#i hope this is decent enough and there aren't any mistakes!

[a-pigeons-soliloquy]

oouugghhh hannigram either 7 or 45. maybe even combine the two.

ok so it has been. a while. this one got, uh, more than a little out of control lmao (almost 3500 words holy fuck). but it's finally finished! i'm not sure if it exactly fits the prompts anymore but i tried to combine them both :) i hope you like it! (even if it did just end up as yet another mizumono fic lol oops)

***

"You were supposed to leave," Will hisses, and his voice is a devastated, furious thing.

There is blood soaking into his shoes and the scent of iron hangs heavy in the air, and the worst part is that Will doesn't even know whose blood it is anymore, but the question is lost to the back of his mind. Because in front of him stands a dishevelled man whose shirt is a mess of shiny red stains, a knife dripping in his hand.

A man who isn’t supposed to be there at all.

"I didn't want to leave without seeing you one last time," Hannibal says. The words one last time should be ringing alarm bells in Will's head, but he can’t hear them over the overwhelming chorus of thousands of other alarms, because everything is going wrong. There is blood on the floor and on the walls and Alana and Jack lie dying among shards of glass, and there is a SWAT team likely only minutes away, and yet Hannibal is still here.

They both are.

And now Will doesn’t know what to do, hasn’t known what to do for the last 3 months and hadn’t known what he’d do next when he’d made that phone call, telling the Chesapeake Ripper that they know. All he’d known was that he didn’t want Hannibal to die, didn’t want him locked up in a cage by his own hands. But here he is, faced with the consequences of his own actions, and once again Will doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to feel, or even what he is feeling beyond the adrenaline and desperation and horror and relief and confusion. He doesn’t want to feel the overwhelming guilt and sense of responsibility that has been steadily building behind his ribs since this whole scheme began. Yet that guilt now tears at the lining of his chest and crushes his lungs and holds his throat in a chokehold, and it’s just all too much and all he can think is none of this was supposed to happen and this is all my fault and what if?

Seeing Hannibal alive, he’d been struck by a sudden wave of relief that had almost caused his knees to give out beneath him. But now, as Hannibal’s eyes meet his, the awful look that greets him makes a pit suddenly form in his stomach, and the relief gives way to guilt again. And Will can’t take it.

None of this was supposed to happen.

This is all my fault.

What if?

And then it hits him: none of this was supposed to happen. And it hadn’t needed to. This awful mess of glass and blood and ruin could have all been avoided if Hannibal had just listened. If he’d trusted Will when he’d picked up the phone with shaky fingers and told him to run. But he hadn't. And this realisation comes with a sick sense of understanding, because for the whole time Will had known him, Hannibal had always had to have something hidden up his sleeve, always had to keep secrets from Will. Always had to know better. Feel superior. At last the final veil falls from Will's eyes, and all at once he can see how foolish he'd been to ever believe that they could be equals. How pathetic it was that, for those few long weeks they'd spent together, he'd actually believed that they were.

(Will fiercely forces back the voice in his head that whispers that he hadn’t exactly given Hannibal a reason to trust him.)

Heart hammering against his ribs, all of that guilt and fear melts together and stretches and twists and is reborn as deep, righteous anger.

Because no, all he’d wanted was for Hannibal to be safe and free and far from here, even if it meant Hannibal hated him, even if it meant they could never be together, even if it meant that one day Hannibal would come back and rip his still-beating heart from his chest without remorse. But instead here they are, highly armed police likely mere minutes out. And all because Hannibal hadn’t listened. Bitterly, Will thinks to himself that maybe he couldn’t change Hannibal in this way after all.

As if hearing the war cry of bitterness and anger, the resentment he’d kept locked away over the last year begins to bay and claw at its cage too, and, with no reason left to hold it back, Will finally opens the latch and lets it loose.

His next words come out as a growl. “Well now neither of us might get to leave at all”.

Hannibal looks at him, and before he can hide any emotion behind his mask Will can see surprise and deep betrayal warring behind his eyes. It should make him stop and consider, that surprise - that indication that he is behaving in a way that Hannibal did not quite anticipate. But the look of betrayal is like a knife to his chest, and so Will grips his resentment tightly and fumes.

What had Hannibal expected? For Will to be small, desperate? Cowering? Begging for forgiveness? His lip curls in derision. As if he would give him the satisfaction. No, mongooses have teeth and claws, and may whatever god he believes in help Hannibal if he thinks Will won’t use them.

Hannibal manages to force the emotion all behind a mask of icy indifference, and now when he looks at Will his gaze is blank. Though it is not his usual blankness which Will has become familiar with. It is an empty, unsettling kind of blank, the sort of blank he’s only ever seen in the eye of a shark. When Hannibal speaks his voice is cold, colder than Will has ever heard it.

"Forgive me for having doubts about the sincerity of your warning when you've been lying to me for the last month. Forgive me for wanting to see the truth of where your loyalties lie."

The acknowledgement is agony. All the guilt Will had been trying to force down suddenly rears its monstrous head again, and he finds his voice suddenly drying up. His throat feels tight.

He whispers. "My loyalties lie with you'

Hannibal only scoffs. It is ugly. Will has never seen Hannibal ugly before.

"A last minute change of heart is hardly loyalty, Will," he says. “What does Uncle Jack think of your loyalty, lying bleeding out in my pantry? Alana, shattered on the street? How can I be sure you do not still intend for me to join them?”

Hannibal takes a step towards him, adjusting his grip on the knife. Will’s heart pounds. He forces himself not to take a step back.

“Because I chose you, Hannibal, I was always going to choose you, I just needed time to accept that.”

But Hannibal just looks away. “If that is what you truly believe, then you haven't just been lying to me, you've also been lying to yourself.”

It’s so wrong, yet Hannibal had said it with such certainty and disdain that all Will sees is the arrogance with which Hannibal always assumes himself to be right. He dares to presume to know what Will is thinking better than Will knows himself? It turns out Hannibal Lecter really is just like every other psychiatrist Will has ever met, and a sense of grief rises up within him at the loss of something he’d never thought he could have until meeting Hannibal.

He hates himself for mourning what he shouldn’t want.

Will smothers the voice in his head whispering that Hannibal may in fact be correct, that he really does know Will's mind better than Will does his own. Instead he lets anger take over again, and this time it burns.

“You know nothing,” he hisses. His hands shake. Deep waves of indignant resentment roll over him, the roaring of the waves matching the blood in his ears.

He doesn’t know what he expects Hannibal to do next, but it isn’t for Hannibal to hum to himself, then huff a mirthless laugh and concede in a tone both melancholy and angry, “Perhaps you’re right.”

Once again Hannibal meets his eyes. “You know, I've never fully been able to predict you, Will, but this time I had hoped. It is a mistake I will not make again.”

He prowls closer still, and this time Will steps forward to meet him. Fight has won over flight and as the rising fury makes it hard to find words Will’s body seems to have decided to speak for him. The ticking clock of the impending arrival of the FBI ignored in favour of the burning, all-consuming rage within him.

But the fear of their time running out is still there, forced down as it is, and between that and the anger it’s only getting harder to think, and Hannibal is only making it worse. Every word that leaves his mouth brings fresh waves of intense emotion and it’s rapidly reducing Will to a state where there is nothing in his brain except pure animalistic rage-fear.

He just needs Hannibal to stop talking for one moment so he can think.

With what little coherent thought remains in his brain, Will decides to tell Hannibal in the only way he can manage anymore.

“For once in your life can you please just shut the fuck up”.

Hannibal's eyes flash dangerously. His lips curl up into a snarl, and the part of Will that still understands anything knows that he’s made a mistake - he’s only succeeded in confirming for Hannibal exactly how his words are affecting him, and getting him to stop now won’t be achieved without consequences.

Hannibal is quick to recover, a cruel grin taking over his face. His head tilts condescendingly. “Terribly rude, Will,’ he taunts.

The fire inside Will soars higher. He can feel it scorching his insides.

“Fuck you, Hannibal.” He spits.

Hannibal begins to loom over him, moving closer still in a manner that can only be called predatory, until all that separates them is an arm’s length. The knife still glistens in his hand.

“Is that all you have to say for yourself, Will? Childish comebacks? I’ve come to expect better from you. I'm disappointed.” There is a gleam of self-satisfied malice in his eyes and the shape of his lips. He looks dangerous. He looks beautiful.

Will hates him.

Will loves him.

Fuckyoufuckyoufuck-

And suddenly Will can’t take it any longer.

Before he knows what he is doing, he’s grabbing Hannibal by the bloody shirt and crashing his lips into his.

Time seems to stop, the world narrowing into a millisecond of time in which Hannibal’s hair brushes against Will’s forehead, breath warm against his mouth, their noses pressed almost painfully against each other. A moment where the cooling blood on Hannibal’s shirt soaks into Will’s palms and stains his fingers red. A moment where Hannibal stands deadly still, as if frozen, and Will feels as if he’s been frozen too.

There is a distant pressure in the corner of Will’s abdomen, then the vague sound of something clattering to the ground. But Will’s lips are on Hannibal’s and it is as if everything everywhere is inconsequential other than the feeling of Hannibal’s teeth against his, just as he’d imagined on so many a lonely night.

The moment seems to last an eternity before Hannibal’s hand finally comes up to grasp the back of his shirt tightly, and Will feels the sharp pull of the fabric against his skin, the pressure of Hannibal’s knuckles firm against his flank. A breathy gasp escapes his burning lips, and he can’t help the animal noise that subsequently tears its way from his throat. Luckily it seems that is what it takes for Hannibal to finally move his mouth and kiss back with equal force, teeth scraping sharply against Will’s. They gravitate closer and closer until Will’s arm is wrapped around Hannibal’s neck and their hips are pressed tightly together.

Eventually, Hannibal lets out a deep growl before he at last pulls away, dragging Will backwards until there is an arm’s distance between them. Will’s eyes flutter open and he gazes up at Hannibal. The adrenaline is still coursing through his veins and setting him alight, but this time it is not with anger but something wholly new.

As they lock eyes, Will realises that Hannibal is finally allowing Will to see, without barriers or veils, the full breadth of emotion in his eyes. There is still frustration and betrayal, yes (indeed, Will hadn’t let go of his either) but there is also - and Will’s heart skips a beat when he recognises it - pure and all-encompassing adoration. A wonderful warmth blossoms within his core, rendering him both weak and solid and light as a feather, and it is unlike anything Will can ever remember feeling.

He wonders if this is what it’s like to be loved.

Then those wonderful, expressive maroon eyes flicker downwards, and Hannibal’s brow furrows, lines around his eyes deepening. Confused, Will follows his gaze, and is surprised to see a growing deep red stain on his shirt, though any reaction he distantly thinks he perhaps should be having is dulled and seems to float just out of reach. It’s strange; there isn’t any pain, just the memory of an odd pressure that he’d ignored at the time and a peculiar sense of unreality.

For a moment he just stands, uncomprehending, but as the adrenaline finally starts to wear off he becomes increasingly aware of a dull ache at the site of the wound, and it isn’t long before that dull ache blossoms into a terrible burning pain. Hand instinctively falling from Hannibal’s shoulder to hover protectively over the wound, Will looks back up at Hannibal, a mix of confusion, surprise, pain and betrayal written across his face. An involuntary whine slips from his suddenly dry throat.

The vocalisation appears to spur Hannibal into action. He takes Will gently but firmly by the arms and quickly guides him to a nearby sofa, helping him lay down across its seats before sinking to his knees beside him and pulling up his shirt to inspect the injury. A moment passes, then a near-imperceptible line of tension seems to drop slightly from Hannibal’s shoulders and he pulls Will’s shirt back down.

“It is as I thought: due to the angle and the quick loosening of my grip on the handle, only the tip of my knife entered your body. The wound is not so deep as to require immediate attention, but it will certainly require stitches.”

He guides Will’s hand back to his injury and helps him to apply the right amount of pressure. It hurts, and when Will winces and lets out small pained noise, Hannibal brings a hand to his hair and cards it through the damp curls. It feels nice, it feels so very nice and right, and Will’s eyes slip closed for a moment, enjoying the feeling. When he opens them, Hannibal is looking down at him, face once again carefully blank.

“There is likely very little time left before the FBI arrives,” he begins, “and I will soon be leaving for Florence. I will offer you this once and only once, and you will have until I return with our passports and a select few other items to make your decision.”

He fixes Will with a heavy look. “One last chance, Will. You can come with me to Florence, and I will show you the city where I became a man. We will leave immediately, take up new identities, and likely never return.

“Or, I can leave you here. You can wait for the cops to arrive and take you to a hospital. Your reputation will remain intact, and you can go back to your job and your house in the woods, your life as you know it, and you will never see me again.”

An almost undetectable pause, and then, “This is your final decision, Will. I suggest you make it wisely.”

With this he climbs to his feet and leaves the room

For a while Will sits thinking, but deep down he knows his mind is already made up. The myriad of complicated feelings he harbours towards Hannibal still plague him, and a part of him still wants to lock the man up and throw away the key, but he’s finally willing to admit that it’s all inconsequential. He knows now he can't live without Hannibal, for better or for worse, whether he loves him or hates him, or a twisted mix of both. He’ll miss his life terribly for the isolated comfort it brought, but he’d miss Hannibal far, far more.

There is only one choice to make.

The moment Hannibal reappears in the doorway Will is speaking.

“I want to come with you.”

Hannibal’s face remains carefully blank. “You understand there is no going back from this. I will not change my lifestyle and you can never return to the false life you have led. You will be shedding your sheepskin for good this time, and the world will be on our tail for as long as we-”

Will cuts him off.

“I want to come with you,” he repeats firmly.

A long pause, and then a small but genuine smile graces Hannibal's lips. With a dip of his head, he seems to accept the decision. “Very well,” he says, though Will can hear the unspoken relief that lies beneath it. He lets himself smile back, tired but overjoyed and honest. It feels right.

Hannibal comes back to where he lies on the couch, and helps him get up, his touch firm yet gentle as he holds Will against his side.

“Do you think you can walk?” he asks.

Will’s breath catches as the shift to being upright pulls sharply on his wound. While it could have been far deeper - and Will doesn’t want to imagine what Hannibal’s initial plan for him was - it is still painful, and increasingly so as the last of the adrenaline wears off. Plus, he’s losing a fair amount of blood, and the change in angle temporarily darkens his vision and sends stars dancing across his eyes. Grimacing, he closes his eyes and waits for the pounding in his head to stop. Hannibal lets him lean against him, steadfastly taking his weight, and says nothing.

When the stars fade and he feels steadier on his feet, Will considers Hannibal’s question, and after a moment of assessment nods - he’s been shot in the shoulder before, he can handle this - and lets Hannibal lead him out of the house and down the street to an unfamiliar car.

Alana is unconscious now, and Will catches Hannibal’s eyes lingering on his jacket where it lies over her body. He looks at her, the person he’d once imagined sharing a life with, and thinks of how important she had always been to him, even after everything. A pang of bittersweet nostalgia hits him, accompanied by a longing for a simpler time when maybe it could have been possible. But ultimately he allows Hannibal to help him into the passenger seat of the car. This is the life he’s chosen, the person he’s chosen, cannibalism and all. There is no going back now, and nothing to be gained from contemplating what ifs.

Then the car door closes, and Alana is hidden from sight.

There is another noise as Hannibal gets in the car from the other side, and after fiddling with some dials and buttons, he starts the engine.

“I will drive us to the airport where our flight awaits. When we are a safe distance from the house we will stop and I will clean and suture your wound. But for now I suggest you sleep - you will need the rest if you are to recover well.”

He must notice the lines of discomfort on Will’s face, as he adds, softening slightly, “There are some painkillers in the door.”

After taking the pills as directed, Will lays his head back against the headrest and allows his eyes to close. The last of the adrenaline has left his system, leaving behind a sudden bone tiredness that makes his lids heavy and breathing slow.

With the sound of the vehicle lulling him and the comfort of Hannibal’s presence beside him - alive, together - sleep comes quickly, and the last thing Will knows before the darkness claims him is the feeling of a warm hand gently coming to rest upon his own.

[chidoroki]

182 Days of TPN - Day 177

Chapter 177: "Mother"

This chapter.. this damn chapter never fails at getting me emotional. I'm still so very upset that Isabella dies this way too when we had other characters such as Emma and Barbara also get impaled by fierce demons and survive with their scars, so why not my queen huh?? I know there's that whole neverland fairy tale idea where adults aren't allowed there, which would've been an interesting concept for our series given the several adult deaths we had already, but that would've cancelled out some of the oldest Goldy Pond kids who are already older than 18 at this point. However, with how Emma phrased the new promise to allow all humans raised as food to cross over into the human world, there wouldn't have been any issue. Isabella could've easily joined them then, like c'mon Shirai, couldn't ya at least let these kids have one parent join them, please? They already lost Yuugo and Lucas, we didn't need to add another!

As if stabbing this woman wasn't enough, this bastard goes on to taunt her, saying that she'll never make up for her past mistakes no matter how hard she tries. First off, to hell with this guy. Secondly, that's such nonsense. I know this moment is supposed to be seen as "Isabella's big redemption moment," but it totally didn't need to happen this way. I'm gonna sound like a broken record when I say this, but this woman's redemption arc started way back when she first admitted defeat on the wall while watching her precious children escape GF. From gathering the ropes they used so the demons wouldn't know which direction they ran, to secretly planning an entire uprising within the farm system in hopes to one day assist her children when they returned. She even used her newfound power as Grandma to help spare the lives of other children at GF by lowering the amount of harvests that took place. Granted, walking the children to their deaths as caretaker and her treatment of Ray are certainly her biggest flaws that can definitely outweigh all the good she's done during those several years as a mother, but again, it's not like she truly wanted to act that way! It was her job; a job she only took because she valued her own life so much (& honestly, I would too), but she excelled at it for their sake. She's renowned for being the best for providing such high quality meat to the farm (which sounds bad when ya think of them as food, I know), but it means her children were raised with such rich emotions and were able to reach a reasonable decent age because they knew what happiness and love felt like and she did everything within her power to keep them alive as long as they possibly could. So to hear this demon make a statement like this just irks me because while it's true this one mama bear moment may not be enough for Isabella to be redeemed fully, it completely disregards every other motherly act she's done for her children over the years.

Literally the only positive I can take away from this highly unfortunate demon encounter is how damn strong and determined Isabella is. The fire in her eyes and the intense grip she has on this demon that straight up prevents it from moving to hurt Emma or the other girl.. aahh it's such a badass moment! What a queen!

Every single time I come across these panels, all I hear in my head is that Mushu quote: "You missed! How could you miss? He was three feet in front of you!" Seriously though, I can understand with how quick everything happened and the intense new threat could've caused Ray's aim to be off a little, but my boy, this could not have been a more worse occasion to miss. I don't wanna say it because it'll be so mean but s2!Ray could've done better.

Bro I remember so very clearly when a couple panels of this chapters were first teased before the official release (& yeah I was a complete mess back then too), but when this panel was going around, it was cropped short to where Ray wasn't seen at all, so people were going nuts about where he was, why wasn't he also surrounding Isabella, if his hatred for her really went so deep to not wanna be near her while she's at death's door, etc. It was kinda wild and absolutely made me anxious, but thankfully the panic was short lived when the full page was available. Sorta. I mean, it's still not a pretty panel, seeing my favorite villain minutes away from losing her life, but at least Ray is present along with all the other GF kids.

Seeing Isabella being more concerned about everyone else aside from herself after a serious stab wound.. what a bittersweet "like mother, like daughter" parallel.

Crazy how Krone's actions and words lead the kids to believe Isabella's intentions were just as heartless. Yeah both ladies wanted to survive and would choose to achieve that by any means necessary, but at least Isabella cared for the well-being of her children. That's already a whole lot more than what your typical mom or sister is capable of.

Having this panel placed in the middle of all the heartbreak is very much appreciated because I definitely need some adorable flashbacks to make me feel a little better before diving right back into my puddle of tears. Seeing her smile and laugh alongside the trio is the most adorable thing, especially that head pat she gives Emma. Also love that reference to ch95's extra page where Gilda was working so hard at the shelter that a sleepy Chris mistakenly called her "mom." Oh, my poor boy Chris.. he's gonna have so many things to catch up on once he wakes up and learning about Isabella's death ain't gonna be easy.

Say it louder, sweetie!!! And most definitely repeating myself once more by saying that I'm so glad the second season animated that panel of Isabella hugging the trio despite this chapter's events not happening.

I love this idea of Isabella & Yuugo being the "what if" versions of the kids. Isabella's situation could easily be applied to any of the girls, though most people associate it with Emma which is fair, just as we usually make the connection of Yuugo to Ray due to them both witnessing their family getting killed and all that time they spent alone, whether it be physically, mentally or emotionally. All three honestly.

Seeing all the children beg Isabella to hold on, along with them confessing how much they love her.. oh my goodness, I think so often how thankful I am that this scene wasn't included in the anime because seeing the pain on their faces is hard enough already, imagine how loudly I would sob if I heard the emotion in all their voices.

Oh, if any version of her lullaby played here, my heart would shatter. I already feel close to tears. She probably dreamed of hugging all her precious children and openly declaring her love for them once more without any fear of what the farm system might do to her and/or them, and now that Isabella finally gets that chance, she has such a thankful smile on her face and I'm happy she gets to experience these warm feelings one last time.

I dunno about anyone else, but this chapter always feels like a "try not to cry challenge, level: impossible" for me. Doesn't matter if they added in this cute scene of her hugging the trio with such a beautiful smile, my heart is still in pieces on the ground. I'm the one who needs the hug!

Favorite panel/moment:

If you haven't learned how much I love Isabella, Ray and their complicated mother-son relationship yet, then I haven't rambled on long enough. But yes, as much as her death absolutely wrecks me, I'm relieved it allows us to get one final interaction between her and Ray. By now we have a pretty good grasp about Ray's feelings towards Isabella, so the fact he kept his distance this entire time until she called out for him is so sad. We can't really tell if he rushes to her side or if he takes slow steps, but what matters is that he didn't deny her request.

It means so much that this moment is just between the two of them too. Sure it was undeniable sweet to see all the children cry and huddle around Isabella, but she and Ray have such a deep history so they deserve one last scene together. Although it's a very fragile relationship, that doesn't prevent her from giving him a personal apology with the very last bit of strength she has. Aahh, how terrible she must be feeling right now, thinking back on all the times she wasn't allowed to show him the same level of affection as a mother would normally show her son or for making his life such a living hell. She could've very well chosen to be angry at herself here or let the pain show on her face, and yet she chooses to smile instead. Not a smug or confident one Ray's probably used to seeing her use, but a gentle one that really conveys how strong her regrets are.

Having her last wish being for Ray to protect everyone is so perfect with how it shows that right til the very end, Isabella's children have always been her top priority and she'll always think of them first. It's also sweet that she wants Ray to hold onto this promise because us readers already know how committed Ray is to providing for his family and keeping them safe. Hell, his compassion and protective instincts were on full display last chapter when he jumped in to shoot at that demon bastard and when he accepted all the moms and sisters to join the kids in the human world back during ch164. Those were such great opportunities for Isabella to witness just how caring her son really is and how much he's grown. I'm certain she's so proud of him. To this day I still wish Isabella had actually spoke that "I love you so much" to him, but I know she was steadily growing weaker by the minute that even speaking or seeing clearly was becoming a challenge for her. The nice thing with Isabella though, is that she doesn't really need to say such words out loud for Ray or any other child to know how true her feelings are, as Emma confirmed earlier during her moment of reflection, that Isabella's actions speak far louder to the point where everyone was able to recognize how strongly she loved them all. What completely breaks me about this entire chapter though is seeing Ray finally breakout into tears as he holds onto his mother's hand. This boy just found out his mother was alive, along with becoming their enemy once more, saw her betray their common enemy in order to assist the children, which sparks his discussion to forgive her and wish for her to join him in the human world, only to realize that won't happen as she jumps in to protect one of his best friends and ends up critically injured all because he failed to killing a demon. That is so much to experience all in one day. It's a miracle he kept his emotions in check to begin with, but now he's hit with the realization that he's losing his mother for good and.. damn it 'yall. Can we please give my boy a break?? And my queen too while we're at it?? Both of them seriously had two of the worst experiences in this world and instead of having them reconcile and build a better mother-son relationship in the human world together, we gotta make them suffer once last time, huh?? Fucking hell man.. I said it way more than once and I'll say it a million more times up until I'm on my own death bed, but the decision of having Isabella stay alive is by far the absolute best thing to come out of season two.

I want to wish their moment was lasted longer than a page and a third, but I'd probably never recover from all the emotional damage if their tearful goodbye had more focus. AAhhh.. seems like I should've wrote out a lot more considering the amount of time I spent on this chapter and how passionate I get about my favorites, but ya know, the emotions are hella strong today.

[mbti-notes]

I'm a 22 year old INTP worrying about social anxiety on a regular basis. The irony is that I have a few decent set of friends and family, and I feel comfortable around them, but for everyone else, I constantly worry if I've done something wrong, even if there's no sign of that. Though my Ti allows me to detach from emotions enough that by behavior, I don't really let my insecurities control any of my decisions, yet my mind keeps thinking of all the possibilities with Ne. Nothing's wrong, so why?

You seem to be expressing a troubling contradiction. Is there or isn't there something "wrong"? If "nothing's wrong", why worry and why should I bother to answer you? If something's wrong, why "detach" and try to pretend a problem doesn't exist? Nothing may be wrong externally but that doesn't mean something isn't wrong internally. The two don't necessarily link together. Generally speaking, when people get trapped in a psychological contradiction, it means they're unable/unwilling to face up to the real issue or the root of the matter. As a result, there are no clear answers and no clear path forward, so they stay stuck in a rut of ambivalence.

Your question is about emotional life, which relates to emotional intelligence. What do you understand about feelings and emotions? Do you believe they just come out of nowhere for no reason? Do you believe that a stranger like me knows better than you about the contents of your mind? If so, it indicates a troubling lack of self-awareness that needs to be remedied through improving your emotional intelligence (see the dedicated articles). Feelings express something important about you, so not listening to them means not really knowing yourself. And how can you care well for yourself when you're blind to the truth of yourself?

Worry is often related to hope. To hope is to set up excitement and expectation for a desired outcome, as visualized through Ne, so misusing Ne is usually related to fear of hopes getting dashed. Such fear commonly manifests as worry, as intrusive thoughts about negative outcomes or worst-case scenarios.

It's important to remember that intrusive thoughts aren't really "thoughts" but feelings in disguise. The more a person resists feelings, the more the feelings are forced to take a disguised form to get through, such as repetitive thoughts or physical ailments. There is a message being conveyed by negative feelings and emotions, and they will keep intruding upon you until you are willing to hear it. Feelings aren't "irrational". There is logic behind them, but you must reflect in order to grasp their meaning.

For example, why do people feel socially anxious? Oftentimes, the anxiety is merely the surface, conscious experience of something deeper going on. What is the deeper issue? It could be any number of things depending on the individual, such as:

Self-worth issues or fear of being inadequate: Does it not make sense to worry about doing something off-putting or offensive when you're hoping for people to accept/like/love you?

Self-esteem issues or fear of failure: Does it not make sense to worry about making a mistake when you're hoping to put your best self on display?

Emotional avoidance issues or fear of hurt: Does it not make sense to prepare for the worst when socializing is risky and unpredictable and could lead to a painful rejection?

Unresolved feelings from the past: Does it not make sense to feel apprehensive in social situations when you've been wounded by many negative interactions throughout life?

If getting stuck in a psychological contradiction means you are unable/unwilling to address the real issue, then resolving the contradiction involves finally facing up to it. For some people, this means learning to acknowledge, accept, and embrace their weaknesses, aka, all the things that are "wrong" with you. Taking the above issues as examples, the contradiction you are trapped in might indicate that you don't really want to admit the true extent of:

how much you really want people to accept/like/love you

how little faith you have in yourself or your social abilities

how ill-equipped you are to handle painful feelings/emotions

how you haven't really healed from previous hurts/harms

Unless you're willing to physically damage your brain, feelings and emotions can't be stopped. But they can be understood and interpreted and laid to rest intelligently. The first step in addressing a psychological issue is to be honest about what's really happening, to admit the problem. I'm not a mindreader. I can't tell you exactly what deeper issue lies behind your insecurity. It's up to you to reflect and tell the whole truth to yourself. Once you get to the very heart of the matter, a better path forward should reveal itself.

[moo-moo-moon-writing]

Yandere? Monster OC Headcanons

A/N; Hi, shameless plug but please check out part one and part two of my yandere (?) monster series! I'm so thankful for all of the support I got for part one, yet part two has not gained any traction, so... Anyways, here are some facts about my monster oc. Note that he does not have a name, but I am open to opinions on what they should be named. As always, send in asks! Legit can be about anything, not even just this series. I also take requests! At the bottom will be part one and part two.

TW/CW; Scary (?) monster, not really overly yandere, light mentions of missing/dead people, not detailed kidnapping, being held hostage, no hope, very (very) light manipulation, I did read over this over and over but there may be a spelling mistake...? I believe that is all. Perhaps teratophilia yet it is not really romantic as of this time.

Word Count; 1,009... Hopefully that is a decent amount for headcanons, especially since there will be more parts probably.

So first of all, they do not have a name and do not even realize that humans have names until you explain it to them. It kind of shows how long people usually survive with them… 

They are also, despite their cheerful attitude, easily irritable. This comes with the fact that they are some sort of demonic monster thing, that is how most of them are. 

I should also probably mention exactly where they live (as well as now you, if you do not annoy them that is)... They call it the Dark-Realm, and instead of calling Earth… Earth, they call it the Dirt-Realm. Everything is pitch black within the Dark-Realm, gravity being a myth there as well, and when light and gravity is present they are a lot more weak. Anyways, you won't be seeing any sort of light anytime soon.

They do not have a more human form, when on Earth, they actually hide away. Actually, when the monster found you they were hiding upon the top of the street lamp. You didn't take it down yourself, yet with gravity in effect, they weigh a lot… You just had amazing timing, didnt you? 

A bit more about their kind; not many of them actually speak any human languages. They interact with grunts and huffs usually, and they view loudness as joy usually… When screams are heard, just like the monster, they also view it as a thing of joy. They get annoyed when people overuse it, so… 

They also do not have faces, they have the indents within their faces where eyes and mouths and noses should be, yet they are not there at all. They can however, gain faces in unconventional ways, yet it is not common. 

-

Moving on and focusing just on the monster, they are for sure not into romance nor being crazy crazy for you just yet. Romance is not a well known thing amongst their kind, and my oc has personally had to take care of a lot of humans in general, so getting attached is a bit hard. 

One way to get them attached to you is if you explain names to them and give them one, especially if it is one that they can say easily. They will only let you use that name and won't really tell anyone else about it. 

Their main focus is being a good friend, as long as you are as well. Scream when they want, be quiet when they want, and just be around them and they are happy enough. 

They will take you to Earth a lot, let you be in the light, especially after they learn that the darkness within their house and realm causes your head to hurt a lot. Can't be a good friend if they're the one causing you headaches, right? 

They also do not understand the fact that you had friends and family before they took you, for like romance, that is also an unfamiliar concept within their species and the Dark-Realm. You only have friends there. 

They do not get jealous at all either, when you do interact with other monsters like them, they aren't the most interested and can't really understand you much other than your facial expressions, so you can't really get someone else to try and help you escape. 

You can try to run while on Earth, yet you won't get far. They do not see it as an escape attempt, and instead see it as simply seeking out friends! Yet where there is light, there is darkness, which is where they will always lurk. When you have wandered long enough, they pick you up, like any good friend would!

It is nearly impossible for you to try and contact the police or any sort of authorities, or even friends and family, it is hard to explain the situation you are currently in after all, who would even believe in you? 

After you finally get used to this new lifestyle you were forced into, and actually start to talk to the monster, you realize that while not the most mentally a-ok, they are not the worst thing you could have ended up with… It didn't even really take much manipulation from them either, just sweet old time. 

After you two officially become friends (more official than they believed before), they start to make home accommodations for you to make it more comfy for you. They let you have a light on you (just don't flash them), as well as a tv! Just don't let it be too loud, don't question where they got it from or how it works, and don't prefer it more than them. 

While not easily jealous, they are easily annoyed (they do not view it as jealousy), so you only get five hours of tv time and the rest is either sleeping or friendship time! They personally don't watch tv with you, so it gives you alone time and time for them to get you gifts. 

Speaking of gifts, you once ran into your house when trying to make friends one time! They found it and while they didn't like how it looked at all (too bright), they brought things from it here and there. 

They aren't overly touchy, afraid to perhaps hurt you, the most you get is the pinch of the front of your shirt or perhaps being carried to bed. Despite being energetic and somewhat childish, they do care about your health a lot, despite how they apparently “took you from your life”. 

-

Yes, they are easily irritated (especially at first) and it takes you a moment to get used to things, but compared to others of their kind who would not understand you were… “Lucky” to be caught up with this thing. You even get to name them, how nice. 

You're allowed to have friends, both monstrous and human, yet you always must remember that you are their best friend and that's final. 

I may have another part with more… Romantic headcanons if people desire them.

Part One/Two;

[1moremilgram-enjoyer]

Thus commences the last in the "Haru bugs FF about Milgram" series, with only two more characters to put on the table !! ...Huh? Ask in my inbox? What ask in my inbox, I have no idea what you're talking about !! Aha !! Ahahahaa !! (i swear i'm getting to answering it i'm sorry for the wait) The last two on the list is Green Anime Baby (/ref) and Schrodinger's Sexuality, both of which you have already talked about before but this can serve as an opportunity to say whatever else is on your mind regarding them

The end of an era, really. The final two people.

Take your time on my ask! It's pretty hard to get so many thoughts on these characters in words, because there's a lot to them, so.

CW: Internalized homophobia, suicide and murder, cults and indoctrination, child abuse, heavy Amane apologism.

EDIT: On second read, I may have come off a bit strong with the Amane apologism. Keep in mind most of it’s hyperbole. I recognize her actions are morally grey, that’s the fun of it, but this isn’t a serious analysis. This is a collection of brainrot, and so I’m letting myself indulge in mindless Amane apologism, hope it’s not too much of a bother.

Let's start with Kazui. The (allegedly) gay (possibly) aromantic old man. Yeah, the aro/gay reading has grown on me since I made that Cat post. Though I'm biased towards the aro thing for obvious reasons.

Anyways, I like him! For the final time there is the issue of sexual attraction being a decently big part of someone's character, and me not really being able to relate to that, but at least this one has the whole thing about lying and societal expectations which makes it a bit more interesting for me. I personally have never had any big issues with my sexuality after I figured it out, but I can sympathize with his struggles to an extent. More than I can sympathize with Mahiru anyways.

I am always inclined to like characters who lie a lot, because it makes them more interesting to analyze. I tend to prefer when they aren't constantly telling everyone they're a liar, but Kazui isn't as annoying about it as some other characters (if I can like Kokichi I'll survive Kazui's thing). Kazui is cool because there's always the tiny doubt in my mind that maybe we're making a horrible horrible mistake by voting him inno this trial, but the more logical part of me knows that really isn't the case probably.

Shame his songs aren't really my kinda thing. I like Cat well enough, and I think half is good too, they're just not what I usually listen to.

I think it's funny his first instinct in his first VD was to try and apprehend Es, very funny guy. In particular, I think one of the most hilarious things that I've seen from Milgram so far is when someone before the release of Cat shipped him with the bartender just so Milgram could have a "Gay or European" parody, which is great, watch it if you haven't, and then it became canon (in theory).

As you know, I'm currently voting him Innocent, not just because of the whole "defending the others" thing, but because he clearly regrets what he did, he didn't mean to kill Hinako in the first place, so while what he did was pretty shitty, I don't think it's completely unforgivable.

I'm honestly coming up a bit blank on what to say about him other than the stuff I've sorta already talked about. I'll talk about the interrogations later, because right now I'm sorta distracted... by her.

Look at her!!!!

Look at how silly she is!!! She is not mentally stable but she slays that insanity look!!!

There's more of them??? This is fantastic!!! I love that for her!!!

Look at how happy she is, going to commit first degree murder!!! Yes, go literally slay queen! Kill 'em! Make them suffer >:D!!

(That last image and her murder shot may be my favorite Milgram frames btw)

I love her a lot a lot. To make it clear to you, I like her about as much, if not even more, than Min. Yeah, that's the critical levels of brainrot we're dealing with here.

She's just so fantastic honestly. Her entire story and personality and capital S Silliness is just fascinating, I could think and talk about her forever. It's hard for me to put into words, because I think about her and I start vibrating. Hands are shaking because Amane too awesome.

Amane is the reason why I even got into Milgram in the first place, you know? Like, I was seeing it pop up around my dash every now and then, but I was content to kinda ignore it... until I started seeing fanart of this weird little girl standing in an army of clones, and she looked a little... a little silly you know? I wanted to see what the deal was, and so I started obssessing over Milgram, so.

And what a time to join. Purge March may not be my favorite song musically (it's probably fifth after Backdraft, MeMe, Harrow and Bring it On. Magic is a bit below that but I also like that one), but it's probably overall my favorite MV of the series. Amane's an incredibly interesting character, the visuals are awesome, and lyrically it's amazing. Literally my only complaint is that it isn't longer, like please under three minutes? The shortest fucking MV in the series?! Evil /lh

One of my favorite Milgram lines in general is:

After you cry, repent, and kneel, it’s now your turn to say that hopeless “I’m sorry” You’re sorry? I don’t care! Please, go ahead and die already!

Just the almost jarring shift from "like our religion ordains, everything will be back to normal if you just apologize and repent :)" to "I don't care what you do, I hate you and I want you dead" is fuckaingadjk yes Amane go go go kill 'em! I don't care if you try to excuse your actions by twisting your cult's teachings so much you actually contradict them! That just makes it even better!

Yeah my sense of morality cannot properly process Amane's crimes as actually evil. Honestly she could kill the entire cast and I'd forgive her. Sounds like a skill issue on their part not gonna lie. Just let her stab Shidou, come on! Let her brainwash Fuuta! If she has DID, then let one of the alters not afflicted by Milgram rules stab Es! I think that'd be very funny.

God, she's just asodak`+ anda alsldk

Sorry, I'm normal again <- Kazui-core statement (aka a lie).

Amane's just really awesome. I can't properly make a character analysis here because I will simply explode and I'd like to survive to see her third trial MV. I think I'll love it no matter what it is, but I do have some things I would particularly adore. Bassically I just want her to go feral, just- just go insane. My inner Veronika in full swing, I wanna see a play by play of her murder and just her covered in blood and screaming like yeah girl beat 'em up! I've seen some people suggest she should just turn into a monster in her MV and that would be so awesome. I am so immensely normal about her holy fuck do you understand.

Obviously I think she should be voted Innocent this trial. Because I'm pretty sure there's just no coming back from a second Guilty, so we're essentially dooming her and irreversably breaking her psyche. Shidou will probably survive any physical wounds she could possibly inflict, but I'm not entirely sure Amane would be able to recover after a Guilty. I also have a full draft talking about all the ways voting her Guilty just to protect Shidou could go wrong (Fuuta could attack in her place/there's a chance it wouldn't even stop Amane/Amane could sabotage medical equipment even while Guilty/Amane might still have the "first stage of physical restraints" from Trial 1 making a second Guilty redundant/DID could let her skip over the rules/etc). So overall I think Innocent is by far the better option, and I hope the way she's bleeding Inno percentage is some sort of statistical quirk and not her actually losing ground on absolute terms...

... But.

Listen, an inno is absolutely the best option in my mind. But if she gets voted Guilty, after I cry for a few months straight...

I am going to be so excited to see what she does in Trial 3. My inner Veronika coming out again, I wanna see how bad she gets. The more terrible and feral she becomes, I'll only love her more. I want to see all the horrible things she's willing to do and say without justification (/ref). God Kami-sama I need therapy.

Ehem. Anyways, I like Amane a lot.

And there's the dynamics, the dynamics! I've already brainrotted about her and Fuuta a bit on his post, but holy shit I love them so much. I want them to get out of Milgram and be silly together. They really are the siblings ever. Fuuta would introduce Amane to all sort of online and self-indulgent stuff she probably wouldn't have had access to before, helping her reconnect with her own desires and happiness, and Amane would try to get him to touch some grass and fail miserably. They are probably my favorite prisoner duo overall; they're both already silly on their own, and their silliness is multiplied exponentially when they are together.

Like, you gotta understand. It's not just that they are objectively hilarious together and they should hang out all the time always. There's also the parallels. Have you ever noticed how they both present themselves as heroes in their own ways (knight and magical girl)?

That they both want nothing more than to impress the very people who are pushing them to do bad things?

[Magic] I hope, I hope everyone can be happy and smile

[Backdraft] Tolerate, impress those spectators

The way Fuuta sees judgement as fire while Amane sees it as rain?

And justavs jas doj oq

God I am exploding I am going crazy like O2 I'm burning myself into oblivion I'm undeniably inequivocally definitely completely insane-

Okay I'm calm now. I need to stop thinking about 0308 parallels because I will simply combust. So we're moving on to-

Oh fuck the Es parallels too!

Amane: We’ve talked about this before. There are things more important than the law. That would be our teachings. Es: I won’t acknowledge you turning such selfish rules into a standard of judgment. I won’t allow it. End of story. A: … E: Both religion and faith are free. However, a doctrine can’t become a universal standard of judgment. A: You fool. Isn’t Milgram trying to enforce a new standard of judgment precisely because laws cannot guide this world onto the right path? Are you still being weighed down by the law?

E: Shut your mouth…! I am the one casting the judgements here! A: Hehehe. And how does that set you apart from us?

A: “We”? What’s “we”? Are you not just “I”? E: … I…? A: Aren’t we the same? Me and Warden-san. You know, I’m aware that I’m out of the ordinary. That my environment was peculiar, and that everyone else is normal.

What if I just ascend into another realm? What then? Can I still post my silly little thoughts from the world beyond?

Listen, there's so much to talk about with these two. I've already said I'm a sucker for protag foils, and Amane may be the most direct foil Es has alongside Fuuta and possibly Kotoko. Not to even mention their sibling dynamic, too, only matched in awesomeness by 0308!

E: No matter what you do, no matter how grown-up you behave – you’re a child. That’s an unchangeable truth. A: You’re a child, too! E: Wrong. I’m fifteen, so I’m an adult in Puerto Rico and Haiti. You’re twelve, so you’re a child no matter the country. A: …!! E: Hehe. You look angry. A: I don’t. E: You do. A: I don’t!

Actual sibling behavior what the hell. I think they should stick together if they get outta the hell prison.

Honestly it's ridiculous how awesome this girl is. I could talk about her and her parallels with all prisoners for days straight. I am not normal about her.

It's not even the prisoners either! Like, have you heard of the Sacred Texts, the godforsaken fucking cat parallels?! I'm going crazy just thinking about them. The only reason I haven't posted 15000 different posts about it is because Amane PhD haver Dr purgemarchlockdown has already talked about it so much. But they are so incredible. Animal cover goes hard, too. I have to listen to all of those at some point.

I will be so upset if she doesn't end up Innocent this trial (not as in mad, as in extremely depressed and a bit mad). I've even tried to cope by thinking of how it's mathematically possible she's actually been getting more Inno votes than Guilty but her percentage is dropping anyways due to statistical quirks and please tell me once the percentage stabilizes it will hover around like 53% give me some graphs I want to try to make some predictions please augh-

Anyways I need to calm down or I will never be able to post this.

So let's look at interrogation questions! New ones come out soon, yeah? I'm excited to talk about them when it happens (and after someone translates lol). Kazui first!

(T1) Q2: Is there anyone you hold in high esteem?

K: You wouldn't know them, but I have a childhood friend. I really look up to them. Sorry for bringing up someone you'd have no clue about.

(T1) Q17: What would you do if the world ends tomorrow?

K: I would lazily do some fishing. My childhood friend who I talked about earlier has a boat.

Childhood friends to lovers AO3 tag is strong with this one huh. Hope his Trial 3 MV contains a scene of him fishing. It's just a funny image really.

(T1) Q3: If you were allowed to do anything, what would you want to do?

K: I'd like to live righteously.

(T1) Q4: Do you think that your family is proud of you?

K: No. They must find me embarrassing.

(T1) Q7: Do you like yourself?

K: I can't really say I do.

(T1) Q19: Do you want to be forgiven?

K: I'm not sure. I also want my weakness to be tolerated, to be honest.

Yeah, the (alleged) internalized homophobia is strong with this one, huh. I'm assuming that's what he's referring to when he says "weakness" unfortunately. I hope he gets therapy when he gets out of Milgram. But you can say the same about all the sillies I guess.

(T1) Q5: When you go to an amusement park, what do you like to ride?

K: The merry-go-round. I actually want to try riding on one.

What. Is this. Is this related to the merry-go-round in I Love You? Like Kazui wanting to try being in a relationship where the love is (somewhat at least) reciprocated? Will think on this more later. Maybe.

(T1) Q6: What is the difference between an adult and a child?

K: Responsibility. Adults can't just go and do whatever they want.

One day I'll start making posts about the prisoner pairs and this will come up in 0708 but I am currently unable to think more about Amane without imploding so.

(T1) Q12: What is the meaning of life?

K:I wonder what. If you find out, kindly come and tell this old man.

(T1) Q14: Do you listen to music?

K: Well, a decent amount. I'm sure you wouldn't know them because they're all old songs.

Why does my guy always talk like he's about to die from old age. Dude you're not even 40 you have literally half (song reference hah) of your life left at least, at least try to live it you know?

(T1) Q15: When do you wake up/go to bed?

K: Because I don't have a job now, I'm letting myself act freely. I sleep whenever I get sleepy, and get up before noon.

I've always wondered about this one. Retirement for police officers in Japan is around 60 years usually, so there's gotta be some other reason my guy's unemployed. That's assuming he was a police officer, since I've seen some dispute the claim, but I think it makes sense. Did he quit after Hinako's death? Something happen before it? It's really peculiar, especially because we don't really get any reference to this in either half or Cat from what I can see.

(T1) Q16: Do you believe in past existences and fortune-telling?

K: I don't. I can't shift to them the responsibility of what happens in life.

Oh you mean like how Amane pretends her murder was ordained by God even though her cult would very clearly disavow her killing anyone or anything because of the whole "follow thine destiny" thing? Curious.

Alright now get ready for me to analyze literally every single Amane question out of principle.

(T1) Q1: Do you have any special skills?

A: Nothing that I can call a talent. Perhaps studying. I do well in my Japanese class.

Does murder count as a special skill? Because I think she's actually decently good at it. Her studiousness is obviously caused by the whole cult thing, but good on her for being good at Japanese! Couldn't be me.

(T1) Q2: Is there anyone you hold in high esteem?

A: My father. My father has been on a journey for a while, but that is something very honorable.

I've always wondered how the father thing plays into her story, there hasn't been too much reference to him yet. There is the second voice reveal trailer thing, but honestly I'm not too sure what to make of it honestly.

(T1) Q3: If you were allowed to do anything, what would you want to do?

A: Nothing really. I am not lacking anything.

Alright you lying liar.

(T1) Q17: What would you do if the world ends tomorrow?

A: If everything ends? Then, I might do all sorts of things I have never done before.

I fucking love characters who lie to themselves yes fucking inject that shit in my soul-

(T1) Q4: Do you think that your family is proud of you?

A: Of course. No daughter is as exemplary as I.

(T1) Q13: Who do you want to meet right now?

A: My father. I want him to praise me for working hard.

Her (allegedly) dead mother staring at her from hell like ಠ_ಠ

One day I'll make a post about how it's possible everyone in Milgram's just dead and Amane got killed by her father when he returned home and that's how she ended up in Milgram and I'll be sad.

(T1) Q5: When you go to an amusement park, what do you like to ride?

A: That is a place I should not go to.

I hate her cult so bad. I imagine that would be obvious, but I'll say it anyways.

(T1) Q6: What is the difference between an adult and a child?

A: There is no borderline there. I think there are grown-up children and childish grown-ups.

She had to grow up so fast I'm fucking depressed. Also ngl "childish grown-ups" is kinda based I think Amane should just insult people more often it's very awesome of her.

(T1) Q7: Do you like yourself?

A: I have never considered it from the perspective of love and hate, but I do think I am a good child.

Ouch. Ouchie ouch ouch.

(T1) Q8: Between ethics and emotion, which do you prioritize?

A: Both are trivial.

"Throw down, ethics is a delusion"~

This is honestly just a really funny answer. I get why she's saying it (common ethics and her own emotions are not as important as her cult's teachings in her eyes), but there's always a bit of hilarity that ensues when you say "ethics are trivial." Amane should honestly be allowed to violate Geneva conventions, I think the world would be better if she did.

(T1) Q9: Tell me what your family consists of.

A: It was my father, my mother, and I.

Was, huh. Wonder what happened there (murder happened there (allegedly)).

(T1) Q10: Is there any prisoner you're close with?

A: If I were to say, I guess it would be Yuno and Mahiru.

And then she wasn't! Kami-sama that first trial aftermath was a warzone.

(T1) Q11: What kind of meat do you like?

A: I don't eat meat.

The part of me that loves body horror sorta wants Amane to be shown eating her victim in Trial 3 to really drive home how 'this is not what the cult wants her to do'. Is that not a normal thing to say? It makes me sound completely fucking unhinged? Oops. Anyways.

(T1) Q12: What is the meaning of life?

A: I think it is something you learn for the first time when you look behind yourself when it ends. I do not want to have regrets then, so I live on with all my might.

Sometimes (a lot of the time) I think about Amane when she grows up and hopefully is out of her cult's control, and how she'll feel about the first 12 years of her life. I hope she and Shidou make up.

(T1) Q14: Do you listen to music?

A: Not really, to songs that are highly entertaining.

I headcanon that if the prisoner's listened to each other's songs, Backdraft would be Amane's favorite because it's exciting and she likes Fuuta.

(T1) Q15: When do you wake up/go to bed?

A: I go to sleep at 9PM, and wake up at 6AM.

She sleeps for nine hours a night? This is the healthiest sleep schedule I've ever seen in my entire life the fuck is this. I get this is because of the cult thing, so I think my girl should get to do a sleep-over with some of the other prisoners eventually, but still.

(T1) Q16: Do you believe in past existences and fortune-telling?

A: Although there are many fake ones.

How do you think Amane would react to Mikoto's tarot thing? I can't think of anything funny to say so I'm just not gonna address the question.

(T1) Q18: Do you regret your "murder"?

A: No. It was a natural obligation.

So true bestie, kill the bitch. I will live up to my name as the Local Amane Momose Apologist, I want her to kill everyone that's ever hurt her (not the audience obvs).

(T1) Q19: Do you want to be forgiven?

A: Of course. I anticipate that you will make the right judgment.

Come on, how can you disappoint her again? Vote her inno, she deserves it.

(T1) Q20: Any complaints about being imprisoned?

A: No. Because this is a trial by God.

Reason #543785478 why voting her inno is the better option: there is zero chance she sees a second Guilty as anything but another trial she must endure, so she'll only cling harder to her faith and I seriously worry we might not be able to get her back by the time Trial 3 rolls around.

Okay brainrot over. I'll be surprised if anyone survives that amount of insanity but here we are. Thanks for all the asks! And excited to see what you're cooking on your end. Take care!

[emo-emu64]

Where the Angels Fall

Isaac "Zack" Foster x Reader

Demon AU

"As I walked into my run-down apartment I expected to be greeted by my loving house cat and the hole in the wall left by the previous residents. Instead I found a lost-looking, extraordinarily tall, inhuman, beast of a "man" wandering around, and mumbling something about "fucking humans"."

CW: Blood, gore, murder, severe injury, canon typical violence, language

The Devil is Real and he's in my Apartment

The keys jingled in the door as I stepped through the threshold of my apartment, soaked head to toe from the heavy sleet. There was a noticeable drop in temperature. Which was impressive considering how cold it already was.

'Guess I'll have to call the landlord. Again.'

The maintenance team had already been here three times that month, but they couldn't seem to figure out why the heat kept kicking off. It had been annoying as all hell with how cold it already was.

"Fucking humans, never home anymore. Who the hell do they think they are?"

My muscles instantly seized and my bag, also drenched from the elements, dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. 

The man in the kitchen abruptly stopped talking, and panic flooded through my body. My feet stuck to the floor, and my breathing became shallow and fast. I'd always heard about scary men breaking into young girls' apartments and doing horrible things. But I had taken every precaution to avoid it, the proper locks on my windows and door, I'd made sure the apartment was in a decent neighborhood with decent people. So how, pray tell, did this happen to me?

"There ya are." 

A large man stepped into my line of vision. He had to be well over 6 feet, he was covered in what appeared to be dried blood, and a large, also bloodied, scythe rested over his shoulder.  The hood of his sweatshirt was pulled up, ominously shadowing his face. 

I wanted to move, throw the door open, start running, and never look back. But my body refused to. My muscles felt tense, like they were made of stone. He was medusa and I had made the awful mistake of looking him in the face. I swallowed thickly as we continued to stare at each other. 

I noticed how bruised and cut-up what little I could see of his face was, my eyes wandered to his abdomen where he held a hand loosely over a bleeding wound.

I swallowed once again, opening my mouth to speak. Surprisingly, I was able to form actual sentences.

"Do you need help?" I paused, pursing my lips, "You look hurt. Do you need me to call someone?" it came out quieter than I would have liked, but I needed to seem unsuspecting. For all knew he was an innocent and injured man who had wandered into my apartment looking for help. The longer I stalled, the better.

He chuckled. Low and dark. Coughs scattered in between quiet laughter.

"Playin' nice won't get ya much of anywhere right now, sweetheart," his voice was even darker than his laughter. 

"But...If you help me out here, I might consider letting you live."

"Might consider isn't really good enough for me right now, buddy. I've got exams to study for, and I'm not wasting time helping you out if I'm going to die anyways." 

His eyes widened before he descended into laughter. It wasn't intimidating or menacing like before. It was a genuine laugh, like I had cracked a joke.

"Ballsy, aren't we?" He mocked.

Honestly, I was just as surprised as he was, but shock is known to do strange things to the brain.

He stared at me for awhile before speaking again, "Alright, alright. You've got a deal, you patch me up and I won't kill ya. Promise."

I didn't quite know why, but his promise seemed just as sincere as his laughter. Maybe it was just that I was desperate, grasping on to any sense of hope that maybe I would escape this with my life, but I couldn't sense a hint of deceit. 

I nodded slowly, " You can sit at the table, I'll go see if the first aid kit has anything useful."

He eyed me suspiciously. Understandably, I guess.

"I can leave my phone at the table with you or something, if that makes you feel better?" I proposed. 

I was still baffled at how calm I had remained, maybe studying to be an ER doctor as a college student without a penny to your name does that to a person. Or maybe it was just the adrenaline, and as soon as it wore off I would break down into the heaving sobs and hyper-ventilation of a panic attack. Who could tell?

He shook his head, "Nah, you seem smart enough. Just don't try anything funny or I'll have to gut ya, and we'll both be fucked," the corner of his mouth turned upwards into a teasing smirk.

I nodded once again before turning on my heels and swiftly making my way to the bedroom where the 'Be Ready Bag' was stored. I don't think this is what the firefighters in my elementary classes meant when they said 'in case of emergency', but it is what it is.

I rooted through the bag and pulled out the first aid kit. I checked over the contents and decided that they would do.

When I entered the kitchen I avoided all eye contact. I made my way to the sink and scrubbed my hands under the warm water. I could feel his gaze at my back, like there was something that made me interesting. I've never really liked it when people looked at me, but considering he's also a strange and threatening man, who had to be over twice the size of me, I'd say caution was entirely expected. Encouraged, even.  

When I was done I carefully grabbed the kit, and made my way over to the man who sat at my kitchen table. His legs were extended and sprawled out across the floor as if it were his own home. I wasn't about to say anything, though. After all his weapon sat just behind him, and I'm sure whoever's remains he left on the blade would tell me he was not at all afraid to use it.

We sat in silence as I fixed him up to the best of my abilities. Strangely, it wasn't awkward or tense. Just silent.

"This might hurt a bit," 

I poured the disinfectant onto some gauze and pressed it to the wound. He hissed and made a bit of a face, but otherwise, no reaction.

Shortly after, there was a soft padding of feet and a faint meow from behind me.

"That your cat?" He questioned from above me.

"Yeah, his name is Zero."

The man then lowered his hand and outstretched his fingers. To which the black feline, surprisingly, met and began to purr.

He wasn't an aggressive or shy cat, but he was never one to interact with new people. He'd only ever really been friendly with me.

I also really hadn't expected the dangerous and wounded man who had seemingly broken into my apartment to be a cat person. Speaking of which-

"If you don't mind me asking, how exactly did you get in here?" I finished the bandages and began to pack away what was left of the first aid kit 

"Why the hell do you wanna know?"

"Because I'd like to know if I need to get better locks on my doors and windows."

He chuckled again, "I'm a demon, sweetheart, pretty sure your locks've got nothing to do with it."

Dangerous, wounded, and delusional. Wonderful.

However, I figured playing along was my safest bet for now, so I nodded giving nothing but a simple "Oh."

He inspected my face closely as he stood, "Don't believe me, do ya?"

"I never said that."

"Good thing you didn't have to then, huh?"

He made his way towards me and bent his head low enough to be eye to eye with me.

Holy shit, was he tall.

"Need me to prove it to ya?"

His eyes, I was now realizing, were two very different, yet equally mesmerizing, shades. The right was a deep black lacking any color or depth. The left was the complete opposite, a vibrant gold with flecks of deep browns. Maybe even a few greens

He also had what appeared to be old burn scars trailing up his neck and jaw, there was a single stretch of one in particular that reached just above his mouth, but that was all the farther they went. They were a pale reddish pink, and their texture rose just above the rest of his face.

Before I could answer I saw his golden and black eyes morph into a glowing and deep crimson shade. His sharp k-9s bared with a sickening grin.

My first thought was that I was dreaming. That I really had spiraled into a gut-wrenching panic attack while trying to acquire the supplies and simply blacked out. 

It soon became very clear to me that, unfortunately, that was not the case. 

That it simply couldn't have been because I could feel  my nails digging into the heels of my hands. Nearly drawing blood while I desperately tried to ground myself.

He then straightened his back and sighed, "Believe me now?"

I nodded once more.

"Good, now that that's out of the way. I need a place to crash tonight, but tomorrow I'll be out of here, and you can go back to your boring little human life, yeah?"

I had the feeling that although it was worded like a question, he was not really asking, "Yeah, you can sleep on the couch if you'd like." 

He nodded, "You got a name?"

"y/n."

"Zack."

'Zack...he looks like a Zack'

"Are you hungry? I was going to make dinner before I started homework."

"Depends, what do ya got?"

"I was just going to make a grilled cheese, or something?"

"That'll work."

It was late by now, I had already eaten and finished homework, and I handed Zack a blanket and pillow.

"If you need anything my room's down the hall to the left. I'd prefer if you knocked, though."

He nodded and tossed down the pillow, as I began to make my way towards my bedroom.

"Hey, y/n"

"Hm?"

"Thanks."

I nodded quietly, "It's no problem," and with that I trekked down the hallway.

This story is also on Wattpad under the same title. I plan to move it to AO3 at some point as well.

[westfall-castle]

hey! Aelin stan here, I just wanted to say that i've seen your anti Aelin posts and you make really good points! You're completely correct in pointing out that Aelin should in no way have all the "life experience" SJM throws at her or be able to play the queen card all the time. In my opinion, the root issue is bad writing and SJM's apparent inability to write MCs who aren't some glorified, deified "perfect" being who checks all the boxes ever imagined.

I honestly wish that we saw more of Aelin making her mistakes and having to deal with the consequences. Like yeah, we sort of do, but not in any real way, and I think that's one of the things we as readers in general but also as Aelin stans tend to gloss over. She was rash and impetuous and never seemed to suffer the consequences, and everyone around her backed her up even when they "were mad that she didn't tell anyone her plans." Again, i think a decent part of this is bad writing and a too-heavy relance on the fantasy as opposed to making characters believable, but Aelin was the main main character, she deserved more than being exalted to god status.

thank you for being a voice of critique :) feel free to respond however you think this giant rambling braindump deserves :)

Hi Aelin Stan! I hope you’re doing awesome.

First of all I’m so sorry for taking centuries in replying to this 😭 Thank you very much for taking the time to drop by and leave your question.

Thank you so much for reading my posts! I wouldn’t consider myself fully anti-Aelin, but I include the tag so people can navigate through the content easier and well, because that post, as you remember, wasn’t precisely hyping her up hahah 😅. I do, however, see she has lots of positive traits to her and actually like her, she has a special place in my reader heart.

I agree with you completely! It was most likely because lots of things were going on throughout the series. First, it heavily relied on fantasy, as you say (which is not bad and it’s part of why I loved it) but soon SJM was tasked with

-Generating lore for this fantasy world

-Explain fantastic elements as more characters were added (For example: Introduce Manon= Explain the whole dynamics about witches. Introduce Rowan= Explain the whole dynamics about fae and demi-fae)

- Weaving the characters and making them interact so we had a story

-Developing each character’s arc

- Bringing the story forward making it make sense

-Write romance for all these characters ending with more than 6 pairings

SO IT WAS A LOT GOING ON! And I do admire as a reader the amount of work this represented and how she brought it forward. in the end, the series counts with 8 books and it still left us wanting for more!

At the same time, maybe this was the reason there wasn’t enough space for development, introspection, accountability for Aelin. There simply was no space for this to happen! If Aelin suffered the consequences, as you very smartly mention, it would have required to edit the text and narrow certain elements to have space, or add 2 more books to the series and make it 10 (which I’m personally not opposed to hahah, but we know how editorial publications work and it’s already hard as it is to publish 8 books in a row!)

Perhaps the work got so big no amount of words did it justice. Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten Elide or Aedion. Who knows how it would’ve gone.

Many readers mention in their critiques of TOG the space management (aka: reading and editing to cut out irrelevant parts and make reading more efficient and straightforward) What I can say about it is: I agree, however, SJM is the writer. We must respect as readers that maybe these parts in her mind were specifically relevant to her and helped her build this big fantasy world in her head. Many parts could be left out to make it “neater” but it’s easy to critique when you’re not the one who’s writing.

Throughout the 8 books, I felt SJM’s necessity to transmit. She wanted to take us into the narrative, clarify all of the reader’s questions and she did a commendable job in doing so. However, she did drown in words in some parts. Sometimes you were reading and the narrator was talking and talking and you couldn’t help but think: ???? Why is this relevant? Hahaha

Maybe these parts could be used for the character development we were seeking at the expense of cutting out certain details from the books.

Well, you have no idea how much I love engaging in these types of conversation so I really have to thank you 🥹❤️ I send you a hug wherever you are and you’re not rambling! It makes so much sense! I can see you’re an avid reader 💕

Lots of love and if you ever want to discuss books again I’m here! Promise to take much less in replying.

[thrilling-oneway]

I need to know your feelings about love live 2 global

SIF2 was a mistake.

God I have a lot of feelings about it. This is probably going to get rambly as hell.

Even if SIF2 kinda sucked I had still planned on getting EN just because I want to play a LL game again (i don't really understand linklike's gameplay so I'm hoping someone makes a guide now that SIF is dead in a ditch). I'm... probably not going to bother now. Maybe I'll get it to play some charts, maybe not now i've just remembered how much storage it takes as well.

Announcing your game's EOS date in the same tweet as announcing the launch month (not even a date) is insane. What the hell even. Like, this is genuinely such a PR disaster that it broke containment so badly. LL became talked about worldwide and... relevant, i guess, for the first time in years. We got on saved you a click. We got on gamesradar. Head in hands.

Like, I get why they're still launching it. Obviously staff have worked their asses off for over a year on this to the point they already had to push it back, and suddenly scrapping that plus telling fans who'd waited a year for this that they weren't even getting it is a bit shit. You can tell the only reason they're releasing it is because of this, because there's no reason for it to outlive the JP server.

I have no doubt that this was dumped on EN staff last minute. They retweeted the JP shutdown notice to the EN account for crying out loud. This wasn't meant to happen it clearly was JP staff deciding the game was failing and pulling the plug.

Even from the JP side of things it was a very last minute decision LIKE COME ON. Wien and Tomari were added last month and their only UR cards are their fucking birthday cards. That's it the event schedules have been released ahead of time they aren't getting more URs. They're having to release Shizuku, Kinako, You and Maki's URs early bc the game didn't even live to their birthdays. This wasn't meant to happen.

Not even just on EN side but SIF as a series dying is a massive thing. Like sure we still have Paradise and SIFAC wai wai, but Paradise is. well... and Waiwai is actually decent but outdated and doesn't receive updates because there's nothing to port bc they don't do SIFAC anymore. SIF dying also means u's is actually proper dead now. Like. yeah no more u's aside from the occasional LLdays illustration and annual new years stream (we don't even get thanksgiving fes anymore god). We're not gonna get N girl content anymore either bro it's so over for LL.

SIF1 was outdated and probably should've had a sequel game released that was still a similar enough game (aka not sifas) just updated to get with the times. Honestly to this day I still think SIF had the best F2P accessibility out of any game, as well as the best team building system (bc. well it actually had one like you actually had to strategically build your teams). If SIF2 wanted to be good all it had to do was add L2D (and like ACTUAL L2D not what they did in SIF2 where they slightly animated the sprites), update the gacha animation, give us cards closer to the quality of SIFAS (or even better bandori or proseka), and add 3DMV or something. Literally just make SIF1 with proseka/bandori features. You don't even have to make the story better because it isn't even canon. And what we got was SIF1 with better UI and card art, and everything else was worse including the gameplay because they broke sliders.

The fact they shut down the original game for this, and possibly even SIFAS. It's insane how poorly this was managed. Saw a tweet earlier about how fucked up it is how Nijigaku have several songs based on in-game stories from both SIFAS and SIF2 and both of them are just. Lost media ig now. Even SIF1 stories are lost media because no where archived them. God that's so fucked actually like so much content just gone forever. EVEN OFFICIAL NOVEL TRANSLATIONS WERE IN SIF1 AND THEY'RE JUST GONE.

It's insane to think that the best LL rhythm game now is an outdated PS4 arcade port (the best game is actually linklike but it's not really much a rhythm game). Other than that there's * checks notes * Tokimeki RunRuns, Blaze in the Deep Blue, Numazu in the Mirage, and the upcoming Niji game. None of which are rhythm games.

I saw some people discussing that maybe that cross-unit live that's bringing back saint snow will have a new game announcement and while I doubt SIF3 i honestly kinda hope there's something coming with that concert. Even if it's a fucking bandori/prsk reskin or even SIFAS2 I don't care I just want to have faith in this franchise because it means a lot to me.

Sasuga staff-san /neg

[scripted-downfall]

Best JP performance? Worst JP performance?

Oof, a very difficult question; I commend you :) (I confess that I'm not sure I have one-performance answers; I suck at being decisive on all questions, sorry... Frankly, I'm not even sure whether it's easier to come up with 'best' or 'worst' first, but I'll give as brief-yet-complete a response as I can!)

Best: Honestly? Cry_Wolf. The movie itself isn't especially great imo, which helps. Additionally, the character feels decently genuine. I've also seen his Friday the 13th, which I really wanted to like --- largely because I came to like Amanda Righetti in The Mentalist --- but it was just uninspiring. On the other hand, I didn't leave feeling like it was atrocious, so that ranks it on the better end of things. The early seasons of Supernatural aren't bad --- I suspect that I'd like them a lot more if I went back and rewatched them after seeing the more recent seasons, but this is largely conjecture; I hadn't liked him much back then, either, and it's only comparison that makes the heart grow fonder --- so they bear mentioning. And I think that some of his acting as a villain in SPN was pretty good too (e.g. Soulless Sam springs to mind). His acting as Gadreel-possessed-Sam was decent, too. Oh, and "The French Mistake" featured, imo, better acting than his actual day-to-day performances did.

Some qualifications to the above: 1. His character in Cry_Wolf isn't horribly dissimilar from what little I know of Padalecki's usual personality --- highly proud of being from Texas (e.g. with the flag in his dorm and multiple conversations about it, iirc), a prankster (including some that go way too far), and with questionable viewpoints (e.g. rude about someone's weight, etc.) --- so the question of how much it's genuine because of a performance/acting as opposed to just... because it's genuine is a bit unclear. 2. The problem with his roles as villain in SPN --- Soulless Sam, as mentioned, but also Meg!Sam, hunting-obsessed!Sam in "Mystery Spot", demon-blood Sam, Samifer, Soulless Sam, etc --- is that they started to get a bit repetitive. Initially, they had nuances distinguishing amongst the roles, but he'd lost that by at latest the end of the Soulless Sam arc, if not before, so I'm a bit leery about listing these in the "best" category. Gadreel was acted according to Tahmoh's initial representation of the angel, so it broke free from the rather unvaried mold.

As for the worst: At least half of SPN (on the later end of things). I don't quite know where to start this category, since it's not so much a toggle between good acting and bad acting as it is a slow decline. I know that I very much didn't like Samifer, so maybe sometime after that (with a few exceptions depending on the arc). I really didn't like House of Wax --- which was my first deliberate foray into Padalecki's filmography, and occurred solely out of curiosity after the Paris Hilton episode of SPN --- but I legitimately do not know at this point if that was his acting, the frankly awful physics/anatomy contained within the film, or the film in general. And Walker. Definitely Walker. That was. Ow. No. I'm never even touching that again, much less watching any of it.

I hope these are decent answers! I'm happy to elaborate should you want more details --- I had enough to say in vague ways that adding in lengthy and detailed explanations felt like it'd be annoying, so I figure I'll just answer anything you want to know --- and I hope the response was interesting/helpful/etc!

[minimag1c]

Hello everyone!

This was a request from @/ionulex on wattpad and if you're in tumblr I hope you'll like it and if you aren't, I hope you'll like it as well

I have failed

Tw : dysfunctional family and mention of neglect

-------

"Appa! Can you play with me please?"

Dark choco cookie childish voice rang through Dark cacao cookie's ears as he was looking at a decent amount of formal papers while his son sat next to him.

Each time Dark choco would ask the king to hang out with him, Dark cacao felt a twist in his heart, already knowing the response he would gave him every time.

"Not now son. I'm busy."

Dark choco small smile disappeared instantly and was replaced with a frowned look as he pursued his lips and looked away. "I... Understood." the young boy said as he got up from his sitting spot and went through the door. Dark cacao cookie waited for his son to completely go away only to sigh hardly and tested his head behind his crossed arms who were on his desk full of papers. This was the third time this week that he refused to spend time with Dark choco and that made him more guilty than ever.

But he was a king and not only of a kingdom but a whole continent. The dark flour war was close, more ambush of bandits threatened the surrounding villages of the black citadel and vile creatures seemed to multiply such as the licorice sea who already took the live of many cookies. Even if he wanted to take time for his son, he couldn't, he had too much responsibilities and duties to fulfill and that made him more guilty than ever.

He loved his son dearly from the bottom of his heart, he knew since the day he was born and choose the grapejame chocoblade among the many items that Dark Choco would be his biggest pride. And yet, the king seemed to only grow distant towards his own son and that made him feel a hint of sadness inside him. He only hoped that if all of this fuss will calm down soon, he could try to be closer with dark choco once again.

It was just a question of time.

-༒︎-

"Dark Choco cookie!! What did you do!!"

Dark choco cookie eyes widened in shock but mostly fear and horror of what he had done. The sound of the strawberry jam sword slashing his father in half was still audible in his ears, infesting his brain, making the prince sick. The attack was so powerful it shook the wall of the throne room, making some of the chocolate falls.

"F-father!! I-I didn't mean it! Please forgive me!"

But no matters how he tried to plead, the sword kept whispering to him the same words he heard when he attacked the king, his own father.

"kill him."

"leave him bleed to death."

"didn't he treated you harshly?"

"finish him"

Dark choco cookie tried to shrugg thoses words, which was already very complicated because of the circumstances, and, despite that the world was spinning around him, he tried to reach to his father who laid on the cold marble floor.

"Appa p-please-"

Dark choco cookie tried to reach Dark cacao only for his hand to be harshly snapped away.

"Leave... And never come back."

The king snarled in the coldest way possible that the now former prince took a step back, now scared of his own father.

The same man who held him when he was a freshly baked, the same man who looked and told him that he was proud of his son was now laying nearly limply on the blood stained floor, hardly keeping himself alive while looking at him with anger and sorrow.

And it was all his fault.

Without any seconds, Dark choco cookie ran away. Running away from the scene, running away from the castle, running away from the guards who kept yelling something he didn't knew, running away from the kingdom, from his home. He didn't even noticed the tears streaming down from his eyes

Because he hadn't believed in some stupid legend about a cursed sword, because he wasn't worthy enough ofr his father.

And because of his fatal mistake, he had failed.

-------

Wattpad version

Archive of our own version

I nearly got carried away and added ooc headcanons. 😼👍🏽

Also sorry for the shitty writing and the presence any mistakes here, the electricity shut down here for at least 3 hours and I'm feeling a little down lately that's why I'm writing, it makes me feel a little bit better.

-Miranto

[boop-le-snoot]

BUTT-DIAL? NO, BOOTY CALL | tony stark

explicit, 5,4k words. wrong number text, family shame & wedding drama that isn't even his and a ruined first date. despite the implications of the situation, both reader and tony are very entertained. meet-ugly series, part three.

[no y/n, no "you", no name, no reader description - race/age/body type neutral, she/her pronouns]

💚 masterlist ☀️ taglist & faq 💚

Another sunny day spent wasted in a conference room full of boring, old, conceited chairmen. Tony Stark vehemently refused to commiserate with them, their boring speeches and blunt, straightforward thinking. Sitting through a meeting was like walking on nails barefoot: painful, pointless. Mind-numbing.

His phone beeped loudly and he reached into his pocket, pretending to not see Pepper's disapproving look. Both of them knew he was hoping for a sudden Assemble call - that would surely get him out of the meeting - but as much as he hoped, they never struck at the right time.

Except, this time it wasn't a call for assistance, and neither it was an automated spam message with Pizza Hut promo codes. Tony's eyebrows drew close and his lips upturned as he read and re-read the obvious rant written on his screen, typing up his answer before he managed to resist the morbid curiosity that was fueled by his boredom.

Whoever it was, they were justifiably angry and the whole situation was almost too comical to be true, except he'd known people exactly like the runaway bride, selfish, greedy and stupid. He totally understood the woman's desire to just go and load up on tequila shots somewhere - so he bid her a haste farewell, all the while snickering to himself.

"It's Rogers," Tony offered in the way of explanation to a glaring Pepper, locking his phone away and settling in to continue pretending he was listening as another old, crusty white man offered his input on topics he was too much of a dinosaur to even really know about.

He couldn't stop thinking about the incident over the days, the story making him snort more times than he could count as the memory randomly crossed his mind in the lab, at the coffee pot or during dinner. So when a message came through from that very same number, the smirk snuck up onto his face before he even read its contents.

A brief crash course in memes from Parker had turned out to be more useful than ever. Irritating Rogers with pictures got old very fast, however, in moments Tony got rendered speechless they proved to be the perfect substitute for trying to articulate all his thoughts on the matter.

Celebrity appearance, she said? More likely than one would think. The engineer had nearly doubled over in a fit of laughter when she'd texted him that; obviously, the woman had no clue who she was texting with and he decided to further indulge in his curiosity by asking for her name: Friday did the rest.

A phone number and a name, ten minutes, and all her social media were free for him to stalk. Investigate- uh, observe. With little effort, Tony found both her and her brother, the unlucky groom, and the runaway bride and even her step-dad. On paper, they all looked like average middle-class families. Nothing seemed amiss.

It didn't mean anything, but Tony caught himself thinking about the woman. Perhaps it might have been the mischievous gleem in her eyes that was easily spotted in every picture or perhaps the raunchy sense of humour not much different from his own. Pretty, witty and smart - what's there not to like?

"So that's why you've been going around, smiling like a middle-schooler with a crush," Natasha's voice whisper-shouted in Tony's ear as the spy discreetly peered over his shoulder into his phone. He had the chat pulled up, debating on starting a casual conversation-

"Jesus Christ, Romanoff, somebody needs to put a bell on you," Tony snapped, startled, pressing the button to lock his phone immediately.

"Uhuh," The redhead replied, side-eyeing a snickering Barnes. "Who is she?"

Tony rubbed his face, feeling the beginnings of a blush starting to creep in. He felt like he was caught doing something he wasn't supposed to and the rest of the team acting like children wasn't helping the matter. "I got a butt-dial text about some wedding drama. Some chick's brother's fiance was fucking her own stepdad and ditched the wedding for her old man."

Stunned silence settled briefly into the room as Romanoff's eyes widened and Barnes choked on his orange juice. Serves him right, Tony thought, and continued his coffee-making process in quiet irritation.

"Wait, wait, hold on," Wilson half-laughed half-yelled. "You gotta spill the tea, man, this sounds too good to be true. Stories like that just don't fall into your hands."

With a sigh, he recounted the woman's story and read the texts aloud, silencing his snickering enough to be able to keep a straight face - but not for long, Rogers decided it was the time for another one of his Captain America Is Disappointed In You speeches and Tony himself couldn't even disagree.

Now that he thought about it, he came off as a kind of asshole. She and her family was going through something traumatic and he went and treated it like free entertainment. Which, to be fair, it was, but she didn't deserve to be treated like a circus clown. She actually seemed like a good sister and friend.

"Just text her," Natasha rolled her eyes at him, grabbing the coffee pot out of his frozen hand. "You're not Steve, you can keep a decent conversation via text."

Being compared to Steve and his pre-historic messaging habits really did a number on Tony's ego; the eyeroll he gave Romanoff was truly out of this world, all but teleporting him to his lab where he tried to find a way to approach the woman without coming off as incredibly creepy, as if the fact that he'd stalked her on social media didn't already put him firmly into the weirdo category.

Most likely, Tony would have spent many many days on overthinking before just grabbing one of his suits to make a truly impressive landing on her small balcony downtown; thankfully, fate had intervened and saved him from making another epic mistake. He'd made a note to ask Thor about it sometime, settling down with his tablet and popcorn bowl to watch TV on the team's movie night.

Or, more precisely, Tony settled in to watch the drama unfold as the various members of the team fought tooth and nail for the film that they wanted to watch. He never cared about it much, dozing off halfway through most of them - his teammates had the worst taste in movies - so he didn't bother joining the scuffle except when it was Peter's turn to pick. For obvious reasons.

"If you can't decide I'm gonna have someone else pick a movie," Natasha rolled her eyes, equally fed up with fully grown adults acting like spoiled toddlers.

With a stutter of his breath, Tony's hand reached for his phone as he had an Idea.

Seconds tickled as the "typing..." bubble appeared and disappeared multiple times. She must think he's just a thirsty frat boy; Tony's brow furrowed, but the curiosity was far too strong in him. Something about her vibe, her feisty nature captivated him and kept him thinking about her.

The agreement came as a surprise. In the two minutes the woman had spent thinking up her answer, Tony prepared himself to be rebuffed gently, or, worst case, be called a creep. But no - she agreed, but not before vehemently insisting that if he would end up being a creepy serial killer, she would haunt his ass for the remainder of his life.

Friday couldn't come soon enough. Tony spent most of the day loitering between his lab and the penthouse, glancing at his phone every now and then to make sure she wouldn't cancel on him last minute. The engineer wanted to see the witty, no-filter-having woman in the flesh.

And see her, he did. He'd pulled up in front of the hole-in-the wall Ramen&Bar place Clint had been raving about weeks prior - contrary to popular belief, Tony was perfectly fine with going to places that didn't have Michelin stars - and leaned against the door of his Audi R8, eyes immediately taking note of the figure calmly walking down the street, head tilted down where she was typing up a reply to him.

Tony smirked as she lifted her face up to see him, mouth immediately falling open. The shock was obvious; it lasted mere seconds until her shoulders dropped and she sighed almost... In disappointment. He frowned.

"I jinxed it, didn't I? Here's my celebrity appearance," The laugh was a little nervous and quite sardonic. "Hi, Tony, nice to finally see you."

He smiled, unsure, quipping back easily. "Let's face it, I'm not the worst famous Tony out there." Opening the door of the building for the woman, she stepped in eagerly enough, eyes immediately falling on the bartender and the few dimly lit tables in the back.

"Not by any means," She turned towards him, walking backwards. Tony met her stare; it was just like he'd imagined it to be, curious, mischievous and a little daring. She didn't even attempt to play subtle, raking over him from head to toe. "Not at all, I think," She gave another teasing smile, finally turning around, addressing the bartender and rattling off her order without as much as looking at the menu.

Tony couldn't stop staring. He was aware it was creepy, she was aware of his clever brown eyes barely paying attention to their surroundings or the beer or the food. The woman just quirked an eyebrow every time she caught him. His curiosity couldn't wait any more. "Why aren't you freaking out?" He blurted out, cursing himself out almost immediately after the words left his mouth.

"My almost-sister-in-law was fucking her own stepdad," The woman deadpanned. "I ran out of fucks to give, sorry." She thoughtfully chewed her food, briefly looking to the side. "Not to sound like an asshole, but don't you have enough people fawning over you? Doesn't it get old?"

Tony nodded, choosing to stay silent on the matter besides offering an amicable, "That's valid."

The mischief lit up again in her eyes. "You look taller on TV," She snorted, immediately falling into a fit of laughter at his face full of outrage. He sputtered, muttering something about audacity of some people, which made her only laugh harder. "Here's a pro tip from my 4'11 bestie: when someone calls you short, you snarl at them and say you're fun-sized. She swears by it," The woman remarked conversationally, grinning a two hundred watt smile.

Tony was glad at least someone was enjoying their little... Date. "And you know all about fun, don't you?" He aimed for grumpy; it came out as teasing. His famous smirk made a return appearance as he watched her throat bob.

The atmosphere between them had changed at some point; the same old routine of teasing and dancing around each other, but this time, Tony all but purred in satisfaction, finally meeting someone who was an even match to his wit and charm.

"I do," She replied with that cocky confidence, her devil eyes lighting up, lingering on his face. "Got a problem with that?"

The plate was pushed away, napkin falling into the food carelessly as he gestured for the waiter to bring the check. "As a scientist, I cannot confirm whether a theory is true until I have direct evidence," The bullshit flowed easily from his mouth, but the woman appeared to be amused by it - for a change. "M'fraid I'm gonna need that evidence," His fingers drummed on the table, impatiently, inches away from her hand.

"Of course, Mr. Stark," Her voice dropped, she was fully aware of what she was doing by calling him that. That, and those deep, magnetic eyes made Tony's trousers feel a little too tight for comfort.

His phone rang loudly, dissipating the atmosphere they had created with a shrill noise. Captain Cockblock struck again.

Fumbling fingers, Tony tapped the green icon, shooting an apologetic look to the woman. "Rogers, there better be another alien invasion or I'm revoking your phone privileges," The woman chortled, taking a sip of her beer, trying hard not to seem like she was listening in and failing spectacularly at it. "Today, out of all days? Can't Strange fill in for me?" The engineer palmed his face, running a hand through his neatly done-up hair. It would be covered in soot and sweat in an hour anyways. "Fine, I'll be there in twenty minutes. Romanoff better be hauling Barton's lazy ass out of Bed-Stuy." With a frown, Tony poked the red icon and stuffed the phone back in his pocket, looking for all and all, like an angry adolescent.

The woman, however, didn't indicate any signs of displeasure. Her hand timidly reached out for his, giving it a brief squeeze. "Go, save the world, Mr. Stark," Her smile was sympathetic. They both stood up at the same time, Tony watching her incredulously as the woman untied a scrap of red fabric from around her neck and placed it around his wrist, tying the fabric with a loose but, frankly, pretty knot. "I like that bandanna, would be a shame if you didn't return it," She explained, shrugging her shoulders.

Tony snorted, fondly rolling his eyes, before beelining for the door, activating his Iron Man suit on the way out. Turning around before take off, he noticed her throw a couple of crumpled bills to the server who was too busy ogling him.

He forgot to pay for dinner, Tony realized as he made his way to the other part of the city. Well, fuck, he would definitely have to see her again.

---

An alien invasion during her first good date in ages - scribble, scribble, sigh. She couldn't do much more than that - just as she thought her string of bad luck had ended, the world turned around and flipped her a juicy bird, all but laughing straight in her face. Like that already wasn't enough, oh no, she groused as she spied the debris and random abandoned cars on her way home - it looked like some portion of the battle had been close to her home and only the sheer mental exhaustion that resulted from her life being turned upside down during the last month prevented her from having a full-on freak-out in the middle of the eerily quiet street.

Truly, the fucks she had to give had been expired.

The gloomy mood was interrupted by a cry - for help or of outrage, she didn't know, but the kindness in her, the very values she'd been raised with didn't allow her just to walk by, and with another resigned sigh, she tucked the nice blouse she'd put on for the date under her warm sweater and set off in the direction of the sound, finding the culprit in little under a couple of minutes.

Freeing the trapped civilian wasn't easy but, thankfully, neither it required super-strength or any kind of heavy machinery. The man thanked her and with him in tow, both of them set off to inspect nearby nooks and crannies. Logic won that day - if there's was one person, there could be more.

Hours later, sweaty, sore and bruised, the woman greedily chugged the water bottle someone had passed onto her as the amount of medics and firefighters had finally reached the threshold of when her help wasn't needed anymore. While her date and his colleagues fought whatever nasty that thought NYC was a sandbox battleground for their amusement, the woman found herself helping out with retrieval & evacuation of the civilians that didn't make it out of the neighborhood before the heat of the fight reached it. There were no deaths registered as of then and deep inside, she felt proud, knowing that she had contributed to the statistic at least a little.

Her phone was dying, her body was covered in dirt and scratches from head to toe and the bruises were beginning to ache. Tony's worry-worting was cute but the tiredness overcame her, making her brain sluggish and her demeanor short, so she hastily pocketed the phone, trailing over to the closest man in uniform she could spot.

"Sir?" She addressed him, eyeing the unfamiliar logo on his jacket. "Can I go, please?" She pointed to the yellow tape surrounding the makeshift medical station.

"I'm going to have to see your ID first," He replied apologetically, tapping away on his tablet.

With a sigh, she dug through her purse, giving it to him and using the brief moment of respite to smooth back her hair and dust off her clothing. There was a cloud of concrete and dirt surrounding her.

"I'm afraid I can't let you go just yet, Mr. Stark left strict instructions for you to be picked up by him personally," The agent gave the ID back with a suspicious glint in his eye.

"Oh c'mon," The annoyed whine escaped her lips before she registered it. "It was our first date," She offered to the puzzled agent, only succeeding in making him lean back and inspect her with a raised eyebrow. "Bye," She replied none too kindly, walking off to find a place to sit down.

The time passed in a strange way. The aches and pains and exhaustion made it stop, and if someone would have asked her, she wouldn't know how much of it has passed until her eyes reluctantly cracked open at the sound of a familiar voice, coming to see a pair of expensive shoes covered in dust. At least she wasn't the only one that looked like she'd taken a roll through someone's gritty attic.

"Morning, you Tasmanian Devil," Tony sounded jovial, all things considered.

"Hello to you too, Tin Can," The woman greeted him on par, without missing a beat.

"Now, now," He offered her his hand, which she took gratefully, before pulling her to her feet. "I come with peace offerings. Your building is under quarantine and I've got a perfectly good bed and a shower with thirty settings on it at my place. Whatcha say?"

She only pretended to think about it. Her reply was haste. "I don't make a habit of going into strange dudes' towers but I'll make an exception this once." A shower and a bed sounded heavenly.

Finally getting the chance to look at him, Tony appeared to be unhurt but equally exhausted and dirty. A few scrapes on his face and arms, he was missing his blazer, and had a weary tone to his face. Some parts of his Iron Suit were still on him - like the chest plate - but besides that, he was whole. The red of the bandanna she gave him was equally dirty but still neatly tied around his wrist, just like she left it.

"How's your relationship with heights?" He asked her and all she could do was blink, watching curiously as his body was enveloped by the red and gold, crawling over his skin like a swarm of shiny termites. That was all the warning she got before the metal arms - quite literally - sweeped her off her feet. "Faster this way," She could hear the nonchalant shrug in the metallic voice coming from the helmet. "Now hold on."

Awe and fear culminated inside the woman but the weariness had long since surpassed comfortable levels and all she did was give a weak nod and close her eyes as Tony lifted off, gusts of wind making her skin break out in goosebumps and her hair stand up wildly on her head. During the short trip her eyes fluttered open only once just to close back up immediately - all she saw were clouds, white and fluffy, like marshmallows, and the shining beacons of NYC skyscrapers somewhere far away.

The paralyzing anxiety fully dissipated only when her feet found purchase on the tiled floors, Tony's arms never ceasing to support her swaying frame until the breaths she took were her own and not the result of her fluttering heart and muted panic. "You with me, Wonder Woman?"

"Yes, Weird Science," She mumbled. "Thanks for the heads up," The annoyance had to find a way out and that it did.

"You're welcome," The cocky smirk returned to Tony's face as his suit receded, leaving him barefoot, dirty jeans and a torn tee. He stretched with a sweet groan, gesturing towards the door. "Friday will direct you towards the showers. Feel free to grab a t-shirt from the closet."

The woman nodded, too awestruck by the man and his hospitality, eyes darting all over the tastefully decorated room, the expensive knick-knacks scattered everywhere, the absolutely enormous sloppily made bed. Tony Stark liked to live luxuriously - even the shower was a state of the art technological wonder.

Dirty pants and dusty blouse went flying somewhere in the back of the bathroom as the woman stood up on her tippy toes, reaching for the sky, stretching her sore muscles. The glass wall of the shower had began to fog up from the hot water. The knock went barely noticed by the woman who jumped as Tony's voice startled her out of her daydream.

"Forgot I ran out of towels here..." He trailed off, voice dropping as he spotted her only in her underwear. She turned, responding with a lopsided grin, spying the stack of fluffy grey in his arms, the arc reactor in the middle of his bare chest. He smirked, "Damn. Can I join you?" Giving her what only could be described as a respectful once-over.

Tired as she was, her sense of humour and wit didn't go down for a much needed nap just yet. "I don't know, you tell me. Can you?" Turning back around, the woman made a short show of unclasping her bra and tossing it in the general vicinity of her dirty clothing pile. She'd worn a cute matching set of undies that day and the fact didn't go over Tony's head, she was sure.

The door clicked shut just as she raised her face to the stream of water, feeling calmer with each second, muscles relaxing themselves as the hot stream washed away the dirt and the dust off her body.

"And I thought this evening was ruined," Tony's voice insinuated from behind her. A hand reached for the soap, his body heat scorching compared to the steaming water. He stayed just a few inches away, enough to feel him, enough for her body to respond and crave more. "It's nice to be wrong for a change. Refreshing."

The woman hummed, reaching up to run her fingers through her wet, knotted hair. "First decent evening in ages. I wasn't gonna let some uninvited Predator knock-offs ruin it for me," She was more than a little peeved at the space invaders interrupting her nice date. Tony was a great conversationalist, it was easy to talk to him and he had a brilliant sense of humour. Not to mention the obvious, he was easy on the eyes.

"That's the spirit," The voice was closer now, almost in her ear. Even though her eyes were closed, the woman was aware he was reaching for something, letting him butt her hands out of the way to lather her hair, scrubbing at her scalp meticulously, until the sounds that left her mouth bordered on embarrassing. Once that was done, Tony moved onto her body, running his hands over her back, the outside of her hips. "M'not stepping over, am I?" He asked quietly, touch faltering every time he brushed over a scrape or a bruise.

"No, you're doing great, Tony," It wasn't exactly conventional - sharing a very intimate shower after an interrupted first date, but then again, nothing about this man was conventional and her life had already been turned upside down no less than twice recently. The woman didn't lie, the gentle, caring touch felt soothing.

Arching her back, she lifted her arms to repay him with the same, raking her fingers through his hair, leaning into the shudder that ran throughout his body. It was nice to bask in whatever they had going on, so the motion to face him was almost reluctant. Water droplets stuck to his eyelashes and his eyes were tired but not in a way that suggested he'd kick her out first chance.

Their kiss was sweet, slow, like they already were familiar with each other in a special way. The woman tugged on his lip with her teeth - such was her character - and he pressed closer to her, raising a hand to hold the side of her face. In muted curiosity, she couldn't help but wonder if there ever had been someone that waited for him once his battles were over.

Tony's eyelashes, the very same that had no business being this long on a man, fluttered against her cheek as they stood under the shower, letting water wash away the day.

"I've always wanted to kiss in the rain, like they do in the movies. This is the closest I've gotten," She whispered, gently kneading the arch of his shoulders. "Feels better than it looks, to be honest."

Tony snorted, reaching for the knob to turn it off. "Cheesy," He teased her, wrapping a warm, fluffy towel around her body. Both people made quick work of drying themselves, exiting the fogged up bathroom, making way into the bedroom, padding soft on the carpet and falling down on the bed carelessly.

"I'm the queen of cheesy one-liners," The woman raised her eyebrows, scooting under the sheets next to Tony who opened his arms wide, a smirk on his face. She didn't give him the chance to reply, slotting her lips over his instead and groaning as their heated bodies once again rested against each other.

She ran her hands over Tony's defined pecs, glossing over the arc reactor, raked nails over his tummy, eating up the sighs leaving his mouth at the gesture. He was a beautiful man, she wasn't going to lie to herself. The warmth that settled low in her belly grew, spreading throughout her limbs and temporarily overshadowing the exhaustion.

The engineer, too, was quite excited - his erection poked her hip - and content to be steered to her wishes by the hand in his hair. Groans and sighs left his moist, parted lips as his eagerness bled into his hands, grip firm and steady on the panting woman's hips.

Adrenaline did something to her body, caused it to ache sweetly, a hunger to be satisfied only by a lover's touch. And touch she did; her mouth tasted him, alternating sucking gentle marks onto his throat and nibbling on the skin stretched thinly over his collarbones. Tony's sighs grew in depth and volume with every silent action of worship.

No inch of his body was left untouched, the woman was an all-hands-on-deck kind of lover, happily making her way down until soft lips wrapped around the crown of his cock, making his hips arch into it, hands fisted in the soft white sheets. "You devil," Tony gasped out, limbs turning to jelly, watching the woman all but devour his cock.

She popped off minutely, a trail of sticky saliva running down her chin, sticking to his glistening cock. "The power of Christ compels me?" With a smirk, her tongue trailed from his balls to the very tip, paying extra attention to the frenulum, making Tony shudder and gasp out an embarrassed laugh.

"Uh-uh," Stripped of his usual snark, he was but a man at her mercy.

"It's not very compelling," The predatory stretch of her lips widened as she took mercy on him, giving his cock a few slow tugs with her hand. Her mouth, her hand and his cock were dripping. "Gonna let me do all the legwork, Mr. Stark?" She sat up straighter, inadvertently drawing his eyes to the apex of her thighs where the woman's sex glistened in the dim light, lips swollen and inviting.

It sounded like she was mocking him, teasing him, egging him into a lustful frenzy none of them had the energy for but craved anyway. Tony Stark wasn't the one to back down from a fair challenge so he relented, flipping them over with ease, landing between her spread legs, eyes drawn to the momentary bounce of her breasts. Tony wasted no time in suckling a hard nipple into his mouth, humming in response to her choked-off moan of surprise.

"Tony," Her body arched into his touch, tender skin hot under the callouses on his fingertips.

"Yes, demon, dear?" A lopsided grin and laughter in his eyes preceded the wet stripe Tony licked down to her navel. "Wasn't there something about not telling demons your name? Guess you have power over me now," He trailed off cheekily, soft breaths puffing over her mound.

The woman bit her lip, peering down to rake a hand through Tony's hair, snagging a fistful to gently steer him towards her pussy. Tony's smile was one of satisfaction as he obediently followed her silent order, nosing along the line of her cunt, dipping his tongue to run slow, sloppy lines through the soaked folds.

"Fuck," She mumbled, spreading her legs without shame. "Yeah, right there," Her fingers turned white at the agility of Tony's tongue on her clit. He was swift and relentless in pursuit of the spots that made her moan and clench around nothing. The moisture of her sex soaked his goatee but he couldn't care less.

He growled when she attempted to withdraw, wrapping his muscular arms around her thighs to keep her still for his pleasure, wringing noises that increased in volume with every stroke of his tongue on her sex.

"Tony- please, Tony, I'm gonna-" The warning was brief; her back arched as a broken moan found its way past her moist, parted lips, her pussy spasmed, dripping all over his face and the sheets.

The engineer hid his smile against her thigh, discreetly wiping the obscene amounts of moisture she produced. It wasn't very long until her hands, slightly shaky, were tugging him upwards to meet his face in a rushed, graceless kiss. There was an equal lack of finesse in the glide of his erection along her sex.

"Okay?" He mumbled into her ear, lining himself up with her fluttering cunt.

"Please," She gasped, her hands pushing his hips onto her, eagerly lifting up to accept the sweet intrusion.

There was a quiet stutter in both of their breathing, hearts thudding against their ribs as he finally bottomed out, the thickness of him nestled snugly inside the rippling muscle. The pace he started out was agonizingly slow and inexplicably sweet, neither of them wanting to end their coupling prematurely but not being able to hold back the need that consumed them both.

"Fuck, you're so good to me," Tony's mumbling was overshadowed by the slick sounds coming from the place they were joined. "Gonna fill up this pretty pussy."

The woman keened at the idea, digging her nails into his ass, pulling him further into her.

"You'd like that?" He picked up the pace, blunt tip of his cock catching up with the tail end of her previous orgasm and re-lighting the fire in her belly anew.

"Yeah, Tony, please," No trace of the previous coyness in her voice, the woman was more than ready to beg, murder and steal to feel the man come undone in her arms.

It didn't take long, not with the adrenaline making their blood sing and the chemistry they shared. The brutal pace of Tony's hips quickly grew sloppy and erratic, the tightening of her inner muscles egging him on. He chased his release with deep, powerful thrusts that had the bedsheets rustle pitifully and beads of clear swear drip down his forehead.

As soon as her body arched once more, Tony let go of his control, slotting himself deeply into her spasming heat, cock throbbing as he painted her insides white with his seed, groaning incomprehensible compliments and profanities through his teeth. Chest heaving, the engineer couldn't do much more but let himself carefully fall onto her chest, aftershocks making him twitch when the woman began running a gentle hand through his hair.

"We're doing this again," He decided, still breathless but already a step ahead. She laughed.

Tony Stark taglist: @pilloclock @mikariell95 @letsby @sleep-i-ness @toomanyrobins @mostly-marvel-musings @persephonehemingway @downeyreads @schemefrenzy @lillsxd @slothspaghettiwrites @bluecrazedandbeautiful

[theseventhoffrostfall]

My Railroad idea would also make them more expansive and sort of a more "wildcard" like you said. They oppose the strict, super-controlled lifestyle of the Institute on its people (both civilians and Synths) and help people and Synths escape the city and live new lives in the Commonwealth. They believe highly in personal freedom, that every man (uploaded into a Synth body or not) doesn't need to be constrained by the world to make their own path.

Alongside a sophisticated network of hideouts and safehouses, the Railroad also collaborates with raider gangs to coordinate attacks on Institute holding points. The Railroad, of course, doesn't condone or support what the raider gangs do, but they consider it a necessary evil. Birds of a feather-type thing. There would be some arguments that working with raider gangs isn't exactly a good idea, and some even fear that they're making the Commonwealth worse by indirectly hooking up Jethead Jones and his boys with Institute tech. In short, the Railroad believes in "no gods, no masters" but it's clear that their current methods may lead to more trouble than any thing the Institute was trying to do.

For the Brotherhood, I honestly considered scaling them back a lot. It would only be that a small platoon of soldiers, scouts, and whoever have arrived from DC on an expedition, having picked up transmissions about "a preserved Old World city of working technology and advanced robots." I didn't like that Liberty Prime returned, since that kind of felt like a rip off on Fallout 3's ending. The Brotherhood in my version is like the Brotherhood in New Vegas: drawn-back, smaller, but you can still help them out should you want to, or just ignore them if you like. Kind of like what you suggested.

The Minutemen form a much more cohesive government. They aren't NCR-scale, but they're organized enough that they have actual trading routes, half-functional towns-- they would even have some production of iron, since there's an actual functioning ironworks in-game that no one else but these drugged-up raiders were smart enough to see the value in. The Minutemen are stuck in an identity crisis: do they form one big government and become a "New State of the Commonwealth" which will focus more on a state of (supposedly) wise, compassionate people working to ensure the safety of its people, or do they focus on a smaller, but much more lenient government that allows towns to make most of its own decisions unless otherwise noted. They're not falling apart or getting their ass kicked by crabs or naked ghouls, they can stand on their own and they have a pretty decent set-up. It's just a matter of figuring out what their future is.

My main factions are:

Institute: Highly advanced super society that is do everything it can to correct the mistakes of the past, but constantly teeters on the edge of becoming the monsters they wish to extinguish. Brotherhood: Small, minor faction. Optional, but provides lore, good weapons, and a callback to Fallout 3.

Railroad: An anarchist faction that believes in personal freedom for everyone, a life free from control and oppression. Their problems are that they sometimes act before they think things through (the freeing of the Mark 1 synths and then covering it up) and working with dangerous raider gangs to achieve its goals.

Minutemen: A government having an identity crisis, struggling to find out what is best for itself: its people or its strength?

Honestly, I'm glad you like some of my ideas. I like your idea about the Institute too: a shadowy, mysterious collection of scientists controlling things behind the scenes would make more sense than these random dudes in labcoats sending out their supposedly super-duper advanced robots to harass a potato farmer across the map.

I'd love to share some other ideas about the minor factions too, if you have the time. Again, I hope this isn't a bother to you or anything

Nah, no bother at all, this combines some of my favorite things: worldbuilding, creating weird factions for weird worlds, fixing shitty stories and dredging up ancient gripes about stories so I can get angry about them all over again.

I like your takes on the factions.

Seems like we're basically in synch on the Brotherhood

Railroad as the local anarchist underground is great; aesthetically you get an interesting mix of secret agent, punk rocker and shadow-diplomat.

Through them we get more depth on the Raiders, which I've longposted about in olden days about being the most interesting part of the game (particularly in 4, where certain details like their fortifications and traps, tendency to exact tribute and forced labor rather than just massacre fore edgy torture and lulz, and even certain voice callouts where high-level raiders call out tactical instructions and advice to low-level ones paint this picture of Raiders as a weirdly believable grouping of warlords leading personal armies, hammering a pragmatic combat doctrine out of shared knowledge and blood-won experience, and being able to build bizarrely advanced gear like automated turrets and modular weapons platforms out of junk. The Nuka World raiders had more individual flavor but unfortunately lost some of that accidentally-grounded and gritty charm

But I digress. The Railroad as an anarchist collective gives them a clear and believable ideology and motivation, as opposed to "I will fight and die to liberate synths, for some reason, in lieu of any of the problems effecting wastelanders at this very moment like ghouls and supermutants on every blade of grass"

The Minutemen are a good point, too. It strikes me as silly that after they fell apart everyone seemed to decide "fuck it" rather than ever making any effort at common defense again, let alone government. I like them being a functional, if nascent faction. If nothing else, I want to not have to do literally everything and I don't want to micromanage settlements, or build buildings, or have to tell every dickhead which ear of corn to harvest. It doesn't make me seem cool it makes everyone else seem like an idiot, and I'm trying to play an action rpg not a Sims game

Yeah, I guess corollary to all of this is that any idealized version of FO4 would have the settlement mechanics gutted, overhauled, and reimplemented in only the barest state

[macaronnya]

Fresh(?) Impressions (11)

Other parts: |Trickstar| |UNDEAD| |2wink| |Ra*bits| |Akatsuki| |fine| |Ryuseitai| |Knights| |Valkyrie| |Switch| |MaM/Double Face/Crazy:B| |Eden| |Alkaloid|

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Hello Enstarries~☆ The most very likely longest post I've ever posted on this hellsite (affectionate) is here! I'll rate MaM, Double Face & Crazy:B (not in this exact order) and it should be obvious I'll only show one picture per character except for two. It would probably be better to show their whole outfit but I wanna use their cards for the aesthetic. I'm actually procrastinating rn bc I still have so many days left to do in the current event (Intersecting Motorshow) but the repidigit mission is causing me psychic damage. I'll come back to it later.....Oh and my wrist is still killing me 😭 It's actually both of my wrists now....

DISCLAIMER!: Everything said here is for entertainment purposes only and not meant to attack anyone. This is not an accurate description of any characters but my subjective rambling for fun, so please don't take it too seriously. (Just to be safe, I'm kinda scared of elite idol fans) Also, you will hear me mention other games a bunch of times bc I'm that bad and uncreative at explaining and I'm still grieving A3!EN's shutdown. Eng is my 2nd (or 3rd?) language so there might be some weird grammar or spelling mistakes. And I write at 3 am usually.

Without further ado.....Let's Ensemble~☆

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By the time I am writing this part.....it is unfortunately not high noon; it's 9pm right now!!! Interesting to see one guy being a w h o l e unit by himself. I was always confused why there's just one guy but eh whatever. No idea where the idea of spreading hope, positivity, motivation and cowboys intersect but if it works 🤷‍♀️ I can't say I like his outfit bc cowboys aren't my thing but he looks decent enough. The colors especially fit him very well but that's to be expected, considering there's only 1 guy to tailor the outfit to. The red piece of fabric on his waist is a very nice pop off in terms of colors & sillouette. Btw is that brown strap on his trousers the gun holder? Inconvenient placement but it would be very cool if the gun is an actual part of his outfit lol. Now comes the sad part, I don't vibe to his songs I've heard yet in the game. There is smth that makes me unrationally irritated and angry???? He's just cheering us up and encouraging us but I just don't like his songs for some reason? Sorry man 😣

5.5/10 - I think it's the first time the music brought the rating down

Madara Mikejima

Howdy boiiiiiiiiiiiii I feel so bad 🥲 He seems like a genuinely good guy. I mean, I did hear smth about him lowkey gaslighting Anzu into thinking they're childhood friends to get closer to Trickstars somehow but I don't think it could have been so bad. I hope. He really wants to spread ~good vibes~ and all and is adamant in being true to himself and his fans. Going after his own beat so to say. A strong boy. Another rich boy apparently???? Which I didn't see coming at all, though he doesn't really care much about that anyways. A very healthy boy. Like, carrying a 17-18 y/o girl is still taking a lot of power and energy even if she's only 50ish kg. And he went quite a while from what I get in his Ep.1. The absolute confidence this guy has to just become a solo performer amidst all these groups. Ik inside the world there are obv other soloists but he radiates confidence one way or another. Initially, I thought it was just the fandom making him out to be the mom friend bc of his unit name and personality but he actually says it himself 😶 I get the feeling others tend to underestimate or are intimidated by him due to his self-assured and almost over-friendly attitude, which he makes use of very well. He's the perfect example of charismatic. I am pretty sure he's also quite popular with mothers, grannies and children. Kinda like Chiaki in a lot of aspects. He looks pretty good. He's falling perfectly into my preference of brown haired green-eyed 2D guys so that checks out. His voice is also pretty nice. It's smooth, rich but still somehow airy like.......liverwurst (I had to google this word and, like, I didn't expect it to be a literal translation from the german one, very very tasty btw). There's still smth nnnggghh about it, though only minimal.

7/10 - kinda intimidating extrovert but definitely looking forward to learn more about him

Ah yes, another one of my fav units musically. They just sound so DAMN AMAZING!!! No idea what genre they tend to go but it's wild and fun and makes me just lose myself. There is not a single song I dislike, literally every song is a banger in one way or another. They all sound good together and just !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'd keyboardsmash but I think you get it already. If I were forced to chosse favs, I'd say Crazy Roulette and PARANOIA STREET but all songs are really good. It was when I watched their MVs when I noticed how long their torsos and tiny their waists are. I like their uniforms very much as well. There are 2 variants with slight differences and everyone wears individual accessories, which is a bit like Ra*bits and obv makes me weak. It looks like a stylish everyday outfit, if not a bit fancy but it fits the theme of freedom and fun. Black and white are always safe options to go with but it's not boring at all with the different prints, the little bit of other colors and the bling overall. The bee brooches are soooo cute and just make the outfit 10x better. The buttons are shaped like honeycombs!! Honestly, it's probably one of the best regular unit outfits in the game, for me ofc. No idea about the group dynamic but I know that everyone is kinda wild and weird and not a single normal person is in this group, which might not seem much in this game but I mean, I can't even see them functioning with each other but at the same time it's kinda obv they just do whatever and it somehow works??? As I've said, officially, I've only read their Ep.1. And with the memes (and therefore random spoilers), that's kinda the vibe I get. That and I saw a twitter post on tumblr listing their canon crimes, which I shouldn't trust blindly ofc but there's that. I guess it's in the name. Kinda cute how they're bees though. You'd think they'd go for cooler animals like idk leopards or dogs or smth and not little bees but it's a fun novelty.

9/10 - I wanna gobble those bumblebees

Rinne Amagi

A runaway ex-monarch, now where have I heard that before???? Well, Citron (A3!) eventually got back, gave up the throne and peace somehow happened with everyone but I don't think that's the case for this guy here. I don't know much more about his past except, that he's Hiiro's brother and they lived in a remote conervative village. I can definitely see, that he used to be smn important with how he acts. He seems very carefree, lax and rough around the edges but he is in no way stupid and actually pretty sharp, I think. I couldn't fully concentrate when I was reading his Ep.1 bc 1. it was midnight and 2. he talks like a radio host or game commenter 😂 Talks a LOT and very lively. I already knew he had a good as in attractive but yeah also good singing voice but holy did his normal talking voice catch me off guard. It was very...👀 To put it in my unique descriptions....idk man. No words, it's a bit more difficult bc he goes up and down a lot, it's a very nice kind of deeper voice, though. He'd tell the best stories for children. I guess it's comparable to a nice quiet day at the beach with a bit of wind. Not too sunny or too hot. Unsurprisingly, he's obsessed with thrills and new things too, I'd say. Probably stems from the fact, that he used to live a set path in his zraditonal village. Likes gambling and considers even marriage gambling, which isn't wrong. Nothing in life is set in stone, after all. I did hear he can be kind of an asshole and self-absorbed, which is also not surprising. His vibe kinda gave it off. Very likely impulsive and does not think things through 80% of the time, which makes him not stupid but stupid. Fun person to watch but not to hang around with. I feel like he'd drag you in his problems regularly. I don't think he can cook or do basic household chores so how did he survive alone then??? He didn't get scouted immediately, right? He can clean the toilet at max. Btw. he has a pretty good sense of fashion for smn who's pretty new to urban life. He also has certain charm to him and looks kinda good. Oh and he seems like he's in his 20s, which makes me question why he calls us Nee-san. "Miss" would be more appropriate, no?

7/10 - interesting fun guy but I'm preparing myself for the coming headaches

HiMERU

So mean of him to let i be the only small letter :( Or is it some symbolism? Ok, so straight up, I heard he's impersonating for his younger hospitalized brother, which is why he always refers to himself as "HiMERU" and not in first person. If I remember correctly ofc. Now, that already goes to show he cares greatly for his brother but also that he has determination of steel bc who would go through so much trouble wth. And the thing with acting as close as the original Himeru is just.....😧 Why would he do that? Does he actually care for him, or was he somehow forced to do it? He seems pretty chill, obv very secretive and relatively distant, to no one's surprise. He's also polite but can roast you without you even noticing. Maybe I'm just being judgemental but he might also be more cold. His hair looks like bedhair but the good "I woke up like this" ⭐ variant Nonetheless, he should probably get those strands down and away from his face. Black goes very well with him for some reason. His voice sounds so seductive when he sings but is pretty calm and rather quiet otherwise. It's not weak, though, and rather like a sturdy bench but with ventilation since it's also a bit airy.

6/10 - there's a lot to uncover but I'm in no hurry to find out

Kohaku Oukawa

I'm having difficulties telling his and Niki's singing voices from each other apart. It's so stupid considering how often I listened to the songs but their differences are not that noticable and both fit. Kohaku's normal talking voice is very easily recognizable, on the other hand. In Crazy:B at least. It's similiar to Mika and Shinobu but he has a less stretchy speech pattern (M) and his voice is deeper (S). He sings pretty decent. Not 100% sure what's up with him but wasn't he some assassin or smth? He seems too friendly and normal to be one. I almost wanted to ask what one would even do here but that's a stupid question 🤦‍♀️ He seems to have family problems. I heard somewhere that he likes sweets as well so....Welcome to the club💖!!! I sure hope he's open for all kinds of sweets around the world. I thought he'd be more grumpy and serious but he's a normal amount of that. I like his hair and eye color. It's the same combination as Shu's but I like it on him more. Probably bc I like his hair more and he just looks friendlier.

7/10 - sympathetic dude fr

Niki Shiina

I see a lot of :P from him. Is the bit about his condition about being less able to absorb nutrients true? That would suck man. Being hungry 20/7 sounds like a nightmare. What also sounds like a nightmare is cannibalism, which I sure hope is just a misnderstanding or misinformation bc wtf. Anyways, aside from that, he can cook! Plus point here already. Trust goes through the stomach after all. Talks similiarly to Rinne but more playfully. His voice reminds me of fresh citrus fruits. Seems diligent (for the sake of food) and is pretty cheerful (unless there's no food). Mans got his priorities straight of retiring as an idol if it strains his physical and therefore mental well-being. Must be a bit of a pushover if he got talked into becoming an idol of all possibilities. I mean, it's obv they can't eat a lot and have to work hard to stay in shape and sing well. I thought he'd be more reserved and uh normal bc malewife material and memes portrayed him as the one who cleans up the chaos. Maybe, my memory is pretty hazy on that regard. I like his appearance. Pretty hair, blep, kinda cute.

7/10 - kinda like and curious about him

Remember how I said the typical idol outfit is inspired by imperialistic european military uniforms? I guess it's taken literally here but more shifted to the 20th century. I have no idea what the theme is supposed to be. I did see that they were called executioners when I picked the cards from the wikia but is that it? Back to the clothes, they look good! You can't go wrong with suits and gloves. It's with darker grim colors (pretty sure they're from Madara's MaM outfit) which fits to executioners. The sherrif star is a bit funny but I guess it works as a medal here. What puzzles me is the puzzle piece on their belts. Are they also seekers or smth? The harness??? or how they're called on Madara sure give the extra spice along with the ¾ sleeves, that leave a bit of room for peeking skin. And the magically hanging coat gives him the a bossy feel. Kohaku on the other hand resumes the role of being the cuter one out of the two and has cool cape-shirt to his shorts and overknee boots. The asymmetry of the top makes it more interesting to look at and shifts the focus on the basically only patch of light color on his outfit. He looks like Madara's assistant or second-in-command, not that there are others.

I don't think the group exists yet bc 1. it's not shown anywhere in-game and 2. Kohaku is a new character after all and just got introduced to be part of Crazy:B (I think, I haven't read the story yet). It will probably be formed later on for some reason. It doesn't seem like he left the other unit like Nazuna left Valkyrie. The music can be pretty good. It's more serious sounding compared to what they usually sing and it sometimes reminds me of these cool cinematic chase scenes in oldie movies.

7.5/10 - dunno what's up but I'll look forward to more or actually seeing it formed Ig

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

Conclusion

Sry to any MaMPs here, I guess the positive songs are too pure and burn my dark soul away or smth along that. Maybe Madara is mermaid prince and his songs are effective against me, an evil fish (Mermaid Melody reference that nobody gets bc barely anyone knows it :,)). Crazy:B got pulled like crazy high through their songs but they're also pretty balanced on their own.

It is now 5 over half 6 am and I already completed the event before starting Crazy:B's part. I am literally so close to simply drifting off to dreamland. I tried to look out for any mistakes but I don't think I found them all. I'm gonna do the rest this week no matter what.

If you wanna share smth just write away with the limit being respectful boundaries and the knowledge, that everything here is just for fun and games! See ya'll later~☆

[wingsfreedom]

Iroh doesn't dislike Azula because she was "evil"

S02E01, the Avatar State, Iroh to Azula: [Clearly upset.] To what do we owe this honor?

S02E11, The Desert, Iroh to the Rough Rhinos: Colonel Mongke! What a pleasant surprise!

This is only the start.

For the longest time, I thought this was the case, or at least how he preseives it. But no, it didn't turn out to be that simple. Iroh doesn't dislike Azula because she was evil nor because she reminds him of Ozai, at least we can make sure of that now since he admits that the one who reminds him of Ozai was Zuko actually in his official book (i.e Legacy of the Fire Nation) -- and it's a fair comparison (even though, Azula might reminds him of older Ozai; what Ozai become). And most likely, the feelings he harbors against her aren't that of a righteous rage.

Iroh worked with the Rough Rhinos, who are mass murderers mercenary, and was cool with them before and after his 'reformation', he called them "old friends" and even enjoyed their singing (I made a detailed post about this here). Iroh aided Zhao in his assault against the Northern Water Tribe, he gives him a reasonable advice ("It's almost twilight, Admiral. As your military consultant, I must advise you to halt your attack. [Cuts to shot of the ship, sailing past a rising moon.] The waterbenders draw their power from the moon, and it is nearly full tonight. You should wait and resume the attack at daybreak. [Cuts back to Iroh and Zhao.]") Iroh is cool with his father, Firelord Azulon, who organized the Southern Raiders and established concentration camps; he remembers the man smiling at him in the LotFN book. And even when using the fandom's favorite word 'warning signs' since childhood, Iroh claimed he recognized destructive tendencies in Ozai but didn't deny that his brother still has the potential to turn out a decent person if he was guided and didn't suffer from favoritism under the hands of their father.

Did I mention the thief and the founder of the Red Lotus, Xai Bau? He teached the thief how to be truly intimidating if he wants to steal someone before he comes to understand his story. Iroh as well hoped one day the Red and White Lotus can work together. There was no shaming, insults or judgments. No righteous rage whatsoever.

Before his retirement Iroh dreamed of being Fire Lord, to conquer Ba Sing Se, admitted how fearsome he could've been in the eyes of the world, but one of the worst things Iroh done as a person is using the Secret of Firebending, life-giving qualities of fire, for conquest. Not only by this he earned his power boost, reputation and title (i.e. the Dragon of the West) but more importantly led his Nation imperialism and caused the death of many on the friend and the foe sides; he also was a bad influence on his 10-11 and 8-9 years old niece and nephew by literally laughing at burning down a "magnificent city" from the war front in a 600 days siege, while sending them gifts he took from the resistance forces (i.e. the dagger).

Only Lu Ten's death and the Spirit World what led Iroh to a rude awakening. But it wasn't enough. Again, Iroh didn't do anything to stop Ozai for years. He aided the FN war against the Northern Water Tribe; his only objection is for the moon spirit not to be killed, which is something any reasonable person can understand. At the end of the show, the writers left Iroh where he was the most happy: profiting from the most privileged EK people who didn't even know there was a war going on of the very same city he tried to invade! Leaving Zuko, a teenager boy, who's clueless in politics to do the heavy lifting.

I see Iroh's repentance involved him only doing the bare minimum in stopping the war, he was mostly hedonistic and prioritize retirement over atonement. His most notable act of repentance is his determination not to repeat the same mistakes of not being a good father to Lu Ten (whom he led to his doom) and not being a good brother/guide to Ozai; to help him become a better version than the worst of himself. Note that he calls Ozai "brother" but never once called Azula a niece.

So, what does this has to do with Azula?

We have two options:

A. Azula is a special kind of evil which made her somehow worse than the mass murderers mercenary group who would throw in a party after destroying villages for shit and giggles, worse than the man who set up concentration camps, worse than the man who set on a propaganda bring out the worst in the Fire Nation, worse than the man whose pride and anger management can destroy a continent, worse than the man who established an organization to cause chaos in the world, worse than the man who purely led by his arrogance and ambition, worse than Iroh himself who literally used the true essence of firebending (ie life-giving qualities of fire) to kill people combined.

B. There is a different reason. The feelings he harbors for Azula aren't that of righteous rage; because we know that Iroh to a great measure is not a morally judgmental person.

I understand the menacing Azula vibes the show tried to depict and Iroh's wank and protection by the narrative, but the audience shouldn't necessary get baited (i.e. Iroh isn't 'good' in the same sense Aang and Katara are; he's very morally grey). After examining Iroh's attitude toward the literal rest of the cast besides his own dark, shady side we can look for more reasonable reasons. Because if the case was simply Azula being "evil" then it's lacking and badly written, which is why many people, including myself, have questioned and rejected this logic.

:: Conclusion: Iroh dislikes Azula because she's an obstacle to Zuko -- she's an obstacle to his throne, she's an obstacle to his father's attention, she's an obstacle to the Fire Nation's hero/ideal prince spotlight. She shielded Zuko from Ozai's favor which resulted in Ozai's neglect of Zuko that led to Zuko's misfortune.

Iroh's opinion can be biased more than based, because of his essential lack of a relationship with Azula -- and considering the amount of time he spent in his Spirit World journey after Lu Ten's death (which wasn't specified in the show or its sources) it means he only spent little time in the Palace until Zuko's banishment. He seems to was cool with little Azula to send her a doll (a gift anyone who had 2 minutes talk with Azula would known it's not the right/good gift), then after that she becomes only a threat in his eyes.

However, the interesting part is that Azula is not the only person whom Iroh gives this treatment, he did that with the Gaang and random people too. Yes, she received the most obvious and aggressive end of a passive-aggressive attitude which his love for Zuko leads, but she was not the only one who suffered from Iroh's favoritism:

I'd like to point that Book 1 Zuko especially kept hurting people repeatedly, you note that Iroh didn't stop Zuko from marching his ship into a populated village where Zuko almost killed a child, Iroh enforced a huge fireball by Zuko's side to stop Aang's escape (the Avatar), Zuko kidnapped and blackmailed Katara in front of him while he did nothing, he stands by while Zuko attacking Suki and set the village she tries to protect in fire, how Iroh was aware Zuko been stealing even things they don't need just because he can't stand the life of a commoner; yet his nephew was still his priority more than the amount of people who have their stuff stolen for no good reason. In LotFN book, Iroh outright downplayed Sokka's intelligence and claimed he needs Zuko to stay grounded, because Sokka is such a fool. Fans will make all the nitpicking over how Iroh secretly helped the Gaang but would blissfully ignore the elephant in the room that Iroh was constantly prioritizing Zuko's potential growth over other people's safety, which is why he's most of the time allowing it as long as it serves Zuko in the long run, especially if that person was Azula. So by keeping this consistency, Iroh believes that defeating Azula would be Zuko's passage into manhood is true to his character. He considers her Zuko's final enemy.

Iroh not only sniffing out any familial obligation Zuko has toward his sister, he also encouraged his rivalry with her

These are Iroh's goals and they were fulfilled: Zuko become good. Zuko doesn't have to do anything with his family, especially his sister. Zuko become Fire Lord and change his Nation. End story. Even in Legacy of the Fire Nation book, everything he said was clearly in regards Zuko's legacy, Zuko’s wishes, Zuko's heroism, talent and intelligence—Zuko’s everything.

Sources: ATLA TV show and the Legacy of the Fire Nation book (which written based on episodes as written, no additional content).

P.S someone's added a good naunce on this topic here.

[lesbiancarat]

Haha its fine! Im book anon for a reason so take all the time you need! Before I start, I wanna apologize for the possible asks you got about the merch and hybe in general. I didn't intend to cause stress and need to be careful bdjahdsj so slap me with a fish!

Onto the ask! But agreed, I mean before the big kpop boom we saw, this was very common. Build a decent fanbase and then move to Japan or China. (Of course sometimes you see INSTANT movement in other countries but that depends on the company and such but you know what I mean) but since we do have the more global kpop era, we may see more companies do America which isn't a bad thing. It makes sense buisness wise so they will jump on it after debut or something. Thus I don't see it a bad thing for kpop groups to promote in America because hey, if in Korea they do sell western artist music who also tour there, kpop groups can also do the same ya know?

Now onto the hybe comment, I will try not to speak too much on it so I will try to summarize. I think my theory is due with merch from their main artist, they think maybe it could work with svt which maybe could but svt has a different fanbase so throwing on random merch won't make fans really want to buy (not saying some won't which kudos to you! As a fan you are allowed to consume what you please except not be a bad apple about it) so thus like the infamous water bottles which was done for bts, they thought why not do it for svt because bts fans sold it out apparently for a 2nd wave of it being sold again. (Which to this day idk why someone in the hybe team thought this was smart. Like...this is just in bad taste imo) I do wanna agree that it appears that hybe doesn't seem to have a proper art team for svt because while sometimes wild, I do know for their main artist they do have thoughtful merch based around say an album concept I recall. Kf course they will make mistakes i.e. the water bottles. I do wish it can improve because even though it is capitalism, I think fans do want decent merch. We have seen interesting ideas like svt making their own magazine and selling it lol. Of course it is hard to please because some fans want subtle merch ideas while others don't mind the vibrant pastel colors we got or some want wild ideas like svt figurines or something. Overall I hope I didn't drag this too much as I just wanted to respond back to you, I agree with many points you said so yeah cx I say let's also wait as this is barely what, a year or even less of svt being under hybe properly. Especially when hybe had its rebranding and expanding so things are being changed, I know fans are worried about this which is valid but let's not panic just yet. Let's come back in a year to this and see what has improved and what hasn't. (OK but peldis sold the boys rings!? :o since when!? I haven't heard of this actually, when did this happen if I may ask?)

Oof yeah sadly with streaming, many view "oh you don't stream it means you aren't a fan" when isn't the case (which is why I personally don't like when certain companies also do "listening parties" which seems a bit ???) I do remember this popped up big in 2017 but many fans called it out so it quiet down a bit. Like we didn't see it so often where fans were causing problems over it so idk why this returned nor what the cause of it was.

But thank you!! It really was a nice closing chapter, I think when I have personal stuff settled I will try maybe get a new bunny? And oohh congrats on the album! (Note to hybe or pledis. Please make the us store a more common thing, it makes things so much easier! Am happy it was at your place quick so kudos to the us store. Oohh wonderful choices! I think for many fans anyone or heaven's cloud seems to be the popular picks? For me, I may have to say game boi or heaven's cloud as well! Those songs make me just so happy? Like game boy is just so creative with the way it was made. As a video game nerd, it is perfection. I could make an essay about this song lol and heaven's cloud is just...wow. I feel so at ease with the song, comfortable and soothed. Like you are on a cloud lol. Also that is totally fine! Rtl was a grower for me (I blame the mv, it didn't do the song jusitice) but it is a bop and can't stop humming the chorus at random moments. Overall a great summer album. Just imagine any of these songs performed live ndjansns

lol don't feel too bad about it! honestly they weren't that bad + i can always delete asks if i really don't want to answer them, i just always get a bit paranoid that things will get out of hand so i may end up getting more serious in those situations OTL

and yeah i agree! i don't think it's a bad thing for groups to promote in the US, as you said, it's similar to groups expanding their fanbase by promoting in china or Japan or other asian counties, it makes sense from a business standpoint and there's nothing wrong with promoting in different countries. i just wish that some kpop stans understood that western and/or global popularity is a bonus and not a requirement for success. while they do have a global appeal, at the end of the day kpop's main audience is korea, and groups that achieve popularity in Korea have already achieved what they set out to do. but there's unfortunately a decent chunk of international fans that prioritize western popularity over anything and can't fathom that a group can be successful without being popular in the US. or they just talk as if their groups western achievements are more valuable than their Korean ones and to me that starts to look like xenophobia... (sorry if I'm repeating anything i said before in regards to this, i feel like i am but I'm too lazy to go back and check OTL)

since you sent this ask hybe released the caratland merch which was actually really nice, and today they also announced that there will be birthday merch for cheol (and presumably all members from here on out). we don't know what the bday merch is yet but some carats are already a bit miffed that hybe is even thinking to capitalize off the boys' birthdays... i bring both of these up bc i feel like the caratland merch proves your point that hybe is capable of designing good and thoughtful merch, and honestly this does reassure me a bit. but on the other hand them trying to capitalize off the boys' birthdays also proves that they still don't fully understand carats wants and priorities as a fanbase. which, if the future of seventeens merch is gonna be quality merch with some shitty cash grabs in between, i can live with that. I'm not gonna like the shitty cash grabs and i think it would be in our best interest as a fandom to not go crazy buying those shitty cash grabs, because if we don't then hybe will hopefully stop wasting their time and put more effort into /quality/. but if we get quality merch for important events like concerts and fanmeetings, i can live with it. as you said too, it can take time for these things to change, and we should all recognize that. but at the same time merch specifically is market driven, so i don't think it's a bad thing if people like @ hybe on twt about any bad merch that comes out in order to drive that change dhfkfj

but also on a maybe more fun note in regards to the merch... with some carats being upset about the bday merch i was thinking about what hybe could do for merch instead that would fill the niche of being at intervals throughout the year that could still be limited time drops but that carats wouldn't be mad at them capitalizing on and then i was like duh! they could literally just make merch off of going seventeen! honestly I'm surprised they haven't yet. maybe not merch for every episode, but they could have a line of permanent gose merch w a basic logo or something and then release limited time merch themed around some of the more popular episodes at various points during the year. I'm actually kind of obsessed with this idea now and for once I'm like hybe/pledis please capitalize off of this!! dhfkgjg

they never actually sold them, but for seventeens 3rd anniversary, pledis planned to sell replicas of seventeens rings. after it was announced carats were understandably upset since the boys worked so hard for those. luckily pledis heard carats concerns and put out an apology and didn't manufacture them in the end. I'm glad that at least they listened to carats even though it would have been better if they had never considered the idea in the first place :(

oh yeah listening parties are definitely just another marketing technique to boost streams. i think like with a lot of marketing techniques, it just depends on the execution. imo if they're done well it can be a good way for fans to connect while listening to an artists music, which is mutually beneficial for the company, but i can totally see a situation where companies get greedy and push it too hard. i don't know anything about what happened with them back in the day, but if you're curious why SVT had listening parties leading up to your choice, they were set up by UMG, the American distributor that SVT worked with for this cb. in this case the listening parties weren't just for boosting streams, but also likely for UMG to gauge interest. SVT isn't officially signed to a US label yet, but UMG's data from the listening parties could be used to show US labels whether or not there's enough interest for them to be signed. which if that happens we'd almost definitely see a more permanent US shop!

ahh yes, once you're ready I'm sure it would be great to have another bunny companion 🥺

yes! heavens cloud and gam3 bo1 are both such feel good songs! my sister actually added heavens cloud to their Spotify after i made them listen to the album in the car dhfkf it's now one of 6 kpop songs they have saved (4 of which are SVT... my influence 💅 DHFJFH) I'm certain we'll see some of the songs from your choice at caratland this year, hopefully it's all of them but I'd especially like to see heavens cloud and wave 👀 I'm also still crossing my fingers for an i wish live performance bc i can't believe my favorite SVT b-side is one of the TWO tracks they haven't performed live not including the new album (the other one being network love, which i would also like to see live!)

[noctomania]

I want you to understand the cause and effect of what has led to what is going on in texas at least re: abortion laws.

First off let me clarify: Roe v Wade was not law...yet. When you see a ___ v ___, that is an opinion. Not in the sense you may think. It's an opinion decided through litigation which means it's a powerful opinion that has been hammered out through the judicial process of a lawsuit being drawn up, and worked out in court. It could be a local, state, or federal court. Typically the ones that are most significant are federal, or ones that have come before the US Supreme Court - either because it is the federal government that is being challenged, the defendant petitions to move it to federal, or that the case has been elevated through appeals.

There are particular circumstances that determine if a case can go federal level:

"Federal court jurisdiction, by contrast, is limited to the types of cases listed in the Constitution and specifically provided for by Congress. For the most part, federal courts only hear:

Cases in which the United States is a party;

Cases involving violations of the U.S. Constitution or federal laws (under federal-question jurisdiction);

Cases between citizens of different states if the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000 (under diversity jurisdiction); and

Bankruptcy, copyright, patent, and maritime law cases.

In some cases, both federal and state courts have jurisdiction. This allows parties to choose whether to go to state court or to federal court."

Federal courts may hear cases concerning state laws if the issue is whether the state law violates the federal Constitution.

In the case of Roe v Wade, the attorney's filed to the Supreme Court since the argument was that the state law was a violation of a federal law - specifically the 14th amendment assertion of right to privacy. That is what determines the jurisdiction in this case.

RvW was decided in 1973 with a 7-2 ruling in favor of Roe's right to privacy and ultimately right to choose how to treated her pregnancy. Why hasn't it been turned into law? Obvious reasons over the years include what party is in power in executive, congressional, or even judicial circles. Right now though we have a D in the executive and congress, but something many are overlooking is the critically important and understates judicial branch - which holds significant changes Trump installed.

Also regarding congressional, though there is a stronger hold on the house (even with 3 vacancies), the senate is just barely D majority with 50 R, 48 D and 2 independent as shown in the charts below. The two Independent Senators, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, caucus with the Democrats which brings it 50/50 and the US VP - Harris (D) in this case - is the President of the senate and ultimately serves as a tie breaker for votes as well as situations like this even divide of party members. Were the VP a republican than republicans would still have a senate majority.

I will dive more into what's going on with the senate and why even with a D majority it isn't where it needs to be as it's a bit less straight forward.

So how the hell are abortion rights being challenged? Why aren't the all powerful democrats doing anything?!

Well, they are and have been doing a lot - and I urge you in moments when you are frustrated by feeling as though "dems aren't doing anything" to dig deeper to understand how our government operates. It's very clear there is a poor comprehension of our civics system by the general population which is why I'm using this as an opportunity to not only inform but also to learn more myself. I was educated primarily in Texas public education system. I was privileged enough to have decent teachers, but there is still much to learn. I'm doing research as I write this. I've already learned a lot. Come learn with me!

Alright, you're on board with learning more? Great choice! Let's get into it.

So with dem control of executive and congressional branch, all that is left is judicial.

"Trump appointed 54 federal appellate judges in four years, one short of the 55 Obama appointed in twice as much time."

Trump also had a major influence on the nation’s highest court. The three Supreme Court justices he appointed – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – are the most by any president since Ronald Reagan (who appointed four) and the most by any one-term president since Herbert Hoover

Donald Trump has appointed and the Senate has confirmed 220 Article III federal judges through November 1, 2020, his fourth year in office.

The average number of federal judges appointed by a president through November 1 of their fourth year in office is 200.

Judges are supposed to be neutral impartial parties who use only what is presented in court and through the judicial process (which involves looking at current standing laws) to determine their decisions in court instead of using their personal opinion or political sway to inform them. However, as we saw all too often, trump was not interested in impartiality. He was interested in control, asserting his own personal opinion, even on occasion insisting he himself as president had more control than the constitution actually allows. So with that conflict and the fact he installed so many judges really makes huge impact on the judicial branch of our government. Since every branch is supposed to be fair and equal this causes a lot of road block when one branch is neither fair nor equal. You can't simply use the other two the gain up on the third - though in this case that would be convenient for dems, it would be much less convenient when the parties were reversed. It's also important to acknowledge the reality that D are not always impartial either - which again we will get to after judicial chat - nor are all R unfair. This can be a hard pill to swallow, even for me. Reality is not always easy to accept.

So of course appointments made by trump, of which there were many, can not be trusted to actually be acting in good faith, but in favor of personal or political interests (which also often come down to personal interest of a financial persuasion). When judges are not impartial, they may make decisions that ultimately contradict what was presented in court or what the law of the land says. Typically if a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee (you can see an example here of the first day of Amy Comey Barrett's hearing day 1/3) determines that there is a conflict of interest or that they are illgitimate, then ideally a judge will be blocked from appointment. This clearly also depends on the makeup and impartiality of the Senate and thus the Committee. The Committee will debate and vote on whether or not to confirm every nomination made by a President. (it used to require 3/5 of the senate or 60 votes but since 2017 only requires a "simple majority" or 51 votes for confirmation)

I want to take a quick aside here and go a little philosophical in understanding judicial impartiality, because I hope it will help you have some perspective on how it's an inherently difficult matter. Ultimately the court's impartiality comes down to checks/balances and faith. Not religious faith, but faith in humanity and honesty. Trusting that there is no hidden motive or lies or manipulation at play. We tend to have to rely heavily on the checks and balances part since faith in humanity can be easily manipulated with lobbying and politicians eagerness to look bipartisan for popularity in elections (appealing as more bipartisan is considered a way of winning over more votes like centrists and those just left and right of it). Checks and balances allows oversight of the 3 branches over one another and attempting to keep the scales balanced in order to prevent any one branch being too powerful and ultimately to avoid the US being something more like a monarchy - which was a primary goal at the time of forming the constitution and government since it is what we had fought to escape in the first place.

"So judges aren't allowed their 1st amendment rights?!"

Humans are merely humans no matter what title they have or role they play and humans are inherently flawed and partial. Nobody is perfect and some make mistakes as well as bad faith decisions for ulterior motives (could be a matter of loyalty to well funded lobbyists or even general unchecked and ultimately supported ignorance or a power grab). After and throughout checks and balances, that is where the faith part comes in that we hope we can trust judges to put their personal opinion aside and go with what the evidence presented in court and the law and super precedents tell them. We trust the Committee to do their due diligence in researching nominees and asking them tough questions. Realistically everyone can and likely will have some kind of opinion on any major issue, so it is not that anyone expects a justice to not have a personal opinion, only that they not use it to determine their decision in court. So, say i was a judge looking at a defendant accused of a civil rights infringement and i personally felt that they were guilty but there was no or not enough "valid" evidence to prove it, I couldn't assert they are guilty just based off my own opinion. I would have to depend on the evidence shown in court proving that it has infringed on precedents or existing law.

(All the appointments made by trump can be viewed more in detail here.)

"BLAHBLAHBLAH WHAT ABOUT THE SUPREME COURT"

It would be too tumultuous for me to dig into each of the 3 Supreme Court judge appointments by trump in regards to current issues around Roe v Wade, so I'm going to focus on one that is likely most relevant in particular: Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett was an appointment made when Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing caused a vacancy in the court. (Why didn't she retire under Obama? The Senate was GOP controlled which made the odds of a pro-choice appointment being confirmed low). RGB was well known for being a strong advocate for the right to choose and for a long time was a stronghold in the court to ensure Roe v Wade was upheld. Since trump wouldn't want to lose too many votes from women and allies to women, he made the clear choice to appoint a woman which is what i would call performative in the case that though Barrett is a woman she does not particularly stand on the side of women's rights.

In day two of Barrett's confirmation hearing, Senator Klobuchar honed in on Barrett's opinions regarding Roe v Wade - especially as to whether it is considered what is called a "super precedent", an important matter when talking about codification. Klobuchar makes it clear that Barrett has said she finds Brown v BoE to be a super precedent despite the Supreme Court never impressing that opinion, but refuses to consider Roe v Wade a super precedent despite that being a Supreme Court opinion. Barrett's argument is that "scholarly literature" she has read has asserted it is not a super precedent because calls for its overrule has never ceased, where as cases such as Brown v Board "nobody questions anymore". Klobuchar digs in again asking if US v Virginia Military is a "super precedent" and Barrett refuses to answer - or as she phrases it "grade" - because it wasn't one of the cases Barrett spoke about in an article she had written.

After Klobuchar asked Barrett if Roe v Wade is a super precedent, Barrett asked Klobuchar how the Senator defines a super precedent. Reasonably so, Klobuchar - who is a senator and not a judge - scoffs and puts that responsibility back on Barrett who was nominated to be a Supreme Court judge. Barrett obliges and asserts a definition that she uses is of (supposedly not conservative) ONE scholarly opinion which depends on a case being "so well settle that no political actors and no people seriously push to overrule"

In a scholarly opinion in 2006 by Michael J Gerhardt at University of North Carolina School of Law defined a super precedent in many ways one being "decisions whose correctness is no longer a viable issue for courts to decide; it is no longer a matter on which courts will expend their limited resources."

However:

in the Roberts hearings, Charles Fried, a prominent conservative legal scholar at Harvard, agreed explicitly that Roe was a superprecedent. As solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Fried had asked the court to overturn Roe. But testifying on behalf of Judge Roberts, he said that Roe had become a super-duper precedent that would not and should not be overturned, because it was reaffirmed in 1992 and extended in subsequent decisions protecting gay rights and the right to die.

Here is a good example of what happens in academia and why i take "scholarly research" with a heap of salt since I have experience in doing scholarly research. When you are doing research, your audience is trusting that you have run through all the hard work of researching both sides of a specific matter - not just looking up opinions based on whether they are from a conservative or a liberal as that is not supposed to be what determines their opinion on any particular matter.

You are supposed to be actually looking into all the differing opinions on the specific subject matter. While it does help to have a context of the profile of the one giving the opinion, it is the evidence they present in their argument that is what should be prioritized in research. The audience is also trusting that the sources the researcher uses are valid, researched, and impartial and that any studies they use are peer reviewed and use proper methodology and are also impartial without any sway from funders. Since many academic resources that would elaborate on these details are often gatekept through paywalls or language or other accessibility barriers, it can be difficult for the general population to do their own research - the majority of which do not have access for one reason or another - they are left with nothing but to choose to have faith the researcher they are reading did their job earnestly.

Barrett focusing on opinions from scholars (actually it seems she is more dependent on one particular scholar's opinion - Gerhardt as seen in notes 128-132) based on whether or not they are typically conservative scholars is basing it on an irrelevant matter when she should have been taking on all opinions about super precedents and digging into comparing and contrasting them based on whether or not they hold water. It seems more like she sought a defense for her pre-determined opinion and insulated it from challenge by excluding any other assertions despite their significance. She ultimately failed at her responsibility as a researcher.

On Wednesday 9/2/21, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to not block Texas SB8, a decision that weakens Roe v Wade.

Now this has been a very long form way of spelling out just SOME of the impact that trump has had on the judicial branch. I want to now go back to 2016 when he was elected, and try to extrapolate why what happened in that election was a serious failure in regards to those responsible for casting their votes: The People.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

"We the people" is every single resident and/or citizen of the nation at any time. The constitution is essentially a contract drawn up between every single one of us including those born and raised here, those who move here, those who's communities were here before the formation of the nation, and those who may be a citizen but living elsewhere. The diversity of The People in every faucet of human life makes this document necessarily complicated and amendable. In consequence the way in which our government is also complicated but also amendable. One matter that has been a point of contention since the dawning of the nation is the right to vote.

Who could vote & When (.):

1776: white men over 21 who owned land

1870 Racial barriers eliminated tho 15th is not enforced by states

1920: white women can vote

1924: Native american's given voting rights

1964: Civil Rights Act - all above 21y/o may vote regardless of identifiers such as race - ensures Black people's right to vote

1971: Voting age lowered to 18

1984: Accessibility extended to disabled americans by setting accessibility standards

In between all of these are other matters that challenged the accessibility to voting for one population or another such as literacy tests, naturalization, and polling taxes. Many of the challenges were directly challenging to People of Color particularly Black Women. To this day there are still many who must fight to assert their right - a right that should never be denied, never be thought of as less than inherent. Access is less a concern for the wealthy and well to do as their needs are never on the line the way it is for people who are poor, Black, disabled, immigrant, or even just have a primary language other than English.

For those of us who have never had to fight to utilize our right to vote in our life have too often shown that we do not respect the power in this right. Or rather know exactly how powerful it is and choose to use that power in a destructive way because we aren't getting our faves. For the first many many years I was eligible to vote, I refused to at all because I do not like how our government and politicians conducts themselves. As soon as I learned about the filibuster I was so pissed I didn't want to partake at all. Have I be impacted by this personally? To an effect, but not in a way that impacts my life significant enough for me to really notice. But in congruence with other privileged decisions not to vote, it has certainly impacted many lives. In a nation where communities are still fighting to have the law meant to protect them properly enforced, it is entirely a privilege abused to choose not to vote.

Though I was 18 in 2007, 2016 I cast my first vote.

Why? Because it was finally looking as though I may face personal consequences if I didn't. Prior to 2016 i wasn't worried bc there was obama, i wasn't old enough to vote when bush was up for relection and seeing him win again embittered me further. by the time I was 18, I saw how unreliable 3rd party was despite my parents being all in that gambit, and otherwise it all felt like nobody was paying attention to the issues only on popularity contests. All i thought of though was my perspective on the matter. It was all me-centric, my choice to withhold from voting in any election. When trump started to look less like a joke and actually got traction, I saw my neighbors trump signs and i looked at where i was in life. I had also began to actually do the work and stop letting apathy guide my decisions, but to rather listen to my humanity and my responsibility as my neighbor's neighbor.

Quite literally. At the time my neighbor was a Black woman. I only spoke to her once and it was when she came by to selflessly make sure I was going to be ok when our landlord was kicking us out to sell the place out from under our feet - something I hadn't even considered doing yet seemed like second nature for her to do (to be fair i was struggling to find a place but i've no idea about her life). I wish i had gotten her name and stayed in touch, it's kind-hearted people like that that are hard to come by. I'm still working on being as selfless.

I was and am proud to have not only voted in 2016, but for my first vote to have been for a woman. I was scared and for someone other than myself for once in 2016. I had high hopes for Clinton based on name recognition and basic common sense.

Humans are not perfect. Nor are they inherently humble.

Trump encouraged arrogance among the most ignorant leaning right. Sanders encouraged arrogance in the most ignorant leaning left. Clinton seemed to always get the most dramatic fire though from both sides, which signaled to me some kind of mess was going on. My own parents tried to sell me on Sanders, but by this point I had a better concept of how to properly research and untangle the mythologies that were parroted by my own parents about Clinton. Even when I proved their parroted lies wrong they were unwilling to concede, only to move the goal post or deflect.

Now, I get to my point.

Which is to really smack upside the head of anyone who chose not to vote in 2016, everyone who is left or liberal but voted for trump, everyone who wrote in someone else. If trump hadnt made it in as POTUS, paired with the republican majority senate, the landscape of the judicial branch would not have faced such a conservative shift, it wouldn't have given mcconnell so much influence, it wouldn't have resulted in the pandemic being so much worse than it needed to be. Many lives would have been spared. You can only blame the government for so long until you realize we are the government, we install the government, and we hold power we must use wisely. We the People.

Many who voted for clinton have been critical of her. As we always should be critical of those we choose in any level of government. We the people hold responsibilities that build this nation from the ground up, and without adherence to those responsibilities it puts other's rights in danger. When we decide that something doesn't matter that much to us or weighing it against the consequences we may personally face - you're failing in your responsibility to your neighbor who is likely doing far more justice to you than you are extending to them.

Yes my white people i look at you.

Yes my white men I look at you.

Yes my white queers I look at you.

Yes my white degree holders I look at you.

Yes white youth I look at you where I once was. When I was younger and arrogant and naive and apathetic and bitter and I let all that guide my choices instead of my concern for the neighbor who was looking out for me.

I still matter in the formation and function of tomorrow's government and I'm going to make sure I let my impact be constructive for all my neighbors who have extended such courtesy to me by not shirking my main duty to make an informed vote in every election i may partake in from local to national.

The differences among us in this nation may seemingly tend to fall along party lines, what the real metric is:

Do you give a fuck outside your own home?

Or is it just about what you want, what you think, what you feel? Nothing in this nation is just involving you or your bestie or your family, we're in this together whether we like it or not. Trust me as someone who struggles daily to find the humanity in others, I know how toxic that can be to your perspective when you give into it. Believe in benefit of the doubt, believe in change, believe in your power to do good for others. Believe and invest in your humanity.

While i can be mad at conservative votes for trump that was to be expected. I'm far more disappointed in the right AND DUTY to vote being given up by so many on the left simply because their fave didn't make it to the finals. That is not how establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, or secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. AOC and Pressley and Porter did not make it where they are by their supportive constituents abdicating their right to vote.

I accept my faults in never having voted before 2016 even in local elections. It was stupid and selfish and 2016 woke me up to that reality. You don't go from 0 to trump overnight. Do you accept your fault in not voting in 2016 when one of the most detrimental candidates was running and won?