#he gets affronted when met with things he cannot do and its so fucking funny

[dailykugisaki]

Day 353 | id in alt

Fushiguro can't take care of shit if it don't involve some sort of physical fighting.(Right to left💥)

[ao3gingerswag]

The Outside Chapter 14 Deleted Scene

This was one of many directions I took this scene that I ended up cutting. I liked this part, but it just went on and on and on and I couldn't wrap it up and also it was getting dangerously close to actually deep territory which I have sworn off for this verse!! This convo branches off from Cas apologizing for yelling at Sam, which is in the actual chapter.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Cas offers.

Sam snorts, like what Cas has said is funny.

“You sound like Dean,” he mutters.

Cas frowns in confusion.

Before this morning, he wouldn’t have been able to picture Dean yelling at anyone about anything.

Now…Well. Now he knows what it looks like when Dean yells, as much as he wishes he didn’t.

It’s still hard for him to imagine Dean getting shouting in any sort of regular circumstance, especially at Sam, who he’d clearly move heaven and earth for.

“Dean would yell at you?” he asks, and Sam rolls his eyes.

“No,” he mutters, sounding resentful. “He’d apologize. For just about any old thing.”

Oh.

Oh.

That makes much more sense.

At least, it makes much more sense that Dean would be known for his habit of apologizing, rather than shouting.

It also...well, Cas supposes it also makes sense, that any random apology would remind Sam of Dean.

Not that it makes him happy, what that connection implies.

Because it was just an apology.

And most people don’t associate being apologized to with one single human being.

Has anyone else ever apologized to you, Sam? Or is Dean the only one?

He almost asks, out loud, but Sam’s scowl stops him.

He gets the feeling that if he asks that question, he’s going to get his head bitten off.

Instead, he tries a different angle.

“You know, it’s funny. Dean said I reminded him of you.”

It’s this, finally, that makes Sam look towards him.

“What?” he yelps, dumbstruck. Like he can barely process what Cas had just said.

It is indignation, that colors his expression, outrage, that blazes through his eyes.

He’s not just confused, at the comparison, not just irritated or annoyed.

He is offended. Truly offended, like he cannot believe Dean would say such a thing about him, like it is an affront to who he is as a person.

The force of his disgust is startling, and it does startle Cas as it comes.

And he expects hurt to rush in quickly after it, as it always does, when people make clear their revulsion.

But it doesn’t come, even as he waits, even as Sam splutters and turns red in anger.

It doesn’t come, though sadness does, in its place, as Sam’s next words fly angrily out.

“He did not say that. He did not. You and I are nothing alike!”

“He did say that,” Cas replies, quietly, because it is completely true.

Sam snarls, as if he is furious, but Cas is alarmed to see tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

“No he didn’t! He wouldn’t! I’m not always- I know I’m not always the nicest but I’ve never- He wouldn’t say that!”

Cas watches in morbid fascination as hurt sneaks out from behind the resentment.

“Sam,” he says, stunned. “It wasn’t- It wasn’t an insult.”

Sam glares at him with aching eyes.

The depth of the gulf between them becomes painfully clear.

He really thinks I’m a predator. He really thinks I’m a rapist.

He thinks he’s being accused of abuse. Because that’s all he sees in me.

“Sam,” he says, making an effort to sound gentle, like Dean. “Dean loves you very much.”

Sam scowls, and drops his eyes.

“I know,” he mutters, irritated.

“Do you?” Cas asks, and Sam huffs.

“Yes, I know, he loves fucking everyone. He loves me, he loves you, he loves my dad, he even loves fucking Alastair.”

“He does not love Alastair.”

“You don’t hear him. He’s always going on about how grateful he is, how thankful.”

The boy spits the word like it’s poison.

Cas has to admit, it hurts to hear.

He has to admit, he understands very well the subtext behind what Sam is saying.

Dean loves even people who take advantage of him.

He understands it because it’s what Cas used to think as well, and it hurts to hear his own thoughts repeated back to him.

How do I know that he loves me, when he doesn’t know what else to feel? How can I know I’m not a monster, when he loves monsters and angels the same?

It’s the thought that had haunted him since Dean had come into his life, had haunted him since he’d seen the devotion leaking out of those green eyes.

He sees it haunting Sam now too.

And he feels sorry for him, and sorry for himself as well, because they are both too stupid to understand the value of the gift they’ve been given.

“Sam,” he says quietly. “I know you don’t like me.”

Sam makes a sarcastic noise. Cas pretends not to hear it.

“I didn’t like you, either, before I had met you, when I only had Dean’s descriptions to go off of.”

That shuts Sam up, and Cas feels a little bad for misleading him.

“It’s not that he said anything bad,” Cas clarifies. “Actually, everything he said about you was wonderful, and made it clear how much he loves you. But I...didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust him. I know you know that Dean….doesn’t always have the best judgement, when it comes to how he should be treated.”

Sam doesn’t respond for a second, and Cas thinks he might be being ignored.

Eventually, though, Sam pulls his legs that had still been dangling off the cart up to his chest, and wraps his arms around them.

“Yeah,” he says at last, and it’s not sarcastic this time.

It’s vulnerable. It’s resigned.

Cas feels a pulse of sympathy.

Dean can’t have been an easy person to grow up with.

“Well, I knew that too. It was obvious, from the way he talked about the things that had happened to him, from the way he talked about people who’d hurt him. He was scared of Alastair, but didn’t understand how evil the man is. And he was scared of John...but I thought he loved John as well.”

Sam has rested his head on his knees, his face pointing Cas’s direction. He’s once again not looking at Cas, but it is obvious that he is listening.

“So when he started talking about you all the time...talking about how good you were to him, crying about how much he missed you…”

Cas sees Sam’s chin wobble.

“I thought. Well. I thought he was crazy. And I assumed, without even asking, that you were an adult. An adult who was manipulating Dean, and taking advantage of him, and hurting him. I thought of you the way you now think of me.”

He looks at Sam imploringly.

“I didn’t even consider that he might be right, that, that just because he’s been hurt doesn’t mean his feelings aren’t real. I didn’t even consider believing him. But I should have! I should have, and if I had, if I’d ever listened to him and talked to him instead of making my own assumptions, I would have realized you were a child! I would have realized you were a child, and would have told Dean we could come get you together, and we wouldn’t be in this goddamn mess at all!”

[stevie-steven-stevington]

Febuwhump Day 17: heartbreak

Fandom: MCU Characters: Peter Parker, Michelle Jones, Ned Leeds Relationships: Peter Parker/Ned Leeds Rating: T Warnings: none Words: 1.9k

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[Loser #1, 4:22 PM] can you come over

[MJ, 4:31 PM] why

[MJ, 4:32 PM] i mean sure but why

[Loser #1, 4:40 PM] i think ned and i just broke up

[MJ, 4:44 PM] i’m outside your apartment

[Loser #1, 4:44 PM] its open

True to form, the door swings open when MJ tries it, and she slips into the apartment to find Peter sitting on his living room couch, staring at nothing. He’s not crying, a fact MJ is eternally grateful for, because she’s already out of her element and definitely cannot deal with tears on top of it all.

MJ’s not really sure why Peter texted her, of all people. It’s not like she’s good at comforting - on the contrary, she’s skilled in the art of making herself scarce when someone is upset - and while Peter might not have many other people to call, there has to be at least one other person who could handle this better than she can.

A quick once-over tells her that Peter probably hasn’t left the house today, if the old sweatpants and ratty t-shirt are anything to go by, so whatever happened must’ve happened here. Likely within the hour, since Peter doesn’t seem to have gotten past the shock phase of the breakup.

Breakup. Damn.

MJ’s not exactly the romantic type, but even she was pretty sure Ned and Peter were going to last forever. Or at least until graduation. They’re that couple who makes other couples wish they had what Ned and Peter had, that couple that everyone loved to hate because they were always so blatantly and obviously in love.

Were that couple, apparently. Is this going to make things weird in their group?

Jesus. Six months ago, she wouldn’t have cared if Thing 1 and Thing 2 broke it off - she would’ve noticed, because she notices everything, but she wouldn’t have cared - and now she’s worried that this breakup is going to ruin the balance of their group’s friendship.

Whatever happened, there’s no way she’s picking a side. Unless someone was clearly, unequivocally in the wrong.

She has principles, after all.

Peter doesn’t look up at her as she walks over to join him on the couch. The only indication that he’s moved since Ned left is the texts on MJ’s phone.

It’s odd. Of everyone MJ knows, Peter’s the one with the most energy, the one who’s always moving or fidgeting, the one who’s always talking a mile a minute about anything and everything.

Seeing him this still and quiet is a little unnerving. She’ll never admit it, but it is.

“Parker,” she says, perched carefully on the armrest of the couch. When he doesn’t respond, she snaps her fingers in front of his face until the glazed-over look in his eyes dissipates and he turns to stare blearily at her. “Parker, you with me?

He nods, index finger and thumb of his left hand pinching the fabric of his sweatpants.

Fantastic. Progress.

One hand rubbing at her other wrist - one of her very few nervous ticks - MJ asks, “What happened, then? Did you and Ned have a fight about which LEGO set to build today?”

Shit, that’s mean. Normally, she prefers to toe the line between witty and rude, but the line always moves when people are already upset and she’s not the best at toning it down before she accidentally makes things worse.

She’d backtrack, but Peter doesn’t even seem to notice. MJ’s willing to bet he checked out as soon as she said Ned’s name.

“I, uh - we had an argument?” Peter says, almost like he expects MJ to confirm this. “I think we broke up.”

All things she had gathered, circumstances considered.

“Details, dude,” MJ prompts, since apparently Peter’s not going to do anything without provocation.

Peter’s forehead wrinkles, brows knitting together. It’s evident that he’s not processing at full speed, or even at half speed, which means that this is going to be grueling.

There’s a ridiculously long pause before Peter says, “I’m a shitty boyfriend.” This is not only not a real explanation, but also objectively untrue. Seeing as Peter and Ned are her only friends, MJ would know. Peter treats Ned like he hung the moon and the stars, looks at him like he’s the only person Peter ever wants to see.

If MJ believed in soulmates, she wouldn’t hesitate to say that Ned and Peter are each other’s soulmates, one way or another. No one who’s ever even laid eyes on the two of them would hesitate.

As is, soulmates aren’t real, but she still thinks Peter and Ned are meant for each other.

“You’re not a shitty boyfriend, Parker,” MJ tells him, and means it. “Did Ned say you’re a shitty boyfriend?”

No. She knows the answers before she even finishes the question, because Ned would never say that to Peter, even if he thought it. Which he definitely doesn’t, what with the constant gushing about Peter he does. MJ’s had to sit through way too many mostly one-sided conversations about how Peter said this or Peter did that or my boyfriend is the best person on the planet and no one will convince me otherwise.

(The last one actually happened, word-for-word. MJ doesn’t even remember what Ned was on about that time, but it was probably something stupid and mundane. It usually is.)

“No.” Peter scratches at the inside of his elbow. “No, he didn’t, but it’s true.”

“And you say this, why?”

“I don’t make time for him. I don’t give him as much attention as he deserves. I don’t tell him things that I should. I don’t -”

Yeah, that’s enough of that.

“That doesn’t make you a shitty boyfriend, loser. That makes you a high school student who moonlights as a superhero,” she says, because even if they haven’t talked about it, they both know she knows.

Peter shakes his head, frustration palpable. “That’s not - that’s not an excuse -”

“For not having all the time in the world to hang out with your boyfriend? Yeah, I’d say it is.”

Peter actually rolls his eyes. She’d laugh at him if she wasn’t so damn uncomfortable right now.

“Okay, scoot over.” MJ slides off the armrest and into the space between it and Peter, who shifts to his right to accommodate. She considers throwing her legs over his lap, like she tends to do when they’re studying together, but that feels insensitive here. Instead, she leans an arm against the back of the couch and rests her chin on her hands. Peter shifts again to face her better. “You’re busy. Of course you’re busy, you’re a high school junior with a secret identity who spends one evening a week in a lab with Tony Stark. Are you telling me Ned broke up with you because you’re busy?”

That doesn’t feel right either. MJ likes to think she’s good at sussing out people’s problems, even though she couldn’t care less about most of them, and she’s pretty sure she’s not on the money yet.

In a small voice, Peter says, “No. I...I did.”

“What?” “I…broke up with him because I can’t be the boyfriend he deserves.”

For the love of God. Seriously? Does Peter even know what he’s like around Ned? Does he even realize how fucking disgustingly in love with him Ned is?

It doesn’t matter how busy he is, not to Ned. Not if the amount of time the boy spends talking about Peter is anything to go by.

“Peter. You have to be joking.”

He shrinks in on himself, just a little. “It’s for the best! Ned deserves better and -”

MJ smacks him with a throw pillow. Peter jumps, then shoots her a look that’s two parts affronted and one part abashed. Good. At least he still has some sense. “Who are you to decide what Ned deserves? Or what he wants?” “I -” Peter’s hands wave around as he tries to figure out what to say. “Look, he was mad because I didn’t tell him that I got hurt on patrol, again, and he hates when I’m not upfront about this stuff, and I just - I got defensive and then we were fighting and I kept thinking...”

Here it is, whatever’s really going on.

“I kept thinking that all I do is - is fuck up, in this relationship and in general, and I’m - I’m stupid, and I’m not funny or cool, and I don’t know how to be a good boyfriend, and no one should be stuck with me -”

Oh.

That’s what this is.

Peter’s not a dumbass, he’s just insecure.

(Well, no, he’s still a dumbass. But that’s unrelated.)

MJ’s not good at comforting people, but she is good at telling it like it is. And she’d never say this to Ned, because all it would do is enable him, but Peter’s objectively the best person she’s ever met.

“You know I’m not one to sugarcoat, Parker, so believe me when I say that every single word that just came out of your mouth is false.” When Peter opens his mouth, she raises her eyebrows as if to say do you really want to fight me on this? His jaw clamps shut. “Well, except for the bit about being cool - you’re not, but you make up for it.”

Peter lets out a short laugh.

“Do you know how much Ned talks about you?” she continues, lightly kicking Peter’s ankle. He kicks her back and MJ barely refrains from shoving his shoulder just hard enough to make him fall back on the couch. “He literally never shuts up about you, it’s kind of annoying. Actually, it’s really annoying, because he’s not even saying anything big or important. It’s just Peter’s so wonderful, he brought me a Hershey’s Kiss today or Peter caught a spelling error in my English homework, I love him so much.”

Her imitation of Ned is spot-on, if she does say so herself. Peter’s seemingly too caught up in blinking away tears to notice, though.

“He adores you, Peter. Like, it’s gross how much he adores you. I’d say I don’t understand why, but I kind of do.” It’s almost definitely the nicest thing she’s ever said to him. “So don’t be an idiot and lose him because you somehow think you’re a bad person or something, even though every single person you’ve ever met thinks you’re a saint. Even Flash does, he just won’t admit it.” This gets a real laugh. It’s sort of teary and harsh, but it’s a real laugh.

Hm. Maybe she’s not so bad at this after all.

Peter leans forward, gently dropping his cheek onto the top of MJ’s head. He doesn’t try to hug her, fully aware that MJ doesn’t do hugs, but he presses a kiss into her hair and murmurs, “Thanks, MJ.”

“Yeah, yeah, no problem, loser. Now go call your boyfriend.”

Peter stays for just a few seconds, then moves, grabbing his phone from the coffee table and wiping tears from his eyes as he heads to his bedroom.

MJ hears him say, “Hey, Ned, can we talk?” before he shuts the door, and thinks, My work here is done.

[pankopop]

(Dis)Content Creators

Youtubers, 2014’s lasting models of Harrasment, and how the internet is suddenly a lot more left than you’d think.

(Note: pardon the messy mishmash of Unicѻde characters here and there, I’d rather not be part of the witch hunt for masturbatory mass-debαting, and I find flying under the S.E.O. radar helps that endeavor.)

Recently, Јѻntroп’s been acting the right dick. He’s never been the smartest cookie, and it’s not his paid job to be the shining example of internet public figuredom. But people are kinda reasonably pissed about his “whats wrong about locking refugees out lol” tweetstorm of late. And a lot of it, I’m sure, is a kind of disappointment. There’s a lot of people out there who look up to him, know his life story, and I guess for some reason expected more compassion from him.

To be honest, this isn’t super surprising to anyone who’s familiar with the circles of the Youtube creators. While there’s lots of crossover, and some inevitable bickering here and there, you can roughly feel out the corners of the map.

There’s a contingent of mostly fairly funny and talented animators who met on Nҽwgrѻunds and ended up on Youtube (which ended up sucking for said animators). It’s a tremendous shame that the general humor of the group turned so obsessively toward “Fҽmιnαzϊ SЈש censorship” and anti-sheeple insular rhetoric. But nonetheless, they and Јѻn ended up being quite close knit, and yeah, of course he was going to be a bit emboldened.

Јѻn has always been a bit politically green – I remember him in a podcast (might have been one of the old TGS Co-Optionαl podcasts) where he was trying to defend his claim that people shouldn’t get mad about videogame representations of women, with a woman present. It was like watching a cat fight its collar. He was a consequence free child of the 2007 internet age where “rape” and “retarded” were words to throw out for shock effect. He ended up on rҽddιt, the magical internet island of lost boys who never grow up. Women aren’t oppressed, racism is over, yadda yadda.

In turn, a symbolic partnership with Sӑrgѻп of Ѧkҟӓd, a non-face of gӑṃеrgatҽ, was nothing special. It doesn’t take much to join in the circle jerk; tweet about cultish sheeple being racist toward MEN and you’ve earned yourself a seat.

Still, how dangerous can the partnership of such a pop icon and a chin stroking self-acclaimed genius of a cock get? How will this play out?

To be honest, I think it’s been playing out since it began. It got us into this political mess, and remains the swarming gadflies of twitter we know and love today.

MECHANISMS OF THE GATE

This cybercultural partnership between pop culture and the rҽichwing should remind us about the ways in which Gӑṃеrgatҽ still affects the current political climate, specifically in online spheres. Notably, it’s interesting to see the cultural attitudes remain the same. Even in the face of finding something absolutely ridiculous to defend, the urge to take the pseudo-philosophical discѻurse to fucking prove intellectual superiority™ is apparently too delicious.

During my Bachelor, I researched that 2014 pissbaby fiasco to death. I would work it in to whatever essay I could, and for a while compulsively hoarded every available peer- reviewed article on online-shittiness-culture I could find. Something I wrote a lot about when I was filtering through gӑṃеrgatҽ’s language was not only a unified lexicon of insult, posturing, and argumentation, but a specific frameworks and ideologies of rationality.

Almost all of gӑṃеrgatҽ was hinged on insisting on two things:

-Race doesn’t exist, it’s not a thing, so stop making it a thing. If you’re talking about race, then you’re using PoC as an argumentative crutch, and surely no better than a racist. Erasure must occur, because I don’t want to have to defend my view that whiteness is normalcy.

-Gender does exist, it’s binary, and all common-sense differences between genders are rooted in biological fact. For example, women don’t play real video games because their biological drive for empathy stops them from shooting baddies.

(Queerness, and expression thereof, are often side stepped. Usually lumped into the race category - “gay people have nothing to do with it”. Sometimes lumped into the gender category, as often non-normative heteromasculinity is seen as performed.)

Regarding race, it is an argument of who belongs. Regarding gender, it is an argument of who is superior. These tenets of social structure in the world of “whoever debates wins” are still smeared across the comment sections of the world today. It’s only been two and a half years. The people who felt empowered in the gӑṃеrgatҽ movement will hold these attitudes close. 

It appears to me that the biology-backed “common-sense” ideologies regarding gender superiority remain at wild play here. It’s a language of caricatures, and the SЈש is a woman.

The ideological transposition seems to go like this:

The woman, who lacks rationality, and is more prone to emotional outbursts of empathy. is not endowed, biologically, with the clearheaded, objective rationality of men. Therefore, even their empathy is comparatively feigned and weightless, and like the difference between a three year old crying over spilt milk vs. a grown man’s grievance over the death of a loved one.

The thing about worldviews like this is that once the first egg becomes a chicken, it doesn’t take long for the chicken to lay an egg.

Where maybe at first, the SЈש was a kind of woman, but types and tokens blur. All women become likely SЈשs. Women become SЈשs when they have a point that doesn’t align with a man. Eventually, the SЈש is just the woman out of line, refusing to virtuously lick the philosopher-king’s boots and parrot their objectivities.

But this accusation would be an affront to a gӑṃеrgatҽ-minded uberṃҽinsch! Pure sexism actually! Who’s talking about gender here!? We were only talking about how SЈשs are unreasonable! YOU’RE the one being sexist.

You can trace some of that same DNA of the Discѻurse™ around the refugee crisis. As soon as you reframe/move the goalposts of a racist problem to a Nationality problem, then you cannot by definition be islamophobic, because you’re not talking about humans anymore. You’re talking geography. Even though you did just totally say something incredibly racist, it doesn’t count cuz the tweet was deleted.

I’ve seen the term “Virtue Positioning” being tossed around recently. It’s interesting to note that as the subjects for debate get bloodier and messier and death counts become necessarily attributed to it, the goobermeinsch’s rebuttal is that empathy is sidestepping the issue. Who cares if people die, the important part is I’m taking you to town in INTELLECTUAL CHESS! WHOO! (It matters not that I will only frame the debate in ways where I win).

The positioning that’s actually going on is ideological frameworks of gender being set up so that the left is female, the right is male, and therefore the right wins. It’s what fuelled gӑṃеrgatҽ in 2014, and I guess the tactic’s effective enough to keep around.

“WHATEVER-DUDE” SOLUTIONS

What do you do when confronted then? I feel it would be pointless bringing this similarity up and leaving it hanging. If there’s been two years of resisting this harassment, then there’s gotta be some methods to employ.

When you’re asked to play house-rules calvinball, you know that you’re not going to win any medals. What can debate possibly hope to accomplish right now?

“Whatever dude. Have a good life.”

We are not here to debate. We are here to donate. We are here to protest. We are here to resist.

(DISCLAIMER: I mean, for god’s sake listen to the people who have legitimate problems and call-outs. Intersectionality is not divisive, it is the all-too-frayed twine that will unite people together, and everyone resisting would do well to strengthen our bonds with allies by throwing out our fuckhead perceptions about immutable goodness of the ego.)

The march does not halt to win over a “well AAAAaactually...” Your arguments belong with the demanding of accountability. Your energy should be spent doing what you can to help those who you can help. Internet progressives, just do your thing. Be there for the oppressed, and win the day - or as many days you can.

The Right’s not winning people over right now – when you get what you want out of a scam, you don’t hang around and try to patch up friendships. The thing about supporting and defending fascism is that before long, they turn you into an outsider. It doesn’t matter who you are, if your eyebrows are a bit too thick you’ll become a muslim. Your sexual deviancy makes you dangerous. Your chronic illness makes you a leech. Could just be a wrong place, wrong time. No matter how many boots you lick, they will step on you.

Sooner or later, people will see the trouble they’re in. They’ll convert. The Right’s numbers are always borrowed. Until that point, we’re gonna look real cultish to the cult. That’s how cults work: the world’s gone to shit and you’re the only “sane” ones.

YOUR HEROES ARE LEFT

There’s at least one silver lining to this cross-section of internet personality and this general craziness: a good majority of Youtube personalities know what’s up. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen a lot of people drop the apolitical guise. It’s not that they were centrists before - talking politics was just dodgy in the industry. But there’s a healthy amount of “fuck it” right now, and I’m happy for all of those sore, long-bitten tongues. I’m glad there’s enough of a contingent of generally older, 20+ viewers and consumers and patrons to send words of support and relief that their podcast hosts aren’t ทαzi sympathizers. There’s still a wall of sludge, but skins are being quickly hardened.

I’m most happy for all the kids. All of those 15 year olds who thought they were on the culture war’s hateful winning side, to wake up one day and their twitter feed is filled with distressed, active, and empathetic people. Marching and resisting.

Although it’s certainly not the entire story, a lot of these personalities are looked up to. They are the adults who “get” videogames, who talk about Anime and comic books – they’re 2017’s equivalent to the cool record shop owner in the 70’s who introduces you to punk.

I hope this “fuckit” storm shattered a lot of assumptions, and I hope that it spurs a reconsidering of the places where the good stuff on the internet comes from. (Hint: it’s not hatred).