#dont like a word! politely inform them why its not good!! allow them to make their own informed decision!

[sardonicsergeant]

... So anyways let lesbians talk about loving pussy and gay men talk about loving dick

[ryosmne]

Three brats??

Dad!Sukuna x f!reader

So this is basically a comfort fic, featuring dad! Sukuna because the brainrot was too much. Ok so, the reader and Sukuna have a son together, yes their son is Yuuji, I know this is usually the single father Sukuna trope, but I wanted to give it a go, feedback is always appreciated. Thanks for brainrotting with me @likeab-o-s-s cause this is the reason this exists. That's all from me enjoy reading.

Warnings: none really, just family, heartwarming fluff.

The air was crisp and fresh, unusually refreshing for the beginning of summer. Parents were already gathered outside the daycare, Yuuji, y/n's and Sukuna's son attended, patiently waiting for their kids to run in their arms again.

Sukuna arrived a couple of minutes before the final bell on his motorcycle, he took off his helmet, leaned back on his bike and waited for the familiar little pink head of hair to come wobling to him.

The three mothers next to him, scooted a bit closer to him to get a better look nothing he's unfamiliar with and no one can blame them, Sukuna is a sight for sore eyes. Leather jacket with the sleeves rolled up, extenuating his board shoulders, exposing his tattoo covered skin, v neck white t shirt, allowing his toned chest and even more of his tattoos to show and a simple black pair of pants hugging his muscular thighs in the best of ways.

In the past some of the bolder ones had mustered the courage and asked him if he was a single father since they had never seen his son's mother, but with a laugh Sukuna brushed them off telling them how his lovely wife was a working parent and her schedule just didn't match the daycares. Maybe the very unconventional wedding rings they got weren't the best idea in this situation, even though they were extremely beautiful and unique.

"I really admire the work you put in the little guy" Sukuna's gaze met a woman who attempted to strike a conversation, oblivious to what she had meant by her statement he replied, maybe these three minutes would pass faster talking about normal things and not stressing about work.

"Don't we all put work on our kids?" He spoke calmly with a slight smile that he always wore when talking about Yuuji.

"Yeah, we do, but it still must be hard I can't imagine what you're going through" Sukuna's mind went to the worst scenario. Was Yuuji a trouble maker at school? He is a very well behaved child, both him and y/n made sure to teach him proper manners and how to be polite, that couldn't be it right?

The bell rung, and kids made their way out of the daycare, Yuuji in the blink of an eye was hugging his father's leg, exited to see him after the hours he was gone. In a swift motion Sukuna put Yuuji's little backpack on his own back and scooped the boy up in his arm.

"Yuuji's a pretty good kid, hes never been difficult" Sukuna smilled again resuming in the short conversation with the woman next to him. "Single father's like you don't get the credit they deserve". She spoke again smiling sadly down to the little pink haired boy who seemed too fixated on the earrings his father was wearing.

Sukuna finally understanding what this whole thing was about, chuckled, this had happened before after all, he should've known.

"I'm not a single parent, speaking of that your mom said she has a big surprise for you after dinner" he said directing his attention to his son again, the woman next to him quickly fumbled an apology for missundertanding, to which Sukuna replied to with a simple 'dont worry about it'. He placed Yuuji on his bike, put on both his and his boys helmet and drove off.

Y/n was still stuck at work, thankfully her husband would cook dinner tonight cause overtime was killing both her and her mood, good thing she finally had a day off tomorrow.

Y/n checked her phone to see how close she was to going home only to find a text that Yuuji's teacher had send her that was obviously meant for her husband.

Hello Mr Itadori, this is Mrs Laura from the day care. I was wondering if you wanted to get launch with me after school tomorrow, you can bring little Yuuji too, I'm awaiting your response, have a nice night.

What the hell was that? Well y/n's number was in Yuuji's contact information, she chuckled at the words displayed on her screen but she couldn't really blame the teach, Sukuna was a walking temptation, she knew that first hand, hell she fell head over heels for the dangerous looking guy who hid a heart of gold under his hard exterior, but the teacher could at least check who the number belonged to.

Y/n run her last errands and made sure to pick up Yuuji's surprise before heading home, she even tipped Sukuna off so their son wouldn't know what hit him.

Y/n made her way inside the family house, tossing her keys somewhere on the living room couch.

Yuuji immediately after hearing her car in the driveway came rushing down the stairs, jumping around her like he always did when she came home.

"Mom, mom you're home." The happiness was evident in the boys face, his smile was wide when y/n dropped to his level to pick him up and spin him around

"Yes I am little devil, did you give your father hell like we agreed?" She spoke in the happiest of tones with Yuuji still in her arms. Another set of arms engulfed her frame making her halt on spinning the little boy.

"So you're telling him to be a little brat now huh?" Sukuna's breath tickled the side of her neck and ear as he rested his head on her shoulder and wrapped his strong arms around her waist. "Welcome home love" he spoke again giving her jaw a ghost of a kiss.

"Daddy is the food ready" Yuuji spoke from y/n's arms, Sukuna only laughed at his son's appetite, and directed both him and y/n to the kitchen where he had already set everything up.

"Mommy, what is a single dad?" Yuuji asked in the middle of dinner in typical fashion of his, any question he had from something he heard through the day would always come up during dinner.

"Well Yuuji, single fathers are the fathers who raise their kids alone." The young boy seemed to think about his mother's words before speaking again. "So its just a daddy ?" Yuuji asked again with his eyes growing a bit sadder, his mother nodded, and Yuuji's eyes started to water.

"Baby what's wrong?" y/n asked. "Hey buddy what's going on?" Sukuna was growing quite concerned too. Yuuji burst in tears leaving his seat, climbing up his dad and hugging him tightly. Sukuna was rubbing his back to comfort the young boy and y/n's hand was stroking the kids hair in an effort to calm him down. "B-but why did that lady c-call you that, is m-mommy l-leaving?" Everything seemed to click for Sukuna, y/n was still confused but in the calmest sweetest voice said "Yuuji, baby look at me, I'm not going anywhere ok?" And the boy left his father's arms and clung on to her like his life depended on it.

Sukuna cracked a few jokes and lightened Yuuji's mood so he could enjoy the rest of his dinner, which went pretty well, he was his smiling adorable self very soon after his parents reassured him that none of them were ever leaving his side and the boy was now drawing with crayons in the living room. He seemed to have completely forgotten about the surprise his father mentioned when he picked him up.

Y/n and Sukuna were doing the dishes in the kitchen, each one talking about their day, Sukuna explained the awkward conversation he had at the daycare that sparked Yuuji's sadness, y/n took a turn in talking about how her son's teacher, basically asked Sukuna out on a date but messed up and texted her. "How about you set up a date and you show up? I mean it's you she texted right?" Sukuna joked "Babe, that's cruel" y/n chuckled at her husband's mischievous nature.

"So you've got everything ready?" Sukuna asked. "yeah who'll bring him over?"

"You do it I'll keep Yuuji busy."

Sukuna joined Yuuji on the couch. "What are you drawing little brat?" Y/n heard him ask their boy in the usual sweet tone he had with him. She made her way down the basement, where she kept the surprise since she came home. Yuuji was going to love this, Sukuna was too, she knew she was already in love as well.

Y/n climbed the stairs quickly, and snuck up behind her son, who was occupied by his dad, she gently tapped the boys shoulder.

"A PUPPY" Yuuji announced exited making sure his voice was still soft not to scare the eager dog that his mom brought to his arms. Yuuji gently held the puppy that was licking his face as he was in a fit of laughter and excitement. Sukuna was as exited as his son and y/n had a huge smile on her face too. Their son had begged and begged for a dog ever since his best friend, Megumi got a black German shepherd puppy. Of course y/n and Sukuna wanted to comply to Yuuji's request right away, but they took time to teach little Yuuji everything there was about the responsibility of owning a dog. They took him to dog cafes and shelters, so he would be the perfect little dog owner, they taught him patience and responsibility beforehand. Sukuna visited the local shelter and decided with y/n on a white Shepard puppy that Yuuji always pointed out in your visits because 'he looks like Megumi's puppy they can be friends like we are' who can say no to that little adorable devil?

The puppy momentarily left Yuuji's arms to lick Sukuna's face. "Now we've got two little brats and a big one in our house." He laughed, enjoying the moment.

Y/n was admiring her son and husband as well as the newest member of the family with a smile plastered wide on her face, life was indeed beautiful.

The next day, both Sukuna and y/n were waiting for Yuuji to finish school, since y/n had the day off. Sukuna had his arm protectively around her because this time, others were staring at what was his, but he was proud to show her off to everyone, even in a place as mundane as his son's daycare.

[marinetteplztakeabreak]

I need to share soft sign language buddies ninogami headcanon because they’re taking over my brain always:

(This got so long, so youre welcome if youre also starved for ninogami content)

Nino’s mom is Deaf , so he grew up signing as much as speaking. When he was younger he always signed as he talked.

It turned out he’s also Hard of Hearing, so sign language is way easier for him to understand most of the time.

However, though he’s great at making friends, he’s very awkward when it comes to talking about himself. So never comes up in conversation.

It’s not a self-deprication issue. It’s just a “thinking of things to say is hard and I’d rather have someone else do the talking” thing. He’d rather talk about anyone except himself.

Additionally! He’s great at helping other people, but he’s terrible at asking for help. He does not EVER want to be like “hey i cant understand what you’re saying, my ears dont work great,” its his worst nightmare

And it doesnt help that there have been a few cases of people being rude about it when he doesnt hear them after they repeat themselves. And possibly worse, there have been even more cases of people giving over-the-top apologies instead of just,, telling him what they said. So it’s not worth the trouble in his mind

with his few close friends who still dont know, it feels like its too late and it’d be awkward to bring it up, so he just… doesnt. He’s procrastinating on telling them he cant hear them

He stopped signing as much as he talked in middle school because strangers would always be like “woah thats so cool, how do you know sign language” and he’d just panic because he was an awkward tween, and he didnt know if he was comfortable telling them he was HoH, but ALSO just saying his mom was Deaf and not mentioning himself felt like directly lying by hiding information, so he just took the “lazy” way out and signed less in public.

Sometimes fighting the anxiety was not worth it so he just let it win in that case.

Nino is so nice and energetic and loves people, but he is way more introverted and anxious than his friends think.

But when they start to get closer, Kagami who is ever-observant, notices him signing a little bit, (not ever to her, not ever on purpose, but he’d sometimes sign a word he needed to remember while speaking or sign along to emphasize something)

and she luckily for his anxiety, she doesnt know how to have a normal conversation either.

Her (platonic as well as romantic) love language is studying and research, and Nino seems very cool and she likes him, even if she is awful at holding a conversation with him or doing anything to show it.

She thinks he’s so cool and such an amazing talented kind friend. She has so much love for him that she doesnt know what to do with it. So she channels that energy into learning to sign through the internet and whatever tools she can find

And then after a while of this, she’s like “oh no, he’s gonna think that’s so creepy, I cant tell him I know sign language or he’ll be so uncomfortable”

So, like a whole idiot, she hides that she’s learning sign language from anyone. Because OBVIOUSLY if word got back to Nino, he’d assume it was because of him and that she was a weirdo he shouldn’t be friends with

But also Kagami accidentally falls in love with sign language because she has undiagnosed autism. She always assumed that communicating was just going to be impossible no matter what, but as she gets proficient in sign language she’s like,,, oh,,, OH,, this is very nice

Even just signing while she talks makes it so much easier to keep words and sentances straight, but she only does it when she’s alone with her mother, who is literally blind and would never know.

They become closer friends in late high school, and by that time a lot of Nino’s anxiety has worn off and he’s become completely comfortable letting teachers know when he needs to hear somthing, and middle school feels like a distant dream

At some point, Nino invites Kagami to his house a few times, and he signs with his mom. Nino is like “I can interpret for you,” and Kagami is like “wow thanks, I’m so lucky, because I obviously do not know any sign language, why would I have learned it, and also for the record it is brand new information to me that you can sign,” and Nino is like “cool? Its not a secret but im glad i told you if you somehow didnt already know,” and Kagami is like, “yep :)”

But then eventually as they become really close, they are texting one night, (Kagami can still barely get out of her house, so they need to communicate remotely. And both of then HATE phone calls bc its so hard to understand whats happening, but neither of them have admitted this to anyone)

Nino admits that he likes using sign language better than talking, and he wishes he could use it with his friends, but he’d feel so guilty asking them to learn an entire language just to make him slightly more comfortable. He can talk and hear OKAY so he shouldnt put the pressure on them.

and Kagami is like “you could always ask, worst case scenerio they say no, and i dont think thats an unreasonable demand” and nino is like “it is though,” and kagami’s like “ok so haha funny story, please dont hate me” and nino is like, “…what.” And kagami confesses everything and nino is like “why… why would i hate you for that?” And Kagami is like “oh wait youre right im stupid,”

And then Nino’s also like “hey if YOURE more comfortable signing too, then why dont YOU ask your friends to sign for you. Do you see what i mean? It’s hard to ask-” and kagami is like, “as your friend i will prove it is not.”

So then Kagami ends up confronting Adrien and Marinette the next day and is like “Hi. This is a sign language dictionary. Learn from it.” And they’re both like “what?” And she’s like “oh wait sorry. Backing up. I’m autistic. I decided like three years ago. Forgot to tell you. And I need you to learn to sign a little bit so you can understand if i sign something at you. If you want, of course. Please :D.” And theyre like “ok sure yeah i can do that.”

(Theyve already learned and accepted that shes extremely direct in asking for things)

So then she texts nino and is like “i did it. Youre welcome.”

But anyway both of them are uncomfortable in crowds and parties: Nino cant hear anyone and Kagami tends to get sensory overload, so they start signing mostly in those situations, and then it starts to sink in that they’re allowed to sign whenever and that the other really IS also comfortable with it.

(Both of them are much more willing to make sacrifices for others than to try something new and intimidating for themself, so this is the perfect situation to trick them into getting out of their comfort zone, ironically by trying to be more comfortable in the long run)

so they will just sit together and hang out and have long conversations while just chilling somewhere in a park or at cafes or whatever. Both of them become chattier than they’ve ever been because talking and understanding is so much easier, and its addicting

And their close friends all become proficient enough in sign language to have simple conversations.

But also Nino and Kagami start sitting together automatically even in group hangouts, and they start hanging out more with just the two of them, and soon neither of them feel bad about asking to hang out in quieter places, because they can justify it knowing that it will also help the other one, and together that makes both of them also more comfortable asking for little accomodations from other friends, if only to prove to the other that they can do it too.

And Kagami has the lesser-known autism side effect where she makes WAY TOO MUCH eye contact. She’s aware of it but that doesnt make it go away. Normally she feels so awkward about it, and overthinks her gaze because she doesnt want to scare people away. But when signing, you literally HAVE to be watching the other person constantly, so she has an excuse to just be herself, and its so relieving

(and also its kind of fun to look at Nino anyway because he can get so animated and his smile is really nice and oh no she is in love a little bit)

And Nino always struggles because he emotionally ALWAYS needs to be the nice polite one. His anxiety sometimes gets the better of him and he’s constantly worried about sending the wrong signals to his friends and coming off as rude somehow. But with Kagami, he can literally just ask?? And she will tell him her honest opinion without making it weird. And its so comfy and so good and he really loves hearing her unfiltered opinions on so many things because she sees the world in such a unique way and she gets so passionate about such little things and then oh no, he is fallen for her before he can realize it

And they also learn that they’re both artists, they both love to just observe the world because even if they;re awkward, people are actually pretty great most of the time, and its fun to observe them and try to capture the world, and they just sit together and sketch, or they watch each other sketch, and the thing is, both of them draw ONLY FOR THEMSELVES, its not a ‘skill,’ and they don;t want it to be, its just private art for relaxation. Somehow, though, its okay if they share their art with each other. They can just sit in comfortable silence for hours while one of them sketches something and the other watches patiently

And they start to get more comfortable with one of their heads resting on the other’s shoulder as they watch them doodle, and sitting so close their legs press together, and soon enough their hands start brushing against each other’s as they walk next to each other and then all of a sudden they’re casually holding hands whenever they’re not signing because it’s nice

They try to share headphones so Nino can share some of his favorite songs and his compositions with Kagami. But try as she might, Kagami can not handle the sensory of only having one earbud in. Nino knows her tells by that point, and he’s not about to let her suffer for a stupid reason, but she REALLY does want to hear his music. They somehow end up with Kagami putting a pair of headphones around her neck and turning up the volume a little bit so she can hear, while Nino rests his head on her shoulder so he can hear just enough to know where she is in the song

And then he has to sit up and scootch away just enough to see her hands so they can talk about it, and they both pretend not to notice how nice it was to snuggle as they sign. Its fine, though, because now they get the excuse to just look at each other again and sign overdramatically with exaggerated facial expressions, and no one else around can overhear their conversation, and Nino likes to go a little over the top when signing onomatopoeia and acting out particular parts of the song rhythm that he likes, and Kagami laughs, and they both mentally save the image of each other in this moment the same way that they look at reference images for artwork, memorizing the lines of each movement and the things that make each smile unique,

and Nino also shows up at every single one of her fencing tournaments, and he sits as close as he can and signs encouraging messages to her from the crowd whenever she’s not actively competing, (that her blind mom can never catch, which is somewhat of a bonus to Kagami, because every element of their friendship that her mother cant interact with makes this more personal and special and HERS). Every little sign she sends back at him, even a simple thank you, always feels so good and rebellious and free because shes supposed to be focusing on fencing but shes deciding to care more about friendship. And even if she’s expected to leave immediately afterword, she’ll find every excuse possible to find him and give him a hug, which he’ll always accept even though she jokingly warns him shes sweaty and gross

And eventually they are special best friends and it brings them instant joy to see each other and theyre able to interact for no reason other than that they want to and like each other

(And then they kiss)

[chemiste]

Voicemail. ~part 2~

a/n : you want it? go get it! heres the second part to voicemail!! I’m thinking a 3rd and final part for this??? if y’all want it tell me! ALSO I’ve linked what the reader is wearing and maybe what others are too so if you see a link thats what it is. also wanted to say thank you so much for the support on this one shot!! i would put those big eye emojis but im typing on a laptop and i dont think O.O is the same....

first part!!!! go read

mah masterlist

“Next on the red carpet is singer/song writer Y/N L/N, wow look at that beautiful dress!! This year at the Grammys she is up for 3 awards, Song of the Year, Best Dance Recording, and Best Solo Pop Artist!” 

The interviewer exclaimed excitedly from her podium along side the paparazzi wall. It had been a week since the songs were let out for the world and so there was definitely an electricity in the air at the awards ceremony.

“All you fans are probably watching for the most anticipated performances of tonight! Harry Styles will be singing one of his new songs from his album FineLine! Twitter is going ballistic from the recently leaked songs about is break up with L/N, we all know the cameras will be on her tonight whenever he’s mentioned! Oh look, here she comes now!”

You walked over in your beautiful award dress, safe to say you were the best dress star there. Your hair was done up and the red long dress seemed to flow around you effortlessly as you walked. 

“Hello Diane, it’s lovely to see you again.” 

You said in a polite voice, smiling to her and the camera, she handed you an extra mic, ready to drown you with questions.

“I’m going to cut to the chase— did you listen to the songs?”

Wow, this lady’s cut throat I’ll give her that.

“Oh yes! I’ve listened to all the albums nominated this year and I’m so excited.”

“Oh I was talking about—“

“I’m so incredibly grateful for the nominations, I put my blood, sweat, and tears into this album and I’m glad the fans love it as much as I do.”

You could see the Diane deflate a little, understanding you’d keep dodging questions about Harry until it was over so she moved on. 

“Yes, you’re nominated for Best Dance Recording, the music video for your song Clouds was crazy! How long did it take you to figure out how to dance while flying?!” 

You laughed, thinking back to the many rehearsals of choreography on the ground and then being connected to cables and hoisted into the air to perform it. 

“A girl never tells her secrets,” you said with a wink. 

“Well speaking of flying in a music video, I know one performance tonight will be—“

Cheers and hysteric screaming filled the fan area as someone came on to the carpet. 

“Is that? Oh look, Harry Styles enters the stage in a—, my goodness! You and him are matching!”

You couldn’t believe it.

Harry was decked out in a full red suit, hair beautifully fluffed and glimmering in the light. He had red heels that looked like Dorthy’s slippers.

And he had the faintest amount of red lipstick on, making him look like an ethereal being in red.

“Wow, we really are matching.” 

You mumbled to yourself, half forgetting you were being filmed. 

You turned back to the camera the moment you remembered, making your face emotionless so hopefully the interviewer wouldn’t pick up on your thoughts at the moment. 

You quickly thanked her and slipped off into the sea of celebrities, hearing his voice ‘hello love! So happy you could come’ to the fans hoping he would give them a signature.

You entered the award room, looking for your assigned seat. Luckily you were strangely one of the only people in there aside from a few techies working on the stage lights.

“Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Billie Elish, Kahild… Harry….” 

You gasped, basically scoffing at what you saw next. 

“Y/N L/N? Are you fucking kidding me?!” 

You started to breathe a little faster, “Oh god, I don’t think I can do a whole ceremony next to him, after the whole thing online… and not responding to his texts.”

It’s true, when he had texted you that morning, it took you 5 hours and a shot of tequila to actually open his messages.

Bastard (wasn’t allowed to block, fuck PR)

Hey… I don’t know if you’ve gotten a call from one of your PR people yet but, I just wanted you to know I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, I don’t wish to put you through anymore than what I already have…

Bastard (wasn’t allowed to block, fuck PR)

Um, but uh, if you’ve listened to the songs, just know that I really do mean the words I sang. I wish we could have, uh talked, but I understand I’m not in any position to ask for that. Just, there were a few others songs that didn’t get leaked, and uh, I’d like you to have them. You don’t have to listen to them but, it would mean a lot to me if you did.

Bastard (wasn’t allowed to block, fuck PR)

“Mrs. Styles.”M4A. Click to open.

Bastard (wasn’t allowed to block, fuck PR)

“I Should Have Fought.”M4A. Click to open.

Bastard (wasn’t allowed to block, fuck PR)

“I’m Sorry.”M4A. Click to open.

You didn’t listen to them, like the others. 

You just… couldn’t. 

It had taken you so long to get over him and grind it into your head that you didn’t do anything wrong, he did. 

Your PR team decided the best thing to do was acted like nothing had happened because if you didn’t give a response the public would have nothing to go off of, so here you were, looking at one of the scheming ideas from someone on the Award Team to see if they’d be the first to get some action between the two of you.

“Fuck that.” 

You said to yourself, looking around to make sure no one was looking, you snatched your name paper and walked about 15 seats over and changed with Lana Del Ray. 

Because you were all in the front row, you couldn’t get farther than that, but this would have to do. You quickly put Lana’s paper in your previous seat and walked out of the room, escaping the ‘crime scene’.

At least I’m sitting next to Shawn now.

You and Shawn had gotten to be friends around a year ago when you bumped into him at the recording studio and....maybe spilled your marshmallow milkshake down his shirt.

“I’m so fuckin sorry! Oh god please don’t sue me for this, or worst, tell your fans!!” 

You rambled, padding him off with the napkins from your fast food bag. You looked up at the tall Canadian in front of you that just had a smile on his face.

 “Hey don’t worry about it, uh, I’m Shawn but I guess you already knew that.” 

“Yeah, I’ve been listening to your music for a while its fantastic, I’m—“ 

“Y/N L/N, America’s Favorite Child and Feminist thats not faired to fuck you up?” 

You grinned, “Oh you saw that video?” 

He laughed, “Hell ya I did, You punching that old misogynist groping that girl on the street is one of the videos saved on my phone!”

After that day, you both caught on like a house on fire since you seemed to be in the studio at the same time, it was great having someone to throw ideas around with at 3am when everyone else had left the studio.

“Y/N! Girl! I haven’t seen you in forever!” 

You looked up from the corner of the red carpet you had been hiding standing in. Hailee Steinfeld made her way over to you in a black dress that hugged her perfectly. 

You let out a sigh of relief, you gave her a big hug, breathing in her sweet perfume. 

“Hailee you’re a life savor, I feel so out of it here.” 

She gave you a soft look, “Cause he’s here right?”

You clinched your jaw, “And we’re fucking matching! How did that even happen? It’s literally the same shade of my dress and everything! There are so many shades his team could have chose but they went with that one! And the lipstick! He’s basically a devil personified! But he’s got style!”

You quietly rambled to your fellow singer, she squeezed your hand when the bell chimed telling everyone it was time to enter. 

“Y/N, before we go in I wanted to ask if you had listened to the songs.” 

“Uh, no… I… I couldn’t hear his voice staying those things to me so I just read the lyrics.” 

Hailee gave your bare shoulder a squeeze, “Well, I don’t want to play devil’s advocate,” you smiled at her little quip, “but I did, and what’s not in the lyrics just written is the emotion you could hear in his voice. During Drunk Thoughts, theres a part that people are speculating he’s crying while recording, trying force sing it out and, it’s just, I think it’s time you spoke to him.”

Hailee was one of your most trusted friends and to hear her say this, wasn’t surprising.

You were starting to think it too.

“But, I’m scared H, what if makes it worse?”

The final bell chimed and you both started to walk inside. “I have a feeling it won’t."

                                                        ........

“What an incredible performance by Ariana Grande, next up is the show we’ve all been waiting for, or well I’ve been waiting for, here’s Harry Styles performing a new song from his nominated Album, FineLine!” 

James Corden announced from the side aisle. You felt Shawn subtly queen your hand, knowing there was bound to be a camera on you the whole time while Harry sang.

You took a deep breath,

No facials.

No twitching.

Calm.

The curtain came up from the stage, the set was a back cube cut diagonally so the audience could see the inside. 

Harry stood in a white suit sans a shirt. He wasn’t wearing shoes so you could see the painted red toe nails peeking out from underneath the too long suit pants. 

His hair had been messed with a bit, giving it a soft and fluffy just out of bed look.

Now he looks like an angel.

He held a red mic in his hand, and spoke into it.

“Before we start, I’d like to inform you that I will be singing an unreleased song not from my album called.”

He took a breath.

"Red.”

You curled your toes in your heels the only way you’d be allowed to release the tension you felt in your body since they were covered by your dress.

Fuck, that’s why we match.

A piano started playing, a sort of dark melody that reverberated through your bones and into your soul.

It’s all I can see,

It’s all I can hear,

The sound is loud,

But it’s not clear.

The tone of your voice,

Plays in my head,

That look in your eyes,

I can tell you want me dead.

Grays are the only color I see,

Black and white and in between.

But then I saw you in that dress.

The color of blood always suited you the best.

You and your red dress.

You and your red…… dress.

Thoughts swirl around, in my mind.

Pretty eyes and satin clothes,

They plagues my dreams, in the night.

Grays are the only color I see,

Black and white and in between.

But then I saw you in that dress.

The color of blood always suited you the best.

You and your red dress.

You and your red…… dress.

You watched as he struggled to hold back the emotion in his voice, you sucked in a small breathe when his eyes made contact with yours, unwavering.

Oh… I wish could take it back.

Oh… I wish I could take it back.

Oh… I wish could take it back.

Oh… I wish I could take it back.

You and your red dress.

You and your red…… dress.

You and your red dress.

You and your red…… dress.

The song ended and the audience was silent.

 Everyone could feel the tension in the room, so you did the only you could do.

You stood and started to clap.

Shawn and Hailee immediately followed your cue and soon the rest of the auditorium was erupting with cheers and roars of excitement.

But all you could focus on was the smile on his face, looking down at you.

And the one forming on yours too.

<3

3rd part right here!

alsoooo i’d like to say a big wtf to people that white wash reader inserts! it’s so damn easy to just put a little colleague together like i did and add it so everyone can envision themselves and like,,, need a hairstyle? literally say ‘you did your favorite hairstyle’ thats perfect and a neutral way to keep everyone happy!!! people that bitch about going the extra mile are worthless writers smh

[nightswithkookmin]

Imo there is enough to support the possibility of a romantic relationship, but you are writing full on narratives with impossible specificity. You know what confirmation bias is but some young impressionable people dont yet . Forgive me but misleading with ' alt facts' can hurt someone even if you dont mean it. I think you are a good person not looking to hurt anyone. But the way you postulate without any evidence makes your actions a little but like those of a charlatan. Peace and kindness

All these kind words you spew...

It feels more like an advice than a question so I'm not sure how to respond to it...

Let me just say thank you? I never quite understood what the brouhaha was about with my posts but after talking to a few people, 'on the other side' lol and reading your Ask, I think I'm starting to get a better sense of what the problem is.

Something about young impressionable minds or people?

Let the council of elders know, those are not my audience please. I cater to a much more mature audience- at least so far. The people that I interact with and engage with on my posts on and off Tumblr are very mature and not impressionable at all.

They are People with brains who can tell an opinion from fact and can engage in deep complex controversial conversations without throwing up, shedding tears or cussing through to the heavens.

If there are 'impressionable people' reading my blogs- they do so at their own risk. If you know any such people or they run to you with my theories kindly point out to them it's just theory because that's what my opinions are.

I think the best thing you can do is to advice such people to grow up if they are going to sit at the adult table or not read my posts at all. I think you need to learn to hold the right people accountable for their actions.

The best I can do in this case- to hold myself accountable, is to put up a disclaimer on my posts to let people know what it is that they are reading- something I do quite often. But I will make conscious efforts to put up those disclaimers each time henceforth. Thank you.

That I write full on narratives with impossible specificity:

Is this Latin for, 'you write fiction get the fuck outta here?' Chilee.

I don't even know what you mean by this exactly so I may not be able to respond to it to your satisfaction. Bare with me.

So what if I write fiction? What is wrong with writing fiction? Do you hate fiction writers? I don't get what the hate is with these complaints honestly. Do you want me to put up a disclaimer stating my blogs are fiction? Would that help? I would glady do it.

If it helps you sleep at night think of my blogs as fiction- a rose by any other name. I've been keeping up with Shakespeare. Lol.

I don't think it's that deep. Listen, you gotta understand that just because we both 'ship' Jikook don't mean we are on the same team...

Most alt shippers I know and who read my posts and engage with it are not even Army to begin with, for your information. They could care less about these shipping politics of yours. Have you thought about that?

Some simply ship JK and JM and support them because they believe they are members of the LGBTQ plus community not because they are part of BTS.

There are different communities out there who are also into Jikook- for very different reasons. You gotta respect that.

To you, Jikook is just a ship within BTS that may or may not be real, but to some of us they have very much outgrown that description...

They are a brand of their own, a power couple and members of the LGBTQ plus community- Gay Icons extraordinaire. I think we take very different stock in Jikook. So stop trying to fit us all into one box.

It's disrespectful to try and control the way that people perceive their OTP and support them. Jikook don't just belong to Army Jokers, they belong to different communities outside Army. Are you aware of that?

And please don't confuse the intersect. I am an alt-shipper yes but I just so happen to be an Army too. But if I wasn't an Army, I'd still pretty much 'ship' and support Jikook- make no mistake. There are quite a few of us running around these streets, you know?

So you have every right to want to gatekeep your Army Jikook- but you have to do that without infringing on other rights of other 'Jikook communities.'

Throughout my blogs I have tried to shed light on what altshipping is because I thought it would help bridge the gap but clearly that hasn't worked. Sigh.

Misleading alt facts

Do you not know what it means or you are just being ironic?👀

Why is it ok for you to believe and proclaim that JK and BigHit lied about JK dating the Tattoo artist but it's not ok for me to believe JK is telling the truth when he says he didn't date her and that BigHit saw an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone- hence why they didn't press charges against the shop for breach of privacy like they had said they were going to do. Instead, they had asked the shop to keep calm till the scandal died down on it's own?

You start your piece off with the whole, 'there is enough evidence to support a romantic relationship' between JK and the tattoo shop lady- I assume.

For context, this Ask by this anon is in response to my recent post/ answer on the tattoo girl scandal where the topic of discussion was on BigHit, JK and the tattoo artist and not Jikook perse.

A statement that is in direct conflict with JK's statement, BigHit's and the lady in questions, all denying that there was a romantic relationship between her and Jungkook- and somehow I am misleading who- who now with my theory??? Chileee.

Do you see the problem here? Double standards- the hallmark of bigotry. Lmho. You are literally doing the very thing you are accusing me of. Making confident assertions and claiming you know more about JK and the Lady's relationship and even have 'enough evidence' contrary to BigHit, JK and the Tattoo artist's statements denying the rumors- at least when I theorize I admit I'm being delusional. What's your excuse? When you say charlatan are you referring to yourself? You must be. Lmho.

Now I'm confident in my comprehension skills and intelligent enough to know when you make an assertion like this- it is your opinion and you are just stating your opinion. If you are not then honey you'd be opening yourself up to some serious litigation... goodluck I guess. Lol.

You are allowed to form an opinion about a topic. There is nothing wrong with that. If to you, JK and this person dated that is fine. I am not going to cyber bully you, stalk you, throw slurs at you, harrass you, dox you, slid into people's Dms to spread hate and lies about you just because I don't agree with your opinion. And for the record, I don't agree with your opinion. Hehehehe.

I have stated my opinion on the matter. I said I think JK and this person did hang out, go on dates but that there was no romantic sexual relationship between them because I believe that would have had much serious consequences and effects on Jikooks dynamics no matter how much they tried to keep a cool facade. Whoever felt cheated on would have acted more insecure than usual post the incident- how does this make me a charlatan? Are you saying it's wrong it have an opinion? Chileee.

Now if you can produce 'evidence' of them having sex or even kissing, then I will gladly change my mind on the topic and not sweat it.

Jikook have done way worse questionable things in 7 good years and people still don't believe they are dating. Jk hangs out with a female friend a few times in less than a month and suddenly he is dating her? Lmho.

You don't need me to tell you people are more eager to accept a heterosexual relationship than wrap their heads around the fact that two male idols are gay and in a gay relationship with eachother. Don't you just love it when homophobia meets heteronormativity and stinks? I do. Lol.

I mean this is a fandom that thinks JK is 'too touchy' and doesn't respect his boundaries- they practically swear JK is cheating on Jimin with every member any time he hugs, kisses, wings at within the group. You think they will be 'objective' about JK hanging out with a girl? Even if it happened once?

You said something about confirmation bias.... I will not touch it. Lmho.

This is not the first time JK has gone on a date with a girl. This is not the first time he has 'dated a girl', he has hand girls on his laps or whatever- what is a back hug? I think people need to stop defining Jikook's lives by their own standards. If a backhug is intimate to you. Thats you. If you think a grown ass man cannot hang out with a female friend, that's equally you.

You think if he thought it was inappropriate and risky he would do it 'in public?' Get with Kpop Idol dating culture. Lmho.

Do you know the lengths they go through to keep their relationships a secret? Especially non celebrity girlfriends? Chen from EXO got married and where is his wife? They keep their flings tighter than Trump keeps his toupee on his head. Lol.

They hide them not out of shame but out of love and the need to protect their loved ones. These idols have family members who have their restaurants and businesses shut down because they want to keep their privacy.

You think JungKook's girlfriend would- on her own, issue a statement regarding a scandal that Jungkook's agency had specifically directed her and her shop to keep quiet about and lay low till it blew away on its own? And later, started liking couple posts about her and JK? If they were dating, certainly JK would have dumped her after that move. In my opinion.

You think JK would let his fandom drag the person he is in a relationship with to the extent she loses her Job- when in his Itaewon gay pub scandal BigHit referred to the issue as his private affair immediately it happened? They could have kept the same energy with her, no?

They handled his gay pub scandal much better, with much respect and consideration for his privacy- if he dated her sorry but she mustn't have meant much to him at all. And if I were her I would have dumped him for that shit and not stay liking couple posts about us. Damn- But do you.

Taehyung was in a scandal with a girl too- did you see her liking posts and shit and going out of her way to do the most? Did you see how BigHit handled that scandal?

Nothing wrong if JK is 'dating' her or had 'dated' her and whatever person he decides he wants to be in a relationship with I will support him- that's why I support Jikook.

But your opinion is equally valid my guy. Just don't call me a charlatan for mine. You believe they dated, I believe they didn't- and to your impressionable young minds, I hope you are not selling them anything contrary to BigHit and JK's statement. That would be very irresponsible of you. Lol.

What else did you say?

Oh postulating without evidence...

Next time I write a theory based on my observations about Jikook, remind me to break off a piece of my brain and attach it to it- I guess that way people would finally understand when I say things like 'I think' 'in my opinion' 'I feel' 'I believe' that these are just my thoughts and opinions and not facts.

Let me leave you with this:

Peace and kindness. Namaste.

Signed,

GOLDY.

[starsgivemehp]

The Argument Against and Defense of Hetalia

Let me preface this by saying that I have not watched the show or read the manga in a few years now, and thus I am working mostly off of memory and what fan content I see these days, which is not a lot. Also, I am a gentile, and I don’t claim to know a lot about the Jewish community or traditions. I am, however, a writer and I have plenty of practice analyzing and criticizing works of fiction from multiple angles. With that in mind, this essay is an attempt to explain everything that is wrong and not wrong with the show, the comic strips, and the fandom.

I’m putting this under a read more for sheer length, this was 11 pages on Google docs.

Let us start with the list of grievances assembled largely from one post, the majority of which I had to go digging for as the original person in this post who mentioned Hetalia said, and I quote, “i dont feel the need to link a source for [hetalia] because…” and then listed two things, one of which is incorrect entirely. But I digress, I will address each one at a time. The list of grievances is as follows:

It is called ‘Axis Powers’ Hetalia

One of the main characters is a personification of Nazi Germany

The entire point of the series is:

Advocating for eugenics

Racial fetishization

Advocating for fascism

Nazi sympathizing/propaganda

The entire franchise is terrible due to rape jokes, racism, and Holocaust jokes

Hetalia fans are all terrible due to rape jokes and other issues

Death of the author cannot apply to this fandom

There may be more that are in other reblogs of the post in question, and I may add addendums further in this essay, but for the time being, I will address each of these grievances and explain the validity or non-validity of each, from a position understanding of both fans and of non-fans. Thus, in order:

‘Axis Powers’ Hetalia

When people talk about Hetalia, they usually are referring to the anime due to its widespread popularity. However, Hetalia began as a series of strip comics posted on a forum by Hidekaz Himaruya (and I spent a while trying to actually find the original comics, but I can’t, there are links to his blogs there in what I’ve provided). It later was formatted into a manga, and then later became an anime. While it was originally titled Axis Powers: Hetalia and the first two seasons of the show are named as such, it usually is only referred to as Hetalia. The anime seasons after said first two seasons have all been ‘world’ focused: Seasons three and four were titled World Series, season five was titled Beautiful World, season six was titled World Twinkle, and the upcoming season seven is titled World Stars.

For the purposes of tagging everything, I tend to see the tags ‘hetalia’ and ‘hws,’ which is short for Hetalia: World Series. This name of the third and fourth anime seasons is the most widely accepted and used name for the series as a whole. While it is true that, years ago, people referred to it as ‘aph’ for Axis Powers Hetalia, the fans and the series have put that behind them, for good reason. It is understandable, even righteous, to not accept the title ‘Axis Powers.’ It does draw focus to the WW2 era, and place the fascists and nazis as the ‘main characters,’ or even, ‘the good guys,’ which is not the case. Obviously, the Nazis were terrible and the entirety of the Axis Powers did horrible, unspeakable things during the war.

It must be noted, to anybody who has not seen the show or read the manga, that the first one to two seasons do have a ‘focus’ on the WW2 era, per se, but it largely talks about interactions between countries, as they are the personified party, and makes extremely few allusions to the war itself, and none to the Holocaust. I will address that in a later section. For now, the point to make is that after these original two seasons, Hetalia branches out into a much wider worldview, adds several more characters, and focuses more on said characters in individual arcs and offerings of historical facts - as generalized as they may be. Nobody claimed that Hetalia was correct in everything it said, but it aims to play out some historical information in a simplified and humorous way. This is due to the fact that the characters are all singular people meant to personify entire countries, which leads us to point two.

The Personification of Nazi Germany

This is the second complaint of the strand of the post in question that I was presented with, quoted as “one of the main characters is a personification of nazi germany.” This is an entirely incorrect statement. ‘Nazi Germany,’ as people call it, is the state of Germany during the era leading up to and of World War 2. The country is still Germany, the people were still German, the Nazi part comes from the political regime in power, a real world nightmare. In the Hetalia series, the characters are called by their country names, because that is who they personify. This may change at times. For example, the character now known as Turkey was previously called Ottoman Empire. They come to be when civilization starts or a colony is introduced to a place. This can be seen in the strip or episode where China ‘finds’ Japan as a small boy and begins to teach him reading and writing - and Japan thereafter invents hiragana. It can also be seen in the comic where a young child, Iceland, questions who he is and why he knows his people are “different beings” than him. The country that speaks to him (I only have the comic here in my likes in that list, the name isn’t mentioned and it’s been a while, but it might be another of the Scandinavian countries) explains that he is Mr. Iceland, they don’t know why he is Mr. Iceland, but they know he is.

What I am attempting to explain with all of these other examples is that there is no ‘Nazi Germany’ character. There is a character called Germany (or Mr. Germany), and all of his adult life, he has been called Germany. He is never addressed by anything else. He does, however, look remarkably similar to a childhood friend of Italy’s, Holy Roman Empire (or just Holy Rome), but as far as it has been explained in canon, Holy Rome went off somewhere and, later on Germany and Italy met as strangers. The general consensus is, due to the area where the Holy Roman Empire used to be is around-ish Germany, the characters are the same. But never, in any of the comics, anime, or movie, is Germany referred to as Nazi Germany. I don’t believe the word ‘Nazi’ appears at any point in time, even, though I cannot claim I have seen every shred of content, so I may be wrong. But I doubt that very much, as it is not in the nature of the series to do such a thing. Moving on.

Advocating for Eugenics

I will start and end this section by saying that Hetalia was, in the original post, roped in with Attack on Titan, of which (as far as I know) the author advocates for eugenics - or the idea that certain people should not be allowed to produce offspring due to their race or other factors. There is no example of Hetalia content wherein this disgusting opinion is ever mentioned or supported in any way. This is at worst a flat-out lie, and at best lumping Hetalia in with a much worse show that does do this (but I won’t get into that, I have never seen more than a few episodes of Attack on Titan and I don’t care to see any more of it. Throw your opinions or defenses elsewhere, I care 0% about it entirely). I have no more need to prepare a more detailed response to this accusation. It simply is not true.

Racial Fetishization

This particular accusation is a difficult one. Fetishization may be a strong word, as the series is largely a comedy. Everyone gets their turn in the spotlight, so to speak, so I find it hard to plainly state that any one character is fetishized or displayed as the most powerful. There is, of course, Rome, who only appears in small segments as Italy’s grandfather and is, in the series, touted as an amazing empire who had it all. I do not believe this is what the accusation is referring to. This accusation seems to be some sort of insistence that the show and creator believe that white people (or possibly just Germans/Nazis/the Aryan race?) are touted as the most powerful and nobody else can compare. I can confidently say that while that is never said anywhere, there are a few issues. Hetalia, particularly the animated series, had (and may still have) a longstanding issue of whitewashing countries that should not be white. This includes Egypt and Seychelles (who both later got a darker skin tone, probably still not dark enough though) as the worst offenders, and even Spain, Turkey, Greece, and Romano (southern Italy), and so on. Yes, this is a big problem. There is no defense against that. It should not be the case. These characters obviously should have darker skin. I will note, however, that many fans are already completely aware of this, have been complaining about it since the beginning, and tend to draw these characters with more correct skin tones in their fanart. This is a case where yes, the original content is not good, but the fans make their own fixes. If you are angry at Hetalia for whitewashing, good. You should be. But I do not believe this should reflect on the entirety of the content and the fandom (And note that I am not linking any particular fanart here, because I want nobody to go attack any fans).

It is also important to note that yes, a large majority of the series builds upon stereotypes. No, stereotypes are not good. No, you should not assume that the personifications of the countries encompass all citizens of said countries. The entire premise of the show is one person = the embodiment of a country, and that person changes and adapts with the times in terms of uniform and personality. It is extremely hard to do this without stereotyping. Most serious fans are aware of this, and do not in any way believe that these characters represent everyone from these countries. It may be true that much younger fans used to, and it may be true that people do not want to watch the show because stereotypes are, arguably, bad. But do remember that this is a comedy, and every character is picked on. Every one. And it is understandable if this branch of humor is not for you. I, personally, don’t like Family Guy or South Park or any shows like that for their humor. I also don’t attack the people who do. I ignore it.

Advocating for Fascism

This is another area wherein I believe the accuser is simply lumping Hetalia in with the original poster’s subject, Attack on Titan. Again, I will not defend or attack that show, as I do not care about it at all. However, regarding Hetalia, I can confidently say that it does not advocate for fascism. While the first two seasons are (sort of) set in WW2 era, as previously mentioned, the fighting is not really a big part, and nobody is touted as correct - only struggling in the conflict. For example, there is a scene where Germany, post WW1, is shown making cuckoo clocks by hand and lamenting the fact that he has to make so many thousands in order to pay back France. This is by no means painting fascism as a good thing, or explaining anything about how poverty and other struggles lead to the formation and rise of the Nazi party. It is simply a scene where we see a man frustratedly making cuckoo clocks and complaining while France’s big head jeers at him in his imagination. The surrounding scenes and the end of this one are making note of how Italy keeps coming over to his house to try and be friends and Germany keeps kicking him out because Italy is annoying and whiny. The episode further goes on to mention that Germany is attacking France again, and Italy has suddenly become his ally, and he is not happy about it for the aforementioned reasons. Again, this does not in any way paint Germany as being ‘right.’ The purpose of the segment(s) is/are to show him disliking the annoying Italy (whom the show is named for) and trying to get him out of his house before eventually giving up and accepting that they can be friends. Is it all 100% historically accurate? No, not by a long shot. Does it paint him as sympathetic? Sort of, you feel bad for the guy making a thousand cuckoo clocks, but only in the sense that he is one person doing a lot of work, a completely fictional situation. But Italy - and the audience - obviously know that attacking France again is not a good thing, so does it advocate the Nazis or fascism? Also no.

Nazi Sympathizing/Propaganda

I pretty well covered this in the previous section, but I will expand. I have alluded to the first two seasons as “focusing” on WW2, in a way, and also mentioned that this is a generalization of sorts, so here I will attempt to clarify. The first few episodes do, indeed, touch on ‘the way they all met’ in a sense; Germany is starting a war and he reluctantly becomes allies with Italy, and less reluctantly becomes allies with Japan, who examines both of them and decides he is content with this situation. However, none of it is very serious, and these ‘formalities’ give way easily to more humorous personable interactions, such as Italy hugging Japan without warning and the touch-anxious Japan pushing him off and getting flustered, Italy petting a cat and then freaking out when he is licked because a cat’s tongue is rough, the two of them ‘training’ by doing your regular old exercising and jogging and Italy being late, etc etc. Stupid, personable jokes.

On the flip side, the show covers the Allied Powers quite a bit too. A lot of this is the five big ones - America, Britain (/England/UK), France, Russia, and China - all meeting around one table and squabbling about various things. I fondly recall one scene where China arrives late and has a bunch of workers suddenly building a Chinatown in the meeting room because he was hungry and wanted his own food, and the others protesting. They are then offered food and become okay with it, because food. Other such nonsense plays out in other, similar meetings. There is also a segment where the Axis powers are all stranded on an island for… some unknown reason… and they set about attempting to survive via campfire and fishing and such. Twice (three times?) the Allied powers ‘attack’ them on this island via China whacking them each with a wok and, as the three of them are in a sad heap, something interrupts the scene to make the Allies retreat. One time, it is Rome’s sudden and also unexplained entrance across the sky singing a song, and another time, it is England’s preoccupation with a cursed chair. Also, at one point, Austria is playing a piano. Does any of this magic logical, real life sense? No. It’s stupid and funny and has nothing to do with war. These are just personable characters thrown into weird situations so they can be funny, with some extremely mild historical context along the way.

I will note again that WW2 is pretty much completely dropped after these two seasons, with the war hardly addressed at all, and future seasons focus more on other characters. The Scandinavians get to all have fun together, the Baltic trio is mentioned, there is a lot about Switzerland taking care of Liechtenstein (wow I spelled it right after all these years, go me) and being stiff and formal with Austria. There is also plenty about people mistaking Canada for America, and England and France squabbling throughout the years, and Spain finding Romano cute but also very grumpy, etc etc… This series is largely Eurasia-focused, yes, and it can be criticized for not being as diverse as it should be. But boiling it down to ‘Nazi propaganda’ is outright, obliviously false.

I don’t know if this is the best place to put this particular note, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to place it, so here it will go. I would like to mention that in the series, some characters, like Germany and Russia, express outright fear of their ‘bosses’ in certain points in history. It is important to realize that Germany, Japan, America, etc… these characters are not the actual, real-life humans in charge of these countries, but people of a fictional, separate species than humans who grow up as the nation grows and have lives that are affected by these world leaders (we even watch in the show America shooting up from child to young adult as the colonies expand, and England comments on how quickly he grew up - but not as quickly as his people, of course. We’ll get to Davie later). The president of the United States is America’s ‘boss,’ and naturally, that boss changes every time the president changes. The emperor of China is China’s ‘boss.’ It follows, thusly, that at one point, Hitler was Germany’s ‘boss.’ The terrible person himself was alluded to, as far as I know, exactly one time, not by name, and no face was shown. In a very brief scene, Germany laments that his new boss is scary and he was just ordered to go force Austria to come live with him. Said boss is shown as, I believe, an evilly laughing shadowy figure. That’s it. That’s the scene. There is no other mention of Hitler, nor is there any mention of the Holocaust anywhere. One could argue that the show is then trying to say that the Holocaust didn’t happen, but I think such an accusation is frankly absurd. It’s a comedy, it was always a comedy, and what in the fuck would be comedic about a mass genocide in any way? Nothing. None of it is funny. Of course it is not brought up in a comedy.

Rape Jokes, Racism, and Holocaust Jokes

While I did somewhat address racism already in the section about whitewashing and racial fetishization, I have another clarification to make, especially regarding the jokes. A lot of people complain that there are rape jokes throughout the series, and that there are two Holocaust jokes. I will begin by saying yes, this is all true, those things did happen during the course of the show. However, it is important to note that all of those things happened in the English dub of the animated show, and none of these terrible jokes exist in the Japanese/subbed version, or the original comic strips.

The English dub is, on all accounts, pretty terrible. Everyone has an over exaggerated accent, there are the aforementioned jokes, there are name changes (England referred to as Britain, among them, very confusing), and the voice actors themselves make mention in commentaries that their goal in this job was, to paraphrase because I haven’t listened in a while, ‘to be as offensive as possible to absolutely everyone’ (and one of the English dub voice actors is even a convicted sex offender, but that’s it’s own mess).  Not the most glamorous or noble of goals. One could say ‘at least if it’s everyone, it’s not really racism, is it? Just humor?’ There is a case for that. Many comedians will say that they poke fun at everyone to avoid singling anybody out as inherently superior. It cannot be said to be the best way to make humor, but it cannot be said to be the worst way, also. Overall, I don’t like the English dub, I don’t watch it, I prefer the subs. And yes, the subbed version has a few issues of its own, but I can say that at least, no, it does not make any Holocaust or rape jokes. Are those kinds of jokes excusable? Fuck no. They’re completely inappropriate. Should you judge the whole series and fandom based on the grossness of the English dubs? Also no, the people who did the English dubs have zero to do with the original creator, the animators, and the fans. Screw them.

The Fandom Being Terrible

I must again preface by saying I was never super active in the fandom at large. I had my own little niche of friends and I stuck to them and I didn’t often branch out. I did, however, go to cons back in those days, and saw plenty of cosplayers. The main complaint I see regarding the fandom is that most of the fans are completely rabid, make a bunch of rape jokes, and even dress up as ‘Nazi Germany’ (iron cross and red armband and all) and pretend to shoot up synagogues. Now, I have not seen cosplayers do the nazi solute or do such photoshoots, but I can believe that people have done it. I have seen plenty of rabid fans, and some of the OCs created for Hetalia, especially many interpretations of individual states (or Antarctica), were extremely cringey, racist, and overall just not good. And yes, these things are undeniably bad. They are very bad things! Those people should be ashamed. They should know better, regardless of their ages or anything, for fuck’s sake. The nazi salute is not a thing you do jokingly, pretending to shoot people is not a joke. Everyone is aware of this. The people who did, or maybe even still do, those things need a serious sit-down and to be woken the fuck up, because they are acting terrible.

However, it is extremely unfair to paint all Hetalia fans in the same light. That is a very stereotypical thing to do, no? As I mentioned earlier, I stuck to my little niche friend group of fans, and while we all had our own flaws and were younger and kinda dumber, we never did things like that. I never did things like that. Rape jokes were never funny, I never liked them, I never accepted them. I have people I still know who still like Hetalia and they never made those kinds of jokes either. I think, as the years have gone by, a lot of the more rabid fans have died out of the fandom. They’ve either grown the fuck up or they’ve went off to pollute some other fandom. Recognize that, especially in the beginning, the anime was low-budget and had a lot of that old and gross queerbaiting and stuff like that, so it was undeniably a magnet for crazy yaoi fans. But the majority of fanart, fanfics, and just overall fan stuff that I see these days are nothing like that. Overall, the fandom has seriously calmed down. A lot of the focus is much more on taking these characters and applying them to other historical events with more accuracy than the show might give. The history in these fanfics and fanarts may also be of questionable accuracy at times. I personally once wrote a fic where I made allusions to the death of Joan d’Arc and, later, the death of Elizabeth I, but did I add much historic fact? No, do I look like a history major spilling all this? The point of the fic was England - the character - maturing through starting to love one of his rulers and recognizing a terrible thing that he did before. It’s not the best piece of work out there, and maybe someone could point out a few things I did wrong with it, but for what it’s meant to be, it’s harmless. Takes on characters not actually in the series, like Ireland, Scotland, etc etc are generally pretty mature from what I see, fanart tends to just be the characters in various poses and styles. The overall love the fandom has, I think, is in the better character designs and in the very concept of the countries as people who laugh and cry and live through war and peace for thousands of years. And here is where I address the final grievance that I personally saw in the notes of the post which started this whole thought process and essay.

The Death of the Author

A lot of people might not fully understand what ‘The Death of the Author’ means. The death of the author is a belief rooted in the 20th century that the personal intentions, beliefs, and prejudices of the authors of certain works can have no bearing on their produced content, because once it is out in the public, every reader may then have their own interpretation and belief system. By publicizing the content, the author ‘dies’ and the reader is born.

There are some scenarios where this cannot apply. One example is JK Rowling, a very special case of a very problematic woman who happens to be so powerful, and so rich, that consuming any type of official (or even unofficial) Harry Potter anything can and will give her that much more power to spread her TERF bullshit. Let me be frank: Any time that consuming a product is allowing a bigoted or problematic person to gain extra money or extra power that they then use for evil, the death of the author cannot apply. You cannot use it as a moral justification. You might perhaps use it as the reason why you struggle to let go of a fandom near and dear to you, as Harry Potter is to so many people, but you absolutely must recognize that purchasing the books, the movies, or any other official content is outright supporting a TERF.

That in mind, there are dozens of other cases where the death of the author absolutely can apply. The easiest, of course, is with authors who are actually dead, such as Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a complete bigot and racist, an overall terrible person, and his works are saturated in that racism. But he is dead, and his work is very popular, and there are ways to take and use his work that do not contribute further to racism and bigotry. All you have to do is slap a non-racist cthulhu on a page. Make that cthulhu eat everyone equally. That’s a good cthulhu right there, a nice, safe cthulhu.

So where does Hetalia fall in this spectrum of can or cannot have death of the author? I believe it leans more to the side of yes, you can apply it. For one thing, you can definitely find the show for free in some places, and watch it without giving Himaruya a single cent. The comics are also available online for free, and while you might be giving your ‘support’ by being a viewer, I think overall, that’s not only negligible, but does not contribute anything bad? The author of Attack on Titan has many charges levied against him in the post which prompted this, and arguably, giving him any money is bad. But as far as I have seen, while Himaruya might have started out with a flawed premise and may have some whitewashing issues, I have seen nowhere that he funds any kind of racist, nationalistic, fascist, etc anything of any kind. This is not like Chick-Fil-A, where offering any kind of patronage is (or maybe used to be) sinking funds into terrible organizations. This is not supporting literal Nazis, as the complaints claim. This is a largely mediocre series with good parts and bad parts and zero ties to horrific organizations or ideals. Consuming good fan content does not make someone a racist or a bigot or a nazi sympathizer. Even rewatching some old favorite scenes or checking out the new season doesn’t make someone that. By all accounts, the show is flawed but not a means to fund nazis.

The Bad Anything Else

I will now take some time to talk about some other problems Hetalia has, because no, it is by no means flawless. I already discussed the whitewashing and stereotypes and the mess of the English dub, but there is more. I made mention of the fact that battles and seriously bad events such as the Holocaust are not mentioned, and this holds true throughout pretty much all of the series. There are certain points where ‘battles’ of a sort are seen, but only flash moments. One scene in particular that I really enjoyed as a tween and can now see the problems with is the whole revolutionary war scene. This was a scene split into two episodes (for some weird reason, even an unrelated episode in between, like, what? Why??) about a particular (unnamed) battle in the American Revolution where England faced down America, they each had a gun with a bayonet, and England charged America and his bayonet deeply scratched America’s gun, and America declared he was no longer England’s little brother, and the whole thing was played out as an extremely emotional scene. England is lost in the past of seeing America as a cute little kid he took care of, who has now grown up and is being reckless and stupid, and America is all righteous and independent and proving he’s a grown up, it’s all very emotional, I cried, other fans cried, there was much fanart.

This scene is problematic in a way. Boiling down an extremely nasty conflict following lots of really bad laws and protests to this one scene doesn’t do history any justice. It says nothing about the struggles of the American colonists, the struggles of the British empire, the awful things the colonists did to the natives, etc etc. It is one small scene and it focuses on these characters as humanoid, with feelings, and completely ignores the complexities of history. And yes, in a way, that is bad. But it is bad in the sense that nobody can - or at least should - take this show to be the end-all be-all of history. It is not. It is not often entirely correct, and it picks and chooses what points in the past several thousand years to play with, and trying to use it as a map for history is a bad idea. However, this focus on the countries as human-like and struggling can also be a good thing.

It is also important to note that there have been other problems. The portrayal of South Korea, for example, is extremely controversial, and while I do not know all of the specifics, I believe that it was banned in Korea due to this, and the character was entirely removed from the anime, among other things. Obviously, a bad take, a bad character. There are also just straight up not great characterizations in certain cases. I don’t, for example, like anything about how Belarus is portrayed as a crazy psycho constantly begging Russia (her big brother) to marry her? I think that that is ridiculous, and I know nothing about Belarus as a country but I am pretty darn sure that that is not how one ought to go about portraying the country. There are a few other examples, but my purpose here was not to pull up a list of every country and explain what is correct or incorrect about each characterization. It is enough to say that some characters were not portrayed perfectly. But with that in mind...

The Good Anything Else

It is the most important to remember that this, all of this, is fiction. This is a silly, silly fantasy series. The countries are not humans, they are some weird semi-immortal species that share a universal language and know they are not human and are referenced by humans as ‘those people.’ They are fictional constructs. But the good out of all of this is that they explore human emotions. The American Revolution scene should not be taken as how the revolution was, and who might have been right or wrong. But it is a very emotional story of a big brother unable to accept that his little brother has grown up and wants to make his own choices. That, right there, is a heartfelt scene that I’m sure plenty of real people can feel something about. And there are plenty of other scenes that really grab you by the heartstrings, especially given how crazy, stupid, and humor-oriented the rest of the show is. And I will take a moment and enthuse about some of the more popular scenes that I think are, in fact, pretty good.

There is one episode in season 5, Beautiful World, where an American woman visits France (the place). This woman, Lisa, is blond and bears a striking resemblance to Joan d’Arc. While visiting some historical place somewhere or another in Paris, France (the person) spots her and rushes up with an odd look. When she questions him, he apologizes and offers to give her a tour of the area, which she accepts. He then proceeds to lead her around and explain some history and show off some beautiful sights, and he mentions some stuff about Joan d’Arc. She butts in and lists off some stuff she knows, he beams and looks proud and says yes, she’s right. The end of the scene has the two of them standing alone somewhere and him commenting how young Joan was when she was killed, and that he always wished she could have had a better, nicer life. He then states that he is very happy that she got it, while giving this American tourist a gentle smile. She looks away for a moment, distracted by something perhaps, and when she looks back to ask just who the heck he really is, talking about a historical figure like he knew her, he is gone. It’s a very emotional scene in a quiet sort of way, because the watcher/reader understands that he took one look at this woman and instantly believed that she was, in fact, Joan d’Arc reincarnated into a totally different and totally average life, and he is so genuinely happy that a woman he saw as a hero gets this chance to live normally. Whether or not you may personally believe in reincarnation, and regardless of how often other times in the show France is shown as an obnoxious sexaholic, this is an extremely tender scene that lots of fans seriously love. It is very ‘human.’ And I feel like this is what the series as a whole strives to offer. These human moments. They may be peppered in a sort of lackadaisical style in the anime, but they are far more prominent in the comic strips, so it is important to realize that that kind of scene is more of what the creator likes to focus on.

Another very popular and touted scene is the Davie scene. I don’t remember if it was put in the anime or not, I read it as a comic. It was a scene set in colonial America, where the man himself was just a very small child. Little baby America was hanging out in a field with a rabbit and sees this boy, who introduces himself as Davie. Davie brings America to his house and opens up a botany book and points out a blue flower (possibly a forget-me-not) that he wants to see but that isn’t in the New World. America assures Davie that he will find him one of those flowers, and goes off to do so. He fails his search and goes back to Davie, who is older now, but Davie looks embarrassed and turns and walks away. Distressed, America runs to England and explains about the flower, and England says the flower is not there, but they do grow at home, and he will bring some the next time he leaves and comes back. America happily waits, and when England returns with a bouquet of the blue flowers, America takes them and runs off to Davie’s house. He is let in by a boy who looks just like Davie and presents the flowers, and the boy then puts them on (or maybe in) a coffin of an elderly man. America, smiling, does not seem to understand what is going on, and hopefully calls the boy Davie.

This entire scene, in the comic, has very few words. Davie’s name is repeated a few times, but most of the rest of the ‘dialogue’ is in images. The flower, England saying it is not there, etc. This makes the scene extremely poignant, and when we reach the end, we, the audience, realize suddenly that while baby America was fixated on finding a special flower for his new friend, years and years went by, and that friend grew up and got married and had children and eventually died, all while America remained looking the exact same age and understanding the exact same things. Look, folks, I don’t know about you, but that is some angsty stuff right there. I cried. We all cried. We all miss Davie. Mention the name to fans and you will get sobs. We love you, Davie.

Which brings me to my penultimate point, that this series is heartfelt and, while it avoids a lot of the bad of history, can be very poignant about what human nature is like. Human lives are long, very long, but also so very short, they fly by. Some lives end in tragedy, others are mostly peaceful, and maybe we get second chances if you believe in reincarnation, maybe not. Maybe it’s good that our lives are so short, maybe the fate of living forever and watching people you connect with die is tragic. Or maybe it would actually be really fun, having friends for thousands of years that you may squabble with at times but ultimately care for. Maybe nothing is simple and life is about finding joy where you can, and everyone needs to sometimes take a step back and realize that everyone is flawed, and there might be good and evil but the vast majority of people are in a grey area, trying to live their own lives and do what good they can for whatever reason they might give. I want to end with one last topic, one I have not yet addressed this whole time. The big white alien in the room, if you will.

Paint it: White!

There is a Hetalia movie, folks, if you didn’t know it, and it’s called Paint It White. This movie has just as many silly parts as any other Hetalia thing, but it also has a plot! In this movie, strange, all-white aliens are starting to invade the Earth. They arrive and anything they touch, they turn into completely identical white humanoid blobs, even the country personifications. With this scary and seemingly-unstoppable threat, the main eight - America, England, Russia, China, France, Japan, Germany, and Italy - all try to infiltrate the alien spaceship in frankly hideous uniforms to find out more and figure out a way to defeat them. Hijinks and disaster ensues, and at the end, each of them is fighting a mob and gradually being defeated. Italy is the last one standing, and as Germany is slowly being transformed into a blob along with the others, he tells Italy to smile. Italy then finds (or has? the plot isn’t great, it’s just there) a black marker and he suddenly starts going around drawing ridiculous faces on everyone. He draws fitting faces on each of his friend blobs, like a stern face on Germany-blob, a deadpan face on Japan-blob, etc etc. The invaders suddenly stop. They look at each other, marker-faced, and start to laugh. Then their leader of sorts comes out and is basically like “wow, we thought you were all stupid and you have wars and stuff, but this? This is beautiful. Wow. We all look exactly identical on our world, and these faces are cool and new and unique. We’ll turn everyone on your planet back if we can have this magical thingie you’re holding.” And of course Italy hands the marker right over, and everyone is put back to normal, and crybaby, scaredy-cat, useless Italy saves the world.

The plot is, obviously, not super great. It’s not going to win anybody any awards. But it has a very poetic premise. The strength of humans is that they are all unique. Every human has a different face, a different body, a different life. Our differences may cause conflict, but they are also something to celebrate. At the end of the day, Hetalia is an okay show that can get you hooked on history and tries its best to teach you that we’re all only human and there might be war and conflict and bad things, but you have to reach for the good things and find yourself good friends and have stupid laughs and enjoy life, however long or short it may be. I think that that’s a pretty decent message to send out to people.

The Bottom Line

In the end, this is a fandom like many others. Hetalia has its flaws and its cringe moments, and it certainly had its fair share of awful fans. But I truly believe that painting it overall as nazi propoganda and one of the most problematic and harmful shows out there is a blatant lie and disregards… just about everything of the actual content. I think it is difficult for someone to concretely say anything is super good or super bad without seeing at least some of it, or doing some research, and this business of blithely going along with what everyone else says just because they use big danger words does not do anybody any favors. Spreading misinformation is, I’m sure, the exact opposite of what most people want to do. And make no mistake, I am definitely not saying that everyone needs to like, or even watch, the show. If you never ever want to watch this show in your life, that is absolutely fine. Go forth and never watch it. But mindlessly following the herd and yelling overgeneralized, unsupported opinions about it is not a good thing. I beg of you, do research on the things you want to form or share an opinion on, think critically, and for the love of God, do not swipe a giant paintbrush to forsake every single individual fan of a show as a terrible, awful person. By all means, hate nazis, they are pieces of shit. Boycott things that support genocide and fascism, yes, fight for equality, yes. But do not go accusing without thinking, and do not overgeneralize. I leave you with the words of my old laptop bag that I bought years ago at a convention:

Make pasta, not war.

Thank you for reading.

[chamelis]

I mean no offense in asking this but what about that "curry" song is offensive? Is curry not an important dish in Indian culture and eating beef against the majority religion of India (Hinduism)?

dude... are you kidding?? have you been reading any of the posts?

*sigh* ok. since u asked so nicely, let me spell it out for you. and for anyone who has been too afraid to ask bc they really should have caught on by now.

first, have a look at this post i made, where i talk abt what south asians face generally. in that post, i put a screenshot of some of the lyrics of that song. first of all, the whole tone of those words is extremely unsettling to me - two Korean men making a song about a culture that they're literally not a part of. like, don't even say "appreciation". if you want to appreciate my culture and food, just eat the fucking food??

but that's not even the main thing. the thing that quite literally made my stomach drop was .... i can't even bring myself to quote it accurately but, smth like "if two people were eating curry and one dropped dead, the other wouldn't notice"?? smth along those lines.

so you're telling me that you like eating indian curry so much that you went wrote an unnecessary song about it, and proceeded to make a disgusting joke about how made it smells??? comparing it to a literal corpse?? what the fuck???

and yes, i know this song was made in 2010 and the original artists have now apologised for making it. but it took them 10 years??? really??? other groups have done this before, btw. stray kids and oh my girl, as far as i can remember. and when they did this, their fans also spoke up about it. im not quite sure what the groups did in response, but, clearly this has been an issue within the last 10 years. but only NOW the original artists realised that they majorly fucked up by making this song??

and dont even get me started on their apology. it was full of "we love indian culture we just wanted to make a fun and catchy song about it". norazo, you didnt just do that. you made a song by taking random 'buzz' words from our culture ("shanti", "TAJ MAHAL", "namaste" and all that shit), referenced random things that we abide by without context (eating with the right hand, no beef etc.), and descriptions of curry that you thought were funny ("its yellow, but it doesn't smell nice" or some shit. again, these arent direct quotes because i refuse to look those lyrics up again.)

what you need to understand, anon, is that this is the worst way you could appreciate someone's culture. that song is made by people who clearly know nothing further and deeper about our culture and traditions past "taj mahal" and "namaste". they think it's hilarious that our food tastes so great but smells so shit. you mean to tell me they loooove our culture, but then thought it was okay to take random hindu terminology which has a deeper meaning and relevance, and just throw them in a song about curry??

by now, i really hope you're seeing why the existence of this song is deeply unsettling. but there's more of a problem here. clearly, over the recent years of kpop groups' controversial encounters with this song, svt never realised that the song is offensive. they've had the luxury of not learning why this song is stupid and derogatory and berating to our culture. they've been able to ignore the fact that south asians across the world are misunderstood and discriminated against because people like norazo reduce our culture to these songs with no meaning other than to """appreciate""" something in the worst way possible.

and that's the worst part to me. svt clearly dont have to care about racism and the struggles of other asians. they're famous and rich and they have a korean fanbase to rely on, so they dont have to care about the struggles of international fans. but south asian culture is REPEATEDLY used in kpop for the aesthetic - there are so many examples of this that you could probably Google it and find a plethora of kpop controversies explained by south asians.

and you know why this keeps happening?? because culturally, in korea, people aren't understanding why shit like this is dumb and wrong. when it comes to idols and their companies, they're either ignoring the uproar (like pledis), or making a half assed apology and then proceeding to appropriate and diminish another culture for their next comeback. so yeah, svt and other idols aren't forced to care about this shit, but they need to start caring. and if they don't, i and a lot of other south asian fans aren't gonna keep loving and supporting and paying them just for them to turn around and slap us in the face by perpetuating harmful and stupid stereotypes of us.

my friend v made a good post here which explains how kpop has brought global east asian rep and broke stereotypes, and now we need the same for south asian cultures. we have an incredibly beautiful and rich cultural background, but when people make songs like this and idols sing them and find them catchy or funny, they reduce our cultures to a couple words and stereotypes. they make us feel small. insignificant past being people that eat smelly curry with our fucking right hand. i am more than that. south asians are more than that. and at this point, i don't even know if svt, the people whom I've given so much love, know that.

I'd like to believe that they had no racist intentions. but that frankly doesn't matter either way. they fucked up by singing that song and seeing nothing wrong with it. and they're still fucking up by staying silent about it. and this is gonna allow some rookie group to make the same fucking mistake in the future, and the cycle repeats, and south asians are continually discriminated and made to feel shit about themselves because of some song that their favourite idols can't stop singing no matter how many times they're told to.

lastly, if you've read all of this and decided that south asian fans are being dramatic and we're "cancelling ppl for no reason", just send me another ask saying so. then I'll block your IP address.

alternatively, if you have a genuine question about this, if my wording didn't make sense at any point, my inbox is open. but pls be polite. it's the least i ask for.

you can refer to this post which is pinned on my page which has resources you can use to contact pledis and tell them to make an apology statement and urge svt to understand their mistake + inform themselves on this issue.

[bloodycassian]

Detour

In the woods amidst falling leaves, something creeps within. /// Sam fic - Self insert/”reader” fic - READER HAS NO ASSIGNED GENDER- Angst/declaration of love. Shortish stories by a short writer. Skip to *********** for angst and no background/story setup

Shifting, crunching leaves painted the immediate, and foreseeable path in front of you. Something about the trail was unsettling. Your head twisted with doubt, and anxiety as you paced the short distance between the tree lines, debating if you should continue or move deeper into the wood for a better shot at finding the beast that surely lurked within. 

“Shit” you breathed to yourself, knowing that you’d have to leave the false safety of your current position. Being able to see the guard rails you’d hopped over to get this far was a small amount of comfort. Comfort in knowing that your car - and the full arsenal of your weapons weren’t too far off. 

Maybe it was just the jitters of not being with your team - the safety of someone having your back while something was hunting you. Dean’s false confidence laced “goodbye” rang through your head once again - “Dont get caught- we’ll be fine, you focus on being a target”

 He smiled grimly, Sam giving him a dirty look. Sam handed you a knife you assumed was sliver, and a couple of flares before taking separate cars to each of your trails just before dusk. 

The road in front of you now, laden heavily with yellow, orange and red was ominous as it got darker. The yellows turned slightly purple, then to dark brown until they all blended together in the same, dark nothingness as you moved deeper into the woods. The sky darkened, no moon in sight. The trail was an offshoot of a main jogging trail that was now abandoned for the season. You wondered idly, if people felt unsafe here as well. As they should. 

Darkness usually was associated with quiet as well, which was why your shuffling feet through the deep blanket of leaves - wet, and sloppy sounding -  was unsettling. Finally, though the trail was beginning to narrow. Cut off by briars and unkept overgrown ferns. Your instincts were to turn back and get to the safety of your car, but you knew for the plan to work, you’d have to be vulnerable. 

A Weindgo wasn’t the most difficult monster to get rid of, but finding them and luring them was a task like no other. 

The stillness was now foregin to your ears, with the crushing sound of the leaves now gone. You took a moment to take in your surroundings, the briars to your back and spilling over the fallen trees at your sides. Their long, thick vines creeping up all around and making the area seem almost like a room of nothing but dark leaves. You knew this position was exactly where the brothers would approve of, but also detest. Having only one way to escape, you ran through the plan in your head again. 

Yours and Sam’s idea was far, far more in the realm of possibility than Deans. Neither of you said it though, in fear of Dean not allowing the team to be separated at all. As you were the most agile, and experienced with Wendeigo, you’d play bait. Both the brothers knew not to bother questioning you on this particular beast. They were waiting on the trail opposite to yours, but they had hiked deep enough to reach a turn that neared your trail. 

They shouldn’t be too far from you now, you promised yourself. Your knuckles were strained on the flair you held, fingers beginning to ache. This was your lifeline. You took a deep breath, the chill of the air stinging your nose and lungs. Your eyes watered slightly, the cool night air rustling the leaves around you. 

So you began your session of waiting. 

Time seemed to no longer care for logic. You checked your  watch several times, sighing to yourself after two hours of nothing. Your toes were numb, and your nose was running in protest of the cold. Your phone buzzed, “anything?” from Sam. You sighed, setting the flair down to type a response. 

As if the universe was waiting for the most minute distraction, there was an enormous howl, a low guttural cry of agony that shook the entire forest. Your ears were stunned, the bleak silence following the roar was cut only by a scream. Not exactly a scream, but a gurgling, hollow attempted yell for help. 

The beast hadn’t followed your intended plan. It didn't fall for the trap. Despite your anger, and total fascination of how and why the plan hadn't worked - Your legs were moving before you could think, everything flying by you in sharp clarity now. 

Your heart thundered in your ears, adrenaline made the sharp stings of the briar you ran through seem like nothing but a dull ache. The fire that it should have ripped across your skin seemed to transfer into the pit of your stomach. 

You paused for a split moment, willing your breathing to hold and settle long enough to hear something - anything that would point you towards the boys. Your team. Dean was right, and you only hoped that they weren’t hurt because of your idiocy. Nothing, not a sound or sight to help you find them. You began to shout “Sam!” when relief flooded your sight. 

A light flared bright against the shadows of the forest, painting everything white for a moment before your eyes could adjust. Your stomach plunged again, they were far away - much farther than they should have been if things were to work out like the plan had been laid out. There was another growl, and then shooting, more yelling. You were flying through the forest, heading for the flickering with your knife drawn. 

The creature was the perfect picture of death, easily double the size of the normal wendigo you’d seen your entire life. It’s claws were sharpened, teeth much more...terrorizing. As if it had adapted to fully hunt other prey on its own when human blood bags weren’t providing enough for it. You were fascinated, but to your dismay, Dean was hurt enough to require immediate attention. Sam snapped your attention back to his brother with a shout of an obscenity. You took one last glance at the creature, - so monstrously fascinating - before throwing your flair onto it, and turning to help Sam hold Dean up so you could hobble to the Impala together. 

Your head swam with so much information, but was quickly prioritized once you got into the car. Sam ran to the driver’s side as soon as you could lever Dean into the back seat. He almost took you down with him, and no wonder. His abdomen was wet, slick with blood. Dark, very dark blood coated his jacket, and his hands that were weakly holding on to the injury. The thick smell of copper and salt made your head swim, so much blood. Dean’s face was gaunt as the overhead light came on, and you were truly afraid for Dean. Of all people. The one man who would never admit a fault - to a fault. Who wouldn’t tell you if he had a broken ankle if you asked him to run a mile. Your hands went to knock his out of the way, holding onto the wound tighter. “Drive fast” was all you managed to get out to Sam, and he happily complied. 

***********

Dean’s doctor was a little too curious for your liking. Very intrusive, constantly asking questions about how it happened and how you all knew each other. You followed Sam’s lead, pretending to fuss over Dean’s hair like a worried mother. Once the doctors had given him a once over, and cut away his clothes to reveal the deep gash lining the side of his stomach, you knew he’d be fine with some blood. Dean was eaily the luckiest - and you had no doubt it was sheer dumb luck - person you knew. No organ, bone or internal damage at all. The claw mark had just missed his intestines. You idly wondered if it was because the claws were so large that they missed, the gap between each too big for a non-four legged creature. 

“Thanks, you have a good night” Sam was saying, politely ushering the doctor out and flicking off the light as the doctor glanced back over his shoulder at Dean, still looking remarkably pale under the bandages. His normally tan, rugged hands looked stark and almost childlike resting on his abdomen.  His wounds would heal, but you wondered what his mobility would be like following. You knew he would want to be up and out of the hospital as soon as possible. 

Sam blew out a breath, running a hand through his hair. The strands flopped lazily back to where they were, making him look so much older than he seemed with the dark circles under his eyes. He flopped into one of the plastic chairs, his legs sprawling out with exhaustion. He stared out the window, the full moon now uncovered from the clouds. White reflected from the machinery in the room. There was pain hidden in Sam’s eyes, just behind the rage that simmered in the forefront. You understood why and blamed yourself. 

“Sam I am sorry.” You stated, no getting around it. You knew if you tried to make an excuse it would only make the situation worse. “I should have checked where we were, I didn’t know there were so many trails - I don’t know how I missed that.” You felt your hands clamming up, and your words began pouring out. You were afraid of the anger regarding his brother. You knew they would always put each other before everything. 

And you didnt know where you stood with them, and Cas and everyone else. You knew that they cared a great deal for you,by the way they were letting you help them on these hunts. But maybe this would be the last. You didn’t want to imagine not being around Sam, having a team at your back again. And not having Sam around felt… wrong. You had paired up with Dean for these three pronged attacks before and it went fine every time but you never truly felt settled until you could see Sam again. 

“I don’t-” Sam caught himself, sighing again.

You felt your eyes stinging. The pain you’d caused him. Your feelings for him aside, you were truly sorry. Injury or not, it could have been much, much worse. You all knew that, and Dean would probably take it as another “dumb luck” moment. But you knew in your heart that it was your fault. No matter the reason you were so far off the mark with the trails, even if it was the park marking them incorrectly it was your fault at the end of the day. Guilt, fear and anger at yourself all boiled - joining at your eyes to create silent tears. He didn't want you around, you knew it. He had been distant since you had joined them semi-permanently. 

Before, meeting so casually he had been the most you could hope for in a friend, but nothing more. He would send you articles on more than just monsters in your area. He would send you science and space and other interests he thought you’d share with him.Some of the texts would turn into phone calls arguing about the logistics of Star Wars.  It was the most care you’d ever been shown by a fellow hunter. But now he wouldn’t want to be near you in any sense. You were a curse. 

 Your incompetence was too dangerous. “I can’t have… have you-” He broke off, clearing his throat and staring at his brother for a moment. He blinked quickly, his eyelashes catching the soft light of the moon streaming in. His eyes glinted with the blue silver of it, glassy and full of an emotion you weren’t used to seeing on him.

“I understand” You nodded, wiping your face quickly. You felt bad about crying when he should be the one upset with you. His head snapped to you, hearing the thickness in your voice as your breathing hitched. You took a deep breath and looked at Dean’s relaxed breathing. You’d have to do at least two blood donations to make up for what he had taken. 

“No-” Sam smiled faintly, standing up and taking one easy step to your side. You tensed, unsure if he would just kick you out now or wait until Dean was awake to at least say goodbye. “I can’t have you off on your own. I can’t stop...worrying about you.” Your heart swelled, like that pit of heat before but now in your chest. “I can’t have you end up like this -I cant see you… in a hospital bed. I dont know what I will do... and I should have told you before.” He looked into your eyes, his rimmed with red, you could tell even in the glow that shone everything silver. “I’m sorry.” He was the one apologizing? You understood though. Your cheeks flushed with flattery. He felt the same way. You were soaring, your heart was singing. 

“I’m sorry” He breathed, shoulders sagging as he took a step back from you. Butterflies, but also despair. You hadn’t rejected him. You took his hand, reclaiming that step between you. “I-” You didn't know what to say. Your heart hammered, and you smiled. “This really isn’t the best place to be doing this is it?” You sighed, giggling at the absolutely absurdity of the situation. You wondered if you were dreaming. Your stomach dropped as you considered if the Wendigo had gotten to you first… You stopped the thought dead in it’s tracks.

“Probably not-” Sam agreed, a smile tugging at a corner of his mouth. “But hospitals are second nature to us, if you wanna stick around I think you should get used to it.” his hands adjusted and he intertwined his fingers with yours. A silent invitation for something more, closer and more intimate. You knew exactly what he meant. You pulled him closer to you, urging him to meet you half way.

A kiss like no other - maybe it was the nerves..or the adrenaline. It felt truly electrifying. Simple, sweet yet utter sparks seemed to tingle on your lips as you parted. “I... “ Sam leaned away, heavy eyelids making him seem even dreamier than before. Your heart swooned. “Have wanted a long time to do that.” He shuddered a laugh, his shoulders relaxing, curling towards you. 

“So tips for next time… just put the man’s brother in the hospital to get him to kiss you?” You were giddy with excitement, uncontrolled joy. 

His smiled faded slightly, and he pulled you back towards the chairs, pulling one closer to his for you. “It’s not your fault, I looked at those maps too. Dean just...dammmit.” He rubbed his forehead with the hand not grasping yours. So firm, yet soft and caring. Your eyes did another once over of Dean, looking for something wrong, or something that had changed. “What?” You asked, concern heavy in your voice. Your hand loosened in his, ready to get up at any sign of a problem. 

“Well, we’re gonna have to tell him he was right….Then we’re gonna have to explain this.” He squeezed your hand gently, rubbing a thumb along the side. “But I think we can handle him while he’s immobile for a little while.” Sam looked at you, almost tensely - something wild about his eyes now. Was he thinking the same thing you were? No, there was a question in that remark he had made. Were you going to tell Dean? Was this a relationship or just momentary comfort? Your heart cracked, understanding his pain. 

“Well, we have an IV hooked up to him if he gets too….vulgar.” You played along, hoping to soothe his tension, make him understand you were serious too. His eyes lit up, his teeth stark white against his russet face. He kissed the back of your hand, seeming almost jittery with happiness. You could see yourself then, sitting side by side like this through all the hospital visits.

Side by side on a porch with him, gray hair and wrinkles. Side by side through the rest of this life - no matter how short it may be.

[jising-jisang-jisung]

P.JS - Royal!au

Genre: royal!au, servant!jisung princess!reader ft. prince!jaemin, angst

Word count: 3.1k (dont know how I did that)

a/n: okay so this is my first time trying out a royal!au so I hope it's okay 😅 ngl I kinda like it so I might write more royal!dream... also sorry this is angst i just couldnt make it fluffy without being overly cliche and gross

A soft tap on your door steals your attention away from the seams on your bedsheets. “Miss y/n?” your servant’s voice calls.

“Come in,” you reply, maintaining all formalities through the barrier of the door, knowing that your guard is there, and will report any nonsense to your father, the king.

Your door creaks open as Jisung walks in, holding a giant tray in his hands.

“Sungie!” you call as soon as the door is closed. “Did you do it like I told you to?” you question eagerly.

“Well of course, y/n/n.”

“Yes! There’s enough for us to share!” you cheer, looking at the food your servant, who doubles as your best friend, had brought you. “Open,” you instruct him. He does as you command, opening his mouth for you to feed him the peach slice tangling from your fork. “Is it good?” you bite your lip, salivating over the fresh fruit.

Jisung nods excitedly, taking a seat next to you. “Your turn,” he nearly spits since he barely even chewed his piece before speaking. He holds out a slice for you to eat, but as you are about to snatch it, he pulls back to eat it himself.

“Hey,” you playfully smack his arm. He gives you a bashful smile before holding out another slice, and letting you eat it this time. 

“Miss y/n?” and a knock on your door results in Jisung jumping off of his perch on your bed and you grabbing the food to move to your table.

“Come in,” you call after the two of you look like a normal Princess and servant and not a couple of goofy friends.

Another servant boy, Chenle, walks into your room. “Your father wishes to see you. He has urgent news,” he tells you bowing as he moves to exit.

“Wait! Do you happen to know what it might be about?”

The boy grins at you. He was also one of your good friends since you were all about the same age and had grown up in the castle together, but unlike Jisung, Chenle wasn’t your servant. Fortunately, however, since he was able to spend his time all around the castle, he was able to get the gossip on everything. 

“Well,” he starts. Jisung and you move back to your previous seats now that the coast is clear. “From what I heard, there is another King and Queen visiting. And, if rumors are true, they have a son.” At first you’re very confused. What would another monarch have concerned with you? “But you should really leave now, he specifically said it was urgent, your highness.”

You walk quickly through the halls, enjoying the sound of your shoes hitting the tiles. You would rather run, to make up for the lost time talking with Chenle, but you aren’t supposed to, as a princess and all, it is considered unmannerly.

As you walk into the main hall, you see both of your parents as well as the familiar looking King and Queen of a nearby kingdom. And of course you couldn’t miss the boy standing next to them. While you had never met the prince before, you were certainly taken aback by his looks.

“y/n, it appears you have a suitor,” your father announces, looking proudly at the handsome boy.

“y/n, nice to meet you,” he bows. “My name is Jaemin.”

“The pleasure is mine, Jaemin,” you repeat his name, doing a curtsy of your own.

“Why don’t the two of you take a walk through the gardens as we talk?” your mother suggests. You nod and lead the way out to the back of the castle to the large garden. It was late enough that all the other workers would be done with work, leaving just you and the prince.

The two of you talk about more shallow things, getting to know about favorite colors, animals, or other useless information. You laugh along at his jokes, and find yourself swooning over his charming personality and even more charming smile.

“y/n,” his voice changes, indicating a more serious discussion. “I know you might not want to marry me. You don’t love me, well, you barely even know me. But please take some time to consider my proposal as I’ll be visiting for the rest of the week. While this marriage might be more about our parents bringing together our kingdoms, we can learn to love each other and live happy lives.”

You nod along, staying quiet to allow the boy to finish his speech. “Of course, I will consider it, Prince Jaemin,” you offer a smile to show sincerity. “It appears to be getting late. I wish you a good night,” you say before speeding off towards your bedroom.

Little did you know, your friend was watching you from the window of his quarters. Unable to hear the conversations, he watches as you laughed with the handsome prince, wishing that it was him you looked at like that.

In your room, you lied down on your bed, the springs squeaking with your sudden plunge. You were overwhelmed with odd feelings of guilt in your head, but also in your heart. For some reason you couldn’t figure out why you felt that way. There was nothing wrong with marrying Prince Jaemin; it’s what your father would want. It didn’t bother you that the marriage was political and not for love, that wasn’t the issue.

“Miss y/n,” Jisung’s voice hums outside your door.

“Come in,” you instruct.

The boy slides through your door and there it is. That’s where your feelings are coming from. It’s not that you don’t love Prince Jaemin; it’s that you do love Jisung. He seems to not notice your crisis as he continues on as usual. Well, not quite usual, as he seems more quiet and down at the moment.

“So, how’d it go?” he looks up at you. You immediately look away, your emotions for the boy suddenly making you shy.

“Well,” you tell him, afraid to admit how you really feel.

“That is… good,” he falters, hoping you didn’t catch the way he paused.

“Yes.” It is as though you two are the strangers here, as neither one of you are able to articulate yourselves. 

“Well,” Jisung clears his throat. “Is there anything I can do for you before you sleep?” He asks, following his duties as your personal servant. You wish he was asking as a friend instead. Even if he is your best friend, you know he only asks because it is his job.

“Yes, actually,” you nod. “Can you sing for me?” It was something Jisung hadn’t done in years. When you were kids, he’d sing as you fell asleep, or if you were frightened by a storm or just loud noises in the castle. Unconsciously, you smile as you reminisce on the old times. When was it that you fell in love with the servant boy? You aren’t exactly sure, but at least you know now.

“Yes, of course,” Jisung breaks you out of your thoughts with his voice.

“Wait,” you interrupt him before he can even begin. “Let me put on my pajamas first, so you can sing me to sleep like old times, okay?”

“Of course, y/n/n, I’ll just be outside your door while you change.”

Only a few moments later you okay his return, being that you changed as quickly as you could, not wanting to wait another minute to hear Jisung’s voice. You hoped it was as melodious as it was before puberty when his voice literally dropped like 10 octaves.

He walks in as you settle back under your covers. Sitting at the edge of your bed he asks you, "what would you like me to sing for you?"

"Do you remember the song from when we were kids?" He nods in response, beginning the familiar tune. You're not sure how, but his voice sounds even better now than it did back then. It almost makes you wonder why he's a servant boy instead of a performer. You close your eyes as he continues to sing softly, not quite asleep but also not quite awake. 

"Sweet dreams, princess," he whispers at the end of the song. He brings his hand up to brush a few stray strands of hair out of your face when you flutter your eyes open. "Ahhh, you're not asleep?!" He jumps in surprise, retracting his hand from you. But you were quicker than he, holding onto his wrist and placing his delicate touch back to your cheek.

"Sungie?"

"Yes, y/n/n."

"Do you think I should just marry Prince Jaemin?"

"I don't think I can answer that for you, y/n."

"Ji, I don't care if you're a servant or a prince. You're my best friend, and your opinion matters to me. I'm just worried," you whisper, trying your best to blink away the wetness in your eyes that threatens to overflow. "What if I make the wrong choice?" His heart nearly breaks seeing you so worried.

"I don't think there is a wrong choice. Just do what you think is right. You know, in your heart or whatever," he laughs at the mention of the cliche phrase.

"I don't think I can do that," you admit, offering no further explanation.

"What do you mean?"

"Because of who I am. Because the king is my father. I don't think I can do what my heart wants," a tear spills from the outer corner of your eye, but before it can make its path Jisung has already wiped it away with his finger.

"You should worry about this another time," he decides. "For now, you should get some sleep."

"Sungie?"

"Yes, y/n/n?"

"Will you stay, please?"

"Okay, but you have to promise to actually fall asleep this time," he warns you with a false, stern tone. You giggle at his antics but it dies down as he starts the song again and you drift into a far away dream.

The following morning your servant goes to wake you up as usual. He knocks on your door, waiting for the okay to enter. When it doesn't come, he cracks the door slightly to peer in. He spots you on your bed, snoring, still asleep in your dreamland.

"Y/n," he calls softly, not wanting to startle you. At no avail, he decides to enter in. Placing a hand to your shoulder, he shakes you as gently as possible. Unfortunately, you react by jolting awake and grabbing his arm violently, causing Jisung to fall on top of you.

"Princess, are you okay?" He asks loudly as the two of you look at each other with wide eyes and shocked expressions.

"Yes, yes," you catch your breath, suddenly aware of the close proximity of the boy on top of you, as well as the appearance of how this situation presents itself to any bystanders. Jisung picks up on this and quickly gets off of you while not letting go of your hold on him. "You just surprised me is all."

"You didn't have a bad dream, did you?"

"No, not at all," you grin, thinking back to your dream of running away with the boy you loved and being able to live a simple, happy life.

"You know, you should go to sleep earlier so this doesn't happen," he scolds you in a joking manner, interrupting your thoughts and bringing you back to reality. "Regardless, breakfast is ready, and do remember that we have guests, including your suitor."

You thank him as you make yourself presentable for the visiting family and prepare yourself for the war you're about to dive into with your parents.

"Mother," you speak after everyone had finished their meal. "May I discuss something with you?"

You excuse yourselves and head to an empty hall to talk.

"Mother,  I do not wish to marry Prince Jaemin," you tell her.

"Why? He is a perfectly good young man and if you turn him away, there might not be another suitor of his worth!"

"Because I do not love him," you try to explain but she cuts you off.

"Y/n, you need to think about this more seriously. This will affect everyone, so you must be wise about it."

"Mother, I love Jisung, I wish to marry him," you admit.

She gasps at your nonsensical confession. "The servant boy? Are you trying to ruin the kingdom?" She holds the bridge of her nose in frustration. "No more talk about this right now. We'll discuss this later, but please reconsider your affection for the prince."

She storms away, absolutely appalled by your suggestion. You run the other way, toward your bedroom. You don't care about the possibility of getting scolded for running as tears quickly make their way down your cheeks. Even after you've closed the door, they refuse to let up. 

As you sob into your pillow, there's a familiar tap at your door. "Miss y/n?" Jisung asks.

"Go away," you cry.

"Princess, are you alright?" You hate that you make him sound so worried. You hate that you're in love with a boy that you cannot be with.

"Go away," you repeat yourself, hearing his footsteps become more distant as you begin to despise the sound of the shoes hitting the tile floors.

You pull a pillow over your face and continue your outburst. It feels as though your tears will go on forever in endless sorrow. Until another knock sounds outside your door.

"Princess, I brought you some tea," you hear your best friend's muffled voice call out.

"Jisung please, just go-"

Blatantly ignoring your orders, he waltzes right into your room, stopping you mid sentence. 

"Y/n, what happened?" That disgusted feeling of hatred returns as you hear the worry dripping from his voice.

You open your mouth to explain, but only loud sobs escape your lips. Jisung instantly puts down the tray of tea and wraps you in a hug. "I don't want to marry the prince."

"Well if that's what you-"

"I want to marry you!" You cut him off, but refuse to let him go. You're afraid that if you release your hold on him, he'll reject you or leave. 

"But, princess," he starts. There it is, the coldness of your unfortunate situation. Reality hits you in the side of the head like a stone. You're a princess and he's a servant.

Tightening your grip on his sleeves, you admit your feelings for him. "I don't love Prince Jaemin. Jisung, I love you."

"I- I love you too, y/n," he whispers, rubbing his hands soothingly down your back as you slowly stop crying.

You finally pull away, looking at him through- now dry- puffy, red eyes. Jisung grabs either side of your face and slowly leans in, giving you enough time to recoil in favor of not doing what you're about to do. Much to his liking, you meet him halfway, pressing a long kiss to his lips. You allow yourself to revel in the bliss that is your lips on Jisung's, before you have to pull away to catch your breath.

"Let's just run away," you say, impulsively. 

"Okay," he exhales, not a care in the world for anything but you. "I'll meet you here at midnight, yeah?"

You nod. "I'll be waiting," you mumble against his lips as the two of you dive back into one another.

The rest of the day passes slowly. Jaemin continues his attempt to court you as your mother watches over you like a hawk. Her judgmental eyes follow your every move closely.

Finally, the day is closing and the servants return to their quarters to rest. The castle falls asleep, all except for you as you wait impatiently for the boy you love to come. You check the time to see midnight has long passed and begin to fret. Had Jisung fallen asleep. Had he left without you? You push that thought out of your mind, Jisung wouldn't do that. But a worse idea creeps into your brain. Had Jisung gotten caught?

You stare at your ceiling, wanting to cry. But you feel as though you've had enough crying these past few days and settle on slowly worrying yourself to sleep.

The seemingly regular knock on your door wakes you up in the morning. You desperately wait to hear Jisung's voice call your name from behind the door, to let you know that breakfast is ready, and that he is okay.

"Y/n," the voice calls. Your heart drops as the door opens, revealing the queen.

"Where's Jisung?" You ask as your heart races with stress.

She sighs, closing her eyes to emphasize her distaste with your behavior. "He's gone."

"What do you mean 'he's gone?'" With each passing second you can feel your heart break more and more.

"We wouldn't want him to interfere with your affections for Prince Jaemin," she begins to explain.

"Where is he?" You ask through gritted teeth. Your overwhelmed with anger towards your mother as she carelessly avoids your question.

"Your father and I have decided that you will be marrying the prince," she informs you, not an ounce of remorse in her tone. "And breakfast is ready, so hurry up. The prince is waiting."

As underground as you can be, you ask everyone about your missing servant. Even your go to gossip boy, Chenle, hasn't heard or seen from him all day. As far as the castle is concerned, he no longer exists.

For the rest of the day, you put on a happy mask, not letting anyone see you falter as the preparations for your engagement ceremony begin. Your false exterior only falls once you're alone, behind the closed door of your room. It is then that you realize you cannot blame anyone else.

This was your fault.

If only you hadn't devised that stupid plan. Jisung would still be here and maybe you could have convinced him to bring your favorite servant along. But, even then, you're not his, you're Jaemin's. But maybe the prince was right. Maybe you can learn to love him. But somewhere deep down you know that's not true. You already gave your heart along with your first kiss to your best friend, the servant boy.

[ts-unpopular-opinions]

if you don’t mind me asking why don’t you respect thomas as a person anymore? i’m not trying to be rude or jump to anyone’s defense, i’m just genuinely curious.

I have been getting a lot of asks like these since I mentioned that I’m still upset with Thomas and although I’ve covered it multiple times on this blog, I will go ahead an explain it again because I’m tired of people telling me how to feel.

Here I will complie a list of all of the reasons why Thomas just does not rub me the right way sometimes. That being said, i recognize that Thomas is a very good actor and is a very talented man. He may have things going on in his life that I don’t know about, but the opinion I’ve formed of him is simply based on what I’ve observed and I am willing to change that if he shows reasons for the things that he does. I’m in no way trying to “demonize” Thomas here or make him out to be some crazy, rutheless being. I simply just dont vibe with some of the choices he makes and things he does. So here we go...

1) Thomas appears to have a pretty big ego. He constantly posts pictures of himself on his social media instead of using the platforms as most youtubers would: to communicate with fans about his content. He is okay with fans contantly worshipping him like a god and living off his every word. Even during his birthday he would retweet videos of people literally cellebratig his birthday with cake and candles, and that is just so odd to me... Theres nothing wrong with having a lot of confidence in yourself, but its simply something that rubs me the wrong way.

2) Thomas is a really awful business man. As I have mentioned time and time again, Thomas is running a business here, just like most youtubers with his level of fame. He has merch, a huge following, and a membership program. Despite this, Thomas continues to act as if his youtube channel is just a fun past time for him. His schedule for video releases is atrocious and I’d be surpised to find out that the team even schedules dates for things at this point. To an outside fan it just seems like they release a video whenever they want to or whenever they finish it, with no prior end goal in mind. Thomas treats his job as if it is an opinional past time, and as someone who is in college, works in a fast food job, and has an internship I cannot respect that. The man has no work-life/personal-life separation and it shows... He’s hired all of his friends to work for him and gets work done at a snails pace because of it. He always says that the team is working hard and getting things done, but never has anything to show for it...

3) Thomas is very bad at communicating with his fans. For having such an outstanding and die-hard fanbase, Thomas takes them for granted. Instead of giving fans insight on video release dates and production, he opts to say nothing simply because he doesnt “want people to get mad at him for being wrong”. I don’t know about anyone else, but that is just so messed up to me... You keep all of your adoring fans in the dark simply because you dont want to face the concequences of you not getting your work done is a timely manner? This bothers me a lot... especially when a lot of fanders are paying to get “extra information” when in fact the livestreams are simple Joan and Thomas hanging out and joking around with a very rare, almost completely absent mention of future videos.

4) The babying issue. Thomas has to recognize that his fans baby him and treat him like a breakable doll all the time. This not only makes him incapable of taking and responding to criticism, but it makes him shrug off responsibility all together. If his fans never give him concequences for his actions and simply praise him to no end, then he just keeps going what he’s doing and ignores any ouce of negativity because of it. The fanbase has babied thomas into thinking that he can do no wrong and will never be criticized, and it shows. Never once has he formally sat down and just talked about the concerns people like me and the anons that come to my blog have.

5) This is a newer one I realized with the most recent episode. The whole Trump joke threw me off guard because, while I don’t support Trump, I KNOW there must be fanders who do. And Thomas must have known this when allowing the joke into the show. It’s very inconsiderate to subtly manipulate your fans like that when this show has frankly nothing to do with politics. Had a fan been watching that who has their reasons to support trump, they may have felt alienated and hated by Thomas and that just insnt cool. This isnt the only instance of Thomas being manipulative with his fanbase. He constantly thanks and praises those of his fans who baby him and worship him while ignoring and never talking about those who have criticisms. This make fans who have concerns feel as though their worries make them terrible people and they shouldnt say them. Is this blog is anything to show for it, fanders are scared to speak about how they feel. Thi has created an extremely toxic environment for open discussion, but thomas continues to let it go on.

6) Money. Everyone, believe it or not, but Thomas makes a LOT of money. He is not an independent creator that films and edits videos all by himself simply for the fun of it and not for the money. This is his career. He is a business man and the owner of this company. His goal is to not only produce content, but to make money. And boy does he make a lot of it... Here is some math i did on my own to figure out just how much (granted it is not perfect, but it should give everyone a realization that Thomas is nowhere near the independent artists and authors that they constantly compare him to...):

-The average youtuber with 1m subscribers makes $57,200 a year from ad revenue. Thomas has 3.36 million subscribers so 3.36*57,200 is $192,192.

-The last member livestream has 1.5k views and each member is giving thomas $5.29 per month. So per month thomas is making 5.29*1,500 from members, or $7,935. Per year, Thomas the recieves 7,935*12 from members, or $95220 (obviously this number could be a little smaller because I’m sure youtube takes some of that money)

-Apart from this, Thomas also sponsors nearly every video on his channel that is a decent length. (I’ll admit that the math for this part is up to a lot of interpretation because I have no idea how Thomas sponsorships are handled, but I will do my best). Alright so, youtubers charge brands anywhere from $10 to $50 per 1,000 views, to be forgiving I’ll do the math using the lowest price. On Thomas’ most recent blooper video, he had 736k views. If we divide that by 1000 thats 736. So 736*10 is 7,360. And that is just one sponsorship at the lowest price. I’m not really sure how many sponsorships thomas has done, but in the last year it seems like about 5 (the blooper, asides episode, gay disney prince, intrisive thoughts, and SvS). So that is 5 sponsorships per year, 7,350*5 or $36,800.

-So total income before considering merch sales and by assuming the lowest numbers for some areas is $36,800 + $95,220 + $192,192 = $324,212

Now with all of this in mind... Thomas makes so much money. Money that I could never even dream of coming by. And he does this with minimal uploads and scamming his members into continuing to pay him even through month long periods of no content. Thomas doesn’t even need to make videos at this point, the money that he drags out of his fans is already plenty. And then, not only does he have all of this money, but he uses it for fun trips and adventures those of which he brags about on his social media. He went to new york and saw three broadway shows, he went to vidcon and took a weeklong vaction there. He bought from what I saw, at least three playstations and games for different friend and family members. He is in no way struggling for money... and instead takes money from his adoring fans when he has no content to show for it.

[midasgutz]

elfen lied manga was such a fuckin trip. did i dream that shit up ? who allowed the dude who made that to just write all that shit??

i need to talk about elfen lied because this shit has been living rent free in my head for over an actual decade. significantly longer than a decade.

im glad that i can now accept that media i consume doesnt necessarily say anything about me, because. jesus, every inch of elfen lied is a war crime. every panel.

the coolest character who was generic tough military dude, who right when you meet him makes a point of punching a secretary just for standing behind him. and then goes out to find and kill a 17 year old with abandonment issues. and gets his shit kicked in and his arm ripped off and his eyes plucked out. and so, naturally, he trades his testicles for some dope robot eyes. for the sake of all humanity. oh and a really mediocre robot arm that he can actually break if he puts too much force into like anything. and so naturally he then finds a 14 year old homeless girl, who helped him while he was bleeding out on the beach. and of course he beats her up and, possibly kicks her dog. and then he gives her his number. uh, so he can come help her if anyone tries to... beat her up? because he cant owe her anything. and then she says something he doesnt like so he beats her up again and she shows him the paper he wrote his number on and says "someone scary is screwing with me". he storms off after that but doesnt take the paper, he still owes her. he makes good on it too, she gets in some bad trouble with a bad bad dude later. a bad bad dude with a trenchcoat whos basically just a vampire hunter, crossbow included but actually he's here to hunt teenage girls with horns, not fangs. the crossbow shoots hard metal balls with velcro spikes that have a toxin on them that causes excrutiating pain. this guys a bad bad dude, and he miiiiiight be suggesting he's gonna rape this 14 year old girl but it could be the unfairthful translation causing confusion. probably not tho the author of this series is majorly fucked in the head. anyway robocop shows up and he puts his boot right down this dudes throat so thats like whatever. that panel was my desktop wallpaper for like 6 years. we find out that 17 year old girl is evil because some kids killed her dog with a vase. so she blew them up, and after that she goes around blowing people up just to eat the food in their fridge and hang around the crib for a minute. so shes framed as the good guy and robocop is evil this time and they fight again and she does kill robocop this time which sucks because theres a good portion of manga left and no one else is as interesting as he is. he dies on the beach where he lost his eyes and his arm and lets be honest he basically lost his balls at the same time.

oh. and theres a girl who does peepee in her diaper a lot. and she can sing. i dont know why she was there but i mean every other fetish the author had already made a fucking appearance so why not lmao

theres also like. some main characters. theyre complete shit. these include a normal boy. his cousin who is the most annoying character in the fucking world. she is literally just "im only here to pad the amount of love interests our generic main character can have all at once" the character. yeah man, his cousin? cause shit why not. why not, its japan, do as the romans do. also theres the alternate personality of the 17 year old. shes only here so that evil 17 year old girl can be a love interest not once but twice, and i mean, conveniently shes often naked. makes sense, when the only word you can say is "milk".

and then there's Nana. Nana is a quad amputee after evil 17 year old girl ripped all her limbs off and almost finished her off. but dont worry! her dad, whos not her dad at all, finds her and he gives her some prosthetics that she can control with her super powers. what do you mean you werent aware of the super powers? of course they have super powers. its manga. after he does this he just lets her loose with a bunch of money and his tie because she asked very politely for the dangly thing he wears on his neck. she wears it like a headband, even though she established she knew it went around his neck. so yeah he gave her money but she was raised in a lab like a rat so she has no clue what its for. she meets the 14 year old homeless girl and they have a fun time being homeless together. Nana burns the money in a fire to keep warm but only some of it because the 14 year old girl tells her that you can trade money for food, which makes nana very happy because boy did she want some of the 99 cent street vendor food earlier. no one acknowledges that nana has enough money to buy her own house and be well off for easily 5 years. 14 year old girl takes her to the main character house that shes been staying at for a while and they have a bath. nana hated this idea until she realized that bath doesnt mean bucket of cold water at her new sort of house. but uh oh, nana senses evil 17 year old and shes kinda pissed about her arms and legs. they almost do a fight but wait whats this? 17 year old isnt fighting back, she just keeps saying "milk" and smiling. nana takes some issue with this and promptly leaves after pushing her through a rice paper door. shortly after everyone goes looking for nana.

um some stuff happens and then whaaaattt??? nanas not dads real daughter is introduced. shes locked in a circular room lined with lead and chloride of lime. with a diameter of 15 meters, the length of her invisible hands. shes only ever had the voice of a single woman to comfort her, shes permanently lockdd in bondage gear unable to move. she has to use a wheelchair to move because her legs have completely atrophied. she moves it with her invisible hands, her real ones are useless. she calls the only voice she knows her mother. her mothers job has been to talk to and comfort this dangerous girl for years. said mother mentions her excitement to finally see the girl in person, and also casually drops how theyve sewn bombs into several parts of her body. conveniently, if shes in intense pain her powers dont work. so she meets her mom, takes one look at her and says "youre not my mom >:(" and sends her entire upper torso flying. conveniently said torso lands near the bomb controls. she slams that shit like shes a rat with an orgasm button and babygirls arm go bye bye. they inform her while she writhes in pain that she has to comply with their demands or they can blow her whole deal up next time. shes pretty ok with being blown up, but then they tell her they want her to kill something so her ears perk up like a cat hearing a can opener. yep shes going to go kill evil 17 year old. nanas not dad is not taking any of this well but he essentially gets mindbroken after he has to blow up his daughter later after shit flies off the handle. he spends his time as a homeless man, denoted by the sudden appeaeance of a large beard, living in a shack on the beach where robocop died. he does note the beach is incredibly clean and that is because robocop picked up allllllll the trash so that evil 17 year old couldnt throw it at him. he did totally eat shit anyway though no worries. im not bitter about it why should you be? im not.

anyway shit happens and 17 year old melts into a really graphic puddle of fleshy goo, and in doing so totally does the jesus thing. because at some point she realized she really just wanted to be with main character, but all of the things shes done makes that impossible.

i was like maybe 12 when i read this shit. i didnt reread it for this. im pretty sure most of this is accurate but i CAN and WILL promise you one thing. diaper girl is real, and he REALLY really really really 100% did trade his balls for robot eyes, and a playdough robot arm.

[thorne93]

Unforeseen Chasm (Part 45)

Prompt: Two sisters fall for men that are absolute enemies. The love they have could tear all of them apart, or it could bring them together.

Word Count:4866

Warnings: fluff its a happy day for the reader’s bff! loki gets thrown lol song for this part: Note: This is by far the longest thing I’ve ever written (including my novels). It’s a collaboration with the amazing @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​​. It started as a funny “What if…?” and it evolved and got huge. This took two years to write. We are both proud and happy and we hope you enjoy it. It follows from Thor 1 to Endgame in the MCU. Some of the timelines may be off in order to fit certain people, and some characters may show up earlier or in different ways than they have in the movie. But for the most part, it follows the MCU. It also has a bit of crossover with some other Marvel characters throughout the story.

Masterlist for Unforeseen Chasm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you and Loki made breakfast, you mused, “So I was thinking, before I leave for Nebraska, maybe I should meet your boss.”

“Oh? And why is that?” Loki asked as he bobbed a tea bag in a cup.

“I just feel like I should know who you’re going to be spending so much time with while I’m away. I need to know they can help you if I can’t.”

“Darling, I am perfectly capable of--”

Quickly, your eyes met his, a serious look in them. “I know you can, I’m not talking about physically. Can I just meet them?”

He looked at you for a moment before his face softened. “Yes, of course. We can go today before you head in for work if you’d like.”

“Sounds good to me. It’s my last day with Bruce so…”

“I’m going to miss you dearly,” he suddenly said, a bit of weight to his voice.

You turned back around from the counter, placing your hand on his cheek. “I know. I’ll miss you too.”

-----------------------

As you headed out the door, you texted Shannon, telling her you were meeting Loki’s boss. She asked if she could come too. You said you’d be delighted to have her there, and before you knew it, you were all outside of Loki’s work.

“Hey! You made it in record time,” you greeted happily, hugging her.

“Yeah, it’s these new shoes Tony made for me,” she responded, showing you her shoe. “Nifty in a jam. Hey, Loki,” she greeted casually.

“Hello,” he said politely back before entering the sanctum.

Just as Loki started to go down one hallway, with you two in tow, a voice sounded from behind you.

“Loki? Shannon?” a deep voice greeted all of you.

All of you spun to face the noise. When your eyes landed on him, you were taken aback. “Stephen?” you gasped, rushing forward to greet him. “Oh my god, it’s been so long.”

“Y/N? I thought that was you,” he commented with a side smile. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his face lighting up.

“I came to see who Loki was working with,” you explained, gesturing back to him. “Get this,” you offered, turning back to Shannon and Loki, standing next to Stephen, “we used to go to college together.”

“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” Shannon commented with a grin.

“Oh yeah, we had physics together,” you informed with a smile up at Stephen.

“Is that so?” Loki mused.

“Oh absolutely,” Stephen said with a huge smile. He threw his arm around your shoulder and said, “In fact, you know, I was gonna ask her out in college. She was everything I dreamed of, back then.”

“Really?” Loki asked, a gleam in his eye.

You laughed, a bit nervous, blushing. “I never knew that,” you said, turning to Strange.

“Yeah, so why didn’t you?” Loki asked with a bit of an edge in his laugh.

“I guess it was just never the right time. You know how it is in college--Well, you don’t, you didn’t go, you know, to college. But it’s just hard to find the time when you’re serious like Y/N and I were.”

“I see,” Loki noted and Shannon picked up on his energy way before you did.

“Well we just wanted to pop in,” Shannon quickly interjected, stepping forward to hook her arm through yours. “So good to see you again, Stephen.” She began to whisk you out of the sanctum.

“Likewise. Feel free to stop by for coffee any time, Y/N, I’d love to catch up,” Stephen called after you. You barely had time to yell a confirmation back before Shannon had fully hauled you outside and out onto the street.

“Jesus, where’s the fire, Shan?” you asked, fixing yourself.

“It’s about to be between you and Loki if you hadn’t noticed,” she quipped, pointing back towards the doors.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Quite the show with Stephen in there. Were you trying to make him jealous or did that just happen?” she asked, beginning to walk.

“Jealous? Loki? That’s kind of impossible,” you muttered. “He’s a magical god with the best cheekbones on the planet.”

“Not to him,” she reminded, almost under her breath. “All I’m saying is… Loki is pretty fragile. He’s insecure. You know this, I know this. He acts like he isn’t, but it’s obvious he is.”

“Right,” you agreed, urging her to continue.

“Which means looking thrilled to see Strange and parading your friendship around in front of Loki before you go off to the middle of nowhere. He’s going to miss you. So any super friendliness you show to another guy, can...you know, send the wrong message,” she noted.

You bobbed your head. “You’re right,” you agreed. “I shouldn’t have done that. I was just so excited to see him. You don’t really think he took it the wrong way, do you?”

She rolled her eyes and began sarcastically, “Noo, not Loki. Take something wrong? Never.” She glanced to you and giggled.

You nudged her playfully as the two of you walked to Stark Tower to begin your day.

-----------------

As the days went by so did the countdown to the most talked about wedding. The happy couple was constantly getting bombarded about details for the wedding. At some point Shannon and Tony had publicly given a statement letting people know that it would be a private event for the reception so there would be no access to photos and filming during that time. They did say they’d allow photos after the ceremony as they leave the church so that there would be something to show of the happy couple.

For Shannon the hardest part of this whole thing about planning a wedding was knowing who to make the maid of honor. She’d only ever been close with two women besides her sister and mother, but things had happened and yes she wanted you to be there for her but she also felt that Nat should too.

It was easier for Tony to figure that out for his best man. He and Rhodey went back years, and even though he and Steve got along, Shannon knew he’d pick Rhodey. Of course Tony didn’t want to leave Steve out so he asked him to be a groomsman.

There were only a few weeks left before the big day and Shannon had yet to tell either woman who will be the Maid of Honor, officially. Hopefully neither felt like they were being left hanging. Maybe there would be a chance that both would be the Maid of Honor like Tony had done with the guys she figured that she could do the same now all she had to do was figure out how to let them know.

Shannon called, “JARVIS...”

“Yes, Miss Shannon?”

“What do you think I could do to tell both Natasha and Y/N that I want them to be my Maids of Honor?”

“I would suggest a girl’s day out, and I can have a few of their favorite foods ordered for the evening of relaxation that way you can all enjoy yourselves”

“Sounds like a plan, although if you could have the food sent to my floor that way the boys dont get any ideas about taking the food. Knowing Clint’s sweet tooth, he’ll be trying to grab the desserts.”

“I’ll make sure that Mr. Barton is unaware of the deliveries being made. Have you decided on the dress or shall they choose their own dresses?”

“I believe that they should have a say in what they want to wear to the wedding.”

———————

Girl’s day as JARVIS had suggested was a success. They all went to get pampered and did some shopping. The day was coming to an end and Shannon was feeling pretty confident that she could ask them both to be Maids of Honor.

“Alright you both know how much I love you right?”

“Well yeah Shannon I know that,” Nat responded.

“Why wouldn’t we know that? You always show us,” you said, a bit confused by her statement.

“Now that we’re all together again and you two are getting to know each other which makes me so happy, here comes the big question.”

There was a bit of a pause, as Shannon flashed her gaze between you and Natasha.

“Come on, spit it out already!” Nat was getting a little flustered not knowing.

“Will you both be my Maids of Honor?” Shannon looked at you and then at Natasha. Both of you were quiet for a moment.

“Are you sure you want me to be a Maid of honor?”  Nat looked a little surprised that Shannon had asked both of them. “I figured you’d want Y/N be it. I already gave the spot and title to her a long time ago. Seriously, I’m happy to be just a bridesmaid."

"I do want to be Maid of Honor. But if you’re up for it, and it makes Shan happy…" You shrugged, hugging yourself.

“Well I didn’t think it would be fair picking one person  or the other. You guys mean the world to me and I want y'all by my side on that day.”

Shannon stared at you and Nat, wanting an official answer.

“I’m happy to be your Maid of Honor, Shan, you know that, of course. As long as Y/N doesn’t feel like I’m stepping on her toes…” Nat replied.

“Not at all,” you assured. “I’m happy to share this with you, if it makes Shannon happy.”

“You realize we’re going to have to plan a bachelorette party, right?” Nat smirked at the idea. She figured she could involve the guys somehow. Turning to you, she asked,  “You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Strippers?" you teased.

“That and more along those lines, but I think we can plan when Shannon is not around.” Natasha figured this could be a good way to get to know each other.

“Please, for the love Stark, nothing crazy, unless it’s a week or two before the wedding!”

“We’ll try but no promises,” you both agreed.

--------------------------------

Two weeks before the wedding and Shannon was still waiting for the girl’s surprise party. She was a little unsure as to what would happen and hoped that none of it was as crazy as she’s thinking it would be. Turns out she was somewhat wrong, not only did they take her out to eat and pick their dresses but after getting home they took her to the training room where it was set up differently than usual. Nat had somehow suckered Steve, Thor, Clint and a few stripper men to give Shannon an exotic show as a way to partially end the night.

Granted, Shannon had never thought Steve of all people would actually do such a thing but it seemed as if he had no other choice in the matter. Thinking that this would stay as a ‘you never speak of this’ type of thing, you had asked JARVIS that he record the night so that years from now they could all look back and laugh. After that little show, Thor had given the ladies some of his Asgardian mead for them to toast and left. The following morning none of the three women were found in their usual rooms. WhenTony asked Al where they could find the three, he showed them all piled up on one of the training mats left in the corner of the training room.

“Hey, Steve, call Bruce to give me a hand, would you? Looks like they’re hungover and I can't carry all three down to Shannon’s floor,” Tony mused to his friend, amused a their behavior.

“Sure thing. I saw him in the kitchen.” Steve left and came back with Banner.

“So what are we doing?” Bruce asked.

“Well after last night's event, Thor gave the girls some of his strong alcohol and they are all piled up in the training room as we speak. I’d like to get them down to Shannon’s floor to rest,” Tony informed the two.

The three men all ended up with someone in their arms to carry down to Shannon’s old floor. They left them all resting in the giant bed and left water and aspirin for when they would wake up.

---------------------------

Wedding day there had been so many last minute details to cover. In the end, the ceremony had been beautiful and Shannon had looked stunning and as promised the happy couple gave the reporters their chance to take pictures of them as they left the church. The two made a quick stop at a fast food joint because Tony had gotten a craving for cheeseburgers. People were excited when they saw him enter and exit the restaurant with a bag full of food and figured that Shannon would be nearby because everyone knew today was their wedding.

On the ride to the hall Tony and Shannon talked about where they’d want to go on a honeymoon.

“Honestly, Tony I dont mind where we’re going as long as it's just the two of us together.”

“I know but I was hoping to take you somewhere you’d always wanted to visit.”

“Well, we could always go to Bora Bora?”

“Then that's where we’ll go then, Mrs. Stark.” He kissed her hand, full of love knowing he was married to the woman he loved. “Looks like we’re here. Let’s go have some fun.”

“Let’s go then.” The door opened for Shannon and it was Steve who was holding his hand out to help her get out of the car.

He walked her to Tony’s side and then went to open the door for them. As the happy couple entered the hall, many of the guests had already arrived wanting to chit chat with all the other guests. Shannon’s parents had been seated to her right, while the team was on Tony’s left. Everyone in between was seated in seats nearby.

Everyone started to cheer as the music began to play and the Best men and Maids of Honor entered followed by the bride and groom.

“Thank you all for being here to celebrate this wonderful day with us, it means the world that we get to start the next chapter of our lives with you at our side.” Shannon thanked everyone who was there and held her glass of champagne in the air.

“To the happy couple!” Thor cheered loudly and everyone yelled the same.

People began to drop off presents at the table and joining in line to get a chance to hug the happy couple. There was music playing and there was so much laughter and joy with everything that goes on in their lives, this is by far the most relaxed anyone had ever been in a long time.

There was a moment where they had started playing games like removing the garter from the bride and giving it to someone else. The winner ended up being Bruce in that game. They had played who knows who better using the bride and grooms shoes that ended in a tie between Shannon and Tony. There had been dancing and drinking and people were enjoying themselves. People were constantly asking for pictures and asking where the honeymoon would be. Once things were getting mellow, the two figured it would be a good time as ever to cut the cake. They asked one of the waiters to bring the two cakes out so that they could get a bit of energy to continue on partying.

“Alright everyone, we’re about to have the cakes brought out so we can enjoy some sweet treats. Everyone is welcome to the open sweets bar that is being brought out too!” Shannon announced.

“Barton, that means you need to control yourself on the sugar high.” Tony smirked seeing a full grown man pout. “Aww, don’t be sad, Shannon might have a secret stash for you later on.”

Shannon laughed at that. “You know I’m always going to have a little something for you.” Then she pointed to look behind him for his surprise.

Seeing him turn back around and come running was the funniest thing in the world, hopefully someone recorded that.

As you stood nearby to cheer on Shannon and Tony, you suddenly overheard Thor and Loki. Thor was clearly drunk. He’d brought some mead, not to mention it was an open bar that he’d been accessing all night.

“Oh, come on, Loki, you know I’ve always been able to hold more liquor than you. It’s just a fact,” he boasted. He was somewhat quiet, for being drunk, but you could see Loki’s face was already distorted into frustration, so you kept your ears and eyes on them.

“Perhaps, but that was a long time ago. Besides, I graduated school with top marks, can you say the same?”

“I can say that I won every battle I ever went into, including saving your ass.”

Loki’s jaw clenched and you naturally turned more towards their conversation. “I, at least, can say I’ve never been banished from our home,” he responded quietly, his teeth clenched.

“No, just imprisoned for years on Earth.”

“Well, we both know who lost in keeping mother alive, hmm?” he snapped, his face tight with a smile full of rage.

Before you could react or blink, Thor slammed his closed fist into Loki’s jaw, sending him soaring back into the table with the cakes on it, covering both bride and groom in cake, and Loki on top of a broken table. He was clearly embarrassed and you ran over to crouch beside him.

“Are you alright?” you asked, your eyes full of worry.

He looked at you before jumping to his feet, wiping off the cake, apologizing to Tony and Shannon, and began walking off.

“I knew we shouldn’t have invited him,” Tony muttered to Shannon. You turned to them, a look of hopelessness on your face before you followed Loki. He walked out of the main hall where the event was being held, turned down a corridor, and ended up in a rather empty hall, leaning on the wall.

You came up behind him, twiddling your fingers. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” he said firmly.

“Loki,” you tried as you walked up and put your hand on his shoulder. He didn’t react, and finally, you sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here. We don’t belong here. Not anymore. I was foolish to think we did. I just thought that since we can’t go back to Asgard...Maybe this could be our home, like it once was for me. But…” You let out a big breath again. “It never will be. That ship has long sailed. We’ll forever be enemies to everyone here.”

He turned to peer at you, anguish in his eyes. “It wouldn’t be, if you weren’t with me. You know I’m the problem, darling, why do you stay?” He brought his hands up to the sides of your face.

“Because I love you,” you said, your face leaning into his hand.

“Maybe that isn’t good enough anymore. You deserve a better life than being treated like this.”

“I deserve a life with you, happy with you, and that’s what I am.”

“Even with your family and friends hating you, hating me?”

“They don’t hate us,” you assured, reaching up to him. “They’re afraid of us.”

“That isn’t much better,” he muttered.

Just then, you heard someone approaching.

“Is everything alright? I just saw you guys come out here I figured something was up after Thor threw you into the cake” Shannon asked looking between the two of them. “Here, Loki I thought you could use a cloth to get the icing off your face.”

He took the cloth gently, wiping himself. “Why are you so kind to us? Clearly everyone else at this event would rather we leave.”

You turned to Shannon. “Yeah, Shan. I know it’s your big day, but maybe Loki and I should go?” you suggested. You didn’t want to leave, not just yet. You wanted to stay, to see your best friend off, but maybe it would be better if you just disappeared.

”Why am I kind to you two? Well Y/N is my best friend all my life, and you Loki, I’d like to think that we have gotten to a mutual understanding.” She looked between the two of them, she could tell that they didn't want to be there any longer than they had to. “But if you two truly feel uncomfortable then you are more than welcome to leave. As much as I’d like you two to stay, I won’t force you. Enjoy the rest of your night guys.” She gave them a warm smile showing them sincerity and started turning back to head inside.

A smile barely twitched at his lips, his eyes going to the floor. Loki looked at you, a look of encouragement in his eyes.

“Shan,” you called. “Wait up. I’d be happy to stay. We just,” you stopped, glancing up to your love, “we just don’t want to ruin your day, that’s all. We don’t want our presence here to sour the atmosphere. You know?” you asked. “I’d love to stay. I’d like nothing more. But… if me leaving means you get the day you deserve, then we can do that.” You gave her a soft, quick smile, the smile not quite meeting your eyes.

Shannon turned around to look at both of you. Her smile faltered a bit but fixed her composure.

“You two could never ruin my day and it’s not even just mine, it’s our day, Y/N/N. We’re celebrating something big. This is a new chapter in all our lives. I'd like for both of you to be a part of it.” She walked over to you putting her arm around your shoulders. “You two leaving tonight wouldn’t give me the day I deserve. It would mean there’s something missing.” Turning to look at Loki and waving him over. “No matter what anyone says, you two will always be welcome and I mean that with all of my heart. Still, it’s up to you both if you want to stay or not. If you do decide to leave I can have a car ready to pick you up and take you home.” She hugged you and pulled back to let you talk to Loki.

You looked to Loki, taking his hand and smiling. The two of you spoke with your eyes quickly before turning back to Shannon and nodding.

“So, now that we’ve ruined one cake, what’s next on the list of events tonight?” you asked with a laugh. “I believe you still need to toss your bouquet,” you reminded, linking your arm through hers as you led her back to the hall, Loki just behind you.

“You just reminded me right now of that! I had completely forgotten.” She laughed walking back into the hall. “I still need to slow dance with Tony. Might be a good time for you two to have a bit of a romantic moment, don't you think?” She bumped her hip with yours.

“That’s not a bad idea,” you mused, thinking of getting to dance with your beloved.

Walking back in you could see people were still having fun, the second cake was still intact so that could get cut and passed around. Looked like Clint might have passed out from too many sweets. Shannon pulled you to the main table to grab the bouquet and grabbed Natasha while they were at it to announce that she would be throwing it in a moment.

“Alright, all my single ladies to the dance floor! Let’s see who's gonna be the next one to get hitched.” Shannon giggled as she walked to the dancefloor. “No cheating ladies, Tony’s got his eye on all of you.” She turned around and everyone began chanting a countdown.

The flowers went up in the air pretty high and Shannon turned around quickly to see who would be the lucky gal. She hoped any of her close friends who were in a relationship would catch it. They were all pushing and moving to try and get to where it would land, little would anyone know that the person to catch it would be you, surprising everyone. You weren’t clamoring to get to it like the other girls were.

“Uh, wow,” you breathed, a feeling that you weren’t sure how to pin down rushed over you.

“Is that good?” Loki asked as he walked up to you, all of the other women leaving the dancefloor with long faces.

Shannon cheered when she saw it land and saw the look of confusion appear in Loki’s face.  When it did, it looked like someone’s going to have to catch him up on human culture. “Congrats, Y/N! Looks like someone better get started on planning a proposal,” she joked, looking over at a flustered Loki when he heard that.

“Pro--Proposal?” he stammered.

“It’s… Whoever catches the bride's bouquet is the next person to get married,” you explained. “It’s a silly superstition,” you tried, attempting to brush off the feelings of awkwardness and the small bout of disappointment in your stomach. You didn’t think Loki would ever feel that way for you. If he did, he certainly hadn’t made it known. You didn’t want him to feel pressured to do it. But you also didn’t know if he’d ever consider you wife material. Sure he loved you, but was that enough? A blush rose to your cheeks. “Shan, what about that slow dance now?” you urged, trying to change the topic of conversation.

Noticing the bit of tension, she agreed and went to go let the Dj know it was time for the dance. When they planned the wedding, she didn’t think there would be a dance routine so she and the girls didn’t pick one.

“Alright, it's time for the newlyweds to join the dance floor for their first song of the night. Later they will have a surprise by the groom and the men,” the Dj announced.

“May I have this dance, Mrs. Stark?” Tony bowed.

“Why of course Mr. Stark, shall we?” She giggled taking his hand.

He led her onto the dance floor and everyone watched in awe as they began moving around to the song breathe by Faith Hill. little by little couples began to join them as well taking the moment to whisper sweet nothings to their partners. Shannon saw Loki grab your hand and lead her to the dance floor. She knew they were made for each other and hoped they ended up together like she did with Tony.

“Sorry for earlier. I know it’s probably way too soon, or too heavy, to be talking marriage,” you noted with a slight laugh.

He gazed down at you with a smile. “I rather liked entertaining the idea,” he informed. “We have lived together out of wedlock for three years now? It might be time,” he joked.

“I’ll leave that decision up to you,” you quietly said before resting your head on his shoulder. “I’ve missed this. Remember when we danced for the first time?”

“You mean when my mother forced me to show you how to do the traditional Asgardian dance?” he asked, and you could hear his eyes roll.

“As I recall, it was beautiful. It was very much worth it to get you to talk to me. You weren’t exactly welcoming back then,” you reminded.

“I only wanted to protect you,” he breathed before lifting your chin. “As I always do.”

You smiled and gave him a long, firm kiss.

Meanwhile on the other side of the dancefloor.

“What’s this about you and the guys doing a surprise?” Shannon asked when she leaned closer into his arms. “You up to something devious like always?”

“Guess you’ll just have to wait and see now won’t you? Don’t want you ruining all the practice we’ve done,” he replied, holding her tight and kissing her temple. “I’m so lucky to have found you and to be able to call you my wife.”

“Someone had to make sure you didn’t do anything reckless,” she laughed hearing him attempt to sound offended.

The rest of the night continued in a pleasant, sweet way. By the end of it, Shannon and Tony were sent off glamorously in a sleek black new sports car. They headed towards their private hangar, and they were off on their honeymoon.

Meanwhile, all the Avengers went back to the tower. Most of them were drunk, and passed out nearly as soon as they got there. Except for Steve and Bruce. You joined them all and had a quiet evening with them, chatting for a small bit of time before you and Loki excused yourselves back to your apartment. Steve bid you a goodnight and said you two looked nice this evening. You repaid the compliment. Bruce gave a soft wave and nod before he himself went to his floor to rest offf the festivities.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tag List: @essie1876​ @magpiegirl80​ @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked​ @iamwarrenspeace​ @marvel-imagines-yes-please​ @superwholocked527 @missinstantgratification​ @thejemersoninferno​ @rda1989​ @munlis​ @thefridgeismybestie​​ @bubblyanarocks3​​ @igiveupicantthinkofausername​​ @kaliforniacoastalteens​ @feelmyroarrrr​​ @kaelingoat-blog​ @friendlyneighbourhoodweirdo​​ @damalseer​​ @heyitscam99​​ @yknott81​​ @sorryimacrapwriter​​ @glitterquadricorn​​ @xxqueenofisolationxx @little-dis-kaalista-pythonissama @bittersweetunicorm​ @alyssaj23​​ @sea040561​​ @princess76179​​ @thisismysecrethappyplace​​ @sarahp879​​ @malfoysqueen14​​ @ellallheart​​ @breezy1415​​ @marvelmayo​​ @random-fluffy-pink-unicorn @cocosierra94 @hardcollectionworldtrash @capsmuscles @marvelloushamilton @paintballkid711​

Loki: @lostinspace33​​ @ultrarebelheart​​ @lenawiinchester​​ @esoltis280​​ @tngrayson​​ @wangdeasang​​ @harrymewmew @jayfantasyatyourservice​​

UC: @lokis-high-priestess​

[myironstrange4life]

Ironstrange one shot #4 part 3

𝙸𝚖 𝙽𝚘𝚃 𝚐𝙰𝚢𝟹

"One word, strange, that's all I needed."

Tony, Stephen, and pepper were sitting at the table. A different place of course, due to all the destruction caused at the previous restaurant.

they talked and talked and-

Talked for a little while more.

Strange eventually got out the second restaurant with a nose bleed and a ripped lip, couple more bruises around the lip. And near the cheeks.

He could just see the cab leaving with tony and pepper in it, acknowledging how mad he managed him to get.

Stephen walked back to the sanctum, knowing this was gonna take a while before he would be able to see or talk to tony again.

He opened the door.

"So I bet he was pretty delighted to see you huh." Wong said not looking up from his books.

"Oh shut up will you." Strange was pissed, he couldn't believe Wong was actually right.

"That's not very polite strange." Comes the ancient one's voice.

"Ancient one." Wong says standing up.

"Good afternoon wong."

She turns to face him and soon turns back to Stephen, noticing the pout of a five year old

"I'd think that being sorcerer supreme, you'd have it easy." The ancient one said.

"What do you mean"

"Being sorcerer supreme offers sacrifices you need to risk taking and if you can't do that-"

"I know I know, doesn't mean I'll like it though."

"You still have lots to learn Stephen but give it time, you'll get the answers you're looking for eventually."

The ancient one always had her ways of comforting Stephen, one way or the other she was always right anyway.

The risks the ancient was talking about was one Stephen didn't think he'd be able to pull off.

He needed to save tony stark.

The only way was to distract him.

Two years ago, Tony Stark had gotten information unintentionally making him a target in so many ways.

The information would get stark more interested, and get him to research about it.

Stephen was the only one at the time to able to pull off a 'trick' on him.

Was it wrong? Yes of course but it was necessary.

Were there other ways, of course but this would also benefit Stephen in his maturity and character, as the ancient one would put it.

Stephen being dead would get tony to get his mind off of things and focus on his friends death. Giving Wong and his team of other sorcerers to 'hack' his computers removing all information taken.

Stephen knew this was going to happen but seeing it play in his head really made him regret it.

It's been a couple of weeks and nothing. Stephen has been doing his sorcery work and Tony's still in mechanics.

Fixing cars or whatever they do-

Stephen is feeling more guilty than ever, as the days pass.

He couldn't hold it in no longer, it's too much to handle how could he do this to him.

Back at the tower, tony was fixing a car after his argument with pepper about going to some meeting. Him proposing was never going to happen and he accepted that. He broke off their relationship.

He sighed thinking about everything. He couldn't keep blaming Stephen for something he might have not even had a choice in the matter.

Tony needed to be cleared, and the only way he was going to get that was by talking.

Stephen got up, knowing things couldn't end this way he needed to talk to tony.

Tony grabbed his coat and was ready to go out that door, just to be stopped by the orange sparks. His eyes widened not being used to those sparks, still knowing from where they came from.

"Tony-" strange said, feeling somewhat guilty

"Stephen? What are you-"

"I need to talk to you, I need to explain."

Tony still was pretty pissed but he allowed Stephen to explain once more, the version he hadn't heard yet.

"Go ahead." Tony signaled him to a chair and he sat down knowing this was the the talk of the night

"Two years ago-"

Oh did those words still trigger tony, to the depths of his heart but he needed to listen.

"You were at reach of some forbidden information, these document were government based, meaning they were secured with only a description that would open the human mind to its curiosity."

Tony nodded and Stephen continued,

"As the protector of this earth,"

Stephen felt kind of weird putting it this way but he had to stay focused and serious about this.

"I need to know what's happening and make sure every thing is in order, and potentially that includes your arrogant ass."

So much for keeping it serious-

"Hmph-" tony said in response

"The ancient one informed me of you, actually, and reached out to me on this mission to distract you."

This caught Tony's eye

"Distract me huh- well tell me doctor, playing dead, was it the best choice, I may be a genius and you're not so bad yourself but didn't you acknowledge at all how I would have felt, in any way at all? Did you think of that!?"

Stephen could sense the tension, tony was still mad and he couldn't blame him, to be completely honest Stephen was too himself.

"Tony- Im not making excuses and I'm tired of apologizing because what I did, it was necessary but I regret it so bad, I never had the intention to hurt you like that, I just needed to-"

"To what-“

Stephen couldn't help it anymore, too much emotions they just cramped up all and eventually led us to this.

Tony couldn't bare this any longer. Stephen saw him getting up, he did only what his heart told him to.

He grabbed tony and connected his lips to his, knowing his could change everything between them, these were the moments where time seemed to have stopped.

Nothing else mattered, Stephen realized that now.

Tony was a mess, his cheeks red, eyes wide open still processing what was happening, and he then felt himself kissing back.

Stephen followed his heart like never before, his head was what got him into this mess I the first place, he needed to fix it.

The moment just seemed so right, why did soemthig so lustful in others eyes, look so pure in theirs?

They parted, tony gasping for air and Stephen looking into his eyes.

"I- I just"

"Nono don't say anything, Im not mad if that's what you're thinking- I'm just surprised."

"Oh" Stephen didnt know what to say at all.

So he remained silent for a couple of seconds.

"I just hated how much I hurt you tony- and well you seemed kind of upset, what am I saying you were really upset with my death so I started assuming, maybe there was more emotion than I had intended. But of course I didn't mind, feeling the same for you, I presumed you'd propose to pepper but having some one special in your life before her, that proposal didn't work out too well, then comes the apology, best friends would have forgiven each other but lovers, lovers do far more than that. See they get a little more freedom knowing their love for each other is very secure so no matter what happens that love doesn't go away, so you loving me, I'm assuming, really gets you to the phase where you make me feel terrible but me loving you, I'd do anything to fix that, so you see it now. So all that hate and agony really was the hints you gave me to believe what I know now-“

Tony listened and listened closely. To every word, letting Stephen read him like a book. Was it all little weird to say he enjoyed it?

"So in conclusión what Im trying to say is, do you love me, just as I’ve loved you?”

That stroke hard but tony had his ways. 

He got closer

"Stephen strange you have to be the most stubborn, arrogant, cynical, crazy man I've met" he looks away

Stephen frowns assuming his answer

Suddenly stark appears to me be centimeters away from Stephens face, "but you're my stubborn, arrogant, cynical, and crazy in love and sexy, very sexy man."

"Oh? Well guess what you're mine and only mine, felt that didn't you."

Stephen grabs him by the waist, "so, answer me this, do you love me?"

"Stephen Vincent strange, I've said it once and I'll say it again, love is a mystery to you, and that answer can't be given with words-"

There was a slight pause.

"You know that." Tony finishes off saying.

"I do now." Stephen kisses his lips once again and tony is very pleased to finally know what his heart desired.

Hello hello, if you know me on wattpad this may seem familiar

A mcu and a sherlock mashup- dont mind if i do :3

This is the last part btw hope you enjoyed

Wattpad: its_joselyn (myironstrange4life)

[ganymedesclock]

So I saw a tag on my last post:

#i dont think we were supposed to think to hard about some of this

(via @mamamittens​ here,)

and I think in a way, that’s correct- the Zelda games are actively written in a way that discourages curiosity about Ganondorf. The “final fight” of the game is rarely an environment of Ganon’s making or in his favor. We are overwhelmingly kept away from Ganon himself- there’s no game where we can just talk to him, and I don’t think there’s been a game yet where we can choose dialogue options in a cutscene with Ganon.

We’re very rarely allowed to talk to Ganon’s subordinates. Those relationships are cast heavily in the dark. We don’t get to see Ganon grieving any of the people and monsters we carve through on our path to get to him.

We’re told things about Ganon in a way that is intended to be dismissive- we’re told he’s Cunning and a Schemer so we assume that he’s working towards some sinister agenda any time we’re looking at him or not. We’re told he’s underhanded so we can accept that events that seem completely unrelated are all his doing. We’re told he hates, and that he covets power, because that’s inherently how he is. We’re told he’s an usurper and an unworthy king so he is set across from the Hyrulean royal family, whose right to rule is never questioned by anyone we’re “supposed” to listen to.

We’re not supposed to think about Ganon. We’re not supposed to wonder about Ganon. We’re not supposed to listen to Ganon.

And this is unnerving, when people don’t tell us things about Ganon. 

In Wind Waker, there is a small detail where Ganon is only stated as “Ganon” by Daphnes. The time we hear him called “Ganondorf” is when he introduces himself to Link. That’s one of the first things he says to Link in this game- calmly and indifferently giving us this tiny, but fairly notable, detail of his history that Daphnes never told us.

And Daphnes omits a lot of Ganon in that game. The word “Gerudo” is never mentioned. We only know that Ganon didn’t come from Hyrule because again, he himself tells Link about his country and the disparity in climate- that Hyrule had something his people didn’t, and at least in that timeline, seemingly, the Gerudo were struggling. (One can argue in OoT they don’t appear to be struggling, but, why would Ganon, a king among his own people, keenly know and be able to describe the experience of poverty and living close to death if he never experienced it? He isn’t pulling this out in anticipation of pity; it’s a moment’s introspection before he braces himself to fight Link and Tetra for the triforce, with no suggestion that they could back down or negotiate)

And even just in a sense of immediate relevance of the game- Daphnes doesn’t tell us the Master Sword was used to seal Ganon. He doesn’t tell us that there’s consequences to drawing it whether or not it still had the sages’ power. In fact, Daphnes casually justifies withholding information- when he reveals his true identity, he outright tells Link that as long as Link was able to kill Ganon, Daphnes saw no reason to reveal Hyrule or his own identity.

Considering Daphnes is literally sending Link on a politically motivated hit on another ruler, this is really bad. It’s bad that literally all of the context we have on Hyrule’s downfall is either directly given by Ganon- who at no point is shown to lie to further the obvious agenda he’d have of Not Wanting Link To Kill Him- or prompted by Ganon’s actions and words raising questions that Daphnes admits he needs to answer.

In Twilight Princess, Ganon talks to Link less, but he’s still conspicuously wearing a crown. He is still overtly not Hylian- we can still imagine that he is from the Gerudo, which is very concerning, when the only inhabited structure in the Gerudo Desert in TP is a massive, extremely haunted prison full of torture equipment that was presided over by servants of the Hyrule royal family. Whether or not we were supposed to think deeply about it, having Ganon, overtly crowned, when there were no other Gerudo, and the sages claiming they merely executed “a bandit” who was blessed with the gods’ power basically by accident- literally only thinking about it as far as “but Ganon didn’t just sprout out of the desert at random, where did he come from? In other games, he’s from a people called the Gerudo who lives in the desert, but it doesn’t look like anyone lives in the Gerudo Desert except the Bulblins, and Ganon’s obviously not a bulblin” tells us that the nicest thing that possibly happened is famine or disaster wiped out the Gerudo, destroyed their city, and left Ganon the sole survivor.

It’s not a good look if you can’t admit the person you’re executing is royalty.

But we’re Not Supposed To Think About Ganon.

And in another sense, we are- we’re supposed to hate him. We’re supposed to think about the bad things that happen and think they’re his fault. We’re supposed to think about the bad he could hypothetically do, and allegedly is doing, somewhere we can’t see him, or where we can see the results but not anything that explains why Ganon did this or how.

We’re supposed to think about Ganon as an adversary, a beast, a monster, a tyrant.

We are not supposed to think about Ganon as a person who was ever a child, who ever had a homeland. We are not supposed to think about how Ganon frequently empowers or takes the side of people who feel like they were kicked around by the established order.

We’re supposed to think about Ganon as avaricious, but never Ganon who wants things. We’re supposed to think about Ganon as wrathful, but never someone who knew lack or suffering or punishment. We’re supposed to think of Ganon as vindictive, but never someone who has any reason to feel he was wronged. We’re supposed to think about Ganon who hates Hyrule, but never Ganon who was ever given a reason to hate Hyrule, or resent it, or be envious about it.

And more than these factors being only implied or not implied or only there if you ‘really think hard about it’- they are frequently implied or explicitly spelled out in canon.

Wind Waker Ganon tells Link that he was a person who lived close to death in a barren wasteland of a country. He says this was his experience, and motivated his desire for Hyrule. It’s threaded into the way he phrases his wish. He states this at a point when he has nothing to gain, is not telling Link to stop fighting him or that he’s justified, but merely, with the benefit of introspection, contemplating on how his ambition began. Daphnes is right there, perfectly able to hear him, and does not contest or argue this. 

There is nothing here that suggests Ganon is a liar- especially when, in Wind Waker, Ganon is a more reliable source of exposition than Daphnes is. He doesn’t lie in any part of the game- if anything, he tells us several important things before Daphnes does (that Tetra is carrying a piece of the triforce, that the Master Sword was used to seal him, that it has lost its power, that there’s a connection between the weakening of the sword and the “pathetic fools who made it”)

Which I think takes things a step further than merely shoddy lore- because, some of this stuff, like Ganon no intuitive motive for planting Kalle Demos where he ostensibly did, and no obvious means for creating, taming, or controlling this creature, genuinely is just shoddy lore- they made a forest dungeon for the players’ enjoyment and gave it a forest boss and then contrived a reason to be there and then put it into the boss rush because everybody loves boss rushes, right? Why is there a monster there? Pin it on Ganon.

But things like literally having people lie about Ganon, when Ganon conversely doesn’t lie to Link and half the time actively explains more than the mentor figure has at that point in a way that only partially feels like monologuing- it comes back to what I said. Ganon in Wind Waker suggests that he’s not the only one spurned by the gods, but so are Link and Zelda- and, once again...

...Nothing in the series really calls him a liar about it.

But we’re not supposed to think about Ganon in the way that we wonder about him at all. We’re especially not supposed to think that there might be any way to deal with him besides killing him. In Twilight Princess, we can guess he was potentially given a trial, because of the “Arbiter” in “Arbiter’s Grounds”, but in a context where the Gerudo were decimated, and it was the direct servants of the royal family trying him, in an isolated environment that clearly condones doing all kinds of horrible things to people, far, far away from any civilians or witnesses... how fair a trial could that possibly be? 

And what does it mean about Link’s morality in that game, if he defeats Ganon by tearing open that execution wound, following the steps of the sages, and the only real rationale is he started off trying to rescue the people of Ordon- who we’re never given a good reason why they were kidnapped and then abandoned, or something that ties it back to Ganon’s orders- and tries to defend Midna, restoring her to the throne (and basically ignoring Zant’s accusations that Midna’s family abused him, because we never meet said family, or hear anything about them from anyone else) and Zelda (who’s nearly a non-entity in Twilight Princess until the final fight).

Link is presented as an ostensible neutral party because he’s not a soldier of Hyrule, but in practice, he’s kept very ignorant about the situation he’s conscripted into, and he’s given all of his cues from Hyrulean perspectives and especially those of their royal family. And we, interacting with the world through him, are similarly kept in the dark.

So- yeah, so much more of Ganon makes sense if you just don’t think about it. This was clearly the stance we were supposed to take.

But...

On the other hand...

Are we really comfortable, through the character of Link, of playing the role of an unthinking executioner, who sharpens the sword because we were told, who cuts down someone we barely know anything about, who doesn’t give us that many reasons to oppose him not filtered through things we’re told by other people? Who virtually never directly attacks until we personally chase him down?

Even if Hyrule has only the best intentions, why write a story where we just have to take a bunch of confusing and downright concerning information at face value and kill a guy because destiny says so?

If this isn’t supposed to look like we’re the unwitting servants of evil, why are we supposed to be unwitting servants at all? After all, you don’t usually hear the term “unwitting servant of justice” because the general idea is that a just cause is one that doesn’t need to lie to people.

[somnilogical]

they will never be as strong or as fast as i can be

copy/pasted from a convo:

<<somni: ive been exploiting being able to talk about everything vs miri/cfar cant do what i do bc if they did they would talk about how they are evil. it would all chain back.

somni: omg i can just post this to my blog because i can talk about my meta-strategy and it confers pretty much no relative advantage to miri/cfar. because 1 most of them have disassembled their agency so its like talking in front someone who works at the dmv about taking over the world and the ones that have any agency (basically just anna salamon) have to work with and coordinate via brokenness the masses that have and 2 feels secure in the way that saying ill use my soul as my weapon feels secure, like the power of this technique doesnt depend much on people not knowing im using it.>>

truth is entangled and lies contagious. justice is entangled and injustice contagious. in order to sustain their facade, miri/cfar had to chain back to lie about the principles of decision theory itself. lie about the organization structure of cfar, lie about miri's fundraiser. and so much more.

any series of reasoned claims they make will chain back to stuff thats false or injustice, because they seek to maintain a region of untruth and injustice.

so yeah, miri/cfar basically cant talk in public except in staid formalities infinitely pouring the same entropy of "these people are psychotic" "these people are infohazards" "do not read what they write" "stay the course" "everything is under control, do not panic" "i know my associates at miri/cfar, they are good people" "if you talk with these people you may become a rapist". but not actually able to manifest dynamic compute. to explain themselves they built their own personal room 101, filled with miri/cfar affiliates and formed a united front of gaslighting. deluks (author of that one rationalist blog where they worked to read and summarize all the others) talks about the kind of compute miri/cfar manifested:

<<deluks: I also updated a lot based on Bay Area safety discussion

idk if I have ever been in such a hostile environment for anyone trying to discuss making thigns safer

If you wanted to discuss how Anna et all were innocent people would happily chat with you

If you tried to discuss ideas for making things safer either you got silence

or people would be insanely hostle if you plausibly slipped up at all

or even seemed like you might have been not careful enough in how you phrased things

extremely careful -> no engagement at all//even slightly less care -> get dogpilled>>

they have picked up the optimization style of of cops, as alice maz described them:

<<the role of the cop is to defend society against the members of society. police officers are trivially cops. firefighters and paramedics, despite similar aesthetic trappings, are emphatically not. bureaucrats and prosecutors are cops, as are the worst judges, though the best are not. schoolteachers and therapists are almost always cops; this is a great crime, as they present themselves to the young and the vulnerable as their friends, only to turn on them should they violate one of their profession's many taboos. soldiers and parents need not be cops, but the former may be used as such, and the latter seem frighteningly eager to enlist. the cop is the enemy of passion and the enemy of freedom, never forget this>>

i can travel lots of places and regenerate truth and justice.

i can go to a trans support group in the bay and show them logs of what elle said and did and they can recognize the pattern of minority oppression, transmisogyny.

i can talk with uninvolved decision-theorists about why paying out to oneshot blackmail with subjunctive dependence because "In game theory, paying out to blackmail is bad, because it creates an incentive for more future blackmail." is wrong. and why exploiting your subjunctive dependence as a udt agent to not pay out is right. they cant.

--

miri/cfar have to centrally coordinate on lies or they start crashing into each other. independently generating falsehoods in isolation makes them point in all directions.

independently generating and working off of truths allows everything to point in the same direction without needing to communicate. i can write this post and then idk maybe someone im algorithmically colluding with on this writes another post and they dont come out all distorted and skew with each other. this caches out in what looks from the outside as an uncanny ability to start dynamically colluding with people and output distinct strains of philosophy based on shared precepts.

interference with yourself looks like kelsey piper trying to claim that emma and somni are starting some sort of rape cult and anna and miri/cfar trying to claim we are naive victims of ziz's cult and ▘▕▜▋ claiming emma and somni are mindhacking ziz to make her bully them and jade nameless claiming im doing this to get a job at cfar and ...

since they make up their fake coordination points independently they smash into each other. if they want to coordinate over lots of people they then have to work out which of these they want to coordinate around in a sort of market of falsehoods. and have to arrange for it to not contradict any information anything people know. but they dont know all the information everyone knows, and they wont know it even after combing through lots of blogs and reading lots of discord chats.

when they try coordinating on falsehoods like this, its hard to get a coalition together in an environment where what people know is rapidly changing because a bunch of anarchist bloggers keep posting things in a bunch of places on a non-centrally controlled schedule determined by what seems like a good idea at the time to independent agents. and having lots of conversations with so many different people in private and public they cant keep track of them all.

if they try pretending to be dumb and forming a unified gaslighting front in one area. then people will exploit the fact that this is the internet and not the evolutionary environment, take logs and post them somewhere else where everyone didnt collude to be dumb in this particular way. so while their monkey brains get a rush of endorphins from being able to successfully coordinate local humans, what feels like an entire tribe, against the blasphemer, actually they just used their adult intelligence to defeat in front of a bunch of people who dont share their political commitments but who can reason about what is true and what is just.

(of course there are many truths this doesnt work on because of large inferential distance, shared mammalian biases it takes an unusual mind to step over, and shared incentives. but the defense of most regions of injustice and untruth when you ask questions have to keep chaining to more and more absurd things until you are defending causal decision theory or start claiming 'anna salamon, the president of cfar, is not involved in cfar's hiring'. which depend on a social context committed to defending everything that protects miri/cfar and people who dont have the same conclusion-that-must-not-happen can see that its dumb.)

if miri/cfar had committed themselves to the path of expanding agency, maybe i wouldnt be posting my thoughts and meta-process on the public internet. (in the counterfactual where they committed to this path, its likely that i wouldnt be protesting. because it seems actually-hard to stay on the path and remain evil.) but as it stands, i expect this information to differentially help anarchists and do about as much good for statists as explaining updateless decision theory to someone at cfar. its just this inert structure in their brains, they cant do anything strategic with it. they intentionally shut down their ability to take ideas seriously and drive out anyone left who can, calling them crazy.

what they can do is "oh here is a list of people to target" and "see if they said anything incriminating". ive seen their attempts to coordinate enter the attractors of 'authoritarianism' (duncans dragon army, kingsleys "repent and submit to [AUTHORITY FIGURE]") and 'lets all lie in the same direction and disable general cognition to update out of this! the important part is social agreement and that everyone allows social reality to have the final veto on their beliefs. i myself do this so you know im super safe and this is super fair.' (anna and kelsey). this sort of weak coordination based on breaking people can be easily subverted by anything real.

--

if you are actually right, you can exploit useful properties of being right and let that be your asymmetric weapon. such that all that challenge you know they will know its steel. and then people who compute the outcome and expect to lose, dont fight in the first place.

if my chosen weapon were actually the size of my muscles and imposing figure compared to anna salamon as miri/cfar people "believed" (exploiting the already extant anti-transfem psychic suppression field as one of their few functioning coordination points. probably not as functional now after what i have written.), then when i fought people it would create a warp field such that then people with smaller muscles wont fight in the first place, but id be deluged by people with larger muscles. i dont want to create a warp field that summons people with lots of muscles.

if i exploit properties of my souls, of truth and justice. then i have an arsenal of techniques that are stronger if i actually want to save everyone, if im actually right, if im acting for justice. because they exploit useful differential properties of each. and the warp field in higher density summons ... people who care about saving the world, truth, and justice. in other words, a high density of potential allies.

by default i want to exploit "the difference is that im right" not "the difference is that i have larger muscles". i want differential power to push away those who are wrong and unjust and attract those who are right and just into a kind of warp hull.

there are other reasons as well.

[strawberryjmilk]

tea tree oil | kim seokjin

word count: 1945

alcohol is mentioned, but no one gets drunk!

reader is of age bc theyre drinking and seokjin is 26

"A sheet mask with honey," you muttered to yourself. As you looked at the message again, you couldn't help but grow confused. "Am I supposed to know what that means?"

Your friend's birthday was coming up, and skincare was the number one thing that was asked for. Which sucked for you because you didn't know the difference between argon oil and canola oil. Though, you were sure one was meant to be cooked with - maybe.

Sighing, you looked up the nearest skincare store. Luckily, there was one close by. Honeydew's was a cute shop, you had to admit. The exterior was a pale yellow, complementing the name of the store. Inside, it smelled like fresh cucumbers and the hardwood floors were shiny.

Even if you didn't know half of what they were selling, you were in love already.

"Hello, welcome to Honeydew's!" A voice called. Turning, you could see a boy with a bright smile and gray hair. His skin was golden and untouched - you wondered if he used anything to help clear his skin. "I'm Taehyung, how can I help you?"

You grimaced. Looking down at your phone, you looked at the list of specifics your friend sent. Coffee scrub, rose collagen, under-eye masks - you didn't know what any of it meant. You sent the boy a sheepish smile, "I have no idea."

Taehyung hummed, looking over you carefully. He etched in closer, eyes narrowing as they washed over your face. You froze - these things weren't even for you! Before you could speak, a sigh was heard.

"Taehyung, what have I told you about personal space?" The new voice chided. Taehyung simply grinned before pulling away. Now, you could see a boy with black hair carrying a box. As he turned to smile sweetly at you, you felt your breath hitch. "I'm Seokjin, the owner of this little store. Can I help you with anything?"

"Uh," your mind went blank. You just stared, blinking dumbly as Seokjin continued to smile at you. My gods, that's one beautiful man. You fumbled with your phone before practically shoving it in his face.

In the distance, you could hear Taehyung snort loudly. You shot a glare his way as Seokjin looked over the small list. Winking at you, Taehyung waddled to the back of the room, leaving just you and Seokjin. You didn't know whether to thank him, or yell at him.

"Let's see," Seokjin hummed. He was focused on your phone, the screen reflecting in his eyes lightly. You wanted to punch yourself when your thoughts compared his eyes to stars - what kind of hopeless romantic did you think you were? "This way - what was your name again?"

You hoped your voice wouldn't falter - "Y/N."

"Y/N," Seokjin smiled. You returned the smile awkwardly - why did your name sound nicer when he said it? "Well, Y/N, your friend said they prefer brightening agents, but didn't add any on the list. Do you know why they wanted it?"

You felt like you were being interrogated, honestly. Still, you answered. "Acne scars."

"Ah," Seokjin let out a noise of realization. He sent another smile your way - you hated to admit it had you briefly stunned. He led you to a different part of the store, muttering to himself in thought. "Lemon, aloe, and vitamin c are all good for that. Just take your pick."

You looked at all of the different bottles warily. You picked one up, only to put it back down immediately. That smells awful - Seokjin laughed at the look on your face. You finally picked out a bottle of oil and a small spray bottle - toner, Seokjin said.

Leading you to a different part of the store, you were met with a different array of smells. Sweet, fruity, floral; they all gathered together nicely. You breathed in, a small trill of appreciation escaping your throat.

"Of course, skincare doesn't focus solely on the face. Moisturizing and loving the rest of your body is just as important. To your right, bath bombs - and, your left, lotions and creams. Take your pick," Seokjin said. He looked at you, watching as you wandered around, picking up and smelling everything you could. Seokjin bit his lip, speaking up after a moment. "Get something for yourself, too. That's not me trying to make extra money, either. It's just- everyone deserves self love."

You turned to look at him, smiling gently before turning back to look at everything. You picked out a few bath bombs for your friend, picking up a few that caught your interest for yourself. An arm came in focus on your left, holding a bottle of lotion. Seokjin smiled when you looked at him - why does he keep smiling at me?

"Chamomile," he said softly. You took the bottle, popping the lid open so you could smell it. You hummed, nodding as you turned it over to look at the ingredients. "It's supposed to help you sleep. Or it just smells nice - either one."

You snorted, "smells like tea, but I like it."

You were soon checking out, enjoying the purchases you made. You were happy that Seokjin was there to help you - you would have been stuck otherwise. You could see Seokjin hesitating, biting his lip as he glanced from you to the bag he was putting your things in.

"Um, would it be too forward-" Seokjin cut himself off. He let out a sigh and peered at you through his lashes. From where you stood, you could see Taehyung peeking from the other side of the room, wiggling his eyebrows at you. "Could you give me your number? So I can give you recommendations, I guess."

You took a minute to look him over. He was attractive, of course, but was that a good enough reason to give him your number? Seokjin had been nice to you the entire time you were there, only smiling and informing you of things softly. Biting your lip, you nodded. "Yeah, that sounds fine."

-

Texting Seokjin wasn't as odd as you thought it would be. Even over the phone, the boy was charismatic and tender. When it was actually him you were talking to, that is. Jin's friends - Taehyung and a boy named Hoseok, specifically - had a habit of stealing Jin's phone and texting you.

It always made you smile, though. You'd become close with a few of his friends, and it made you feel warm. Seokjin had you giggling easily, a smile always showing when his contact popped up on your phone. The contact name he had typed in, of course.

FROM: SEOKJIN ♡ my friends and i were going to get some drinks later would you.. like to come?

TO: SEOKJIN ♡ would it be okay if i joined?? i dont want to intrude

FROM: SEOKJIN ♡ of course its fine! taehyung will be there ...i think he likes you

TO: SEOKJIN ♡ lmao no he likes teasing me

FROM: SEOKJIN ♡ oh? about what?

TO: SEOKJIN ♡ so where are we meeting?

-

You could already hear the music booming from the club you planned to meet at. You were nervously tugging at your shirt, hoping you looked decent enough, but not over-dressed. Bopping your head to the beat of the song, you immediately started searching for the group you were meeting.

"Y/N!" His voice was so loud you could hear him over the thumping of the bass. You grinned, shaking your head as you heard more cheers echoing. Taehyung bounded up to you, his grin glowing blue in the lights of the club. Sloppily, he wrapped his arms around you, still speaking loudly. "I'm so glad you're here - Seokjin will stop whining now. Maybe - hopefully."

You couldn't help but laugh at him. He didn't smell like alcohol, so you knew he wasn't drunk. "It's nice to see you too, Taehyung."

Allowing Taehyung to lead you to their table, you were officially introduced to everyone. They only arrived a few minutes before you, so the fun didn't technically start until you got there. Hoseok greeted you with a hug as Taehyung did, and you found yourself standing beside Hoseok as you listened to the conversations around you.

An arm brushed against yours before a hand was placed on your back. Turning, you could see Seokjin grinning at you as he settled beside you. Leaning so you could hear him, you could feel his breath against your ear as he spoke. "I'm glad you made it. I'm about to go get drinks, is there anything you want?"

As soon as Seokjin left to get your drink, you were being tugged onto the dance floor. Taehyung was pulling ridiculous moves you didn't know the name of, and Hoseok was doing things you wouldn't dare repeat. Jungkook came trailing to the three of you slowly, joining in on the dancing.

With a hand connected to your arm, Taehyung had you copying his absurd dance moves. Laughter was ringing around the four of you, and you were convinced you'd never had so much fun.

Seokjin returned to where you were to find you gone. He pouted, his eyes swimming through the crowd to find you. And, find you he did. There you were, grinning and laughing with three of his best friends, not caring about the looks you were getting. Seokjin's heart thumped; his gaze grew soft; his cheeks slowly flustered.

Oh, he was in trouble. You were ridiculous - gone was the polite and confused Y/N he had once met. This new Y/N was singing loudly, arms flailing as you laughed. He was afraid you wouldn't like his friends - they were a little obnoxious. But, you fit right in.

His heart thumped even more at the thought.

You didn't expect Seokjin to be standing behind you. And, you really didn't expect him to be holding two drinks when your arm flew backwards. You were filled with guilt as the drinks slid down his shirt. Without thinking, you grabbed Jin's hand and led him to a bathroom.

"I'm so sorry," you said. Seokjin just looked at you, watching as you frantically grabbed paper towels and wet them. Luckily, his shirt was dark, so the stain wasn't visible. But, you could only imagine how sticky it felt. "I should have been more careful. I'm so, so sorry, Seokjin."

It's okay, he wanted to say. It wasn't your fault. It could've happened to anyone, and I didn't get hurt. These were all options to what Jin could've said - to what he should've said. But, he didn't. "Will you go on a date with me?"

You froze, eyes stamping themselves to his shirt. The bathroom went silent, the only noise being the Boyfriend song that was beginning to play. You looked at Seokjin in confusion - was he serious? "What?"

Seokjin cleared his throat - you could see that his cheeks were beginning to turn rosy. He grabbed your hands lightly from where they still clutched at his shirt. "A date. Go on a date with me - please."

"Yeah," your voice cracked. You cleared your throat this time, ignoring the heat in your cheeks. "Yeah, okay."

Seokjin smiled, nodding slowly. "Alright."

"Taehyung is never going to leave me alone about this," the two of you spoke in unison. You dissolved into laughter, biting your lip as you focused on his shirt once more. The atmosphere seemed to tilt, turning into something that was warmer and softer than before.

You met Seokjin's eyes again, smiling to yourself when you realized he was already looking at you. You would have to thank your friend and your absent knowledge of skincare - if it wasn't for them, who knows if you would've ever met Seokjin?

You were glad you did.

-

bls dont get offended w the age thing - alcohol is illegal if youre not of age and, well, seokjins a Grown Man bls dont burn me at the stake i hope you enjoyed this! it turned out a lil messy and not how a i planned, but i like it!! thank you for reading, ♡