking (pardon the tag) highlight the complexity of the first kind of issue, because it both is and isn't the kind of problem that can be fixed by just finding the right digimon media.

when i saw this post, my first instinct was to point to series like savers and appmon, where a majority of the plot takes place in the human world and allows for a lot of mundane shenanigans. i also think a bit about the earlier episodes of tamers.

(i think to some extent ghost game has a bit of domestic life shit going on, but seeing as it is also a horror anime, part of it is about the dissonance between "Normal for Digimon" and "Normal for Humans." but you also get episodes about little hideaways digimon live in in the human world so they can drink tea and share snacks. you also have digimon that just hang out in libraries and shit like that.)

at the same time, this is also an issue i think that isn't fixed by finding the right digimon media. the comparison to pokemon is what makes me consider this, specifically because of something like pokemon amie. it may have just been a minigame, but it's also something that, especially in the video games, i don't think we have a clear parallel to. i do agree that it would be nice to enjoy a bit of domestic fluff with your digimon!

but then i also recognize that i myself have also skipped over games where i could tell there would be some of that. i couldn't finish survive because it has elements i just can't handle either playing or watching. what i do remember in survive is that you have quite a few scenes early on in the school that are about resource management (figuring out how to digimon survive, as it were). this is done while you're also chatting with your human and digimon friends.

which i think segues better into the second kind of issue, being that sometimes i see these posts and they come from an angle where it seems someone hasn't exactly made an effort to engage with digimon as it is. there's a phenomenal video essay by deep dive on youtube, actually, that talks about this with regards to ghost game.

on the most abstract level, are you trying to be cognizant of your biases going into a piece of art when you take it in? what experiences make it difficult to engage with the text in a way that it wants you to engage? can you even see what the text is trying to say, even if it's ineffectual?

this is also why i wanted to tie this in with the reason i decided to make a blog to track my revisiting of all the different series.

nostalgia is killer, and not in a good way.

one of the things we regularly do with media we enjoy enough to praise is revisit it. if it's been over a year since i've watched something and i am trying to hype it up to someone, i want to not rely on my own memory, but also the text of that individual piece of art.

the second form of this issue comes about when an individual has an Idea about digimon, and they post with a very firm stance on what digimon is or is not. it's a retreading i think of the same reason anyone is willing to not consider appmon part of the digimon franchise (despite the "digimon universe" title).

again: what are your biases coming into a piece of art? do you have certain ideas about what digimon is supposed to look like? do you refuse to give other digimon media a fair chance because of it?

this form is more likely to get me to just block someone so i don't have to keep scrolling past them in the tags tbh. there's a mixture of "it was better in the old days" combined with a blatant lack of media literacy when "attempting" to engage with newer digimon media. you see this in a lot of franchises, to be fair, but it is always frustrating.

like i could also be biased because of my own background, being that i have an english degree, but there's something so... disappointing, i suppose, to the latter form of this criticism. if you're going to have a take, i want to see you articulate it. it's not a school assignment, sure, but what in god's name is making you come to that take?

i think the most painful series to see this with for me are savers and appmon, if only because i did rewatch them to better understand why i love them (and also what i really hate about them!).

savers especially is a show i watched because i was interested in seeing if the "MIB but if the aliens were Digimon" series could handle making any statement about the nature of law enforcement! and surprise surprise, it fucking did!

people probably feel the same way any time i post about frontier, which is a series i've been vocal about my dislike about (though i respect anyone willing to try to make frontiers better through their own art and writing). it's been a struggle to rewatch that series, but i also don't want to make strong judgments with firm backing because i know i have not seen it in years, nor have i seen the original sub.

i don't think i have a nice clean conclusion for this. it's an observation i keep having, and i don't think there's any particular solution for someone like me who just wants people to try a little harder to pick apart the things they like. i want people to understand how stories tick, and the things they both explicitly and implicitly say. it's the english teacher in me, i guess.

[creative-hanyou-girl]

PJO SPOILERS!!!!!!

I'm only making one post tonight because I gotta be up in a few hours but WOW!!!!! What a finale episode!!!!! It was everything I loved from the book and more. Also that scene with Percy and Poseidon!? I actually got teared up. You could just SEE the pain and grief in Poseidon's eyes over the fact that he couldn't be with Percy and Sally and it was so heartbreaking!!!

Also ADORE that Poseidon saved Percy from Zeus. Not only from the bolt, but by surrendering. We all know how prideful the gods are, especially Big 3 gods, so the fact that Poseidon put Percy FIRST over his pride makes my heart melt. I always believed that as far as the Greek gods go in PJO, Poseidon was one of the better and more genuinely caring parents, and the show is just proving me right 1000%. Its also a good moment because it demonstrates to Percy that the gods aren't all black and white; they're not all terrible parents by choice. In my opinion, this moment gives Percy's motivation on fighting FOR the gods more weight and grounding. Because he sees that his dad DOES care about him. We all say Percy could've EASILY turned out like Luke, but because Percy sees that his dad does care about him, and that some gods do care about their kids, it allows him to see that not all the gods are completely terrible for the sake of being terrible. I still love his motivation in the books where he fights for the sake of his friends, but I like that the show is letting Percy see too that the gods, like humans, are multiple layered and that they have their reasons. This is not me trying to justify all the gods' actions btw, but I do think that there are SOME gods at least that aren't completely terrible for no reason like Zeus and Ares in PJO, and Poseidon protecting Percy is a great show of that and adds to Percy's decision to defend the gods instead of fighting against them, even though he and Luke are a lot alike with similar feelings of abandonment and resentment.

Also, I wonder how the TV only viewers are doing right now after Luke's betrayal. From what I heard, TV viewers loved Luke, so I can only imagine how WRECKED they must be feeling. I feel devastated, and I saw it coming as a book reader. That's how great Luke's actor was, and how great the show portrayed Luke as a older brother figure to Percy.

Overall, AMAZING final. I'll try to express more thoughts tomorrow.

[quinns-art-box]

(late) for gonta week day 3: friendship/promise!! because i am biased towards my faves i think about gonta and kaede postgame friendship often…. they both promised to end it, promised to keep everyone safe, but at least for now they can promise to be there for each other (and to get some rest)

plus more friends yayyyy i want them to hang out!!!

@gontagokuhara-week

[muirmarie]

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[why-the-heck-not]

29.06.23, thursday

I had a presentation today, and there's nothing (and I mean nothing) I hate more than those, so as a treat I made the rest of the day real cozy. Baked bread & listened to podcast while cleaning my apartment; good chill times

[puppppppppy]

for like 3 weeks i was wondering why i was sleeping so much and felt listless. and just now I managed to email 3 people and responded to a month old message in the span of an hour because I got back to TAKING MY FUCKIN MEDS..........

[phynixdotcom]

*remembers what they did to Vanny* 500 FUCKING PIPEBOMB ATTACK.