#edit: i got no response on twitter when talking about it or here so i can only assume im the only one who experienced this :( this is so sa | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

holllandtrash · 2 years ago

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6 to 1 lando and Charles finding each other after Charles took the grid penalty, awkwardly talking with y/n in the middle

bro this ended up being so much longer than i thought but i hope its okay also its not edited i just wrote it at work LOL

"Don't," you told Lando, hand going to his chest the second he stepped out of the car. His attention had already gone towards the entrance of the garage, but you were hoping your touch would remind him there were more important things at stake here.

"He ruined my lap!" Lando exclaimed after he pulled his helmet off."

"And now the FIA is investigating it so whatever you want to say, save it."

Lando didn't know that part. How could he when he had been in the car this whole time? Whereas you saw the incident when it occurred, Charles unintentionally getting in the way of Lando's flying lap. You understood why Lando was pissed, he had a right to be, but you both knew how important Monaco was for Charles.

He clenched his jaw, taking one more look at the pit lane, knowing Charles was somewhere down there. You trailed your hand upwards, pulling his face back to yours.

"Just go do media and if you're still angry after-"

"I'm not angry it's just annoying, is all," Lando scoffed. He pulled his face out of your grasp and you told yourself his actions weren't personal, he was just in a mood.

You could have let it go, had he not muttered one last thing under his breath.

"...thinks he can get away with this shit because he's from here, he's not the prince of motorsport-"

"Hey!" You snapped, your stare narrowing into an icy glare. Even a few McLaren mechanics turned to look at you with curiosity as you were never one to raise your voice at Lando, especially during a race weekend.

Lando's features only tightened more, it was clear he wasn't about to retract his statement, even if it was said in haste.

These types of moments during the races were rare. Usually, Lando and Charles got on pretty well. They respected each other and you split your time evenly between their garages. This weekend was the only time they argued over which garage you'd be in. In the end they agreed that Lando would have you for practices and Qualifying, but it was only right you were supporting Charles in the Ferrari garage at his home race.

Not like either of them asked for your opinion.

But this stupid tunnel incident was not one you had prepared for. In fact, you, along with many other people, were convinced that Lando wasn't going to get a lap in during Q3 after his brush with the barrier last session. His mechanics were magicians, apparently, and he managed to get out for a flying lap.

You texted Carlos' cousin when you heard about what happened in the tunnel, wanting to know if Ferrari was about to go up in flames. All he responses with was Xavi didn't tell Charles to move. The investigation notification came a minute later.

So yes, while Charles fucked up Lando's lap time, it wasn't his fault. And now there was a chance he was going to have to pay the price for it. The last thing you needed was your boyfriend making things worse.

Lando stood there, waiting for you to say something, waiting for you to tell him that you were on Charles' side but you just shook your head, warning him with your stare alone.

"Save. It." You repeated.

And then you left, knowing that Charles would appreciate your support much more than Lando would right now. You hung out in the Ferrari garage with Carlos for a bit when he returned from media before someone told you that Charles was chatting with Fred back in the motorhome, a closed door meeting presumably.

Clips of Lando's post-quali interview was circulating on twitter and you rolled his eyes at his suggestion to disqualify Charles. It was a joke, a painful one with maybe an ounce of truth behind it, but a joke nonetheless.

Which was a good sign. Maybe Lando had cooled off a bit. He must have if he was able to flash a faint smile for the cameras. You had seen the interviews after horrid sessions and this was not that.

An hour went by and still no one had heard anything. The two hour mark came and went and the only text you got was from Lando telling you he swiped some cheesecake from the hospitality lounge for you.

And then at the third hour, Charles stepped out of the office and came walking down the steps of the motorhome. The lines in his forehead and his lips pressed together tightly said it all.

"Three places," Charles sighed, he dropped to the couch across from you. At this point, most of the team had cleared out but you and Carlos had stayed. Charles dropped his elbows to his knees as his face fell to his hands. "Trois putains de lieux," Three fucking places.

"I'm so sorry," you said, because what else could you say? This was his home race and he qualified third. He still had a fighting chance being so close to the front but now it was ripped away.

"I just want to go home," Charles shook his head.

"Do you want me to call maman? I'm sure she's already made dinner-"

"Have you talked to Lando?" Charles cut you off, head snapping up.

Even Carlos looked at you. He too was curious, but didn't think to ask, assuming that it was probably the wrong time.

"Not since he got out of the car."

"He'll probably be celebrating in a minute," he muttered, staring past you and out the window towards the paddock. At the same time, your phone got the notification of F1's statement. Charles Leclerc takes 3-Place Grid Penalty.

"Your penalty doesn't help him at all," this was a thin line you walked on, playing devils advocate. "He's pissed yeah, but he's still stuck starting from tenth. And now you're starting sixth, no one wins."

"Max will," Carlos whispered, and then glanced between you and Charles, snapping his mouth shut. "I mean, he probably will. We all knew this."

Charles chose to ignore that comment, standing up and patting his teammate on the shoulder as he walked past, "Good luck tomorrow Carlos. I'm sure they'll give you the fighting chance strategy."

There was nothing you could do except follow him out in the paddock. He didn't want advice, he didn't want a pep talk, he wanted to go home and be angry about this because this situation had fallen so far out of his control.

The paddock had emptied for the most part at this point, a few stragglers here and there, but most drivers had gone into their debriefs and strategy planning meetings.

Most, not all.

Because just up ahead you spotted Lando walking in the same direction towards the gates. Charles shot you a look, silently telling you not to say anything or get his attention and you nodded, not wanting to stir the pot any more.

Lando probably would have just gone to his car and driven back to his flat.

But you both watched as he raised his phone up to his ear and it was only seconds later when the phone in your hand started ringing. You didn't need to look at the screen to know Lando was trying to get a hold of you.

Hearing your ringtone, Lando stopped walking and turned around. Eyes darting back and forth between you and Charles as you both approached him.

You stood between them, you had to. You didn't know if they were blaming the other or if they were going to fight or if Lando was still angry or what. There were too many variables and for everyones sake, you made sure to stand between them.

Lando shrugged sympathetically, but his words were anything but, "You don't slow down in the tunnel, mate. Everyone knows this."

"I didn't know you were behind me," Charles retorted, keeping the tone respectful.

"There are mirrors on the car."

"But not headlights."

"You don't slow down in the tunnel," Lando repeated with a sigh.

You could hear it in his voice, Lando did feel bad for Charles after seeing the harsh penalty, but he still had a right to hold a bit of a grudge.

Charles nodded, "I am sorry, Lando."

Shocked, you stared up at your brother, wondering if you had in fact heard him correctly. Charles was apologizing? For something he had no control over? Something that screwed him over?

Even Lando was susprised to hear it, taking a second for himself before responding.

"Yeah I'm sorry too," Lando nodded, reaching forward and patting the driver on the arm. "Three places is harsh."

"They should have fined the team," Charles shrugged.

"It's the Monaco curse, I guess."

You slapped the back of your hand against Lando's abdomen and even Charles rolled his eyes, hearing nothing but curse this and curse that, especially from Arthur who was now convinced it was in fact real.

"Curse or not, we both have our work cut out for us tomorrow," Charles said and the three of you started off walking again, still with you in the middle.

You stayed quiet as the drivers talked amongst yourselves but when Lando reached for your hand you looked up at him and smiled. You could breathe a little easier tonight knowing they wouldn't hold this incident against each other.

You approached Charles' Ferrari first and he unlocked the doors, nodding his head at Lando, "Are you coming to dinner?"

Lando looked at you, unsure how to answer because this was the first he had heard about dinner, "I don't-"

"You didn't invite him?" Charles asked you, brows pinched together. Every year, you spent the evening after qualifying at your maman's place for a good luck dinner, even if good luck never followed. Charles was still intent on going tonight, and was surprised to hear you didn't extend the invitation to Lando.

"I didn't know I could," you answered honestly.

"Come for dinner," Charles told Lando, no longer phrasing it as a question. He reached for the handle of the drivers side door and then pointed a finger at the Brit, "But don't even think about mentioning the curse."

You leaned into Lando's side as Charles said he'd see you in a bit and you waited until he drove off before your tilting your face upwards.

"Thank you," you said to him.

Lando kissed the top of your head, "What for?"

For saving whatever bullshit comment he really wanted to make. For not starting a fight in the middle of the paddock. For putting his own annoyances aside and seeing Charles as someone was also struggling.

"Just, thank you," you repeated. Because truthfully, there were a lot of reasons. Too many to list.

But most importantly, you were thankful to not be forced into choosing a side.

#holllandtrash #cl16 #ln4 #6 to 1 series #lando norris one shot #lando norris

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samkerrworshipper · 1 year ago

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togetherness | pt.2

longawaited and has been sitting in my drafts for weeks now cause i wasn’t quite sure if i liked the direction it’s gone in… but highliting different issues n stuff so i hope y’all enjoy! again i’ve edited this on my phone whilst reading from my kindle lol so not going to lie i’m aware that the editing could be shocking… there’s a few more parts sitting in my drafts so lmk if y’all want more

warnings: child exploitation, themes of sexual assault of minors, just general hurt with protective n supportive tillies

“Now that we’ve settled that, is there anything, anything at all that you’d like to tell me that I could help you with?”

I gulped, there were about six things I could think of just off the top of my head. I was tentative though. I could feel tears starting to form in the back of my eyes as I tried to make the decision in my head.

“No judgement?”

Sam’s immediate nod in response was comforting and apparently enough to get me talking.

“It’s going to sound stupid and I don’t even know what you could do about it considering that I’m probably somewhere in the wrong with it as well.”

Sam looked like a mixture of intrigued and perplexed.

“Y/n, even if I can’t do anything about it, you look like you just need to get it off your chest, I can be that for you as well, just tell me what’s been bothering you so much.”

I sniffled and nodded at Sam, this situation was so abnormally vulnerable for me.

“You know that I was rough around the edges when I got here, I know you haven’t heard the whole story, to put it simply I went through a rough patch when I was 14 and 15, before I got here. I’d just had spine surgery, I thought that I was never going to walk again, let alone play football. I turned to a lot of things, drugs, alcohol, anything. I ran away when I was 14, I don’t remember much of it, just that when I returned home my parents had had enough and they sent me off to the AIS for Tony to train me. Anyways, I’m rambling. Somewhere along the road I sent some explicit videos, photos and texts to my ex boyfriend, graphic ones, there’s a lot of them. He’s been posting them on reddit and twitter and they haven’t gotten any attention yet but with all the media coverage and bad press I’ve had recently I’m worried they are going to be brought up and I don’t know what to do about it.”

Sam’s expression was one thing, completely deflated and shocked. She was typing furiously into her phone whilst she was listening to my story. It took a few minutes of silence for her to reply to me.

“First off I want to start off with telling you how grateful I am for you sharing that information with me, it can’t have been easy and you are incredibly brave for telling me. I’ve got some follow up questions that I need to ask, you don’t have to answer them, I’d just appreciate it if you could try your best, okay?”

I nodded quickly in reply to Sam.

“Okay. How old were you when you sent these videos and how old was your boyfriend at the time?”

“I was 14 or 15, he was in his mid twenties.”

“So that puts him in his late 20s or early 30s right now, if my maths is correct. Did you take these photos and videos or did someone else?”

“I took most of them but he took some.”

Sam nodded at me again.

“Okay based on that question I can tell you that this ex boyfriend of yours is legally in possession of child pornography, that’s an indictable crime. If you want this to well and truly stop then we can go up that path. I want us to talk about this with Tony, it’s ultimately your decision but I think it would be very sensible to take this up with him at the very least. Y/n, you have done absolutely nothing wrong, I need to stress to you how important it is that you understand that. No one is going to blame this on you, because it isn’t your fault, you are a victim of a crime. That isn’t something light. I promise you that I have your best interests in concern when I’m telling you this. I have to ask, have you talked to anyone else about this? Your family? A therapist? A friend? Leah?”

Leah Williamson, my arsenal team captain and my best friend/mom/girlfriend. I shook my head at Sam, I’d wanted to tell Leah, she was the only person I probably trusted enough to tell but I hadn’t seen her in weeks.

“Do you want to talk to someone about it?”

“I was going to talk to Lee about it, eventually. Just with her ACL and us being in different places it didn’t make much sense, plus this stuff is so fucking stupid I didn’t want to bother anyone with it, I’m sorry for bothering you with it, Ellie was right I’m being fucking selfish.”

Sam’s face was unreadable, it was clear she was pretty deep in thought. She sat across from me for a few minutes, in thought, before she stood up and walked around the table, sitting herself down beside me.

“Can I give you a hug?”

I nodded and relaxed a little bit as I felt Sam’s arm snake its way across my shoulders, inevitably bringing me closer to her and into her chest.

“Williamson would want you to tell her, she’ll probably be mad that you didn’t tell her earlier. You are not being a bother to anyone, you have human emotions and this situation you are in is a hard one. You aren't being selfish, you are asking for help, which is a very human thing and you very clearly need it right now, there is nothing wrong with that. Now, how about I call Williamson for you, I’ll see you if you can get down here? I’m going to call Tony down here, I’ll brief him and he’ll help, okay?”

“I don’t want to tell Tony, he’s going to be mad and he’ll probably tell me this kind of behaviour isn’t wanted on his team and then I’ll get sent home.”

I could feel the material of Sam’s jumper that she must have thrown on after training soaking up my tears, that was embarrassing.

“I know you don’t want to, and I can promise you that Tony is going to be nothing but supportive, you’ve done nothing wrong. There is nothing illegal about what you did, now or then. Tony is not going to send you home, I promise. Now, do I need to call Williamson or can you do it?”

Realistically I probably could have, but I really didn’t want to.

“Can you?”

Sam nodded at me immediately, which comforted me a little bit.

“I wouldn’t have offered it if I couldn’t. She should be in Sydney right now to watch the Lionesses play tomorrow night, yeah? I’ll talk to her and we’ll see what we can work out for you. I don’t have her number though, so can you call her on your phone and I’ll talk to her.”

I nodded quickly, shakingly pulling my phone out of my pocket and pushing it out onto the table. I very quickly pulled Leah's contact, I’d called her last night so it wasn’t hard to find. She was the only person in the world that I could talk to when I was at my lowest, the only person who actually cared about me. So last night, whilst I was mid panic attack, on Ellie's and I’s ensuite floor I called her and she’d talked me through it. I should have told her then, it probably would have saved me this whole interaction with Sam, but I hadn’t wanted to worry her anymore, so I blamed it on pressure of being selected to start this week and she’d accepted my answer.

We’d been texting most of the morning, her asking me if I’d gotten sleep and if I was feeling alright, I’d answered shortly with an array of 'yes', because I didn’t want to worry her anymore. I passed the phone over to Sam once I found her phone number and she clicked the call button before pressing the phone up to her ear and standing up from her seat, starting to pace between the seats.

“Hey Leah, this is Sam, Sam Kerr, from the Matildas. Look, I’m here at our Sydney training facility with Y/n, we’ve just had a pretty serious conversation with her about some problems that she’s had recently and I was wondering if you were around so you could be here for her.”

Sam pulled out her own phone again as I assumed she listened to Leah’s response. It amazed me as to how fast her fingers danced across her own screen, it was a different kind of multi tasking.

“Yup, Mmm. Alright, I’ll send you the address, it’s not far from you guys hotel from recollection. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you being able to do this for her, I’ll see you soon and we can talk about it then.”

I gulped as Sam said her farewells and then hung up the phone before walking back over to me.

“She’s coming down, should be here in fifteen or so. She sounded worried about you, mentioned something about you having a panic attack to her on the phone last night and that she was concerned about you. I’ve texted Tony, he’s finishing up with Ellie and then he’s going to be down here. I’m going to get Steph to meet Leah downstairs when she gets here and she’ll bring her up, Y/n, we’re all here to support you however you need, alright?”

Me and Sam stayed silent in the room until about ten minutes later there was a distinct knock against the door.

“Sam, it’s me, unlock the door.”

Steph’s voice was pretty distinct, even through the heavy door. Sam stood up almost immediately, walking to the door and unlocking it before a grumpy looking Steph and a flustered version of Leah made their way through the doorway before Sam had the opportunity to relock it. Leah’s eyes went straight to my own, her whole facial expression was very controlled, she could command an entire room with that face, I knew from experience.

“Are you okay?”

Her words were directed at me, and only me. I pressed my tongue against my front teeth and lip, trying to decide how to answer the question.

“There’s some stuff that’s been happening that I haven’t told you, I’m not in trouble, or at least that’s what Sam is telling me. It’s some stuff from my past, when I was a kid. Explicit images and photos, on the internet, from when I was a kid. They popped up a few weeks ago, starting when I was in Spain with you before we came here. I didn’t bring it up because I thought I was at fault for it as much as the person who has possession of them. Sam told me that it isn’t, that I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m sorry, I know it was fucking stupid and I should have told you about it or not done it, I don’t even remember taking any of the photos or videos, it just happened and now I don’t know what to do because I don’t want it getting out to the public and I just, I don’t know how to deal with it.”

Leah’s face relaxed a little bit as I progressively talked and rambled. Once I was done she walked over to my spot, seated on one of the chairs and wrapped her arms around me.

“Hey, it’s alright, we’re going to sort this out. She’s right, you didn’t do anything wrong and you should have told me earlier but I am so grateful that you are telling me now, yeah? You are so brave kiddo, that’s child exploitation and whoever has possession of those materials is the one who’s in the wrong, okay?”

I nodded into Leah, Steph and Sam were whispering between each other behind us.

“You have to take legal action though.”

Those words made me feel like I’d been stabbed and my guts had been ripped out of my body cavity.

Leah let go of me very gently and pursed her lips.

“Because this isn’t going to go away if you don’t, and I know that you are strong but you aren’t going to be able to live if you know that this person who has possession of these materials is still out there. You’ve been checked out for weeks now, since before Mallorca. You aren’t going to check back into your life until this goes, I know it. I need you checked in, I need you to be my girl, not the skeleton of your own body that you inhabit as a coping mechanism when something bad happens.”

I think Leah would have said more if it wasn’t for the incessant knocking against the door that came again. Sam was the one who went to the door again, letting Tony in. He looked flustered as well, and a little bit worried. I’d known the man since I was 15, he’d seen me in some pretty interesting situations. Sam intercepted him before he could say anything, pulling him aside and giving him what I assumed to be the rundown of the last hour.

“I don’t think I can handle this getting out, it will, if I take legal action this is going to get out and then I’m going to be Y/n Y/l/n, the Matilda’s exploitative rookie and I’ll never be back here. My career will be over, Jonas won’t want me back, everything I've worked for will be done.”

Leah took a deep breath before wrapping her arms around me and working her hands through my scalp and hair.

“If you take legal action you will be supported, I’ll make sure of it. We are a part of a community of women that uplift us for everything you do, this won’t be any different. There will be some who judge, there is always going to be someone there to judge you. Y/n, you need to do this for your sanity, I won’t lose you to your mental health again, not like last year. Kerr has done the right thing here, bringing this up, it shows me that she cares a lot more about you then you think, it also shows me that she knows what’s best for this team and you. She wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t think this was the best course of action.”

I nodded into Leah, trying to convince myself that her words were correct. Eventually, after Sam had given Tony the full rundown he sat down across from me, exactly where Sam had been beforehand. Sam and Steph both stood behind me and Leah, Sam’s arms resting gently on my shoulders, it was grounding.

“Sam’s told me about what’s happening. First of all I want to say how sorry I am that you are going through this, it’s not something that anyone should have to deal with, ever. Second of all I want to let you know that this team, this whole nation is in support of you. Look, it’s too late for me to take any action now. I’m going to get the police to come down tomorrow morning, you aren’t in trouble. I just think that they are going to have a better understanding of this situation than any of us could. They’ll come down, we’ll have a talk about all of this, they’ll ask the questions they need to. We don’t need to make any decisions now, we’ll talk to them, Sam and I will be there to advocate for you. After that we can make decisions about taking legal action and whatnot. Otherwise I just wanted to tell you genuinely, from the bottom of my heart how much we all care about you and value you here, we are all going to be here for whatever you need in the future, you are a valued part of this team and family and we are all here to look out for your needs, okay?”

I gulped, I could feel fresh tears springing to my eyes again. I was petrified of the police, to say the least, but Tony’s voice was so reassuring. He was the father that I’d never had and when I was 15 and he’d met me I’d been in a bad place, I’d needed him to be that figure in my life and he had been. He gave me a routine, gave me something to wake up for every morning. I probably wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Tony. He’d given me a chance when no one else had been prepared to and for that I would always be in debt to him for.

“Okay, I’ll get in contact with the police, we’ll get a constable down tomorrow morning and we can have an open conversation with them about it, you are not in trouble, nothing is going to happen that will end in consequences for you. I think though that you need to head back to the hotel and get some proper sleep, your body needs it. So head back, don’t worry about any of this, because I’m going to sort it out and we’ll talk about it in the morning with a clean slate and mindset, alright?”

I nodded at Tony, I didn’t really have much to say.

“Thank you Coach.”

He nodded at me, before standing up and walking around to the other side of the octoval table and giving me a pat on the back.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, don’t worry about this anymore, it’s going to be okay. Get back to the hotel, we’ve got an early wakeup tomorrow.”

I nodded at Coach, watching as he left the room just as quickly as he’d entered it.

“I’ve talked to Steph, her and I are rooming together so we’ll switch, she’ll stay with Ellie and you can come and room in with me, I think we’ll keep it that way for the rest of the tournament.”

I looked over at Sam, nodding along with what she was saying. Leah reached her arms around me, a big bear hug.

“And I am here, I expect you to check in with me, at least twice a day. When you guys head off to Melbourne or Brisbane I’m not going to be able to be there, so I need you to stay in contact with me, okay? Anybody does so much as look at you wrong I want to be the first to know, okay?”

I nodded at Leah, half in fear, half in adoration. She was the only person in the world that I actually trusted in. Our bond had been forced, when I’d moved to London to play for Arsenal I’d been moved into the spare room in her apartment and in a very short amount of time we’d created a bond that extended beyond the realm of friendship. I loved her, she was the first person besides Tony to give me a chance and he was obligated to give me on, Leah had chosen to fight for me and to stick by my side even when it wasn’t easy, she was a good person, better than I was sure I’d ever be.

“We’ll drop you back to your hotel on our way home Williamson, it’s the least we could do considering you got here so quickly, can you just give us five minutes to grab our things from the locker room?”

Sam’s voice held no room for argument, she was insisting on giving Leah a ride home and Leah didn’t try to object.

“Please, call me Leah and if it’s no trouble I would really appreciate it. I can meet you guys down in the foyer in about five, I need to go to the loo, so whilst I’m doing that how about you guys go and get your stuff together?”

Sam, Steph and I all walked back down to the change rooms in a comfortable silence. It was when we actually made it back to the rooms that I realised I still had my boots on, the cleats that were spotless from not even getting any wear at training. The cleats that a few hours ago had seemed impossible to tie up. I made quick business of pulling them off of my feet, throwing them into my kit bag and pulling out the pair of Nike dunks that I’d worn in earlier when we’d all come down here for our match analysis. Sam and Steph both made quick work off slipping out of their training kits and changing into sweat pant duos that matched with me. After they’d gotten changed and refreshed we all grabbed our bags and whatever other things we had lying around before making our way down to the foyer.

Leah was waiting for us, tapping her foot violently against the marble floors. When she spotted the three of us out of the corner of her eye her stress ceased almost immediately. I’d learnt a lot about Leah in the amount of time I’d known her. One thing about England’s captain was that she was not as fearless as everyone credited her as being, she put on a brave face, a bloody good one, but she was just as human as everyone else and sometimes it showed, especially when she felt uncomfortable in a situation or she didn’t think she deserved to be where she was. I’d moved in with her initially just before she'd led the Lionesses to their victory at the euro’s, and at the time Leah had been a basket case to be nice. I think that was how we’d bonded, through our similar insecurities of not being good enough to fill the shoes that had been passed down to us.

“C’mon cap, let’s get going.”

Leah smiled at me and nodded. We’d been keeping our relationship under wraps for a few months now. Neither of us were insecure in our situation and we were happy to enjoy our private, happy and blessed life together. Plus we hadn’t really seen much of each other in the past month or so, being caught up with our obligations to our national teams. Leah was also very committed to her rehab and I couldn’t be there for every step of that so we’d spent some time apart. We’d both agreed when the new Arsenal season rolled around that we’d tell the team, but still keep it under wraps from the public for as long as we could. Neither of us were worried about the public finding out, I was out, had been since I was 14. Leah wasn’t officially but she’d also never dated a man and in the eyes of the female soccer world that pretty much means you're gay. It would come out when it did and we were prepared for that to happen.

We walked out to Steph’s car, piling all of our bags in the boot before Sam and Steph slid into the passenger and drivers seats whilst Leah and I both took seats in the backseat. Somewhere along in the drive her hand made its way to my own, resting gently on top of my knee cap. I interlocked our fingers and smiled up at her, this was the part of a secret relationship that I liked, getting moments just between the two of you that only the two of you understood. The sweet nothings. I felt my heart plummet a little bit as we arrived out the front of Leah’s hotel and I realised that I was going to have to say goodbye, potentially for a few more weeks. That was the suckish part of being a professional athlete messing around with another professional athlete, there wasn’t always a timeline on when you’d see each other next, sometimes it was just situational.

I made the call to walk Leah to the door of the hotel, when we got to the doors I gave her a hug, a big, long hug. She hugged me back, tightly. Leah was good at hugs. When we finally had to come apart I looked up at her, with my big green eyes and apparently she couldn’t resist because she reached down and honoured me with a peck. It was nothing more, a small gesture but to me it was everything.

“I love you okay, be safe, text me, call me. I am always here for you, don’t keep me in the dark on things that you think are going to burden me, they aren’t, call your therapist, please.”

I nodded at Leah, she was using her captain's voice with me that she knew I couldn’t refuse.

“When you get back to the hotel I expect you to eat some proper food, not of those bloody granola bars that you insist are nutritional, proper food. Hydrate, at least a litre of water. Sleep, you deserve to sleep, let yourself sleep. Call me in the morning and tell me how you are feeling, okay?”

I gulped and nodded at Leah, an action that I was becoming aware I might have done too much of tonight.

“Love you too, thank you for being here for me.”

“Anytime, I’m only ever one call away, now go home.”

I gave Leah one final look before walking back to the car, closing the door behind me only to be bombarded with googly eyes from the two co captains sitting in the front of the car.

“You and Williamson?”

Sam’s voice was the first one to break the sound barrier, it scared me a little bit.

“Yeah.”

I made it sound like it was a non fact, like every person on the planet knew that I was in the bed sheets of the Lionesses Captain.

“Fuck, I knew it, McCabe owes me fifty quid.”

Steph’s voice was steadier and surprised me a little bit.

“We all had bets, how long have you guys been together?”

“We’ve been dating for 6 or 8 months, fucking around with each other since I joined Arsenal so about a year or so.”

Steph’s eyebrows rose to the top of her forrid, obviously very surprised by my answer.

“You're trying to tell me that you and Lee have just casually been hiding a relationship behind closed doors for months.”

“I mean we’re roommates, it wasn’t that hard to hide, plus we just aren’t rabbits who need to fuck on every surface unlike Sam and fucking Kristie, I’m never going to be able to mentally burn the image of you two getting at it on the pool table after the olympics, that was fucking traumatic.”

Sam’s face had flushed, we constantly brought it up with her. After our bronze loss to the US in the olympics a lot of the team had gone out in celebration with the Americans, what I hadn’t expected to find that night when I’d walked into the room that I thought was the bathroom was Sam eating her secret girlfriend out on the table. It had messed with my brain permanently.

“Hey you're the one who’s always bringing it up, maybe you were secretly into it, secret fantasy between you and Williamson.”

I loudly gagged from my spot in the backseat, extremely displeased by Sam’s imaginative imagery.

“Nobody thinks that Sam, it’s just you and all of your lost brain cells.”

There was something so comfortable about the dynamic between Sam and Steph, something so sisterly and bonded. They were like family, they messed around with each other and pushed each other but they loved each other and the both of them knew that at the end of the day. They might not have been the closest on the team, they weren’t each other's best friends but they were family and that was all that mattered.

“Whatever you say Stephy.”

#woso #woso community #leah williamson #marry me rn #sam kerr #leah williamson x reader #matildas x reader #matildas #tillies #samantha may #sam kerr x reader #tears for fears #crying lil bit #i’m sleep deprived #it’s 12am #idek #idek anymore #idek what to tag this

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dearlexies · 3 months ago

Text

if you are a REAL ENGENE read this until the end, it's long but so so important!!!

I need Engenes to start supporting enhypen the same way they do with us, and I'm being serious.

I warn you that there will probably be some spelling mistakes because English is not my first language, but honestly at this moment I don't give a damn about that I just hope you understand what I have to say.

I'm so tired of seeing other fandoms talking bullshit about the boys, and dragging the group and members at every opportunity. This is not the first, the second, third and definitely won't be the last one. I'm not saying for us to be like them but for us to start being better, and not in a way that they talk shit about enhypen and we just let it happen without saying a word but in a way that they talk shit and we show the results!!!

WE ENGENES are the ones who make them break records, WE ENGENES are the people who should support them on this path, WE ENGENES are the people responsible for voting and streaming their music and honestly we are not doing this well. Romance : Untold was a perfect album, and Sunghoon said he expected to get 3 wins with this album; instead we only got one. and sometimes it feels like it was purely luck. we had a goal for the XO mv to have 40M views on the first month, now 3 months have passed and we are still at 33M. XO and BTHB had the chance to trend on tiktok and we let it pass. How do you expect Enhypen to be known? Honestly Belift doesn't promote them too much, and in the few times that it happens y'all let it pass and act like it didn't happen. So the only ones who can ACTUALLY promote the group are us engenes.

The ones on Tik Tok are useless, most of them don't vote, don't stream, don't watch mvs, are only there for interactions and comment "who's your bias??" at every video. The ones on Twitter are fighting with each other all the time. The few on Tumblr are only here for fanfics. And not to mention the fake engenes that are LITERALLY telling us to boycott the group which is honestly the worst thing we can do for them!!!!

So please, all I'm asking is for y'all started acting as a FANDOM. we need to unite, connect, whatever, to help the boys to grow. Can we please do this???

ENHYPEN already warned us that next year's schedule will be super busy, that means they already know their plans and have accepted the challenge. We should match their pace in terms of working hard all year. ENGENEs I ask you, are you ready?

let's support them with whatever we can and I ask all the Engenes to kindly stream we need to go on a steaming lockdown. Every Engene who come across this comment kindly stream to their fullest, collect rewards for music shows, Stream music videos etc.

But let's not start it next year, let's do it NOW!!! as we know enhypen will probably have a comeback in November so download higher, all charts, idol champ, mubeat, mnet plus, upick and star collecting for the voting, you don't need to download all of them just one or two is already good enough to help. Just download the app, do your attendance, watch some ads, and when the voting stars just vote for enhypen, simple like that. We have one month to collect so when it starts we're ready.

ENHYPEN has a chance to take AOTY to this year's MAMA, we urgently need to increase streams in romance:untold, listen to the album as much as possible, let's give them this award, please!!! Moonstruck is kinda trending on tiktok right now so let's keep it that way post videos with the songs, do edits, dance challenges etc

and also, enhypen is the only bg of the 4th generation to have four songs with 300M on spotify and I know in the future there will be many more, but right now we need to make given-taken have 200M on Spotify so here are some playlists for Romance Untold and Given-Taken

R:U & Given-Taken 2 hours

Given-Taken to 200M

Given-Taken to 200M + XO focus

Romance Untold 8 hour stream

as Engenes we need to support our boys they not rookie's anymore they are Senior now. They have big goals in 2025 ENGENES need a mindset like ENHYPEN.. ENGENES also need a Big Goals to our boys like Deasang!!!! let's work hard

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bichietozier-s · 1 month ago

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🕷️Catch You On The Web!!🕸️

An Itafushi spiderman socmed au ❤️

In which Yuuji Itadori, newly a sophomore in college who still has not a clue what he wants to do with his life, gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gains new abilities, stats and powers. He's coasting on his raw athletic ability, a full-ride scholarship handed to him despite his less-than-perfect grades, when he realizes he's got way more ahead of him than he'd ever imagined. Including, but not limited to, a newfound crush that also throws him for a loop.

you are reading:

Prologue | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 (coming soon!)

notes:

teehee megumi crisis moment // tw: i think i put kms jokes in this part? i cant quite remember but i usually toss those in with megumi so just a warning 🫶🏻

edit: forgot to add that loml and kirbys gay friend are nobara pov, while the rest are all megumi pov 🙂‍↕️ should be obvious enough who were talking to though! :3

Megumi sat down on his lofted dorm mattress, out of breath, with slightly reddened cheeks and eyes wide. What the hell was that???

He posted his vague tweet and instantly flopped back onto his bed, still wearing his jacket with his shoulder bag still tucked around his body. He laid there for a while simply staring at his ceiling, catching his breath and replaying that moment over and over and over in his head.

Again… What the hell was that?????

He certainly got what he’d gone for, getting to witness exactly what the beefed-up jock meant when he said “superhuman abilities”. But, even though he had expected to see Yuuji there after Yuta let him know he was on the team, he truly hadn’t expected the interaction he’d gotten.

Still, he finds the only thought repeating itself in his head to be, “what the HELL was that?”

The question repeats itself as a way to ask literally, what the hell did he just witness? But also, it functioned as a way for him to ask himself what happened to him. Why did he freeze up so badly? Did he make himself look like a fool because of that? He couldn’t stop staring at Yuuji, but somehow, he couldn’t even muster up a response.

Not even a thank you.

Shit. Now he would have to seek the other boy out again just to thank him. Or, maybe just this once, he could hold up that facade that he was a heartless asshole who didn’t care about anyone or anything. Especially the guy he’d just met days ago and immediately found attractive despite the lack of a brain in his head.

Oh, yeah. He just thought those words. He found him attractive.

This was something he could never share with the rest of the world. Under any circumstances.

After another 10 minutes of staring at his ceiling, replaying the scene over and over and over and OVER, still wearing his jacket and bag, he realized that he would never be able to keep this a secret, who was he kidding? Also, he would definitely be seeking Yuuji out on purpose again. Whether to Yuuji’s knowledge or not, he didn’t care.

Did that make him weird? Or a creep? It didn’t matter.

His phone buzzed in his hand.

He had been laying here for a little over a half hour doing this. God damn he was pathetic.

Why did he have to find the way-out-of-his-league, no-brained-idiot jock attractive? He was doomed.

His phone buzzed in his hand once more, so he picked it up to see replies coming through on his stupid tweet. He huffed out a loud sigh, before hoisting himself up off of his bed, finally removing his bag and jacket, and then responding to them.

Nobara had expertly tracked down Yuta through the internet (read: found him through Yuuji’s private account on twitter) and got his number so she could conspire with him over Yuuji’s own love life.

She had little to no knowledge on this “pizza guy” who wasn’t even the pizza guy, and had never met Yuta before, although she’d heard plenty about him through Maki. From what she could tell though, he seemed like a fine dude.

After the brief introduction she offered to him, Nobara and Yuta began sharing their own stories on the perspectives they had to offer for each boy in question through a facetime call. Nobara needed to know more about this “Megumi”, how he truly fit into all this, and especially if he was even worthy enough to consider as a possible partner for her best friend. And Yuta was simply here to offer that information up to her.

He started from the beginning of this school year, telling Nobara everything he could offer up that might overlap for her. Anything that had to do with Yuuji, from the fact that he lives in the room above Yuta himself and his boyfriend Toge, all the way down to the last time he spoke to him, filling in all of the blanks that had to do with Megumi, as well.

The pieces were already falling into place for Nobara. She was seeing how they were all somehow connected to one another without even knowing or realizing it.

After Yuta had wrapped up his storytime, Nobara shared hers, which as she had expected, was minimal in comparison to what Yuta offered for her (especially considering she needed some extra intel on who Megumi even was, whereas Yuta at least knew Yuuji pretty well).

Where Yuta explained the progression of events with Yuuji acting odd, not being able to sleep and all of that, Nobara was able to offer insight on those things. She also was able to connect things Yuuji had told her about with things that Yuta knew of Megumi and what he’d been up to.

And then came that tweet from Megumi, not even an hour before Yuta and Nobara had their girl talk session.

“So, obviously since you don’t know Megumi, you wouldn’t know about this, but…” Yuta trailed off as he ran to grab a screenshot of Megumi’s recent tweet to send to Nobara. “Look at what he tweeted a little while ago,” he said, the sound of a shit eating smirk evident in his voice.

“Oooooohhhh, interesting, okay,” Nobara hummed out, pursing her lips, her face showing her deep, deep thought process. “And this is after he supposedly went to a practice for the football team?”

“Yeah, and like, he said he only wanted to go because he’d heard some other dude from the team talking up this other guy who apparently had superhuman strength or some shit,” Yuta said, not realizing exactly who the “guy with superhuman strength” was.

But luckily, Nobara was a professional at gossip. So she caught on incredibly fast.

“Oh! So he was going to specifically check out Yuuji, got it,” she laughed, saying it sarcastically and assuming they were both on the same page. Well, they certainly were now.

“WAIT-” Yuta yelled. “NO WAY.”

Nobara looked back at him through her phone screen with raised eyebrows.

“OH MY GOD, YOU’RE RIGHT! HE WANTED TO GO TO WATCH YUUJI! TOGE!” Yuta looked off to the side of his phone screen where Nobara couldn’t see, or hear, Toge. Soon she was watching Yuta communicate with his mute boyfriend, signing out of habit even though it wasn’t necessary as he yelled about Yuuji being the reason that Megumi wanted to go watch the football practice.

He finally came back to the phone screen, a huge grin plastered on his face. “I can’t believe I didn’t catch on to that before, but I guess I didn’t really have all the details on Yuuji’s weird increase in strength,” Yuta said to Nobara. “But, do you think he even knew it was Yuuji? I mean, I hardly knew anything about Yuuji’s strength and shit, Megumi definitely wouldn’t. They only met for the first time a few days ago, and clearly Megumi was as disinterested in Yuuji as he is with anyone else. If not moreso. He also told me he didn’t even know Yuuji was on the team, I suppose…” He trailed off at the end, realizing that Megumi definitely didn’t know it was Yuuji prior to going.

Nobara thought for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you have a point. He probably didn’t know it was all Yuuji they were talking about, but if he didn’t know then, judging on that tweet, he definitely knows now,” she stressed the word ‘definitely’, laughing as she finished her thought. She was right on the money with that one.

After the two talked for nearly two hours, they finally ended the call with Nobara needing to get started on her hour-long-before-bed-self-care routine, promising Yuta an exciting update by the end of the night.

“What are you gonna do??” Yuta asked, morbidly curious of what this devious girl he just met was capable of.

“I’m requesting assistance from the queen, of course,” she wiggled her eyebrows, before bidding him goodnight, and telling him to extend that to Toge as well.

As soon as that call ended, she flew to text her girlfriend, roping her into this wildly massive scheme she was planning.

author's note:

SO SO SORRY FOR THE LONG PAUSE BETWEEN UPDATES GUYS AAAHHH i got super duper sick (i had pneumonia 🤪) and then i just have been lazy and keep putting off actually formatting the post for this bc it takes me like a good 20 minutes at LEAST bc of how i do it eugh BUT ITS HERE NOW!! next part is not yet in the works but it wont be as long of a break inbetw i prommie 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

and as a reminder pls just ask to be added to the taglist if youd like 🙂‍↕️

jump to:

Prologue | Previous | Next (coming soon!)

taglist:

@meme-ty7 @runfrme @poemeater @gemicorn

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outrunningthedark · 7 months ago

Note

regarding ryan clearly stating multiple times that eddie is heterosexual, do you know if that has ever happened before? was he ever this unambiguous? and what about oliver? has he ever talked about buck's sexuality in definite terms? i know he agreed with the view that buck is bisexual but i wonder if he ever said in an interview or somewhere that buck is heterosexual.

This question got me going on a deep dive (and having fun). SO. With the caveat that I ofc have not uncovered every EARLY interview in print, the short answer is: No. But I brought context! Oliver, interestingly, (from what I can find) did not have to deal with much Buddie speculation from journalists in season two and even early season three during the tsunami arc. Here's a TVInsider article about Buck, Actually that calls Buddie a bromance. Oliver says something we heard when he was doing promo in March - supporting Buddie means people care about the characters and the show, so was happy know the fans are so invested in the story. Here are three articles about the tsunami arc that focus on the Buck and Christopher dynamic instead of Buddie. Here's an article previewing the the second half of season 3 in which Buck and Christoper are once again mentioned, and Oliver gave this response that I have NEVER seen mentioned (👀): "I'm just waiting for Buck to be called [Christopher's] godfather." I did find ONE TVInsider interview for the 3B premiere where Oliver said Buddie was a "friendship, bromance, whatever you want to call it" BUT also allowed for the possibility of it being romantic in the future after discussing the Buddie edits he and Ryan find on social media. (He was definitely not looking at his character as fully hetero just from edits/clips because that RS article we've all decided to ignore said season four was when Tim first brought it to Oliver as a possibility.) As for Ryan. Like I said, I can't find anything atm where he *explicitly* refers to his character as straight or heterosexual, but his answers have never offered room for SERIOUS speculation. Interview with Anthem Magazine from spring 2019 in which Ryan first (? I think) brought up two men having emotional ties to each other being a "taboo quality". (And we can see his mind hasn't changed, understandably.) Here's another with TheWrap on Eddie Begins where he says Buck's reaction to thinking he lost Eddie would be the same for anyone who thought they lost a brother. Bonus: This is also the interview where he mentions having assumed Lena was going to be set up as LI and was surprised it didn't happen. Ryan was asked about the Buck/Abby reunion to close season 3, calls Buck Eddie's "wingman". Just for comparison. I'm also gonna include a link to a Hello Mag interview (with the well-known Buddie shipper) where she REALLY took advantage of the Buckley-Diaz story line after the shooting. (And where I *personally* think Buddie started getting out of hand with the media because of the online reaction. If people on instagram and twitter and tumblr didn't know what Buddie was before, they definitely did after 4x14.) I'm still keeping my eyes peeled, so if I spot anything else to add that I think would be of interest, I will be sure to do that. :)

#anonymous #tina speaks

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buckyarchives · 2 years ago

Text

Metal Arms and Short Skirts [Drabble]

summary: you and bucky run into a small bump when he brings up kids.

word count: 6k

author note: i, personally, have a strong hatred towards the “girlboss has tradwife ephihany after meeting a man” trope so here is me doing the complete opposite

second (sober) note: i wrote, edited and posted this stoned as fuck so tell me if you like this more than usual fics so i can make a note to write high more often

read on AO3 | masterlist

It was a well-known fact after two years into the relationship that you and Bucky were the ‘it’ couple, both inside the compound and outside. Especially due to the rise in the avenger’s popularity, your hobby of walking red carpets and mingling with the rich and famous (you’ve even been over at the Kardashian for dinner once — yes, Sam was beyond upset he didn’t get an invite) helped with that fact too. Many times have you brought Bucky along as your plus one, so much so that he started getting invited and being plastered on magazine covers and Twitter feeds.

So when the news - no, rumors of a breakup came out? Dear god, Nick Fury would have thought the world was ending.

no one was sure what happened, and no one saw it coming either. you guys had been absolutely thriving since announcing it officially. Steve saw a complete difference in Bucky’s demeanor, he still wasn’t the old Bucky — but a new, healthy, and not despair ridden. He was happy. and maybe Tony wasn’t happy about it in the beginning, considering he saw himself as a sudo-father figure. He couldn’t deny you seemed happier with life, your work sure shows it.

Natasha noticed it first when Bucky's shoulders sagged more and he was spending more nights in the compound instead of your apartment. as well as the continuous night eating and sleeping in. Then, Wanda, she gossiped a lot. about good and bad, so when you skillfully began to avoid the man in every conversation. she began to realize something was wrong.

Soon everyone noticed it. because once Bucky's depression turned to blind hatred and his sparring partners (Sam) were getting beaten a little too hard. snide comments were being made and he just became a genuinely unpleasant person to be around. Sam and Steve more than jumped to find out what the hell happened.

Wanda and Sam stood before the stove, flipping pancakes and eggs. The morning hue showed on everyone’s face and hair. Natasha's red hair looks wild in her messy bun, if you can even call it that. She sat next to Steve, trying not to publicly flirt since their relationship started to flourish. mostly not to miss Bucky off too.

and Bucky sat hunched over like an old and angry man, shoveling bacon into his mouth with the seemingly permanent scowl he’s worn for the past few weeks.

they had a loosely put-together plan to figure it out, but Wanda couldn’t help but slip up out of frustration, she missed the days when you sleep over and join them on their team breakfasts. “what happened to breakfast at y/n?”

Bucky visibly flinched at your name, his breath hitching in his throat and almost choking on his bacon. they had danced around the subject of you once figuring out the obvious separation, your appearance at the compound got less and less to the point someone would think you got transferred somewhere else.

Sam sent a surprised glance towards Wanda, whilst all other eyes were on Bucky as he gaped his mouth open and tried to find a response. Steve was practically on the edge of his seat after not getting a word of you from Bucky for weeks.

clearing his throat, and gulping down both water and his nerves. “we’re not on good terms right now.”

“Well, if that wasn’t obvious” Natasha murmured under her breath, focused on her food. Bucky sent a glare out of the corner of his eyes. rolling his eyes, he threw the now empty plate into the sink. not wanting to be bothered by the looks of the other, he headed for the door.

“ah! not so fast, tin man. we have some serious stuff to talk about.'' Tony popped up from literally nowhere and stood before the exit, blocking Bucky from leaving the kitchen and to his room or the gym.

“move, Stark. I'm going on a run.” Bucky said - a lie - he was most likely wallowing in self-desperation in his room.

“Wake up on the wrong side of the bed, honey?” Tony snarked.

Bucky went to shove his way around him, but then Tony stepped to the side and suddenly the common room was on lock down and the door slammed shut in front of his face.

“no one is leaving this room until I figure out what happened to you and y/n, and fix it,'' Tony said, taking a seat with an annoyed and almost angry face. Bucky’s jaw clenched as he stood awkwardly, half of the avenger's eyes on him, staring at his feet. “because my best worker is lacking in worK and most important — trying to leave the company.``

“What?” the brunette's head pops up, as well as everyone else’s in the room. a matching concerned face was shared through the avengers, wilder on Buckys.

“she won’t tell me why, but I can only assume it has something to do with you so don’t mess up my life anymore and tell me why.'' Tony lectured, the usual blind and comedic annoyance turned to actual anger towards Bucky as he explained. Then everyone soon realized you weren’t just distancing yourself from Bucky, but everyone and it hurt Tony - someone who (despite popular opinion) actively tried to keep the family together at all cost. because he was losing one of his longest friends now.

“He's right, man. we’ve all noticed how this thing has affected you.” Sam spoke up, much more concerned than tony.

Bucky noticed all the eyes on him, stripping him down and making him feel seen and vulnerable. he felt small. Bucky huffed disappointingly as he shuffled to the small couch in the common room. falling dramatically on it as he clenched his jaw, “y/n and I have come to some… disagreements about…” Bucky's words were slow and shaky, trying to figure out how to describe what happened. “our future together so we’ve decided to see other people.”

glances were shared of confusion and concern, and Bucky’s gaze stayed glued to the air. He really, really did not want to talk about this. it sends a cold and painful chill down him that aches.

“what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Tony shouted, still frustrated and mentally done with Bucky’s grief spared attitude. He just wanted you back at work and happy again or he’ll try choking out a supersoldier today.

“It means she broke up with me, okay?” Bucky choked out, not wanting to dwell on you anymore.

“But why?”

Bucky groaned, “because we had a disagreement!”

“About what?” Tony shouts back, growing more and more frustrated as Bucky dodges the real question.

Bucky shot up, beginning to grow frustrated as well. He yelled, “I can't tell you if you're going to yell and look at me like a caged animal!”

“Okay, boys. Tony chill, Bucky - sit and just explain to me what happened." Natasha shot up and nudged herself in between the two, breaking up whatever brawl was going to happen.

Bucky was so drained mentally and depressed that he just plopped down and sat next to Natasha, Natasha gave bucky such a warm comfort he didn’t fight against it, he felt safe enough to talk about this with her (and maybe more if Sam, Steve or Wanda didn’t continue to stare down his neck as Bucky mustered up any words)

“I brought up our future… kids and marriage.” bucky started, “and we disagreed on a few things, and it sparked an argument. We both said some very hurtful things and we decided to end it, or at least a break.”

“Like officially breaking up?” Natasha asked.

Bucky wore the pain he felt on his face, he just missed you and felt speaking it out loud would give it a mouth, and then he really would never see you again. “I don’t know, maybe? We were too busy yelling at each other to figure that out.”

“Okay, “ Natasha breathed out, Sam and Wanda were quick to join the impromptu therapy session. Bucky was glad it was them rather than someone like Tony or Thor. The one time Thor gave Bucky relationship advice it was along the lines of having an orgy because “it builds trust and passion.” or something along the lines of that.

“Have you talked to her since?” Wanda asked, approaching the topic gently as he sat across bucky with soft and understanding eyes. Realizing he should have brought this up sooner with the group rather than his therapist, the girls came to him with a much more understanding and comforting approach.

Bucky shook his head shamefully, “the morning after the argument, she said she wanted space and to possibly seek out other people. Told me to explore other options.”

Everyone shared confused looks, either bucky was lying through his teeth or something really weird had gotten into you. None of this sounded like you, “what type of disagreement did you two have for her to come to that?'' Sam perked up.

“Um, well.” Bucky's head fell down as he fidgeted with a loose string on his shirt. “I brought up having kids, and other things like marriage and moving in together, but mostly kids. She didn't want it and I don't even know how the argument started but we were both really frustrated and tired and it did. By the end of it it seemed she practically gave up on us because our idea about the future looked different and now- now, I don't know how to fix it.”

Bucky's voice croaked a little toward the end, showing how absolutely hung up he was on the possibility of losing you. Since the gala he's known that you were it for him, the one secure thing he could come back to at the end of the day and you were stripped away from him so abruptly.

It didn't help that fact Bucky was very adamant about having a family, since he technically doesn't have one anymore. Not blood anyways, so eventually retiring and starting a family was one of the most important things to him now that he was free.

“She did always says she wasn't going to have kids,” Tony mumbled under his breath, but Bucky heard it and it definitely did not help his mental state.

“Anyways, by the end of it - we both said very hurtful things and I don't think she wants to speak to me right now.” Bucky sighed.

“Did you apologize?

“She hasn't given me a chance to yet,” Bucky admitted, he tried to – not very well. But you've done more than enough to avoid it, it hit bucky in the chest like a spear. So far you were trying to transfer to San Diego and work for Pym. And everyone knew Hank would be more than pleased with the idea of that, so yes - it scared Bucky to death that he was slowly losing you.

Everyone sat silent for a moment, unsure of where to go from here as it seemed Bucky had hit a brick wall with you. Everyone knows how stubborn you can be.

“You are all a bunch of idiots.”

A low and raspy voice snarked from the doorway, and a blonde archer stood with a less than disappointed look as he leaned against the wall.

“How’d you get in here?” Tony perked up.

Clint decided to ignore the questions, “you’re asking advice from a bunch of single people, a girl who's dating a literal toaster, and don't get me started on Pep and Tony's dynamic. I am the one happily married person with kids on this team.”

Everyone was left dumbfounded as Clint continued his speech, striding in front of the slouched and sorrow-filled Bucky Barnes, leaning down with his hand on his knees to meet Bucky's face.

“Do you love her?”

“Yes.” bucky quipped like it was second nature.

“Like, really, really love her. Like take a bullet for her or have to snake the drain every 2 weeks love her.”

Odd questions but Bucky already was snaking the drain frequently for you, for a doctor-engineer you were weirdly squeamish. And Bucky knew he'd step in front of a bullet for you with absolutely no thought, and that didn’t even scare him, as long as you were safe.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Clint's voice rose and fell stern, almost in a lecture-type voice he'd only heard from a mother. “Snap out of it, get off your ass, buy her flowers or something, and go get her. Because you are losing her every second you don't.”

“But I don't know how to fix it.'' Bucky realized he was starting to sound whiny and desperate now, but he felt it inside too. He was a complete mess, and Clint was going to shake it out of him one way or another.

“God, you really need help. How have you survived these two years.” Clint mutters, “you compromise! That's like 60% of keeping a long-term relationship. Communicate and compromise, if you love her that much you will do that.”

Bucky felt stupid now, but maybe he would have tried that out earlier if he had the chance. “But she's made it very clear she doesn't want to talk to me.”

“Doesn't matter, she's had three weeks of space and I'm sure the one thing she's waiting for is for you to seek her out.” Clint explains simply like he's gone through the situation before. “I don't care if she’s already found a new place in California, go to her and beg for forgiveness for whatever hurtful things you said and just. Talk.”

Bucky carded a hand through his brunette locks, his hair was getting grease from simply being too depressed to shower and letting his emotions out on the poor punching bag in the gym. He nodded slowly, hyping himself up in his head to do exactly what Clint was explaining.

“Okay, I'll find her and talk.” was all bucky could say, he still had a lot of thinking to do.

“And shower first, please. You smell like a dog.”

Bucky just nodded.

Three weeks ago.

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to bring this up now, Bucky had just gotten back from a 2-week-long mission, and being stuck with a fake identity with Sam in Tokyo had made him beyond frustrated but equally happy to come home to you. Bucky didn't know it then, but you'd been working yourself to the wit's end after the new discovery of nanotech between you and tony. Many nights were spent up late and awake early, since Bucky wasn't there to drag you to bed and away from the lab.

But, It's been on Bucky's mind for a moment now, on the tip of his tongue every time he got a moment alone with you. And now as he sat across from you, the kitchen light shining down on you as you went through the new research on nanotech. Your eyebrows furrowed as you concentrated on the words, gently tugging at your bottom lip. Bucky let himself watch you for a moment before bringing up the topic that's hovered over him for the past couple of months.

“Baby?” he stared, your head perking up towards him.

“Hm?” you hummed, closing the file to put your full attention on bucky.

He fidgeted with his thumbs nervously under the table, licking his lips before starting. “We’ve been together for a while and I was just wondering about something…”

You instantly put on a defensive face, many assumptions swirled in your head about what he could be alluding to. Many things but all you knew is that it was going to be a hard conversation to have. “Yeah?”

“I was thinking about trying for kids, you know? If that's something your able to do…” Bucky spoke slowly and cautiously, this was the first time he’d seriously brought this up. Only a few jokes were shared about kids' names and how you'd raise your children, always lighthearted and mostly unserious.

You gulped, unsure of how to exactly approach this topic with bucky. You knew his stance on family and how important that was to him, “yeah, I can get pregnant. but, I'm not too sure about kids, buck.”

“Why not?” Bucky asked innocently, he didn't mean to sound pushy even if it may have translated like that towards you.

“I- I don't know, I just don't think that'd be good for us right now.”

Bucky tried to bite his tongue, but that had never worked in the past, especially not now. “I think it'd be nice, you don’t want a mini us running around?”

In truth, you were beyond tired, you had been barely keeping your eyes open as you read. Your hazy mind was caught off guard by such a question, especially after work has been so hectic for each of you. Bucky was either away on a mission, or you'd be in the lab or flying out for research and meetings. Barely anytime for each other right now and suddenly, Bucky asking to start a family now?

Frustrated, you sighed. “I didn't say that - I know how important family and kids are to you but I just don't know if I can do that.”

“You don't have to agree because I want to, it's your body – you do what you want.” bucky shot back, growing equally frustrated, he started to regret the timing of this conversation but he opened the pandora's box and he wasn't sure how to close it now. “It was just a suggestion.”

The attitude and words left your mouth before you could even understand how harsh it was, but you were working with half a brain right now. “Well, it kinda feels like you're pressuring me into this, Bucky.” you huffed, abruptly getting up from your seat to put the files away. You'd had enough reading for the night.

“I'm not!” bucky quipped, almost instinctively following you around the apartment. “I just think we’ve been together long enough to seriously talk about our future.”

A headache began to grow and you just wanted to go to bed. “Well, I'm sorry but I can't give you the answers you're looking for, bucky.”

“I just wanted to at least talk about it together.'' Bucky pleaded, he was trying – at least. Yes, he was frustrated and equally tired but somewhere in his head was telling him to stop and finish this later, but maybe the desire of starting a family was too strong.

He realized soon after he got his mind back that most of his bloodline was killed off by either the war or simply just died off by old age. He remembered the night he looked for nieces and nephews, hoping Becca got married and lived a good life. Only to find nothing and then truly realize he was alone at this time, Steve and you – sure. Maybe he was getting greedy but he wanted someone he could call real family.

But now he realized he shouldn't have pushed.

You threw your hand up, almost angry now as you shouted back. “I’m sorry, but I’m not 100 fucking years old and looking to reproduce right now!”

Bucky's face dropped, “really? You have to bring that shit into it.”

“Yes, because I have other things to be focusing on right now,” you yelled back.

“Like what?” Bucky argued back.

“My job!” you shouted like it was completely obvious, which it sort of was, and that made you even more angry that bucky couldn't see that.

“y/n, your net worth is nearing eight fucking figures! It's not like you're going to starve anytime soon!” Maybe Bucky was bitter, for many reasons. Growing up poor, and the feeling that sometimes you pay more attention to your work than bucky. “What about us?”

You stood back, mouth gaped and utterly taken off guard by bucky. Narrowing your eyes at him, “really? I cannot believe you actually said that.”

“I'm serious. I feel like I've been left in the dark recently and just want to know the endgame with us.”

“Okay,” you snarked, “we finish this conversation and you figure out I can't give you what you want? What happened then?”

“I don't know but-”

You quickly cut him off, bitterness dripped from your words and your head grew hot from anger. “You find out I can’t give you kids, or marriage or I don’t turn into a 1940s fucking trad wife you expect out of me. What then? You gonna go find someone else?”

“I don't expect any of that out of you! And I don't want anyone else but you.” Bucky shouted, his hands shaking with nerves and anger at your jabs at him. Never expect you to bring up his more than unfortunate past. “Do you want that?”

“At this point, maybe! Because what's the purpose if I can't give you a life you're happy with?” you choked out and the fear that washed over Bucky was unreal, if what you're alluding to is true.

Bucky's face scrunched up in anger, and confusion and his heart pounded in his chest and threatened to break. “Really? Are you really saying we need to end this?”

“I'm not going to continue a relationship if either one of us is unhappy, no amount of love can fix that crack, bucky.”

Bucky's breath hitched and he can only assume that his heart has broken now. He's been a hopeless romantic since his first crush in elementary. So the words coming from you hit him like a train - and he is not a fan of trains – and caused tears to threaten to spill as he bit back any further hurtful words.

But the damn was broken and both tears and his words came out with no stopping, he scoffed. “It's great to know how much faith you have in us.” sarcasm and anger dripped from his words and equally hit each other like a knife.

“Bucky–”

“No,” he croaked out, hurt and defeated by this argument. “I can't do this right now, I'm sleeping on the couch and we can talk about this tomorrow.”

Bucky didn't want to end it like this, you've had arguments before but never like this. Always fixing it before you could leave the room, never leaving words unsaid or arguments hanging unresolved. You two have never gone to bed angry with each other or worse – separated.

And you let him snatch his pillow from your bed and leave the room, despite the urge to pipe up and ask to stay. But you were stubborn and held grudges, it was a well-known fact and one bucky had too. Which was the last way each of you needed to be acting right now.

Because as each of you woke, the tension in the air was thick and hurt like a fire. Bucky stayed in the kitchen making food for both of you and kicking himself as he heard you successfully avoid him for half of the morning by taking your sweet time getting ready.

It hit bucky like a knife when you shamefully stared him down, arms crossed and jaw clenched. Telling him that this was it and to see other people, he choked on the swarming thoughts and just held his tongue and nodded. Frozen in fear of actually losing you, unable to stop you from walking out the door and going to work.

You had the final word and Bucky cursed to himself as he left the apartment for what he thought would be the last time.

“I don't know. Hope.” you sighed, balancing the phone between your shoulder and ear. “I said some mean stuff, and buck wants a kid but I just can't do that right now.”

“I know, but are you really going to separate because of it? Not to be mean, but that seems pretty dramatic.” hope scoffed, slightly distorted as she spoke from the other line.

“He deserves a good and happy life though, after everything he's gone through. If kids and marriage and the white picket fence thing are what he needs, I just can't give him that.” you sighed, “I tried to go on a date with an old classmate, and he tried to kiss me. I felt like I was cheating somehow. I just kept thinking about Bucky.”

“Isn't that like a perfect sign to talk to him?”

“Maybe.” you sighed.

The past few weeks have been a little less than torture, bearable if you threw yourself into work but that also meant going to the compound where you would most definitely run into bucky. This is the last thing you need if you were trying to move on for him, it's for the better – you'd tell yourself at night when you were close to just calling him because you miss falling asleep in his arms.

Work and money have been the top priority in your life since you got your first job working at a car garage at 15. It wasn't stopped anytime soon and the way bucky spoke made you feel as if he expected you to stop that for him. Which sounds selfish, yeah – but you knew how men thought back in the 40s and you were the farthest thing from that. Your mistake for thinking bucky would understand.

“Well, you know my dads been trying to steal you from Stark for years now so if you need that much space you have a job over here.” Hope offered, referring to moving to San Diego. You lived near the area for a while after college, you didn't like the hot weather and slowness of the city but stayed for work. It would be a sure way to stay away from Bucky and maybe get over him, but that commitment and sureness of it being all over scare you.

“Maybe, I'll think about it.” you rubbed your hand on your neck to soothe your anxiety and nerves, the thought of bucky recently had done nothing besides spring tears in your eyes.

Ding!

The doorbell rings through the apartment and snaps you out of your self-wallowing thoughts. “Hey, hope. I'll call you back.”

“Sure, y/n. Just send me a text if you want the position here, it's open to you anytime you want it.” Hope reassures.

“Mkay, bye.” you bid your goodbyes and quickly hung up, taking a deep breath as you set your phone down on your bed. Your feed padded as you went for your front door, and whoever was waiting patiently behind it. You hoped it was your new self-indulgent purchase from Prada.

You experience something short of whiplash when you swung open the door, your mouth gapes and you swear you stopped breathing. Definitely not Prada.

Bucky had somewhat planned this appearance, with the help of Clint. He shaved a little, but not full because he knew you liked him with stubbled. His long hair was tucked behind his ears neatly and he wore that one blue sweater you bought him, your favorite. Bucky held your favorite flowers in one hand, a bouquet the size of your head by two. And in the other, if your nose was correct, your favorite food.

Oh, he's good, too good.

You both stood awkwardly in front of each other, Bucky had to restrain himself from either bursting into tears or dropping everything to hug you as if his life depended on it.

“Can we talk?” is what he settled on.

You nibbled on your bottom lip nervously, going over your options quickly. But everything in you was telling you to bring him in and never let go, despite how much it hurt. “Using my favorite food against me is cold, sarge.”

Bucky's heart ached and leaped at the nickname, being deprived of your sweet words for weeks did something to him. With a cheeky grin, he held up the pack. “Spicy Thai soup with shrimp. Just for you.”

It was way too hard to be mad at him when he was so attentive and so good-looking.

“Come in.” you sighed and moved out of the way to let him in.

hesitantly, keeping you at arm's length as he walked in and set the food and flowers on the island. You watched him intensely, he kept his gaze away and bit his cheek. You settled down on a bar stool and watched as he found an empty vase in the pantry.

With no words shared Bucky cut the ends and put the flowers in a vase of water to be displayed. A routine he knew by heart, getting flowers every week or so was normal and you didn’t realize how much you missed it until now.

You gritted your teeth, shame swelled in your stomach for pushing him away so aggressively, someone who loved so fiercely. You felt like you were going to hurl when his gaze met yours, he looked so sad.

Looking down at the counter, not moving an itch. “I'm sorry for using the fact you're 100 years old against you.”

The phrase was so comedic and stupid that Bucky couldn't help but stifle a small laugh, it worked in his favor when he saw you bite back a small grin. How could he stay away this long?

“I think it's actually 102 or 103, I lost count after 90,” he mentions, but you looked at him and his face fell seriously. “And I'm sorry for pressuring you to have kids, that wasn't my intention.”

You nodded, “I'll have kids with you, I want to. Just not right now.”

Bucksy face lit up and nothing could stop you from swooning over him now, biting back a grin as he spoke. “Really? I'm serious, you don't have to go through that just to please me.”

“I want to, I really do,” you reassured, taking deep breaths. “There's just so much going on right now and I panicked because it felt like you were asking that of me now, and I'm sorry for working so much and pushing you–”

Bucky sprung up with a more than sympathetic face and he cut you off by holding your jaw in his hands. You forgot how warm and welcoming his embrace was, you almost collapsed into him there. “Hey, don't apologize for being the badass, genius, hard-working woman you are.” he spoke with an adoring grin, “I shouldn't have put that against you.”

“No but you’re right, I've been putting Stark industries and my projects before you and I shouldn't be doing that.” you leaned farther into his touch. Chasing his comfort, bucky just smiled down at you because he missed this too much, being starved of you is high on his list of torture tactics. “And you are right about needing to talk about our future, it's just that…”

You trailed off, avoiding bucky’s eye contact again and nipping at your bottom lips from nerves. Bucky was quick to run a thumb across your lips to stop you and get your attention once more. His voice was unbelievably gentle and soft, “What is it? Come on, let's talk.”

“I know I don't talk about my family but my mom was a lot like me, you know? Workaholic, always trying to rack up the digits on her paycheck, lavish and indulgent lifestyle,” you explained and bucky was so attentive to your words - it took everything to not kiss him right there. You exhaled a shaky breath, “but then she met my dad and had me and she kinda stopped all of that. Stayed at home and got a small part-time job, letting my dad bring in all the money and there's nothing wrong with that! I could just tell she was miserable like that but kept at it because it was what my dad wanted.”

“Oh.” Bucky sighed, urging you to continue.

“And I think I took your words the wrong way that night and got scared of ending up like her, I know you wouldn't do that but I panicked and pushed you away because of it.” you finished and let your eyes travel to your lap, but bucky was having none of it as he urged you to look him in the eye.

“Hey, I forgive you and I'm sorry for scaring you like that, but it's important to me that you know I wouldn't force that lifestyle on you.” bucky smiled, a tease to the end of his next words. “If anything, I'm trying to be a stay-at-home dad and live off your paycheck.”

You couldn't help but laugh at his statement, a smile growing from ear to ear. All the past emotions rushed out of you as a few happy-sad tears sprung to your eyes, chasing his embrace when you pulled him close and hid in the crook of his neck. Oh, how you missed his smell, “I love you, James.”

Bucky handheld your back as he pulled you even closer, he felt warmer than ever and smiled to himself. “I love you too.”

You stayed tucked in Bucky's arms for a while, you missed him too much to pull away right away. Bucky’s hand caressed your back as he soaked up your touch. Mumbling into his shoulder, “let's try not to fight over something stupid again and actually talk.”

“Agreed.” bucky nodded to himself, slowly pulling you back to peck your cheek. A mischievous grin fell on his lips that made you quirk an eyebrow.

“What is it?”

Bucky pursed his lips, “so no babies right now, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Okay,” he hummed, his hands falling to your waist and pulling you against him. “Then let's just practice for when we want to, yeah?”

“Bucky!”

Bucky's phone began to ring annoyingly from beside him, somewhere hidden in the couch cracks. Gently reaching over to grab it, not moving too much so he doesn't wake the sleeping beauty on his lap.

After catching up on about 3 weeks of sex, a few rounds on the kitchen counter, and a few more on the couch. You both ended up half-naked and heating up the now-cold Thai food. Bucky was surprised it didn’t get knocked to the ground when he quite literally bend you over and fucked you hard on the counters. You both settled warmingly onto the couch and begged Bucky to watch Pixar movies, and of course, he couldn't say no.

It was dark now and empty containers of food littered around the coffee table, getting fucked good and hot food sure can wear a girl out as you fell asleep on Bucky. probably the best sleep you've gotten since the fight.

Steve was calling, definitely to check up on the talks. Bucky glanced back down at you before pressing accept, still sound asleep and slightly snoring. Bucky put the phone to his ear.

“So, how'd it go?” Steve asked.

Bucky wore a warm smile when he replied, gaze not leaving you. “Good, really good. We talked it out and it mostly boiled down to miscommunication.”

“Just talked or?” Steve teased, something bucky wondered if the blonde could read his mind.

“Oh, zip it,” Bucky said, a chuckle coming from the other line. “I don't want to wake her, so I'll call you tomorrow?”

“Alright, don't get yourself into any more trouble.”

“Don't plan on it, pal.'' Bucky bid his goodbyes to Steve and hung the phone up, throwing it to the side.

Bucky knew he had to wake you and get you into bed, clean up the apartment, and slip under the covers close to you. But for now, he was just enjoying the safety he felt with you in his arms, and not alone in the compound with you in California. It was more than true that you were it for him, and after getting a taste of what it was like to lose you.

Well, he'd be damned if anything got in between you two now.

tags; @matchat3a @sebsgirl71479 @heavenswrld @ivywasmaroon

@nt-multi-fandom @michaelfuckinglangdon@fand0mskullfa1ry

@athenabarnes @almosttoopizza @genlovesdcb @mavrellover91

#bucky x reader #bucky fic #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #james bucky buchanan barnes #bucky x female reader #bucky fanfic #marvel fanfiction #marvel #winter soldier #the winter soldier

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who-is-page · 1 year ago

Note

That person you and Rani were arguing with about phantom limbs apparently got called out a few days ago for having zootherians in their pack

I saw a post about this; namely, because the associated Therian Amino call-out used my Beware as a main citation for talking about the known bestialist LycanTheory.

I haven't reblogged or commented anything regarding it because, in all honesty, the evidence as I've seen so far has not been substantial enough for me to feel confident in commenting and saying anything one way or another. All I've seen is a single video on it (x) which was incredibly difficult to parse or understand with my audio processing disorder and the filter the therian chose to use: the video cited the Therian Amino post I mentioned earlier (x), which offered no proof to its claims regarding Thorn nor its claims regarding PinkDolphin, and a highlight reel on Instagram (x), which is also very nearly fucking impossible to navigate and once again has claims that are very difficult to prove on the basis of a single messily-edited screenshot that stay up on the screen for just a few seconds.

So... let me look into this more and give an informative summary for the people just now hearing about this before I give any sort of real, proper response.

I'll give you the TL;DR now: The accusations leveled at Thorn from Therian Territory regarding this claim seem to be false.

The claims that I'll be focusing on here are that Thorn is an active part of the Evergreen Unakite Pack (EUP), which also supposedly contains the founder of the BITE Discord, Dayn, and his partner, Autumn. The BITE Discord is a bestialist-friendly Discord which masquerades as a safe space for paraphiles; some of you may remember LycanTheory, the predator who sexually assaulted his pets and who has sexually interacted with minors via texts and videos, and his bestialist partner Jade who was a long-time member and moderator on the server.

Thorn of Therian Territory has made a response video (x). Thorn states that there is no association between themself and LycanTheory, pointing out that the original call-out also doesn't showcase any proof for that claim either; much the opposite, they've had some really nasty experiences with LycanTheory. Thorn claims to not have known that Autumn and Dayn were zoophiles, as they did not actively identify as zoophiles at the time of them being in a formal pack together and it fell apart soon after. When Jade entered the friend group, zoophilia more generally became a topic and things fell apart due to Thorn's discomfort. Thorn outright says they do not support zoophilia.

I went digging and looked into the EUP's first pack meetup (x). There is an Autumn at the meetup, who identifies as a black wolf and a zebra; the screenshot displayed of Autumn333333 from Twitter claims to be a zeta with a zebra and husky theriotype. There is no one at the meetup who identifies as an ANCD wolfdog, Dayn's theriotype as displayed in the screenshot of vilewolfxD from Twitter.

The Twitter account Autumn333333 joined Twitter in December 2021; the Twitter account vilewolfxD didn't join until October 2022. The EUP first howl meetup was posted on August 16th, 2021, and was likely taken earlier than that. This seems to support Thorn's claim that Autumn and Dayn were not public about being a part of the Zeta community until after the pack had already disbanded. Thorn also supplies a screenshot of what is supposedly the first time Autumn333333 liked a post on Twitter from someone in the Zeta community, dated April 16th, 2022. I'm not really dedicated enough to scroll all the way back and check myself, but if it's accurate then that also supports their claim. Autumn333333's Twitter is empty outside of likes, but searching for "Thorn" and "Therian Territory" and "Evergreen" on vilewolfxD didn't garner any results for my Twitter.

So, ultimately... these accusations of Thorn being a part of a pack with Zetas seem to be false, and based entirely on a single YouTuber, intentionally or accidentally, misrepresenting a timeline in order to make someone seem significantly worse than they actually are.

#Ask #Anonymous

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siryouarebeingmocked · 1 year ago

Text

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: I may have activated my own trap card

Spoilers for a movie that's two months old and also out on home release.

So, Miles, Gwen, Pavitr (Spider-India), and Hobie (Spider-Punk) all seem to have modern left-wing politics, though Gwen's got edited out. Hobie's introduction specifically says he hates "fascists", which carries over from the original comics.

By the time Hobie came around, I assumed he was just another poser, cooler than the hero rival character, expressing generic leftie politics, and his punk ethos wasn't sincere.

Which is exactly what the writers wanted me to think.

Not only is Hobie perfectly sincere about being anti-authoritarian, but he's been helping Miles since before they even met. He's been blatantly stealing junk from the Spider Society to build his own universe-jumping watch, and disguising it as petty vandalism.

He even tries to talk Miles out of trying to join the Spider-Society before the reveal that Miles himself is an anomaly, and the SS (geddit?) tries to detain Miles.

When Hobie says he's against authoritarianism, he really means it.

Speaking of the left-wing politics, Miles has a "#BLM" pin on his bag. It's very visible while he sits next to his dad.

Who's a cop.

(TANGENT: A few years ago, someone drew a stupid, very bad comic where Spider-Man (Peter Parker) was a) black, b) hated cops, and c) assaulted and subdued riot cops when they asked him for help.

That the comic didn't even show the riot cops were wrong. We were just supposed to assume they deserve to be left to the mercy of an angry mob.

Also, in this comic, Uncle Ben was killed by a cop, not a random thug who Spidey could've stopped but chose not to. Which makes me wonder how that would shake out.

It's kind of weird for someone to look at a character who's about personal responsibility to an unhealthy degree, and use him to express their collectivist anti-cop terrorism fantasies. That, or they didn't think through their fantasies.)

During Spider-India's opening, Miles says "I love Chai Tea!" And Pavitr goes on a rant about how "Chai" means "tea". Later on, The Spot says he's been on a "journey of self-discovery", and Pavitr basically says he's racist.

Which is a tad ironic, because Spot is literally white. And also because Pavitr is the one making the racist assumptions.

And I personally go to a church - in England - that has a lot of non-white non-British people. Mostly Africans. And me, of course. I wonder if any Asians ever went on a journey of self discovery to South London.

And I don't just mean as a cab driver.

"Wait, SYABM, didn't you move to the UK for self-discovery?"

W-well, yes, partially.

Aside: I made the mistake of watching a Youtube video with the Chai Tea joke, and then I looked at the comments.

One guy said "tfw when Twitter users write a movie". An idiot (with much more upvotes) said "bro out here wanting blatant racism in movies".

...When the whole point of the joke is that the racism is not blatant.

It's only "blatant" if you're insufferably Twitterized. There are loads of redundant phrasings in English, like "ATM machine", and words often shift when they're adopted from other languages.

Also, "I dislike this joke" is not the same as "I want racism in this movie", when the "racism" in the movie is only there so it could be mocked.

One of the issues with putting real world movements in worlds that are drastically different - it's one of the main selling points of the franchise - is that it may seem odd that those movements exist in very similar form to the IRL version.

For example, Miles supports BLM in both his video game, and this. Which makes me think "did Trayvon Martin get shot in Florida? How about Mike Brown? Wouldn't the existence of supervillains throw things into a new perspective?"

Did I mention the giant George Floyd-style "REST IN POWER" mural to Miles' dead uncle? I cringed at that in the Wakanda Forever trailer, and I rolled my eyes at it here.

Floyd wasn't a saintly martyr, he was an unlucky violent thug.

Also, Aaron was a supervillain killed by another bad guy who nearly destroyed the city, not a cop.

Also, this is at a party to celebrate how Miles' dad is about to be promoted. Assuming Floyd died and the 2020 protests/riots also happened in Miles' universe, then it seems a tad tasteless to have a mural inspired by an anti-cop movement overlooking it, even if the party is not full of cops.

Spider-India lives in "Mumbattan".

The people who settled the Manhattan area were originally Indian. But the other type of Indian. The Indians we're not supposed to call Indians anymore.

The name "Manhattan" is even Native American.

The first permanent settlement was Dutch. Then the English got it. I guess the English could've shipped Indians to the other side of the world and eventually ceded the area to them, or maybe in this world India was a world-conquering superpower and Mumbattan is the result of...importing Native Americans?

Which would make Pavitr's complaint that "the British stole all of our stuff and put it in their museums" seem a tad hypocritical.

Of course, since I wrote all that, someone reminded me that Pavitr explicitly says the joint is in India.

"SYABM," you say, "you're overthinking this."

Yes, I am. Because the filmmakers didn't think it through. If you want to use ha-ha-funny to make a serious point, you invite examination of that point.

Miles (as Spidey) now works with his dad, though he disguises his voice. At one point, Miles tells his father that men bottle up mental health issues.

This is true (and ironic, considering Miles is hiding who he is from Jeff), but it's not the first time I've seen some progressive work try to address men's issues in an very awkward way. At least here, it's played for comedy.

Also, seems a tad hypocritical coming from a guy who wears a "#BLM" pin in the presence of his cop father.

Also, if you work the timeline, that would mean Miles was about 7 or 6 when BLM started. Which means he's gone most of his life knowing nothing else.

There was a controversy over a "protect trans kids" trans flag in Gwen's room, which was apparently edited out.

IMO, it seems a tad strange for a girl who feels estranged from everyone in her world to join a social movement, but what do I know? Maybe it was there before then.

Some people came to the extremely logical conclusion that Gwen herself is trans. Even though she's distinctly physically feminine and possibly too young for puberty blockers depending on Earth 65′s laws.

Like the "oh great, it's Liv" shippers, people are reaching really hard to see what they want to see.

Some people have said that Gwen's issues with her dad and herself seem awfully similar to the issues LGBTQIA2S+ kids go through.

Gee, it's not like, y'know, feeling estranged from one's family is a common theme in fiction about teenagers and superhero, and the whole "superpowers = minority" thing has been done to death for most of the past century.

Perhaps most notably - and clumsily - in X-Men.

youtube

I'm not saying this wasn't the intended subtext. I'm saying if it was, it would just be really, really cliche.

There's this recurring theme of people telling miles "how [his] story is supposed to go".

When he's at a meeting with his parents and his guidance counselor, the lady says his story of being a black-Latino son of an immigrant would sound great in the college application letters. His mom is a tad miffed, given that they're a) solidly middle class, and b) as a Puerto Rican, she considers herself American.

Miguel (Spider-Man 2099) doesn't want Miles in the multiversal council of Spiders, because Miles was bitten by the radioactive spider from a different universe. Which is why his local Spider-Man died, and the spider's home dimension has no Spider-Man.

Also, Miguel is fixated on "canon events". The idea that there are certain things, especially tragedies, that have to happen to Spiders, or their entire universe falls apart.

And he knows this, because he tried to take over for a version of him that got shot dead by a thug. Tried to raise his daughter.

And he watched as the universe collapsed in front of him.

So he's projecting his own guilt onto Miles, a tad.

According to TVtropes and other sources, this was actually about the people who didn't accept Miles as a replacement Spidey, possibly out of racism.

Yeah, that's real hard-hitting topical meta-commentary about a character who debuted 12 years ago. 8 years when the first movie came out.

I'd also like to point out that despite stereotypes of comic book fans, certain minority successors to banner superheros have been fairly well-received. Like Jaime Reyes, or Cassandra Cain.

(Note: I wrote that before the Blue Beetle movie came out. And flopped.)

And, of course, loads of people like Miles specifically because he's a minority Spidey, which is also racist, just from the other direction. In fact, a lot of his fans seem to forget the "Latino" part of "Afro-Latino". From what little I've seen of Miles early comics, they did actually put strong emphasis on his race.

I also suspect the filmmakers may be misinterpreting the usual successor knee-jerk reactions

as racism. If you're using an established brand name for your new hero, you're creating some expectations.

Also, you know the most popular meme about regular Spidey that I see? That Marvel's writers just keep making him suffer and don't want him to actually develop. Which would kinda make Marvel closer to Team Miguel than Team Miles.

Miles also gripes that Miguel is letting "some algorithm" tell him what to do. While I agree with the sentiment, I'd like to point out that, again, Miles supports BLM.

A movement popularized by an algorithm.

A movement made up of narratives and assumptions.

A movement which has never proven a single incident was because of racism.

During the big chase scene, we see a Spider girl in a wheelchair, aka Sun-Spider. She's from the comics. Same initiative that gave us "Web-Weaver".

Who is, of course, an extremely effete gay fashion designer Spidey. I kinda like his outfit, though the Spider-eyes with eyelashes is a little too far.

And Sun-Spider seems exactly like a character a stereotypical 90s executive and focus group would come up with. Down to the backward baseball cap.

(Turns out she's Dayn Broder's actual Spider-Sona.)

Also, while I was looking up that one black and white Spider who said "nowhere to run" (Metro-Spider, played by record producer Metro Boomin [/sic]), I found out that Aunt May's full name is "Maybelle", not just "May". TIL.

There's a bit of a double standard with this version of Spider-Woman, who's black and pregnant. -People in the movie - including Peter B - regularly point out how Peter B endangering his infant daughter Mayday by taking her along with him. But for some reason, nobody says a word about Jessica, who's an active-duty stunt-biking superhero.

Even regular motorbiking can be dangerous for pregnant women.

In fact, the movie portrays this as heroic and impressive. When Gwen sees Jess is preggos, she asks if Jess can adopt her.

Not to mention the whole "afro and hoop earrings" thing, which seem like a bad idea for a type of hero who often gets into melee combat, even with Spider-Sense.

Yes, I'm aware that female heroes, including the Spider-Ladies, often have exposed hair. It's a genre convention. Incidentally, it was nice to see Batwoman wore a detachable decoy wig in the comics. Some bad guy tries to grab it in a fight? It comes right off.

Also, Jess doesn't have much actual character.

Being pregnant is not a character trait. In fact, her only real traits are basically "cool but stern sassy mentor", to contrast with Peter B. -Incidentally, someone on TVtropes pointed out the double standard. And when I saw the page again, a page-camper had deleted it, with no explanation.

Guess they couldn't stand someone pointing out the flaws of their waifu.

(One) Spider-UK in this movie is Muslim. I know she's Muslim because she wears a Spider-themed headdress. Note that regular Marvel 616 has a muslim lady Spider-UK, but her name is Zarina Zahari and she doesn't wear a hijabi.

(Also, she could be mistaken for Ms. Marvel.)

ms marvel.jpg

You might be thinking "wait, isn't a headdress impractical in a melee fight? Doesn't it give your enemy something to grab?" Yes, it is.

But so are Jess's earrings, afro, and being pregnant, so clearly there's a lot of artistic license going on.

Maybe it's partially tearaway, like Batman's cape.

I gotta wonder about the religious rules of wearing a head covering over a mask that *already* covers your entire head. Did she go see her imam and go "Okay, I have a really weird question..."

Come to think, Spidey is usually slim, but a lot of lady Spideys in this movie seemed to have wide hips. Including muscular ladies. Kris Anka's concept art goes really hard on wide hips. I don't know why. Stronger, faster character reads during the big chase?

I guess Spiders could be expected to have strong legs.

BOTTOM LINE:

I liked the movie overall, though the progressive bits made me roll my eyes a little. I...want to see the third one, with reservations.

#tvtropes #spiderman #character design #movies

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skimmingmilk · 13 days ago

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Thanks for the reply to the V in the ask game! Welllll wellll, since you asked so nicely, sure, I'll ask about N. Hey you like talking about your wips, I like hearing about them, we all win here 👀

Thank you for asking! :D It's always nice to chat with you guys!

N: Any fic ideas brewing that you’d care to share?

Well, I've got a one shot I'm working on inspired by one of the answers from the latest Twitter Takeover and my own headcanon that I've had for a little while xD It's slightly silly, but probably going to have some heartfelt moments, too, because who are we kidding, it's me, lol.

Premise is this: Shadow is at Tails's lab for some reason and notices that he has a chess set. Sonic, being Sonic, clocks his interest and challenges him to a game, but Shadow doesn't want to waste time playing with someone who doesn't even know the rules. Pssh. However, at the same time, he can't just let Sonic's challenge go unanswered - especially when he's so aggravating about it. Shenanigans ensue~

I don't usually consider takeover answers as canon, even though they're fun, but sometimes they're compelling and fit in with what I've already headcanoned for characters :) the chess thing just happened to work out (and Sonic's response didn't contradict my headcanon, which was an added bonus).

I'm also working on a (yet another) potential Christmas fic... This one would take place during Sonic and Tails's second Christmas together. I'm not making any promises on that one, but I would like to see if I can get it done in time for Christmas! It was semi-inspired by a Christmas song and the story "The Gift of the Magi" in a way... at least Sonic is trying to do something for Tails, but Tails is busy trying to do something for Sonic, and their goals aren't entirely in alignment. It might be a little too ambitious at the moment, and it was a last minute idea that just kinda came up last week ^^;;

Of course, the last chapter of Rose-Colored Glass takes precedence before any of this, but I'm feeling good about these WIPs! Just gotta keep the writing and editing muscles warmed up!

#I'm also taking off a bit of time before Christmas #before I travel to visit the fam #so planning to spend some time writing then :)#thank you again for chatting anon!#skimming asks #fanfic writer ask meme #sonic fic ideas #I almost forgot about the chess one shot too #I remembered it when I hopped into my one shots only doc to write the continuation to No Cracks in a Closed Loop and saw it there xD whoops

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humming-pokemon-helpers · 10 months ago

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Finally got the go-ahead to post about this… so, with the growing visibility of hybrids in the public eye, I was offered the opportunity to interview with RIME Magazine! (Capitalizing the name properly was part of the deal.)

I’ll be pasting the text of the article below for anyone without a subscription (to be fair, it’s also posted online, and I have permission), but before that… I also got a cover photoshoot! I wound up touching up my ears with my illusions… and some of the burn scars… but I’m quite happy with how it turned out, still. Wolfy couldn’t make it, so I took the photo with Chiru that day! Anyways, hope you enjoy. :)

(//Art is a commission by @/RhymeWithRay here or mostly on Twitter! They make amazing Pokémon-style work, worth a look for sure!!!)

But without further ado, the interview!

RIME Magazine sat down for an interview with Vanilla Cress, a Hisuian Zorua hybrid, human and Pokémon psychologist, Champion-class trainer in Paldea, Galar Champion Cup semifinalist, and hybrid model and activist, in early February. Topics discussed varied widely, from Cress's own experience growing up as a human-Pokémon hybrid, understanding Pokémon, Cress's recent modeling and activism, and future plans. What follows is a condensed and edited transcript of the interview.

That's quite the list of accolades you've accumulated along the way. What do you think has led you to achieve so highly?

Well, for one, I think you're giving a lot of this more credit than it's worth, [laughs]. I'm not sure being pulled off of the street because I look like a walking ice-cream cone is much of an accomplishment, personally. Nor do I do much activism apart from this interview now, apparently.

I think I understand the answer you're going for here, though. I would say that my hybridity's a large part of what brought me as far as I've come. Not only in having the gift to talk to our partners in life--which is an incredible gift--but in that there's this drive to prove myself. Or maybe to redeem myself. I'm not really sure which, personally. Doing things has just filled all of the gaps in my life, until now.

Right, and you only publicly "came out" as a hybrid less than a year ago.

Yes, less than a year ago! It's been a huge adjustment, but I have so much more energy these days, not having to worry about being discovered by hitting something with my tail, [laughs].

While my experience hasn't been entirely positive after "coming out" myself, and I realize that even being able to hide is a privilege many hybrids simply don't have, I will say that generally speaking, the public response has been overwhelmingly positive. Say, for every enemy I've made, I've made ten more friends in their place. And from so many different walks of life, too!

You say your experience wasn't entirely positive. Could you elaborate some on your negative experiences as a hybrid?

Well, if I have to. Which I suppose I don't, but it seems rude not to. There are, of course, people out there who view you as subhuman, when you look like me. Or in maybe a less extreme sense, people who have a tendency to see all of the fluff and decide "Oh, this person--I should talk to this person like they're a child." But those are really quite few and far between, at least in my case. I'm more likely to scare people, with the teeth and the claws. [They make a pose showing both off.]

My main negative experience, though, was something more personal and targeted.

Yes, there was the news earlier last year about the Dreamyard Laboratory...

"Earlier last year" doesn't feel right, somehow. I won't go much into detail, but yes, I was taken against my will for the purpose of illegal research on human-Pokémon hybrid power, by Colress Achroma. It was only due to the efforts of my dear friends that I'm here now. I cannot express my gratitude to them enough, if any of you are reading!

Thank you for sharing. To turn back the clock a bit, what was your childhood like, being half-Zorua?

Well, for most of that time, it was like paradise! When I was a young child, we were quite isolated, so I never got the sense that my life was "off" or "strange". I thought for the longest time it was normal to have a family like mine. My older sibling, Wolfgang, a Zorua then--we were just "W" and "V" at the time--he and I would just run wild and play in Lostlorn Forest for hours while the rest of the pack hunted. And then they'd come back, and they'd start in on whatever they'd caught, and my mother would swoop back in to make me something completely different. And teach me the alphabet. [Laughs]

Was there a time, when that facade cracked?

Oh, there was this time, right when I had gotten used to using my illusions, that my mother brought me to the grocery store with her. And that's when I learned a lot of facts about the world very quickly. And then I had to learn those facts all over again, a few years later, when I rejoined the human world with my adopted family. Everything had to be hidden after that, or else. It was dangerous, not knowing what sort of person you'd meet, or who'd want to hurt you just for existing.

You say you were also adopted?

Right. There was... a forest fire, at one point. Intentional. And I lost everyone dear to me but Wolfgang. And I became the sort of Zorua you see here now [a Hisuian Zorua]. And after a few years of... homelessness and what not, I was taken in by the Cresses. It was a chance encounter. And it was a major culture shock! Going from streets to high society parties. It was thanks to them, though, that I managed to find something to do with my life and graduated from Naranja-Uva.

And in between that, the Galar gym challenge...

[Laughs] I'm sure you have a clip of that somewhere. I'd rather not talk about it, that was... a strange period of teenagerhood for me.

How do you feel about your childhood, on reflection?

That's tough. That's something I believe I'm still working out, myself. It was positive moment-to-moment, but considering what I know, now, I would say... to some degree, I resent it. It's hard not to resent being born in a position where it feels like, for so long, nobody understands you. I wouldn't trade Wolfgang for anyone else, but otherwise, I do wish, sometimes, I was "just" a human.

I can imagine. At the same time, talking to Pokémon is quite the advantage, right? What is it like?

Depends on the Pokémon! Some of us are more talkative than others, and of course, there's a range in how sophisticated Pokémon communication is too.

The difference is something like... imagine two Pokémon asking for pizza. In my experience, a Solosis would usually just beam the word "PIZZA" right into your mind. A Sewaddle might be coherent enough to say "Pizza, please". And a Zoroark... probably something along the lines of "give me the damn pizza already," [laughs].

So sometimes you can get a lot across by understanding Pokémon, but that doesn't mean they're all speaking in the same way as humans still. Understanding those individual differences goes a long way in my line of work, too. It's a bit easier than reading behavior, anyways!

As a Pokémon psychologist, what's one thing you think more people should understand about their Pokémon?

More than anything... it sounds cliche, but most Pokémon truly view humans as their partners, just as we do them. As much scientific proof as has gone into the question of proving that Pokémon love us as much as we love them, in my experience... that's absolutely true.

At the same time, even as partners, Pokémon think quite differently from humans in their daily life. I think in order to create the most balanced world possible, where both can coexist, it's key to consider the Pokémon's perspective more too.

What's one thing you'd like to impart about hybrids to people who don't know much about them?

Every hybrid's experience is different, firstly! Some, like me, are born, but others are created through science or magic we still don't know about. Some may look almost identical to humans, and some may have appearances considered frightening or unusual. Some of us have long-standing health problems. Some of us can use moves, or speak in Pokémon language, or access abilities, whereas others may be more limited. There's no one experience that I can really label as "the hybrid experience".

There are people who might think we're dangerous. Or inhuman. But whether you consider us 'human' or not... like any living being, we still deserve respect and a voice. Maybe that's obvious, but I think it still rings true.

Finally, what are your plans from here?

I'm hoping to finish my Unova League challenge together with my traveling partner! I certainly don't intend to become the Champion, but if I can say I challenged every member of the Elite 4, I'd be happy.

From there... well, there are a few things I'd like to resolve otherwise, but I think I'll return to my day job as a therapist, and hopefully, my own personal sword training. I'd also like to spend more time with my friends, my traveling partner, and my family in Lostlorn! My brother, Wolfgang has four incredible kits, and they're the absolute most adorable--

I'm afraid we're out of time for today, Mx. Vanilla.

Ah, yes. Thank you for having me!

#pokeblogging #pkmn irl #//not my art #//again give @rhymewithray a look their art is incredible :)#//might link this into vanilla's profile as a “quick look at them” too ^^

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nyoomerr · 11 months ago

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How do you always pop out banger fics? I feel like everyone and their mothers in the fandom adore your fics and not one of your stuff has ever been a flop! Seriously, what's your secret??

djkhfg but more seriously, there have definitely been fics i've posted that i personally wasn't happy with at the time i posted them, or that i was really proud of but have indeed "flopped" when i posted them**

**recognizing that all success is relative, and considering a "flop" to be a lack in response compared to my other svsss fics from a similar time period

overall though, i have indeed been extremely lucky with how kindly this fandom has treated me and how much support my work gets... but mostly i do think that really is just luck 😅

if you just meant for this to be a very sweet compliment about how you like my stuff a lot, thank you so much, and feel free to stop reading here!! if you were genuine in asking "seriously, what's your secret," though, i do have some tips for fic writing!

first thing is for me to say that it is 100% the most important for you to personally be the #1 fan of your own stuff.

it's super fun that so many people like my fics! but it's mostly fun because it feels like i'm holding up a rock and screaming and everyone screams along with me - it would be a lot less exciting if i was holding up a rock and watching in silent indifference as everyone screamed at it, lol. writing stuff just because it's interesting to you will also help you avoid writing + fandom burnout, and people who read it will always be able to tell when you love what you're writing about.

i also personally think it's really important to see the things you like to completion, which includes either posting it somewhere or saving it alongside your finished works, whatever you personally do to metaphorically put a finished piece "on the fridge."

it is a wildly common experience for creatives to begin disliking their own work partway through the creative process, or to dislike it after it's done. but if you're creating something because you're personally excited about some aspect of it, then you theoretically enjoyed something about that work at some point in time. and, with enough time and distance from it, you'll probably end up liking it again in the future!

if you've made sure to put that work "on the fridge" somewhere it's safe and marked as 'done' in your own mind, then you'll get the chance to create that time and distance. it's not sitting in some guilt-ridden folder of abandoned wips, or discarded because you were never able to write or edit it to your satisfaction - it's just 'done.' i can't count how many times i've come back to a piece i disliked at the time of finishing it and, months later, decided it was actually pretty good.

so - put your work on the fridge, even if you're not satisfied with it! and when your brain is able to let it go, reread it. find the parts that made you write it in the first place, the stuff that got you really excited, and let them excite you again, and inspire you to write even more!!

okok so that's a) write what you like and b) don't give up on your hard work. now i'll address the last bit that touches on fandom reception of your work... 💦💦

... i really do think it's mostly luck 😅

the very first fic i posted on this ao3 account is, without doubt, still my most popular one. i could talk about how i feel about that for a whole separate essay post lmao, but it is a good example of how fic "popularity" often works.

i was still on twitter at the time that i made it, which was where most of the mxtx fans were at. a promo post i made got retweeted by a handful of people with big followings, and that combined with the fact that there were way less binggeyuan fics at the time meant that it kinda hit it big. and since so many people sort by kudos or bookmarks, fics that are already popular just end up more popular...

i think a lot of popular fics are like this to some degree. they use the right tags and post at the right time to get seen by just the right audience, or there's a promo tweet/post somewhere that lands on just the right number of dashes, and their popularity snowballs. of course, these popular fics are also often absolutely fucking incredible and worthy of their popularity, but i've also read fics with very very little "popularity" that are just as good or better than some of the top kudosed or bookmarked fics in the tag.

the only thing i have ever (personally) noticed as something you can control that affects popularity is fic length - from what i've seen in both my fics and those others write, multichaptered fics that update semi regularly and stretch on for multiple months have a tendency to drum up more excitement the longer they go. people start to get more excited for each update + they talk about that on socmed, and that combined with consistently bumping the fic to the top of the tag when sorted by recently updated gives it more and more chances for it to hit that lucky combo of "seen by the right people."

so, that's all to say, actually my advice for this section is also "just write what you like," because you can't control whether or not the people who will also like it will see it when you post it, so make sure there's at least one reader enjoying the ride (you).

...and then of course for more generic "how do you write """well""" advice, just keep practicing, and take note of the things you like in other people's writing and how they accomplish it!

sorry if that was like. way more than what you were really expecting as an answer for this 🙈🙈 i really am truly very grateful for all the super kind feedback i get on my work, but i'm really out here just writing whatever i want in whatever ways i want and then throwing it up "on the fridge" before i can chicken out dkfjh

i hope you (or whoever else bothered to read this far) can also be really satisfied and excited about what you're making, and my fingers are crossed for your luck in the "everyone in the fandom likes this thing" lottery 🤞🤞

#kjfdhg i wrote way more here than intended tbh but i do want to try and be helpful if someone asks me for advice so kfgjh #ANYWAY ty for the ask and for enjoying my stuff!! i rly am lucky with so many lovely people in this fandom supporting me ;w;#nyoomerr gives advice #nyoomerr ask

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atelier-slime · 1 year ago

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DRAGON QUEST'S LOCALIZATION SUCKS, ACTUALLY. PART 1

There's a thread blowing up on Japanese twitter right now about the poor quality of localization. It's the first time I've ever actually seen a japanese perspective on the topic, and it's been extremely gratifying to see a ton people from over there talk about specific translation issues they've seen or learn for the first time that japanese media is often given the short end of the stick here in the USA.

Most of the time over here in the US, criticism of localization gets shouted down as whiny fans who think they know better than the translators. It's been heartening to see that people from japan are also annoyed by it, and its inspired me to write up a whole long-ass rant I've had simmering in the back of my mind for years, so buckle up, long post(s) incoming:

Let's start at the beginning with the first thing that ever caused me to start thinking about localization. This little guy:

If you've played Dragon Quest in the past 2 decades, you probably know this guy by the name "Spiked Hare." Not me though! I got into DQ on the game boy, in the brief window of time where DQ's localization was handled by Nob Ogasawara, the same guy responsible for translating every pokemon game up until Platinum. In the DQ games Nob worked on, he chose to translate this guy's name as "Almiraj." Why the huge difference in translation? I'll get to that in a minute.

The almiraj is an extremely minor enemy in Dragon Quest 3. It's pretty weak, and it's only real defining feature is that it can occasionally cast sleep spells on your party members. It's just one of hundreds of monsters in that game, and aside from it's cute design, it's pretty forgettable. As a weird kid overly obsessed with linguistics though, its name always seemed odd to me. You don't really see words that end with a "J" in english. It stuck out enough that one night, when I was bored, I decided to google "almiraj" to figure out what the name meant. It sent me down a rabbit hole (almiraj hole?) that taught me all sorts of cool shit, and permanently altered the way I looked at localization. The path I tumbled down that night went something like this:

The Dragon Quest almiraj is named after the almiraj, a "real" mythical creature described as a hare with a large horn on its head.

The original inspiration for accounts of the almiraj (as well as the jackalope, wolpertinger, etc.) is likely the Shope papiloma Virus, which causes rabbits to grow weird, horn-like growths on their face and head.

It was described by Zakariya al-Qazwini, an Iranian lawyer, author, and all around knowledgeable guy who lived in the 13th century.

al-Qazwini described it in the Aja'ib al-Makhluqat, a massive cosmographical treatise that attempted to describe basically everything in the known universe at the time. It was so popular in the Islamic world that it was copied and translated into dozens of languages, which meant plenty of copies have survived intact to modern times.

The almiraj was brought into the limelight in modern fantasy when it was introduced in the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons, as a relatively weak and unassuming monster as part of a campaign to expand the game with monster suggestions from fans of the series.

Dungeons and Dragons-style role playing games were brought into the digital world with the release of the first Wizardry game in 1981.

Yuji Horii was a massive fan of Wizardry, which he first discovered as part of a developer exchange program when he visited America in 1983. Three years later, he decided to try and recreate the things he loved from the series for console gamers in Japan, and the the original Dragon Quest was born.

One little name was all it took to open up this entire through-line of history that I had no idea even existed before that night. It's a tapestry of human experiences over 800 years in the making, spanning continents, cultures, languages, and medium. It's probably because I'm the type of person who sits around thinking about stuff too much, but I honestly get a little emotional wondering what al-Qazwini would think if he could see the mythical creatures he described all those years ago as little dudes hopping around inside a computer.

And the thing is the tapestry doesn't end there! Dragon Quest is still pretty niche in the west, but in Japan it's fucking titanic. There's an urban legend that the Japanese government banned Square Enix from releasing Dragon Quest games on a weekday, because so many people would skip work or school that it would impact the economy. (It's not true by the way, but the fact that the rumor exists at all is a testament to how huge the series' influence is over there.) I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that what Lord of the Rings did to modern western fantasy, Dragon Quest did to modern Japanese fantasy. Almost every JRPG, manga, or anime with a fantasy setting has the fingerprints of Dragon Quest on it. Countless other works have been inspired by DQ, and those works will go on to inspire others. A million different threads weaving tapestries back and forth across time and borders, all over the globe. And the almiraj is a part of that! It might just be a single, tiny, white and purple thread, but it's still in there helping to tie things together.

So back to the question I asked earlier: Why is it "Almiraj" in Mr. Ogasawara's translation but "Spiked hare" in the current one? Simple: Nob actually translated the name.

You can see on the DQ wiki that the original japanese name of the monster is "アルミラージ" which is literally just "almiraj" written in katakana:

The current DQ team has instead decided that all monster names should be puns. I'm not against puns or anything. "Spiked hare" for a rabbit with a horn is great! I might even raise my eyebrows and exhale slightly if I read it for the first time. Dragon Quest in general tends to have a lot of goofiness in it, so it's not like puns are out of place or anything. My problem is that, by deciding to replace monster names arbitrarily like this, all the little threads start to come unraveled. You lose the ability to look back down the line and discover all these different connections to history and nature and art that you might not ever learn otherwise. The almiraj isn't the only monster to get this treatment. A huge portion of the monsters in Dragon Quest are taken from mythologies around the world, and many of their names are literally already in English, just written with katakana.

The almiraj sticks out in my mind as a particularly egregious example because of just how much I learned because of the foreign-sounding name, but there's plenty of other name changes that have resulted in straight up confusing, ambiguous, or otherwise stupid outcomes in the current localization.

CONTINUED IN PART 2

#dragon quest #localization #translation #long post #rant #almiraj

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