#honestly this is why i love when people tell me when i do things they dont like and hate it when they just grit their teeth and bear it

[burgerrat]

Harley Sawyer x Reader

NOTE: reader is gender-neutral. Scenarios are often sporiadic.

( Because there's little to none and it upsets me greatly how out of character people write him as or label him as yandere, in the few writings there are about him. So I'm going to try my hardest to keep him strictly canon. )

Pre-Experiment 1354.

At first he might come across as grouchy, irritable even.

Then, there is interest. Genuine interest. He wants to study you, see what makes you tick.

Realistically, Harley seems to be quite literally incapable of caring about anyone that isn't himself in a normal way most would expect. His form of feeling 'love', in his mind, is really just a sugarcoated form of saying "I need you alive, you are useful and resourceful to keep."

He does not feel love in the traditional way, that doesn't mean he doesn't care for you. He just does not feel.

His way of showing love is through acts of service, verbal affirmations and gift-giving. He keeps a list of what you like, your interests, and important dates.

Complimenting him or any sort of praise instantly sends dopamine in his brain. Inflating his ego. Automatically in his best mood.

And boy is he smug. He doesn't even attempt to hide it.

He'll keep a facade, perhaps not even tell you about the kind of 'workplace' he's part of at Playtime Co., he needs you to trust him, and you can trust him! He needs you.

Although he uses emotional manipulation, it is not done with malicious intent. He seeks to build a meaningful relation with this person that he wants by his side.

You can sometimes tell he's very... robotic with his behaviour, his gentle voice can only make his charm go so far.

But god does he try, he doesn't even get mad and threaten you for forgetting to take out the sweet pickles in his sandwich! Instead politely reminding you that he dislikes them😁

His perception of having a partner is a very alien concept to him. It feels like focusing on his work for another Bigger Bodies Iniciative experiment, there's that same passion behind to get to know you. He carefully constructs a face to seem normal for you, and studies your behaviour in the back of his mind. Observes you, takes note of what you tell him, etc.

He acts like he's studying a future guinea pig for Playtime Co., honestly. Yet the thought of using you never even crossed his mind.

Physical contact is another thing that feels alien to him, you can feel him stiffen when you hug him, he remains frozen for a few seconds before reciprocating. You can get a small glimpse of his almost-robotic attempt to recreate genuine human emotion. He'd start sputtering incoherently when you'd suddenly give him a peck on the lips.

"No, don't worry, you don't need to ask for my consent, I allow it, you and only you are allowed. I was simply unprepared."

You of course get concerned everytime he freezes or doesn't respond right away, thinking you've crossed boundaries since he noticeably grows tense. But he's always reassured you that he does not mind, he merely gets surprised.

The one time you've managed to aggravate him is by being so insistent on making sure he was consenting because of his initial reactions. He wouldn't audibly admit "Yes I like you holding my hand, hugging me, kissing me." But he WILL angrily tell you something along the lines of "I do cherish your displays of affection. Believe me, you will know if something upsets me."

It's a half-joke half-genuine warning. He's aware of his inability to get along with most people because of his anger.

With you... he's making an attempt to be less volatile. Even at work his shift in behaviour is noticeable when he thinks of you.

He genuinely struggles to grasp the concept of why he'd allow himself to have a loved one at all, having internal fights with himself about the 'pointlessness' of it, realizing the hypocricy of it given his disgust at others for feeling sympathy for his experiments.

He eventually comes to terms that he is allowed to have a loved one because he deserves to be appreciated for his work and how hard it is to share his workspace with people who are objectively inferior and incompetent.

He makes sure to keep this relationship secretive as humanly possible. The last thing he needs is for Leith or anyone at Playtime Co. to discover he has a weakness. He has a loved one too.

Although he doesn't show it, and you need constant reminders from him, that he does enjoy physical contact, he's just kind of like a ragdoll. He allows it but doesn't often reciprocate, and when he tries to- it's often awkward and very automatic like he's trying to copy what you're doing, he prefers to recieve contact rather than giving it. Again, it's another thing that fuels his ego.

He doesn't understand you fully, your compassion, your display of emotion, your sympathy.

And it's what draws him further in, mixed with disgust at how 'lovable' you are. It makes him question himself (not in a moral/self-reflection way, oh no no no, more of a 'why do I like this? This is counterproductive for my work. But I like it.' way) and it makes him question human nature, what it is that draws us to seek closure in such a way towards one another.

He might get vocal about that. And you're going to end up getting a semi-pessimistic philosophy lesson, all because you wanted to cuddle.

Post-Experiment 1354.

Remember his ragdoll-non reciprocative behaviour when you'd initiate physical contact? Suddenly he regrets not having indulged you more often, or asked for more.

Probably laughs at himself over the irony of how he didn't value simple things he had daily access to, and now that has been taken away, and he resents that.

Should you be able to find him in this state, in however way you managed to dig so deep into the foundation to find him, and should you be able to still see him with the same eyes you did before even in the state he's in, discovering what he'd done. Well, you'll make his (metaphorical) jaw drop.

After the shock, there is an uncharacteristic fear. Because of the Prototype, it must know you are here just as well as he does, but it does not know your connection to him, and he must keep it that way.

You refuse to go? He'll go on a long-winded monologue about himself (of course), how stupid one must be to refuse to run away from danger, proudly boasts about his work, it's purpose, long story-short: he fully tears off the mask. Because what he wants is to get you out. He doesn't want you to leave him, but you are useless to him if you are dead.

You want to stay? Even after all of this? With the state that he's in? Being only a brain, lungs and liver inside Vital System Center machines?

He laughs. Starts genuinely pondering your sanity, and survival instincts.

As you approach the large machinery containing his mind, visible through the glass, his laughs grow silent. Waiting.

"Do you think yourself a hero? Coming to rescue the beast?" He'd condescendingly ask you to break the silence, dead-serious and mildly irritated that you'd be that stupid to risk your own survival for him.

"I don't. You deserved it."

Silence. Then, laughter booming through the lab.

"My, my! And here I thought you were always such an understanding golden heart. What happened to the old Y/N?"

You two argue. He's very mad at you for being so stubborn on staying with him even though now you know in full detail of just how evil he is. As if your relationship with him can ever go back to normal like before.

You are within his grasp, in his lab, deep down an abandoned toy factory. He could turn you into his next, newest experiment, he could feed you to Yarnaby, he could dissect you and keep you alive just like himself.

Yet he doesn't.

Something in his evil, metaphorical heart stirs.

You, the only person that he could tolerate. Could get along with. That he felt... something for. Something worth keeping.

"I've missed you."

Make no mistake, he says that with absolute seething spite. He hates the sentence he just uttered from the speakers.

But alas, it is a bitter truth.

Silence

...

He can't feel per-say your arms wrap awkwardly around the giant machinery containing his mind, but he sees it through his cameras, ever so-intently observing you; he heard it, as your clothes' fabric brushed and pressed against the metal.

Another incredulous laughter rasped from the speakers.

Though he can't feel it, it... warms him, in a way, that you still somehow find it possible to 'love', to care.

"I wonder... perhaps, somewhere deep down, we share a kinship of depravity? Or maybe you're just blindly loyal as my dear Yarnaby?" He'd playfully mock.

One thing is for certain though: you intrigue him. He doesn't understand you, your affections towards him, and it makes him want to keep studying you.

His mechanical vessels are a bit trickier to 'cuddle' with, if at all. You're welcome to try, Harley won't stop you, just be careful not to open a wound that'll require stitches.

He does appreciate the effort. And this time, unlike when he was human, he initiates contact first.

His hand reaches for yours, guides you to touch his screen. Although he can't feel it, he tries recreating the sensation in his mind.

You hear him sigh often when he feels content. And/or hum.

He might grumble incoherently in the typical old man fashion and try to pick at you in his typical, eloquent way of speaking, if you try to point out his hypocrisy towards his carelessness for others having loved ones.

[artinventor]

So after watching 8x17 I was informed that originally Dean was supposed to say “I love you” in the crypt instead of “I need you” but tbh the change makes more sense to me and might even be even worse than if he said “love”. Dean shows his love in everything he does, shows it plenty with everything he was doing in purgatory, but for him to not only NEED you but to admit it,,,

“I need you” was was more powerful and more in character for both of them cuz:

1. I don’t think at this point cas understands human emotion fully or human love for that matter, he’s certainly learning it more as the seasons go on, but it’s not something he’s familiar with right now. So unless dean elaborated more, which he wouldn’t, would he really know what that meant. even though he wouldn’t admit it, dean is actually so caring towards everyone, cas could easily think he could mean any type of love that isn’t special to him. Honestly considering his absent father and the fact that he’s a soldier with no army, which used to be his only purpose, he wants to be needed. Just looking at hippie cas, he turned into that cuz he lost his powers and felt useless.

2. dean is not one that tells people that, he just shows it, and he was already showing it. He never told Lisa he loved her even when he was with her as a stand in husband/father to her son for a whole year, he barely even tells Sam that he loves him and that’s his brother. Also considering who he is and how stubborn he is it’s really rare and means a lot for HIM of all people to say he “needs” you. Dean’s abandonment issues kinda rejects the idea of needing someone, and growing up the way he did, he doesn’t trust easily. Love is a risk, but needing someone is just full on vulnerability. Also it’s just insane cuz it’s like why do you need him dean? surely you’re not doing all that just cuz his angel powers are useful

Though this IS the second time dean said he needs cas, he said it in purgatory earlier in the season as well. Both times he’s pleading with cas, the first time to try and get him to go with him and escape purgatory together and the second time he’s trying to get through to him past the mind control. The second time being in a much more romantic context. He does say that they’re family before saying it, but then he says “we need you” and changes it to “I need you” which is the main thing that really does it. THEN after he breaks through it, dean asks what broke the connection and they’re both clueless, if it was purely platonic wouldn’t cas, being as blunt and factual as he is, just say that it’s because of their friend/family bond?

[rottenpumpkin13]

I'm miserable today so I'll be casting my period cramps upon AGSZC and the Turks. How does that go?

Sephiroth: *curled in fetal position on the floor* "This is manageable. The spasms occur at precise 4.7-minute intervals, meaning I can anticipate and prepare—" *Suddenly, a period cramp electrocutes him like a bolt from Zeus himself. His entire body convulses, limbs flailing as he flops helplessly against the floor like a fish out of water*

Genesis: *sprawled dramatically across the couch, one arm draped over his forehead like a dying opera singer* "Even in the throes of agony, my elegance remains untarnished. My composure, unshaken. This pain—this merciless, soul-rending torment—threatens my very being, a cruel reminder of life's fleeting—" *he gets a cramp* "FUUUUUUUUUUUCK—HOLY SHIT. I AM PERISHING. I AM BEING SMITED BY THE GODDESS HERSELF. THIS IS HOW I DIE. CALL A PRIEST, CALL A SUMMON, CALL MY FUCKING LAWYER—"

Angeal: *pacing the room like a man with somewhere very important to be but no idea where that is, visibly sweating* "I'm fine. Totally fine. This is nothing. This is...just a different kind of honor. Builds character. Toughens the spirit."

Zack: *writhing on the floor* "MAKE IT STOP! HOW DO PEOPLE LIVE LIKE THIS!?" *He reaches for Cloud like he's the holy light at the end of the tunnel* "Cloud, buddy, I'm dying. Tell my mom I fought bravely. Tell Genesis he can have my cool jacket. Tell Kunsel—" *he gasps, clutching at his chest like a tragic protagonist* "—actually, don't tell him anything, he still owes me 500 gil fuck him—"

Cloud: *frantically mixing things in a bowl while doubled over* "Mom always said when the gods curse your gut, you mix honey with hot sauce and vinegar, but it HAS to be bought with your own hard earned money. Then add exactly three and a half crushed potato chips—regular chips summon bad luck, has to be the rippled ones—stir it with a fork that's NEVER touched eggs, and then you—" *Cloud suddenly doubles over, clutching his stomach as the wrath of the gods strike him down* "Oh no. Oh no, they saw me hesitate!"

Reno: *draped over his desk* "This is worse than that time Cissnei tasered me 'cause she thought I was checking out her ass—when really, I was just picking up a gil coin she dropped. Which, now that I think about it, means I technically stole from her. So honestly? She should've tasered me anyway. Yo, Rude! Carry me to the break room! I need like... fifty painkillers and that bottle of sake Tseng thinks we don't know about!"

Tseng: *sits at his desk, spine straight as a ruler, expression unreadable, the very picture of composure—if you ignore the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead and the barely perceptible tremor in his hand as he sips his tea* This is the same man who once reviewed mission reports with both legs in casts. Who attended a board meeting while actively bleeding from a bullet wound. Who once politely asked an enemy combatant to "wait a moment" so he could finish signing off on supply requisitions before engaging in a life-or-death fight.

Rufus: *sprawled out on his office floor like a fallen king* "Cancel all my meetings. Actually, cancel the whole damn week. No, cancel existence. This is worse than getting shot. Worse than the attempted coup. Worse than that time I had to shake hands with that sweaty politician from Junon. Someone bring me the most expensive chocolate money can buy. And fire whoever invented cramps." *A long silence. Then, he turns his head slightly to stare at Tseng* "Why don't you love me?"

[menlove]

youve probably answered this before but what DO you think is the most realistic version of what went down?? like do you think paul misinterpreted john's hints or that john never made it clear enough to paul how he felt? i know theres no way to know but you have such a good grasp on their personalities and this seriously might haunt me forever lkadjf

i actually don't think i have ! i wrote a lil speculative Thing about what things would look like if paul were queer and closeted (which is what i think) and that interpretation but never specifically this question but...

this is long and rambly but have my thoughts lmfao

basically To Me i do think they had some sort of sexual relationship. to me it's honestly the most likely scenario given the..... everything. their interactions with each other, some of their songs about each other ("i used to hold you in my arms"), the way things blew up so spectacularly, etc. and my reasoning there is mostly that. we know already that they had really loose sexual boundaries with each other. they jerked off together, they fucked women in the same room together & allegedly together as well. and already just those two/three things constitute as a sexual relationship, but not smth they would've seen as one.

but i do think they did more than that. i mean, it doesn't really matter if they did more than that, the rest of what i'm gonna speculate stands even if all they ever did was jerk off together and fuck women together, but like... aside from the like Mountains of evidence that there was something there, i just think it makes sense w their personalities. john isn't the type of person to have self-restraint and i don't think paul, especially when he was younger, would've turned john down. i think if john was into men (which he was, we know this) and if he was into paul (incredibly likely) then he would've made a move. and i think if he made a move and got rejected he would have raised hell, and that never happened.

i think they probably started doing shit together (again, the extent of that is debatable) and they absolutely did Not think of it as being anything queer. i couldn't tell you the mental loops they tied themselves in there, but i have Some thoughts just based on who they are. i think john probably passed it off as like "a hand's a hand, a mouth's a mouth" type of thing (which is hilariously something yoko talks about him saying in her audio diary during the white album sessions). and i think paul probably saw it (& any other things he was doing with men, if he did) as something fun that feels good and isn't something he needs to like look into deeply. i think neither of them would've thought of themselves as queer, bc they probably thought of queerness as very binary- you're either gay or you're straight. and they both were into women (.....ostensibly) so they couldn't be gay. i think john like realized, on some level, that he was queer and Hated it about himself for a very long time and only started coming to grips with it towards the end of his life. i think paul eventually came around to it but by that time he was married to linda (& if rumors are to believed, possibly having threesomes with her and men lmfao) & i don't think he would Ever want to come out publicly even if he's out privately (which i do think he is).

so why didn't they get together? why is paul so insistent that john was straight and not in love with him? i think they just genuinely never talked about it. ever. like i don't think they had that conversation. if neither of them were gay and their sexual relationship was just john and paul things, there wasn't any need to talk about it. queerness was more acceptable for the young. not in an open sort of way, absolutely not, but in the way that they could tell themselves they'd grow out of it, they were just messing around, etc.

i think things got harder when brian died- he died queer, alone, and in a situation that a lot of people thought was suicide. and ofc, we know the band didn't think it was suicide, and i don't think it was either, but that's the kind of thing that sticks in the back of your mind. esp if you're like john who had a lot of mystical/magical thinking. i think it was a bit of a wake up call. time to grow up. i think they both thought they were each the Only one dealing with actual queer feelings & attraction to the other and were soooo sure the other one was just straight and fucking around. which probably hurt, quite a bit, but wasn't something they wanted to look at anyway.

and when john got with yoko and got serious with her, i think that was the bubble bursting. cynthia was different. they got together so young, he never made her a priority, he cheated on her constantly, belittled her, didn't have a place for her by his side bc he carved that space out exclusively for paul. and you can tell that just by the amount of quotes paul has about john marrying yoko being the catalyst, about it being time to grow up, etc which is insane considering he was already married and so were george and ringo. for years. so it was something deeper than that. and it's bc he was actually taking yoko seriously. paul's spot as john's primary partner got filled by a woman. who john was genuinely in love with, not like cynthia which was a marriage fueled by the age old tale of an unplanned pregnancy and comphet. and paul can't argue with that. like....... if he viewed what they were doing as messing around as kids, with john being straight and him being the one pining, he wouldn't want to fuck up john's chance at a Normal Straight Love. if he were a girl, he could, but he wasn't. what he Could do was match him and grow up too. cue the immediate pivot to get married and have children, eventually fulfilled in linda.

but i don't think he expected the band to implode just bc they stopped being so close in whatever manner. but it did. along with other reasons, obviously- there's a million reasons the band broke up, but i think they could've weathered it if they had kept the closeness they'd had at the beginning. or if they'd been single or even if they'd just kept viewing each other as their primary partner aside from their wives.

i think they both came to terms with what they actually meant to each other in the 70s, but they never actually... told each other. what we have from john is jealous guy, which paul was allegedly told was about him, and that demo version of real love that paul never even heard where he laments about him having a baby/farm and how he used to hold him. there's also (just like) starting over, but that one's easy to see as being for yoko too and paul wouldn't have thought twice about it. then you have now & then and real love, which were on that damn tape for paul :( like he literally didn't hear them until after john died and we know he likes the idea that now & then is about him but even then he doesn't sound totally convinced

for paul we have a lot. but a lot of his like more vulnerable songs were only released after john died. like here today, obviously, but there's also some pretty telling ones that john never would've heard (like best friend, which he played live, but wasn't on any album until 2018. or a more of a Stretch of one but i 100% think is about john, hey diddle, which was kept off ram and only released in 2001).

so like i think they very much both came to grips with the fact that they had been in love with each other, but they never really.... thought that could be returned. so ofc paul's going to say shit like how he likes the theory that john was in love with him or wrote now & then about him. but he doesn't believe it, because to him john was Genuinely straight and he was the weird one. and vice versa. i think i saw a more recent thing from him coming around more on the idea of john being bi, but honestly i think that's just hard for him to come to grips with bc what the hell are you supposed to do with that? like yeah, he was into men, possibly even romantically, on a genuine level, just not him? that's hurtful. i don't think he wants to think of that option. bc that's more likely to him than the idea that john was in love with him and hiding it the whole time. which is also heartbreaking. bc then it's just a tragedy of circumstances and missed chances- which is what i think it was. and neither of those routes are something i think he wants to consider, so john has to be straight in his mind.

but if he's coming around on that, he's probably coming around on one of those two options. i hope it's the latter bc the idea that he'd think even now that john never loved him is just so fucking sad. and considering his comments about now & then, as well as the lyrics video for now & then, i really do think the latter is more likely.

anywayyyyy tl;dr i think they fucked around sexually in Some Way, never said a single thing romantically, both came to terms w their feelings in the 70s but by then it was too late and they didn't think the other one would reciprocate anyway, and now paul's been trying to come to grips w the ambiguity of their relationship for the last 40+ years.

[mychlapci]

hey chat have we considered accidental forcefemming. this could honestly go for any of the rescue bots but I’m chasebrained rn so here we go. Charlie is looking for chase one day and is checking the bots little secret bunker when he accidentally stumbles on Chase in the wash rack (I’m assuming they have one somewhere down there, at least on their ship) and somehow only sees chase’s valve.

Charlie feels awful, forcing human gender norms onto his partner. he never even asked any of the bots if they were actually male (or at least the bot equivalent)!! he knows how Chase is, as much as the bot is a rule-follower, he (she!) is also a massive people pleaser. She probably just went along with the humans assumptions so she wouldn’t cause a fuss, poor thing. so, Charlie makes a plan: he’ll slowly get Chase used to humans using her pronouns (Chase gets so overwhelmed by change, he really needs to ease her in) and then he’ll tell everyone else!

…unfortunately, he quickly realizes he doesn’t actually use gendered pronouns that often when talking directly to Chase. because that’s how conversations work. so he plans again.

he often called Chase “partner”; so, when they’re on patrol and Chase points out a power line that looks unstable, Charlie says, “nice job, doll” (Charlie is def a guy who calls women doll and I love him for it). Chase’s engine spikes, but he doesn’t say anything. Charlie congratulates himself on his first step towards a happy partner. Chase wonders why his partner is calling him an inanimate object.

Chase does a little research later, and discovers the name is also considered a “pet name” (but it’s not a name used for human animal companions- earth is very strange indeed)…. usually associated with human females. Chase decides to brush it off as a slip of the tongue on Charlie’s part, probably caused by a long patrol.

But it keeps happening.

“Doll” appears a lot; “honey” a few times; “sweetheart”, twice, and both after Chase put himself in danger. Chase wants to pretend it’s not affecting him, but hearing his Chief’s voice sound so worried as he asks “you alright sweetheart?” definitely does something to his spark. and his modesty paneling.

Chase begins to covet his alone time with chief. Charlie is always softer when it’s just the two of them, always asking if he’s feeling alright, asking his opinion, complimenting his polish. Not that he wasn’t doing that before, but somehow, ever since that first pet name, it’s been….. different. Chase feels almost dainty with chief sometimes. He feels… sweeter. He likes when Chief pets his steering wheel when he’s talking about police codes, and when Chief pets his hood when he’s stuck in vehicle mode in front of civilians.

And as these things do, they escalate.

Chief is walking through the bunker when he spots Chase, rubbing his face with a cloth trying to get a spot off his faceplate. Charlie pauses, thinking about where his other kids are. He figures they’ll be gone long enough, and walks over to his partner.

“Here, let me get that hon,” he says, and he chuckles quietly at the little blue flush that appears. Chase obediently gets on his knees and leans down so Charlie can reach him, and as Chief gently rubs his car’s face down, he coos when he hears the little purr Chase’s engine is making.

“Aww, what a sweet girl”, he says, and Chase, a pile of goo, just gently nods along.

He’s still a little confused, but he also just shakes it off and lets himself relax under Charlie’s ministrations. If his Chief decides he’s a girl, then he guesses he’s just a girl :)))

[this is way less sexual than I intended but if we all imagine hard enough it will be. good night and god bless and also ignore all typos im painting my nails while typing this]

omg... chief burns calling chase "doll" is literally so hot actually. chase might feel a little offended at first, sure they’re pretending to be machines but the chief doesn’t have to compare him to a malleable inanimate toy. but after all his research and the tons of detective noir movies and books he watches and reads, he’ll quickly get the hang of human pet names. he gets it now, chief is being nice to him, he’s being affectionate. he thinks of chase as his girl, his doll, his sweetheart. so yeah, she’ll be the chief’s girl. his baby and honey.

[spring-siblings]

@februaryfridayevents 2025 - Connection | Isolation

I am not in love with you, but you, my friend, I want to tell you everything. Long ago I was afflicted with a terrible predisposition to never say a word, and I honestly cannot understand why or how that happened. C’est la vie. But there is something about you that makes me wish I could speak like you do—I’ve watched you from afar and you really are the best person that I have met in my whole life. You possess the ability to make people listen to you without question, even if you don’t often use it. I almost want to be you. Does that make any sense? I bet it doesn’t. I’m just rambling on. I’m sorry. Anyway. I hope, when one day we meet again, you will listen to me, and pay attention. I do not have anyone else to whom I could say these things. You might not even be listening now. Then again, you do not have to listen if you do not want to. Who am I to make you do anything? I’m not, I’m nothing. But you—oh, you—why, I’d listen to you for hours. - Universe City, ep 1, dark blue

[chanrizard]

I'm kinda grateful for div1 because they're a good scapegoat whenever one is needed. They protect the artists in a sense because like, if Jisung actually wasn't comfortable showing his tattoos, he can say it's div1 and then fan feelings won't be hurt! Other examples, dating ban, everyone knows idols do secretly date and such, and officially people say "the dating ban is gross! It's to sell creepy fans the idea of their idol being available!" But also the dating ban is a protective shield because if creepy fans come up to idols they can say sorry I don't date I'm not allowed. While secretly they do date but officially no. Other example, jyp artists can say "sorry we're not allowed to say anything political" and it's bc div1 is censoring them and then they don't get hate from either side, because normally people would say "silence is taking the side of the oppressors!" Etc but they can't bc it's not the artists it's div1. And the artists don't choose who to collab with, it's management! Stuff like this means idols don't get hated on for random stuff which I support. I think asking Hanji to show his body in the first place is invasive, puts him in an awkward spot and it's good that he has div1 to fall back on. It could also be that they're really the ones stopping him but in the case that it wasn't I'm grateful things were resolved this way

see but the thing is, he's not uncomfortable showing off his tattoos, he's not uncomfortable talking about them, he's never been uncomfortable showing his body either before when it's something he's worked hard on and he's proud of.

he said on a live their staff didn't want him to tell us he'd gotten tattooed, he told us he is not allowed to show them, he did it anyway and it was just a glimpse mind you, and the first thing he said after the fanmeeting was that he was promptly scolded for it.

why can't people take what he says -what all the members say really- at face value, what on earth could he possibly gain from lying about this, when all the kids have always been pretty straightforward all things considered and the profession they're in about what they can and cannot do, and when saying or doing something out of line gets them scolded, and when they know damn well how vicious their fans can be.

I believe changbin when he says the staff wasn't happy with him bulking up and eating healthy and told him to cut it out and he said fuck this. I believe seungmin and changbin when they say the staff doesn't want them to mention they drink sometimes, when other idols in their same company have never had this problem (see: nmixx's members getting drunk and no one batting an eye. so what's different? same company different management)

and about the political thing, again lily lives anyone?

Also what does the dating ban have to do with this they haven't mentioned that in years if ever?

As for the collabs i honestly think it's 50/50, i was talking about this with tay this morning and it's actually plausibile they got into That project with the best intentions and were super hyped and then they realized a couple of things, reevaluated some others, and decided that maybe it was a mistake. They've never mentioned that song again outside of the mandatory promo period and it was always in a very luckluster way.

And tbf nobody asked han to show his body, he brought it up on his own.

But the point of this whole thing, and i think we're missing it here, is it's his (their) choice to do so that's being taken away and for what.

They're being restricted on what they eat to the point they're starving for a photoshoot for fuck's sake, they've been telling lino he has to lose some weight when he's never given a damn before and was so happy to share his love for pudding on bubble and now it's a miseryfest of "ah i'm turning into a piggy" and dieting stuff from the last messages i saw. same with felix, i love him but i cannot tell you enough how uncomfortable it makes me when he starts talking about what he (didn't) eat in a day.

i'm sure there's some good people in div1 and they care for them, or the members wouldn't have defended them in the past, and there's people they're closer with like their personal managers, but i'm also sure lately they haven't been as happy with the staff as a whole as before

so no, i'm not all that grateful to the people managing them right now

[amalthea-13]

Got my nightcore blasting in one ear and still mad about Mastermind so I'mma just info dump here. If you are a Blitz Stan or Defender please understand I do love Blitz, he's honestly one of my favorite characters and Stolitz is my comfort ship. However, disliking things he does doesn't mean I don't like him. I can feel frustrated or struggle with things he does. A complex character makes you feel complex things so it just is a testament to the writers on this show doing a good job with their cast and writing them perfectly. So before going on a rant defending Blitz, just hear me out.

I'll be honest I did not like how quickly Blitz turned lovey-dovey after the trial. The shit hit me like a fuckin chancla to the head and gave me whiplash. The reason I have this issue with Mastermind is purely because it felt so- unfair. Stolas has been struggling to feel validated and seen by Blitz for SO long. I mean that man gave him an Asmodean Crystal, fought to treat him with respect by changing many of his behaviors from S1 to S2, no longer teasing him or calling him pet names. He goes to hell and back multiple times, nearly being killed by Striker and couldn't even get a solid text back from Blitz.

However, the MINUTE he lays his life down, loses his daughter, and gives up any sense of a decent reputation suddenly Blitz gives a fuck. Losing his home, his powers, his family, EVERYTHING, and suddenly Blitz cares about what Stolas wants or needs. It genuinely makes me wanna rattle him around and yell:

"YOU COULD HAVE BEEN HEALTHY AND NICE TO HIM BUT YOU WAIT TILL HES CHRONICALLY DEPRESSED!?"

Like fuck me dude, but he never cared for Stolas before. He consistently dismisses his humanity by cognitively distancing himself from Stolas by just boiling every part of him down to his wealth, stripping him of any and all humanity he remains to have.

Suddenly when Stolas is a husk of his former self and his depression can no longer be hidden by magic or pills, suddenly Blitz cares. I just- I don't know if it's'cause of my own personal trauma, but I hate when people wait till you are at your lowest to give a fuck.

How much more did Stolas have to give for him to care? Or did it have to be his own life? My issue with this part is it perpetuates that Blitz can ONLY humanize those he hurts if they are sad and miserable like him. That the only time you can be loved or seen by him is when you are sad and pathetic, beneath himself. I really hope ya'll are picking up what I'm putting down because I am BEGGING ya'll to stick with me.

Blitz still has his family, his life, his friends, but Stolas has none of those things and SUDDENLY Blitz is further interested in him. Now that he has some pseudo-surperiority- he finds him attractive? He's interested? He wants a deeper relationship?

You can't tell me that doesn't feel so- so backwards right?

Like yeah, wait till the sweet owl man looks like THIS. Oh, yeah, ain't that just fuckin attractive? He's miserable and tried to OFF himself, but no, no that's healthy. It's fine, Amalthea, it's fine that this is the SUDDEN moment Blitz cares. That suddenly he gives a fuck. /sarc

Don't get me started on the fact that before he got to know Stolas he was COMPLETELY fine wrecking a perfectly good (from the exterior) home without considering Octavia, despite being a fucking father himself.

Blitz waits till Stolas is miserable to actually show him an OUNCE of humanity or love or reciprocity.

Yet everyone excuses ALL of his behaviors and problems on his trauma and the pain he has been through, but those same people will call Stolas a deadbeat and terrible person just because he is an awful flirt and a literal DV victim recovering from being COMPLETELY repressed due to the fact that the system that gives him his wealth has worked against him to the point he has no autonomy.

No one seems to ever get why I'm so angry and it's just because- these two have so much potential to work, but at every corner Blitz will make the shittiest decisions and the fandom writes it off as trauma or hurt or whatever, but god forbid Stolas mess up IN SEASON 1 he has to pay for it in Season 2 and be burned at the stake yet while burning at the damn stake the only person he wants to care or worry for him ONLY cares when he is actually set on fucking fire, not bothering to douse the flames or care when he wasn't about to get burned.

I love Blitz, I really, really do, but Mastermind reframed so many of his behaviors for me and made me step back purely because I realized he REALLY does not care unless he can have a false sense of superiority to someone.

I initially said both Stolas and Blitz were at fault for the Full Moon episode, but rewatching the argument I fully blame and fault Blitz for the arguement. Sure Stolas wasn't perfect, but instead of I dunno yelling at the owl man, why don't you- I dunno ASK HIM FOR A MOMENT???

People act like Blitz is some 16 yo teenager, but no thats an ALMOST 40 YEAR OLD MAN WHO CHOOSES TO POORLY COMMUNICATE. He literally could have been uncomfortable and said; "Stolas, this is a lot to process... can I have some time to think? I just- this is a lot."

Stolas wouldn't have forced him to stay! He was willingly letting him go! Blitz complains about the class differences between them but when he tries to fix it suddenly it is a fucking problem?

"But Amalthea, Stolas was hanging his livelihood over his head. He was abusing his power."

See I'd validate that argument and agree with it- IF IT WASN'T ALSO STOLAS'S LIVELIHOOD THE FUCK???? That grimoire was just as important to Stolas as it was to Blitz, more so since it gave him his STATUS, but he WILLINGLY sacrificed all that for Blitz.

Stolas did his due diligence to protect BOTH of them, but yet there is STILL a problem?!

"Stolas made him believe it was just sex between them!!!"

You wanna try again? Do you REALLY want to believe Blitz is so oblivious to this man's advances?

Then explain why he knew Stolas would accept a date to Ozzies. O_O. If Stolas was really just some "ditzy blue blood" to Blitz why would he get dolled up and ready for a date with some measly imp? Why would a Goetic Prince go in public with an imp?

Unless Blitz was FUCKING aware he'd've accepted because he feels so deeply for Blitz. He's so desperately in love he'd do anything to be around him again. Blitz KNEW what he was doing. He KNEW Stolas felt this way, he just chose to be dense and overlook it until it benefited him.

Blitz's insecurities blind a lot of you to the fact he is a CALCULATED and SMART man. Sure, he is a dork who makes us laugh, but he's a CALCULATED dork.

Also I hate to bring up how these two sweetpeas met, but WHO BIT WHO? Who SLEPT WITH WHO WHILE DRUNK?

"But Stolas was flirting with him! He wanted Blitz to sleep with him!"

Yes and no. Initially when Stolas flirts and realizes Blitz wants to sleep with him, he immediately says NO and steps away!

See that kids, that's called a headshake, which means what? Let's all guess now?

NO! IT MEANS NO!

I hate to drive my point this far home, I REALLY do.

Another layer of this is ALL the advances are made my Blitz after Stolas says no.

"Amalthea it's hell! What are you on about morals and consent!?"

Literally because in this situation Blitz had the power. He had the ability to walk away, but started all of this just for his buisness and despite how it all started, Stolas supported him through it all.

It is also before Blitz knows about the abuse and knowing Stolas is a father, still chose to homewreck a family even after Stolas said no.

My point in all of this- anger and frustration is that Stolas has put up with so much of Blitz's BS and stupidity, but only now is Blitz concerned. Only now he gives a damn.

You break into a mans home, sleep with him, rob him, then ruin his life, but you only feel bad when he's lost everything? Sure, that's cool. That's awesome. That's totally fine. /sarc

... this arguement is always hard for me to make, because i just have to watch Stolas be traumatized over, and over, and over and he is always still so sweet and loving to a fucking prick of a man.

Rant over, Amalthea out.

However if you have questions, my ask box is open loves.🩷

Edit 1: While you all can comment, I strongly encourage utilizing my ask box. Moving on I understand ppl may disagree with me. That is okay you're a beautiful individual with your own thoughts and opinions which is fine by me. However please refrain from insulting my intelligence. You can always block me, doesn't hurt my feelings anyway.

[mandalhoerian]

Hey. So, I want to preface this by saying I know I’m just a random user on this platform. I don’t think of myself as someone particularly important, and I’m not trying to be a big deal. I’m just here to write, share what I love, and enjoy fandom like everyone else.

And honestly? I’ve had such a great experience. I’ve got wonderful mutuals that interact with me even though I'm awkward, people who support my work in ways that genuinely mean the world to me, and fandom space(s) that’s been so welcoming. I don’t take that for granted. I really don’t. It's why I'm able to write so much, I want to give back.

Which is exactly why I hesitated to make this post. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, or like I’m complaining for no reason. But I also think this is something worth talking about, because — despite all the wonderful interactions I’ve had — sometimes, there are moments that leave me feeling bad. Not because of outright hate, not because of drama, but because of things like this.

I got an ask recently that seems polite enough. But it left me feeling kind of awful. I don't want to put this user on blast so this isn't a direct answer to their ask and their handle is blurred.

I get why it might seem harmless that even I questioned why it made me feel bad. They’re nice. They say they like my writing. They even acknowledge that I can ignore them if I want. So why am I feeling weird?

They tell me my writing is their favorite among all the stuff they’ve read. And at first, that might seem flattering, right? Nevermind the content-ification of "good stuff" and them deserving equal amount of praise if not more. But here’s the thing — if they actually loved my writing that much, wouldn’t they have supported it in some way?

I checked. They’ve never commented, or reblogged anything I’ve written. Sure, they left a like on fiab. But there’s zero trace of them engaging with my work before this ask. No interaction, no nothing, not even a quick “hey, this was great” in the replies if they couldn't be bothered by reblogging.

So when they say my writing is their favorite, it doesn’t actually feel like praise. It feels like bait. Like they’re just buttering me up so I’ll be more likely to say yes to their request.

They phrase this whole thing in a way that makes it feel like I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi and I'm their only hope.

“I can’t very well ask anyone I know to be my proofreader.”

Why not? Why me specifically? Why someone they’ve never spoken to before instead of a beta reader, a writing group, or literally anyone else?

This is the kind of wording that makes it really hard to say no without feeling like you’re being mean. Like, if I refuse, am I leaving them stranded? Am I crushing their last hope for feedback? The way it’s framed puts all the emotional weight onto me, a total stranger, instead of acknowledging that asking someone to do work for you is already a big request.

And then there’s the way they say:

“You don’t have to read them all—just some (read also: ANY) feedback to let me know if it’s even worth reading would be super awesome.”

This one really got under my skin.

First, the self-deprecation. The whole “if it’s even worth reading” thing. I get it. We all have insecurities about our writing. I just discovered I used the word "shift" like 32 times in my recent work, and "something" even more and I'm twiddling my thumbs about how uncreative I was. English isn't even my first language and I feel lacking every single day.

But the way they phrase it turns it into another pressure point for me. Like, suddenly, I’m not just reading for fun — I’m being tested. I’m the one who has to decide if their writing has value. That’s a LOT to put on someone, especially a stranger.

And second, that little “read also: ANY” bit. It’s a cutesy way of saying “I’m desperate, please read anything,” but it also comes across as pushy. It makes it sound like any amount of effort I give will be acceptable, but what they’re actually doing is making sure I don’t just say no outright. It’s a way of leaving the door open so that even if I don’t want to read all of it, I might still feel pressured into at least glancing at it.

It’s a really subtle way of making it hard to say no while making it seem like they’re being easygoing about it. And I don’t like that.

At the end of the day, the biggest reason this made me feel awful is that it made me feel used.

This person didn’t interact with my work. Didn’t support me in any way. Didn’t talk to me. I don't know them. They didn’t exist in my space until they wanted something from me. Like my writing was good enough to get something from me but not good enough to actually support. And it just sucked the joy out of my day. It leads me to believe they haven't even read the thing and just look at the notes and go, "this user right here".

And listen. I am not against helping people with their writing. I love talking about writing. I love giving feedback. I read a lot, I do my best to reblog and gush about what I like, but it's a bit time consuming since I want to do it long and be thorough. But there’s a huge difference between building a relationship with someone — engaging with their work, supporting each other — and just cold messaging a stranger with a request that only benefits you.

It’s uncomfortable. It puts me in an awkward position where saying no feels rude, even though I never invited this interaction in the first place.

I’m not posting this to be mean. I’m not even mad. I’m just upset.

Because this happens a lot. Writers get messages like this all the time, and it’s exhausting. It makes us feel like we only exist as a resource, not as people. Like our time and energy don’t matter as much as someone else’s desire for validation. And that’s a really shitty feeling.

So if you’re someone who loves a writer’s work and you genuinely want to connect with them? Start by engaging. Reblog their work. Leave a comment. Be a presence in their space. Show them that you care about their writing before asking them to care about yours if that's your goal in the long run.

Because trust me — when you support a writer, when you show up and really engage, you don’t even have to ask for connections or advice or feedback. It happens naturally. Because at that point, it’s not just asking for something. It’s a conversation. A relationship. A real, meaningful exchange.

But if you skip all of that and just go straight to “Hey, I don’t know you, but do this for me” you’re not just making it awkward. You’re making someone feel unseen. And I promise, no writer wants to feel like that.

And to the person who sent this ask, I’m not angry at you. I don’t think you meant harm. But I do need you to understand that this didn’t come across the way you probably intended. I don’t know you. You’ve never interacted with me before this.

On top of all this, proofreading and beta-reading, no matter how hand-wavy, take time. Thought. Effort. And they’re not things you just ask a stranger to do out of nowhere. Writers — especially fic writers who do this for free — are not here to be an on-demand editing service. Beta-reading is not a casual favor. It’s a commitment. It’s work. And when you ask someone you’ve never even interacted with before to do it, without offering anything in return — not even the time you're asking for them to invest in you — it doesn’t feel like a friendly request. It feels like being used.

And that’s what made your message hard to stomach. You didn’t support my work at all — but you still felt comfortable asking me to invest my time and energy into your writing. That’s what makes it feel transactional. That’s what makes it discouraging.

If you’re looking for a beta-reader, there are better ways to go about it. There are writing communities, Discord servers, and fandom spaces specifically for finding people who are open to that kind of exchange. But cold-messaging a stranger — especially without having ever interacted with them — isn’t the way to do it.

Use “Read More” for Long Posts

That said, I really do hope you have a good experience on this site and find your footing as a writer. Since you mentioned being new to Tumblr fics, I want to give you some quick advice to make things easier for both you and your readers. Not the feedback you were looking for or wanted, but one I want to give you anyway. Tumblr has its own rhythm when it comes to fanfiction, and while it’s different from AO3, once you get used to it, it’s a great place to share your work.

Tagging: Always tag the fandom (e.g. #[fandom name] fanfic, [character name] x reader) and the main characters/ships so people searching can find it.

If your fic is over 500 words, Tumblr etiquette is to add a Read More break after a couple paragraphs for "preview". This helps people scroll their dashboards without being overwhelmed by a huge block of text and makes your post look cleaner.

Tagging & Content Warnings Matter

Make sure to tag properly, and/or put the warnings in your author's note before the fic itself. Some people track specific tags, and good tagging helps your fic reach the right audience. A few key things to keep in mind:

Warnings: If your fic has sensitive topics (violence, major character death, explicit content, etc.), use tw [topic] or cw [topic] (e.g., #tw blood or #cw angst). If you don't want to tag, put it in your author's note/warning list. Some readers rely on these.

Break up long paragraphs. Huge text blocks are hard on the eyes, especially on mobile.

Avoid Over-Tagging: Tumblr hides posts from search results if they have too many tags. Keep it to 10-15 relevant ones.

Make Your Fic Posts Easy to Read

Unlike AO3, Tumblr doesn't have a built-in formatting system for fics, so readability matters. Some quick tips:

Use bold or italics for emphasis, but don’t overdo it. If you want to make the text look pretty, you can use small text.

If your fic has multiple parts, consider making a masterlist post and linking previous chapters in new updates.

Having graphics really works to get people's attention. You might want to use banners and dividers, there are accounts out there that are dedicated to making/providing resources for these.

Likes are nice, but reblogs are what actually share your fic with others. If you enjoy someone’s work, reblogging it with tags or even a short comment is the best way to support them.

Engagement is Key — Fandom Thrives on Interaction

One of the biggest differences things about Tumblr is that reblogs are the lifeblood of fic visibility. And on Tumblr & AO3, there is no algorithm you can rely on.

If you want engagement on your own fics, start by engaging with others — reblog stories you like, leave nice comments in the tags, and interact with writers. Fandom is built on mutual enthusiasm.

[sunnyie-eve]

58 | Quad Squad

Series: Unexpected

Paring: Matt Sturniolo x OFC Brock!

Word Count: 1.1k

Warnings: none

| MASTERLIST |

"Hello world. This is being prerecorded but you will see and hear this in October." Dani starts for future viewers.

"Welcome to The Quad Squad!" Nick claps his hands so the others join.

"This is my own little podcast I wanna try out for fun so it will be very random. I have no schedule for this. I'm lucky that the company I'm a part of has this little space for any of us to use. The company also has its own podcast and I've been on it in the past. But yeah." Dani laughs.

"I'm happy to be part of the first ever episode." Nick smiles clapping again.

"Yeah, these three aren't official members but anytime I do this there will always be three other people with me." Dani explains.

"Hits the name." Chris laughs.

"Now Sam, I know this is very out of nowhere." Dani smiles over at Sam.

"I'm very nervous about this. You said don't tell a soul." Sam points out what she had texted him.

"She was so sketchy, right." Nick laughs.

"She really was, honestly." Chris laughs as well.

"You could've mentioned Nick and Chris were a part of this." Sam tells Dani.

"I had to beg them to do this and they only agreed when I said what this was for." She lets him know. 

"Do you even know about the thing yet?" Nick asks him.

"Umm, what thing?" Sam says confused, "The accident?" He means at the restaurant.

"This is gonna be good." Chris chuckles.

"I-I'm surprised he didn't tell you afterwards." Dani was taken back.

"All I know was he was pissed. And I hope it's what I think." Sam puts his hands together like a pray.

"Involving Dani and Matt?" Nick questions.

"I'm honestly happy Colby didn't tell you what happened." Chris lets Sam know, "It's so much better hearing it in person than by someone else."

"Yeah, because Colby found out the other way." Dani nods her head.

"What really pissed him off more."

Sam puts things together believing what he wishes is right, "You and Matt are finally dating, right?"

"Yeah, kinda." Dani smiles.

"Kinda?" Sam gives her a look.

"Kinda of as in they didn't recently get together." Nick adds so Sam looks at Chris.

"Try for since late March." Chris smiles looking over at Dani.

"Yeah, so you can see why Colby was so pissed."

"No, shit!" Sam laughs, "Did anyone know before or was it a secret the whole time?"

"A few people knew." Dani tells him.

"Tara, Madison, our mom and brother." Nick looks aways from Dani to Sam, "Can you believe that shit? Tara before us!"

"I didn't just tell her to tell her she put the pieces together unlike you idiots." Dani laughs at them, "And Madison read our texts because you had my phone." She looks over at Chris.

"That's when she found out? When we went to the aquarium?!" He was shocked.

"Yes, she was the first person to know. Then your mom, Justin and Tara was last before you guys." Dani explains.

"What was the first date? I want to know everything?" Sam smiles sitting up straight.

"Dave and Busters. It was simple and I loved it." She gets a big smile across her face.

"When y'all dressed the fucking same..." Chris shakes his head.

"Again, that was totally unplanned." She laughs.

Something comes to Nick making him turn his body towards Dani, " First kiss. I have to know. Please. I know it's personal but please." He begs her.

"After we filmed the cooking video at my parents house." She says, and Nick squeals as Chris's jaw drops, "Yeah, then when we left the room Colby was outside the door and got on Matt for maybe liking me."

"Can I ask how it all started?" Chris asks her, "Like you both were big sissys so like how?" He laughs.

"Oh, I slipped up big time before we went to the store. I pulled a prank on him first by putting pink balloons in the backseat he didn't like it and said he doesn't mess with my car. And this is where it led to me slipping up. I told him no, he bets you wouldn't ask me out." Dani explains a bit.

Chris starts to laugh, "Yeah, so he apologized for that and we talked about how we were only awkward for a bit. And now I slipped saying, I feel like it would be completely different if it was like you who asked."

Nick starts to scream, "Dani! You really did slip up." He laughs at her.

"Yeah, I know I was embarrassed in that moment because I didn't realize till he repeated what I said!"

"So that how he asked you out?" Chris can't help but smile thinking it was cute.

Dani smiles, "He said; What if I say that I was too scared to ask you out because I didn't know how you felt about me and I didn't want to risk our friendship? That's why Chris did it because he knew I would never do it."

"Asshole." Chris laughs, "But he's not wrong that's why I did ask you out and then I told him if you didn't like me it was him you had feelings for."

"I'm happy you two worked out perfectly. I knew it since we first collab. I rewatch it just to study you and Matt." Sam tells her, "I feel like a proud big brother to see his baby sister find her soulmate."

Dani was happy to hear that from Sam, since he was like a big brother, but she wanted to hear the same from Colby, "I'm happy you were always there for me when I told you how I felt about him. Sorry Nick, but I feel like you would hint at Matt."

"Honestly, I say I wouldn't have but I think deep down I would've tried to give small comments.  So it's good you really didn't tell me how much really. Like I knew because you slipped up with me too."

"I did." She nods her head.

"Man, I was left out. I didn't no slip ups. Just rejected." Chris makes Dani laugh.

"Hey, now you're one of our biggest supporters. Especially to me and I love you for that. My hype man. You know what I mean since I told you how I feel." She gives him a smile.

"Yeah, those little talks are sweet moments." He agrees, "I always tell her how lucky Matt is to have her." Chris explains a bit.

"He's super lucky." Nick agrees.

"Hell yeah, and I've known Dani since she was super little. Trust me, he's super lucky and you guys are too. Just having her around and making her family." Sam adds.

"Oh stop before you make me blush." Dani laughs, "But I love you three so much. My best best friends."

[vershautece]

Sorry if this is a controversial ask, but do you think L and his close friend T ever hooked up or at least possibly caught feelings for each other? I just came across a post speculating that L could have had romantic feelings for T. I know it’s messy since she ended up marrying one of his friends but I just feel bad for him tbh. I don’t think he’s the type to get in the way of his friends relationship so maybe deep down he was struggling with not messing things up between them all and distanced himself.

Maybe I’m not the one to ask cuz I hardly have any guy friends, but their body language screams “intimate”to me in a way. I would never be that touchy feely (in their pics together T is grabbing his bicep and rests her head on his thigh, flipping het hair and hugging him) with my guy friend unless I was into him. I’m sorry but in those pictures with the dark blue lighting, they straight up looked like a couple because of how physically close they were to each other.

It’s also the way he looks at T longingly and how he went out to the store with her while she was drunk to get ice cream together at 1 AM. In their texts, he even used the red heart emoji and seemed to be familiar with her sleeping schedule, and apparently they FTed each other often 👀 lol

When the first news broke out, she was the first person who stood up for him and his character immediately, then shared their private texts and the famous mochi ice cream video to reflect that.

Curious to know your thoughts and if you’ve observed the same 💕

i honestly think they’re just friends - out of all of the girls who’ve known luigi she’s the only one who’s posted quite a few videos together with him which is why it might seem to some people that they were closer than he was with his other friends. and maybe they were, but not necessarily in a sexual way

another girl who knew luigi said she didn’t think he was interested in dating , (i don’t think this is true, i think he just was good at hiding how much he wanted someone, and he can be shy) which is another thing that tells me he’s just one of those genuinely sweet guys who you can talk to whenever and cuddle - there are not a lot of genuine guys like that who exist irl LOL but i’ve had a friend like that before and lu reminds me of him tbh. like completely comfortable in his masculinity but will also be soft with and cuddle with his 100% platonic girl friends

also his texts with her and him going to get her ice cream in the middle of the night i think is just what he’d do for all of his friends, because he just loves helping people and being there for them ):

[maxdibert]

I wished lily wasn't the reason for Severus' loyalty. The revelation of his love for her (platonically or romantically) was truly important. You have the incident that kickstarted the prophecy. Severus' switch to the order. Voldemort giving Lily a chance to choose. Severus playing an important role in the second wizarding war. All because of a friendship of two people from spinner's end.

JKR should have developed it more. I understand that she went for the twist, but when the thrill of the discovery is gone there are so many questions that are unanswered.

first, I do not like Lily as a friend. She forgives the marauders for the years of bullying, see her 'best friend' being hanged upside down and threatened to have his genitals exposed. Who the fuck does that ? Also when Harry asked if his mother knew that James still bullying Severus in the seventh year, remus answered with "she did not know too much." so she knew something...

I do not like Lily as a sister, why did she not let James know that vernon probably doesn't know anything about the wizarding world before they went on dinner. I mean wth is Petunia supposed to say to Vernon ? "Oh yeah my sister is a witch and she went to this magical school". Not the best way to make a men fall in love with you. Is Petunia even allowed to tell Vernon all of this under the secrecy law? (I'm aware that restaurant scene is not canon, but that's what I thought when I read it on the website).

I don't like the way she uses her other friends opinion of Severus and their friendship, who clearly don't like Severus, as an argument to why Severus should stop hanging out with his Slytherin friends. Why are your friends even discussing Severus?

Also, I don't like the way she idolize Albus Dumbledore. Severus' got bullied for years, and Dumbledore did nothing. Severus was nearly killed by a werewolf and Dumbledore made Severus swear to never talk about it. What did he do, he made James head boy. Yeah if that happened to me and this man was the leader of the order, I might have asked for the death eater sign up too. Ridiculous.

By making his love for her so pure and selfless, it makes me wonder why he loves her so much. We know nothing, and the things we know just make me go "bruh really.... her ? .... she would not spare a thought for you if your funeral was announced in the papers".

Listen I was never part of the cool kids, so perhaps I don't understand her. But then again, for a Gryffindor, she really is a social coward.

It makes everything so bloody tragic. I sometimes wonder if I'd wished Severus stayed a death eater in the story but then one with guilt because he started caring about the professors and children through the years of working there.

It was honestly funny to read all of this because it feels like listening to myself when I was 16 or 17. I mean, even before I was a fan of Severus—because that came with time—I had a pretty neutral opinion of the character. I didn’t dislike him because I understood his motivations, but I wasn’t particularly a fan either. And if I wasn’t a fan, it was precisely because of everything you’re talking about.

A lot of people say Severus was an obsessive incel who spent 24/7 thinking about Lily, but I never saw it that way—I just thought he was an idiot. I thought, Wow, what an absolute moron. Like, did he really sacrifice his entire life for a woman who was actually kind of a piece of shit? Did he really give up everything to protect the son of his bully and the woman who married said bully? Could you be a bigger loser? No, seriously, could you be more pathetic? Because that woman not only let him be bullied for years, she almost smiled at his bully while he was publicly stripping him. She practically blamed him for her lack of popularity because she was seen with him, and somehow, he was supposed to be grateful. She gaslit him when he tried to tell her about what his abusers were doing to him. She literally told him he should be grateful to one of his abusers. Like, this woman was a piece of shit who was just looking to climb the social ladder. She loved being Gryffindor’s golden girl, just like she was the golden girl back home, and she hated that she had a weird, ugly, nerdy friend with questionable associations who tainted her image. On top of that, she loved having Gryffindor’s rich, pureblood king fawning over her because it was yet another symbol of status—but, of course, she had to play hard to get because good girls always resist bad boys.

That’s how I saw Lily Evans (and honestly, how I still see her), and it seemed absurd to me that Severus would have given so much for her when, honestly, I would have told her to fuck off. Like, if I were Severus, I would’ve dropped her the first time she gaslit me about my abusers. But if for some reason I had still stuck around after that, the moment I saw her almost smiling at my main abuser while he was stripping me in public, I would’ve beaten her so hard she’d have lost all her teeth.

That was my mindset when I was younger, before I learned a lot of things. Back then, I didn’t know what toxic friendships were or how easy it was to fall into them. I had no idea what codependency was, nor did I understand what an attachment figure was. At the time, I grasped some of these concepts vaguely, but over the years, I not only understood them more deeply but also experienced them—both personally and through people around me.

As I got older, I realized that the fact that Severus came from a home where he felt terribly unsafe, and that Lily represented his first safe place as a child, played a huge role in his cognitive development and psyche. In some way, he was always going to be grateful to her for probably being the only good thing in his childhood. And those childhood attachments are some of the strongest and hardest to break because they’re so deeply ingrained in a person. On top of that, Lily was his friend for years, during key developmental stages, and he probably didn’t see all of her flaws—he had her idealized. He grew up in a house where violence was the norm, and his classmates at Hogwarts also treated violence as normal. Lily was different, so he simply wasn’t capable of recognizing problematic behaviors that anyone with a healthy upbringing and healthy role models would have seen immediately. Because he didn’t have those things.

We’re not talking about a character who had examples of healthy behavior, affection, or attachments—we’re talking about someone who had the opposite. So, of course, he wasn’t capable of seeing anything bad in Lily. To him, she was the good in his environment. She was his moral compass, a kind of lighthouse to guide him when he wanted to know if he was heading in the right direction. It’s even possible that he never blamed her for marrying James, and instead, just thought it was normal that she gave in—because she was so good that she could see the good in even horrible people like James. Or maybe he believed James had somehow deceived her.

Severus’s attachment to Lily is kind of like a child who idolizes their mother and is completely unable to see her flaws—even when she acts like a complete asshole—because she’s their mother. And if she does something bad, well, it’s probably the fault of the people around her, not her. That’s exactly how Severus saw Lily.

When I understood all of this, I felt like I finally understood the character and his motivations better. I think it’s important to look at it not from our perspective as outsiders forming opinions, but from his perspective as someone inside the situation—someone who was emotionally dependent on her and either didn’t see the truth or didn’t want to see it.

Over the years, I’ve toned down my discourse about Lily, but my opinion of her hasn’t changed all that much from when I was a teenager. The only difference is that now I rationalize it better. But I still think she was a self-centered social climber. The only thing that’s changed is that before, I just thought she was a shallow, frivolous person—now I give her a little more credit and think her behavior was based on an inferiority complex stemming from her working-class background and her Muggle heritage.

But that doesn’t change the core of the issue. And honestly? I think she and James Potter were a perfect match—two absolute assholes who deserved each other. In fact, I’ve never been bothered by Jily because I’ve always thought they belonged together. Equally insufferable.

[galactic-magick]

Flirting Failures PART 2: Mr. Milchick x Reader

Link to Part 1

Words: 1.1k

(Thank you so much for all the love on Part 1! Still gender-neutral reader, use of Y/N, and no S2 spoilers)

-

You feel something on your face as you go up the elevator, bringing your fingers to your cheek at the familiar ding. It’s wet, and your eyes feel watery. Was your innie just crying?

You switch your things from your locker, head up the stairs, and run to your car as quickly as you can, pulling out your phone as soon as you shut the door.

You click on Seth Milchick’s contact, something you do probably way more often than you’re supposed to. But you don’t care much for those particular rules, especially because he’ll tell you things that you can’t find answers for anywhere else.

“Y/N! What can I help you with so soon after your workday?” he asks.

“Why was my innie crying? I came up the elevator with tears actively streaming down my face. Did something happen to them?”

You’re very protective over your innie, a feat you’ve found is actually pretty rare in the severed community. Other people you’ve talked to don’t even see their innies as an extension of themselves, just a different consciousness to experience everything they don’t want to, something they don’t even see as a person. But you genuinely care about this other version of you, and you’d hate to find out they’re getting hurt in any way.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make them cry.” Seth responds. “You see, your innie tried to...flirt with me today.”

You can’t help but chuckle a bit at that.

“Well, it’s good to know my innie also has good taste, at least. What did I do?”

“You…” there’s a beat of silence, as if deciding whether to respond to your comment, “I can’t really say specifics, but I let them down gently, since there’s rules against co-worker relationships. But maybe they took it harder than I thought.”

Now it’s your turn to be silent.

You try to get the situation straight in your head, setting aside the initial humor of it all. Your innie made a move before you did, got rejected, and was so distraught they were brought to tears? And now every time you go back in that elevator, you’re sending your innie back to face the man who broke their heart?

Of course your innie would have the confidence you never could. You’ve been crushing on Milchick since you met him, but you never pursued anything beyond talking to him on the phone every so often. And now that you know your innie has feelings for him too, wouldn’t it be unfair for you to have something with him that they can’t? You’d be, what, stealing him from yourself?

Your thoughts are tied in impossible tangles, so much that you nearly forget he’s still on the line. What are you supposed to say?

“Y/N?” his voice cuts through.”

“Sorry, I just…” you exhale. “I feel bad for them.”

“I know. And for the record, I didn’t want to let them down.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, I—“ you hear muffled voices. “I have to go. Important meeting with Ms. Co-”

He hangs up.

-

You’re almost done with you file now, and honestly you couldn’t care less.

You should be excited to win your first prize, but none of them appeal to you anymore. What is a perk worth when you can never experience the depth of human connection? What do you care about some stupid material object or party when there’s no escape when it’s done?

You’re not quite sure why it all hit you so hard yesterday. Something about pretending to fancy Mr. Milchick made you realize you actually do, and how much you’ve actually wanted to experience love in this life. All of your friends in MDR do too, really. Irvings excessive visitations with O&D lately haven’t gone unnoticed, nor Mark’s longing glances at Helly. Heck, even Dylan talks about his fantasies of how many women his outie must be pulling. You all crave love and escape to some degree, and none of you can have either of them.

Is this to be the rest of your existence? Just sorting numbers? Never experiencing sleep or the outdoors? Waiting for the next round of 8 hours?

“Y/N? May I have a word?”

You look up, entirely not thrilled to see Mr. Milchick in the doorway. Still, you do as he says, following him into the hallway.

“I wanted to tell you that I got a call from your outie yesterday. They said you were crying on your way up the elevator. I thought we resolved the issue, there was no need to cry.”

“Really?” you raise your brows. “You called me out here just to tell me when I should and shouldn’t cry?”

“No, I—“

“Right, because we can’t leave, can’t have more than two vending machine snacks, can’t ask what we’re doing, can’t explore the floor…Oh! And we can’t cry whenever the fuck we want! Is there anything else you want to tell me we can’t do?”

He takes a deep breath.

“I meant I was confused. I assure you, I didn’t intend to hurt your feelings.”

“Look, I’ll keep my promise of backing off so you don’t get in trouble. But I never promised to not have feelings. You told me you care about me, and that made me a little emotional, okay? Are you going to send me to the Break Room again for that?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then how about you leave me alone for a little while.”

You walk past him back into the office, and he doesn’t follow.

“What’s he going on about now?” Dylan asks.

“Just checking to make sure I’m behaving, I guess.” you shrug, getting back into your seat.

“Why wouldn’t you? You don’t actually like him, do you?”

“None of your business, Dylan.”

“Fuck, are you serious?”

You ignore him, binning a few more sets of numbers.

“Y/N! Tell me you’re not fucking serious!”

You aggressively push down the divider between your desks, giving him the middle finger before pulling it back up.

-

Seth never called you back after that day, and you’ve chosen not to bother him for answers again just yet. He’ll tell you when he’s ready, right? Won’t he?

You find yourself thinking about your innie again. What are they really like? Do they act the same way you do? Talk the same way you do? Seth tells you bits and pieces, but you don’t really know this other version of you. And will you ever?

What if your innie is your better half? What if a life in a controlled environment makes you a better person?

What if he likes you better in there than out here? Or the other way around?

You didn’t consider this specific consequence of the procedure when you agreed to it, that’s for sure.

-

(Let me know what you guys think of the switching innie and outie POVs! And let me know if you're interested in more parts!)+

[homestuckreplay]

take me down to the pesterlog city where jade’s text is green and john gets all petty

(page 1394-1406)

It’s pesterlog time!!!! In a 12 page spread (1391-1402) there are seven pesterlog pages representing five characters. I feel like I am a medieval peasant attending my first palace banquet. The rich offerings of character moments and variety of colors on display is blowing my gruel-fed brain.

The art also kicks ass this update! Tbh I am going to make a post about the art more generally as I’ve noticed some big changes recently (and some slow changes that are very apparent when jumping back) so for today I’ll just say: look at this super cool art of John exploring LOWAS on page 1395. He’s so clearly questing in a way that the sprite just can’t represent. I would get this framed for my wall.

I’m delighted to get a longer conversation with CG, who I’ve named Reggie. They’re actually fun and creative with their trolling techniques here, and knowing what they look like means I get to imagine this little grey kid grinding their fangs as they tap away on their keyboard furious at a comparatively sweet and clueless guy. They look like a goofy nerd whose bark is way worse than their bite.

‘IT WOULD MAKE ME SICK TO MY HUMAN STOMACH IF I HAD ONE OF YOUR HUMAN STOMACHS’ is VERY funny. Reggie feels similar to the Felt and Midnight Crew in being so over-the-top in their violence that it loops back around to being funny. And John’s reactions are good too – he’s not upset at the trolling like Jade is, he’s hilarious and willing to turn Reggie’s snark back on them. Their willingness to play off each other definitely increases the ‘enemies to lovers’ feeling of this Valentine’s Day conversation.

It is interesting that Rose accepted GA’s offer to be friends (p.1093), and now Reggie is telling John that they’re friends in the future (p.1394). So suddenly the trolls, who act and look textbook malicious at first, are trying to play nice. Are the trolls setting this up in order to double cross the kids in the future? Or are the trolls trying to incorporate the kids into their group and get them to follow some sort of dark trolling agenda? Or are they also just outcast alien kids who troll people because they’re lonely and want some attention? Hard to say when we have only heard from three of them.

There is something amazing about PM’s sword previously being used for vengeance (p.844, 870) and this time when she tries to do similar, she’s interrupted by WV who convinces her to use it to open cans and share food instead. WV may be from the dark kingdom but he feels like a peacemaker between the light and dark sides, refusing to fight against either PM or AR. I mean he is literally followed around by the light of serenity. And now he sits between PM and AR and shares his food and Tab and they all become friends, which honestly, is amazing mayoral work. Solving disputes in the town already. I really think he could build a town just like Spades Slick did.

This view of Dave’s city is cool too, I love the color of the sky! He straight up lies by saying ‘i always keep birds in here its sort of my thing’ (p.1400) and calling it sincere, considering his earlier bird-free room (p.312). He is on way too many layers of irony to decode (i.e. he just says whatever bullshit comes to mind that might be funny with no regard for whether it’s true or false). Which is soooo great for getting to know his character (also he should stop saying slurs).

However, I can see why Dave is annoyed by Rose here. Like he does kind of bring this all on himself by being so ironic all the time and talking about how ‘cool’ his brother apparently is, but, it’s gotta be hard when he’s been telling Rose about fighting his brother on the roof and she’s dismissing that he went through a lot to get the beta to save her, when Jade had it literally handed to her. Rose doesn’t know the details so I’m not mad at her, but it still can’t be easy for Dave to hear that dismissal from a friend.

I do feel like Rose and Jade have this alliance in seeing themselves as the two who know what’s going on, with the combined power of Jade’s visions and Rose’s perceived high intelligence. This whole update is very gender roles but this does evoke page 838, where Rose is far more aware of Jade’s powers and the type of information she has access to than John or Dave are.

Meanwhile in Dave and John land...

TG: i should probably text him soon TG: see whats up TG: because TG: i love him

Straight up adorable. Don’t even pretend to me that there’s a shred of irony in this. I love how close these guys are. This is sort of the first declaration of love in Homestuck unless you count John’s telling Liv Tyler on his Armageddon poster that he loves her (p.223).

We specifically don’t get to see Rose’s conversation with a troll (yet), but I think we can assume she’s talking to GA, probably the only troll she respects enough to prioritize over Dave. We also don’t see where in the Medium Rose is; John assumes that she’s also in the Land of Wind and Shade, but according to Rose, ‘It’s hard to say for certain. But I think I like it here.’ (p.1402). If the Medium has four planets in between the light and dark (p.703) (holy shit half the story ago) then it makes sense for the players to all start on different planets and have to find each other, so we could be getting ANOTHER super aesthetically cool land within the next few weeks. Or teased repeatedly until the end of the act, who knows.

The puppets (including a wizard puppet) clinging to the totem lathe on page 1403 is a very good gag. Also, ‘eggy loking thign’ (p.240) spotted here in the menu?? Implying a limited set of Sburb entry items?? Also 2,000 starting build grist for Jade to use compared to 20 for Rose, and a bunch more gizmos and gadgets available to deploy, including a disc with a piece of green grist (?) and two devices shaped like captchalogue/strife cards; a further tease of what’s to come.

Finally, I’m so glad Hussie agrees with me that there’s no fucking way Jade knows how to clean a house. Even if she has absorbed gender roles and sees cleaning as a woman’s activity (p.1405) she definitely was not taught to do that and designed some kind of robot to do it for her.

[yuseirra]

this got reblogged so I'm bringing it back,

the god that stands for/parallels kamiki is supposed to be a really kind and noble god but it was only his wife who understood him, that's how Sarutahiko's story went

I was honestly so frustrated with how everything was so cruel on this guy until he fell apart and how no one but Ai really connected with him when he used to be a kind kid - but I think that could have been the writer being truthful to the myths.

If I could understand the reasoning behind the writers being so cruel to this character (we still don't know how he's really felt, his say on the whole story, why he does these things from HIS perspective -to be fair, I think the songs are describing that- and what ACTUALLY happened in a clear sense!!! It's drove me nuts!), I could take this story a lot better you know? See the point in driving a character this insane and having EVERYBODY in the piece EXCEPT AI treat this guy like a total freak monster, all the while leaving things vague!! I couldn't make a full judgment on whether I should feel the same way about this guy too or not and I JUST wasn't convinced~~~~it felt terrible witnessing all that, I wanted the truth!! You can't just say someone's bad because a lot of people assume they are, that's not fair!

well, if that's what the writers were going for, I can take it better. That god really didn't have anyone who dared to come to his side until Amenouzume came along. There were tens of thousands of them and only one goddess came along to say hi to him. And that's...quite similar to how Kamiki thought he was only alive when Ai was with him because no one else ever was there for him and I swear, he used to be a sweet person. But people inside this story don't treat him well and leer at him and all, I wanted to see if he really deserved it but there is no physical proof of what he's done, and what we see him actually do on screen can be taken as ambiguous. His outward behavior remains consistently kind. They refrain from showing his misdeeds (if they exist to us) even till the story ends!! There's no need for it to be that way!! Make his sins prominent and let him pay for that!!! Tell us how he did it!! But they don't, right? Then this is unfair! I don't think it feels just. I still hate the way Aqua put an end to things. But I do believe there must have been a reason for him being that way. His dad is the guidance god who twists things just by existing. He was in bad shape, then stopped caring after Ai died and tried to collect the light of love within people's eyes to bring her back, that's what. Otherwise, the songs won't have those kinds of lyrics. That's exactly what they're going for. UGH. In that regard, this piece was so painful to read; I wanted to know just why they wrote the story this way and I have some weight lifted off my chest now

I wanted to draw out something based on this post I wrote yesterday~ CH 118 and 147 ref!

What Tsukuyomi told Aqua in Chapter 118... If you flip it, I feel like that’s what Kamiki wanted. He’d really hate the things she said (she seems to mean well, but she phrases things in such a cruel way).

I really wonder what kind of interactions they would have if they ever met up. For me, it feels like Tsukuyomi has seen Kamiki straying far off and losing himself, so she wanted to keep Aqua from becoming the same way his dad did. Maybe she even assigned Aqua to take him down since she seemed to be keen on the whole revenge thing.

[triglycercule]

happy birthday dust sans :3 ‼️🎊

"well, that's that. a grand execution, the perfect punishment for a sinner with lifetimes worth of crimes, and yet, nobody showed up, and dust didn't even try to fight back."

"heh. sounds pretty pathetic to me... but hey, maybe this was what he wanted."

"to die alone only accompanied by the ones he hated with nobody who he'd actually want to witness this?"

"maybe dying only with yourself would be less embarrassing than a public show. privacy is something you never realize you want until you lose it."

"... you were right, that does sound pathetic."