#i think i just get really really attached but that feels like a shitty explanation because surely everyone does?

[elytrafemme]

i genuinely wish i could transplant some of my online mutuals/friends into my real life location and we could all, like, do college together. because like every foundational part of discord/tumblr is incompatible to how i am as a person? i hate checking discord messages, i can't process long asks and get severely overwhelmed when i have more than five notes at once. i don't even like being on tumblr often and whereas most people just Blog Like A Normal Person i feel like i'm mentally elsewhere when i'm online? but then like. i enjoy talking to all my friends. so it's really weird right?

[thesharktanksdriver]

DETERMINATION QUESTIONS!⁽⁠⁽⁠◝⁠(⁠ ⁠•⁠௰⁠•⁠ ⁠)⁠◜⁠⁾⁠⁾

1) how does doffy feel about Reader? I mean in the sense of does doffy feel indebted or in some way attached to reader ? Because I feel like he's so complex that it could be taken in many ways his feelings (⁠•⁠‿⁠•⁠)

2) could Reader be killed forever if they were stabbed or just kinda killed with an sea Stone weapon ? Or is it even possible for reader to ever die in any way (other than losing determination)

3) doffy is a know figure in the sl@ve trade , so how does he feel about the fact reader was or is sometimes a slave ? :⁠'⁠(

Love the work!!!! (English is my first language so sorry if it's strangely spelled:⁠-⁠P) Sincerely AN ᕦ⁠(⁠ò⁠_⁠ó⁠ˇ⁠)⁠ᕤ

Hi!!!!!!!! Thank you for the questions for my favourite fashion disaster war criminal (lol) also don’t worry about ur English! I can read it just fine 👍

(Warning for themes of possession, obsession, slavery and doffy as a whole.)

1) Doffy’s feelings towards y/n specifically his attachment is definitely due to both a sense of gratitude/indebtment along with a sense of possession. They were his and rosinante’s only friend growing up despite the fact they were also hated by association. They’re held dear to him for their part in trying to make what should’ve been a shitty childhood at least a little better. But the real interesting part is when they die for him and his brother. They decided his life was more than their own which kinda empowers his superiority complex and attachment issues because they were his friend that was suppose to stay by his side no matter what. His friend, his.

As Doffy gets older this sentiment is reinforced more especially as he makes his “family”. It doesn’t feel complete without them. No one can compare to them, what they did for him, died for his safety. They’re his friend, he didn’t give them permission to die and leave him to go someplace else, their place is at his side like a good friend should be.

Doffy’s perception of them from when he was young to when he’s older is heavily corrupted even at the beginning. When he was younger they were still “his” friend, but back then it was more due to not wanting to loose them just as he lost the life of luxury he once had. They were his only luxury left and he wanted to keep that close. But as he got older that sentiment had time to fester and for him to become more attached to the idea of them rather than y/n themself.

He doesn’t care what y/n wants or thinks, he just wants them at his side again so he can cling to what he thinks is one of the only things that can make him happy.

(Boy that explanation was long lol, but I love going in depth on characters like him)

2) I’d say with sea stone weapons it moreso has the capacity to make y/n’a regeneration a lot slower. Simply being stabbed by a sea stone weapon would make the wait time for them to reappear much slower and leave a permanent scar on their body. I’m trapped in a room of sea stone though for an extended period of time it could potentially kill them or at least weaken them to a point where it would take years for them to appear again

3)for awhile now Doffy’s knew and had suspicions that y/n didn’t properly die but when it is confirmed for him he does a log of digging. And let’s just say he isn’t happy. Him finding out that for a while they were a slave really infuriates him, not at the cruel dehumanizing system he actively participates in but rather that it’s them who went through being treated like less than dirt and it wasn’t him who had found them first. The person who took rocks meant to hit him and his brother once more being put through torment.

But as fucked as it is to say he’s uses this to his advantage. He makes requests for traders to find them, gives their description and waits for any news back. He doesn’t care if he literally gets “his friend” back by participating in the system that hurt them and traumatized them. He just sees it as a means to an end to get back what was his in the first place that was stolen by others. He’ll pull and strings he needs both physically and metaphorically if it means getting them back.

He doesn’t beat around the bush with this either. He asks other warlords or pirates to look for someone of their description and promises a giant price. He doesn’t care how much he has to pay for them, “his” friend is priceless to him anyways.

he watches some of his fellow warlords squirm when he makes this offer. Jinbe, Mihawk, even crocodile. What interests him most is Boa’s reaction though. Watches the disgust in her eyes along with fear and a deep sadness.

He pokes at her and gets yelled at in return but he knows he’s found a weak spot.

[fandomprompt]

There are a lot of fanfiction where Thorin’s company finds out Bilbo’s age and goes feral, as well as a fair where Bilbo isn’t fully a hobbit. What if we combine the two?

Bilbo Is a half hobbit who has learned to hide all his features and such, and no one knows about it. Probably Gandalf doesn’t even know for this AU to work well. So, when Bilbo’s parents die, he is a child in his species terms, but a full grown adult in the hobbit terms.

Then you add the fact that the company after finding out his age starts treating him like a child. He is actually treated like his own age for once.Something that happens when you are treated like your own age when you are so used to being treated like an adult? You Have a few little breakdowns about how you were never treated kindly, and get extremely attached.

Gandalf explains the age thing, and everyone goes back to treating him how they used to, maybe a few people either not being convinced or just straight up treating him a little worse because they think he lied to them.

Then fast forward to either Mirkwood or Beorn’s house, and they find out about the other half of the DNA and they feel so incredibly fucking guilty. Gandalf should be very guilty as well and they should be one of the few times where Gandalf seems more human.

I want Bilbo nervously explaining about his other side after he gets out and hoping that they won’t hate him. I want his explanation to be cut off by someone hugging him. I want the company to have some breakdown about it, especially with the Royals. Maybe Fili and Kiki had a good relationship with Bilbo, treating him like a little brother for a while until they found out about how hobbits aged, and then just stopped talking to him as much after. Maybe Thorin had yelled at Bilbo after he found out, accusing him of lying to them. maybe just the three of them have been acting shitty after being really close with him.

I just want comfort and then hurt/comfort with large amount of groveling

[yardsards]

God I really wish we got an Emira episode. I get that there was limited time and any decision made would inevitably leave out somebody, but man. She’s really fascinating to me and has so much character potential regarding her place among the Blights.

for real! like i Get why "protagonist's love interest's older sibling" wasn't given much focus but also it feels odd when amity's *other* sibling got his own portion of an episode but emira didn't get the same

though at the same time, i suppose a decent chunk of why i got invested in her as a character in the first place is in part *because* of the lack of focus she got in the show compared to her siblings. a while back i had some ideas for a few fics about the blight family (especially focusing on post-canon) that i never really got around to writing much of. and the one i ended up starting with was one focussed on emira, because i kinda wanted to like, balance out her lack of content. and in thinking of ideas for that, i looked deeper into her as a character. and the more time i spend analyzing characters, the more i tend to get attached to them.

and there's something so Interesting about how like. the main thing she has (before the timeskip epilogue, anyway) that distinguishes her from edric is that she's the *comparatively* more cautious/responsible one, and that she seems to be almost the leader of the two of them, and that she takes on a sort of caretaker/support role for both edric and amity. (all the while her stated worst fear is being glued to her twin's side her whole life).

like, i know the whole "her main trait is just 'older sister/twin'" thing has a clear doylist explanation of like, that's all they had time for her to be and she served her narrative purpose there. but i have chosen to make my own watsonian interpretation of that, wherein she herself doesn't really know who she is as an individual outside of her role in her family.

an idea that i wanted to explore in fic but never got around to writing is like. she finally gets her wish of getting to be her own independent person. their abusive mother is out of their lives, and their formely neglectful father has stepped up to start taking care of all of them. she no longer needs to be the one taking care of her siblings. and edric has started finding his own identity outside of being her twin, and people have stopped treating the two of them like a matched set. and she's happy but also struggles with it because she's not had this freedom or this chance to really explore herself before.

all the while having to figure out what she wants her relationship with her siblings to be now that she no longer needs to be their caretaker (or mirror image or rival or any of the other roles their shitty home life had forced them into in the past). and wondering if they'll still want her around now that they don't need her to protect then (they do, of course, still want her around. as a *sister* and not a protector)

[orviposition]

(long ask, sorry)

me, starting to read orv: *never questions anything, why the novel became a reality, who yjh's sponsor is, buying into kim dokja's shitty explanations for his extreme self-sacrificial tendencies. Because. those things just aren't questioned, and definitely not answered in most isekai rpg-esque stories i read*

me, finishing orv: *traumatized, because singnsong proceeded to answer all of those blanks in horrifyingly profound and literary ways*

i just..never thought about it too much?? i reallly did go into this blind, thinking it was a normal, wish fulfillment/self-insert, loser mc to hero fantasy T.T i should've gone in further to your posts because maybe i might've been warned (i started reading cuz of you !!! now pay for my therapy :)

OD reveal my beloved <3 everything about kdj just makes me cry man. i did not think i was gonna get attached to him as much as i am now 😭😭 maybe i was jaded from the multiple shitty isekai anime and manga i've read but i really just wasn't expecting kdj to have such character- ALL of the characters to be so lovable and make me want to cry, cheer and cherish all of them. ESPECIALLY yoo joonghyuk, man the early days of orv where i thought he was gonna be the typical punching bag asshole, unimportant side-character, who the mc gives a beatdown to as some kind of power play(?) 😭 embarassing. hahahhaha

i feel like thats exactly orv's goal. to lure you in with a bunch of trendy genres and tropes and then somewhere down the line it hits your psyche at your most vulnerable. you see kdj being so confident in his knowledge of the world, so omniscient, so to speak, that you simply do not need to question his otherwise eyebrow-raising deeds. he says that helping lgy was hypocritical. he tells ysa that he threw the insect net in her direction by coincidence. he says that yjh is a cold psycho who only cares about seeing the end of the scenarios. and you end up "believing" him. bcs he's omniscient

but then, fast forward a few scenarios later and kdj prioritizes lgy over himself and gives him to yjh to fill the green zone. fast forward a few scenarios more and kdj saves ysa's life with 4th wall's help. he sees yjh lose it when he dies in front of him. he gets so emotional when he finds out yjh has come to the demon realm for him (albeit kdj always seems to give yjh the short end of the stick by Doubting him but by this point we know that he may not be as omniscient as we first thought. especially when it comes to knowing everything about yjh)

fun fact abt me i also kinda went into orv 'blind' so to speak. sure i knew who od sp and tls123 were in names only but the actual revelations shook me to my core regardless 😭😭

and omg 🥺🥺 you read orv because of me im so honored OTL making ppl read orv is like my only goal in life at this point gjsjsh

[arcplaysgames]

I am a Persona 5 enthusiast above all else and a Persona 3 Portable lover directly after that, but fuck if the MC x Yosuke relationship doesn’t own my entire life

I should prob wait until I'm fully done bc I think I'm at the final dungeon now (or, there's a bonus one later i guess that's optional?) but

jesus fucking christ can i please just talk about Yosuke finally because I feel like i'm gonna explode

I don't think I see Yosuke as bisexual is the thing that I have settled on. I feel like Yosuke is a badly closeted scared shitty teenager who is simmering with so much repressed anger and resignation, he doesn't know how to adequately handle it (and frankly he's slowly getting better over the course of the game). But all of his worst moments in the story feel like he's acting from a script, namely the CompHet Script From Hell.

(Also, I would say that I think of Kanji as The Bisexual One while Yosuke is just attracted to dudes, which isn't what I anticipated from the start.)

But Yosuke mostly makes me sad. I feel like the expectations on him, the ones that he has wrapped around himself like a shield in an attempt to ward off people hurting him. Because he's so isolated and desperate for affection, he's willing to do stupid shit to get the attention he wants. All of his bad antics always feel like.... they come from less of a place of horny lust and more from a place of....... fear?

Like when he does the shit around the camping trip and his other sketchy actions, it always feels like a way to say "please be with me in this thing, this is what guys do, right?" like if he hits his mark well enough, he'll unlock some happiness he hasn't figured out yet.

but it's all so SCRIPTED! like when does Yosuke go off the deep end? when there's a script he thinks he has to hit. oh, the spring camping trip can't just be a school trip, it has to be a chance to score with the ladies. oh, you can't just want to get motorcycles and hang out with your best friend, it has to be for laaaaaadies.

but as soon as you separate him from those scripts and he goes back to being him, he's.... such a fucking decent, empathetic guy. he takes in teddie and outright fights to keep him living with him. he takes the lead in the case alongside naoto. he is the first person to rope in Nanako into the group and consistently keeps her involved. and once he gets over his homophobic panic over kanji, he keeps fukcing trying to wingman for kanji, even if kanji would prefer he didn't. and that feels genuine! kanji reacts to it like a cat in a bath, but more than once, yosuke prodding kanji for his taste in boys (and girls and naoto) feels like real interest, not a set up for a punchline. and I've remarked before that he's REALLY decent to naoto re: gender, esp in comparison to the rest of the game, which was STUNNING.

and then he's like "OH SHIT i need to be more of a Dude's Dude" and he morphs into an asshole for a day. then he snaps right back.

the out of universe explanations are clear, i'm not a dumbass. but I am choosing to kill the fucking author and examine what all this genuinely means for the character.

and the guy who attaches himself the MC's hip, and who's growth thru his bullshit is linked to the MC, and who cries around the MC and who accepts a long lingering hug and lets not forget if you roleplay wanting to date him, he's happy.

Maybe in the future this will change, but for the Yosuke of now, in the moment, it feels like his expectations of what Guys And Girls are supposed to be gets in his way of forming stronger relationships (which, again, is why the Naoto thing intrigues me). It feels like he thinks he's supposed to want to date Chie, but when he seeks out intimacy that veers into the romantic, it's not with girls.

ANYWAY I THINK YOSUKE'S GAY, but his closet is sadly made of knives, and it cuts him as he tries to keep himself contorted into the correct shape to keep hidden.

best case scenario is him hanging around the MC until he trips happily into the relationship he wants, built brick by brick until the plausible deniability is left out in the cold

worst case is he's going to get married at 20 and make some poor woman abjectly fucking miserable until they're divorced.

phew okay, all that felt like an exorcism, i feel better now

[porkcutletbowl44]

Took me a while to finish reading chapter 15 and 16 since I literally forgot I had tumblr or any social media this week, but I finally read them and I'm crying so much now-

The way you mix aganst with comfort in chapter 15 made me cry a whole sea. I'm currently on my period so whenever mama was upset I was sobbing even louder than her😭 and I fucking loved the chapter. I didn't think it was possible for me to hate even more Simon on this fic but you proved me wrong, AND HE MAKES ME FEEL SO CONFUSED TOO. I mean, dude why the fuck are you acting like that??? It makes me so mad when he's saying "Oh, I was just playing with you like we used to-" you divorced her without even giving an proper explanation to her and engaged with another woman. I'm really frustrated that he only notices he's making things worse when they're already bad💔 but Keegan's a sweetheart compared to him.

Honestly I love whenever he's in scene, he's just better than Simon in many ways and it makes me so emotional when there's comfort/agnst with him involved. A great thing about chapter 15 in my opinion it's when mama says she misses Simon, even when he's being a huge asshole, because it makes her seem even more relatable to. Had a very shitty partner in the past, and as someone who has attachment issues, it's hard to forget and move on even when they did some traumatizing stuff (I better now btw), and the fact that's noticeble that she's still struggling to move on makes her so more real than most of MC in fanfictions. I'm very excited to see her moving on from her past relationship and fully giving a chance to have a new one with Keegan, they deserve a happy ending😞💔. I also liked the fact that mama's slowly knowing a bit more about him, and I hope in the future we see a bit more of these "silly" and calm interactions between them.

About chapter 16, it make me feel so many mixed feelings. It made me sad, frustrated, happy and so many other things I can't quite tell. The first part(when mama and Keegan are with the Ghosts) made me so happy, mostly because Hesh is my favorite character in CoD Ghosts and I was itching to see more of mama's interactions with them since the last time they showed up in the fic. I was so mad when Ghost showed up after that, he only appears in the WORST moments😭. I was shocked when Simon implied that Keegan would do anything with her without her consent, I even had to reread it because I was in pure disbelief on what I had just read. It also made me even more confused and curious about his behaviour towards mama. He acts like they're still married sometimes, and in chaptee 15 he even showed that Collen makes him annoyed, like if he was going to replace his ex-wife with another woman, couldn't he at least pick a more tolerable one??? His behaviour makes me even more furious and confused, and I really wish we see some of his reassons to have a divorce soon because it's making me so gsjdhskshsihxs(idk what else can describe what this man makes me feel besides of that😞)

And talking about words, I'm fucking obssessed with your writing and the variety of words you use to portray feelings, places and EVERYTHING. Don't think I mentioned it before but it's amazing to see different words being used to talk about the same things, helps me a lot to increase my vocabulary. And btw I'm the annon who made you cry after sending a gigant text about chapter 14 and Far From Perfect as a whole, sent a annonymous ask first because I was lowkey worried I would get ignored because my ask was ridiculously big(already happened once with another writers💔) so I decided to send a annon ask first. But going back to the fanfic, the flashback we had with Price made me start to inquire if Simon had ever commented about anything related to the divorce, engaging with another woman to him or anything related to it, even if in a rhetorical manner. I think that's the first flashback that made me truly curious about Simon's past and what made him decide to have the divorce, before that mostly they only made me feel melancholy about it, and probably it's my favorite flashback so far.

Anyways, I hope you can continue with this wonderful fanfiction since it makes me insane(in a good way) to see whatever happens next, and I also hope you can fully recover from your ear infection soon💞💞💞

Okay first off, I love you. JUST TAKE IT, I DONT NEED IT 🤲🏻🩷🥹

I do promise there will be lots of interactions with Keegan and mama just chilling, hanging out and relaxing, the fluffy stuff, there will most definitely be more GHOSTS and 141 stuff.

And I feel as though I should say that I probably won't ever delete a ask, I haven't received any negative feedback in my inbox or double questions that I'd have to answer twice AND I ABSOLUTELY WILL NEVER DELETE A ANON RANT BECAUSE THEY MAKE MY WHOLE DAY 😍

I'm sorry for your sadness (there will be a lot of angst) BUT THERES COMFORT AND FLUFF TO EVEN IT OUT

I'm low-key just obsessed writing the interactions, Fawn and Keegan is TOO CUTE TO NOT WRITE, And soft Johnny EUGHHH💖 (I also can't help but write the confusing stuff for Simon just to hear the theories 👀)

Simon's just a little silly, don't mind him 🫢😅

PLEASE TAKE CARE! AND THANK YOU FOR THIS WONDERFUL SUBMISSION! 🫶🏻

[iamnmbr3]

About your anti-Martin-in-Season-5 post: I understand your position and I get how he seems like a different person to you, but keep in mind that they are both in a supremely difficult situation (and I know that other TMA situations have been stressful but this is the end of the world we’re talking about) and Martin has to deal with the fact that Jon is the one that caused it. And I’m not saying that’s healthy or good for their relationship, but we haven’t really seen Martin in that kind of situation before season 5. It makes sense that he’s a bit shitty about it (and less kind than in season 1, when relatively little had gone tits-up for him yet). PLUS he’s been forcibly attached to Jon at the hip for months now, which is a strain to put on any new relationship, especially when there’s all the preexisting issues to contend with, Martin hasn’t exactly been able to be alone with his thoughts about Jon starting the whole apocalypse. So yeah, he’s a bit spiteful and mean to Jon

Also re: the Upton house and Salesa, here Martin is INCREDIBLY relieved at being able to find somewhere he can feel human (eating, sleeping) again (at this point he still thinks of himself as human, I don’t think he knows about his Domain and if he does, it’s certainly not in any detail). So that’s almost definitely colouring his perception of Salesa and Annabelle, especially since he’s meeting Salesa for the first time and he’s being very charming (and saying the first uncomplicatedly nice thing Martin has heard in a very long time, and Annabelle’s not there to counteract that). I don’t have a good explanation for why Martin laughs at Jon when he’s so vulnerable, but I will say that he’s probably not unhappy to be away from Jon’s statements (he REALLY REALLY doesn’t like them and has probably heard more than his fair share), so that’s definitely a factor. And he’s relieved! Upton house was a (brief, but he didn’t really think about that yet) respite from the literal apocalypse happening outside

So personally I actually don't agree with a lot of this. Yes Martin is in a difficult position ins season 5 - they all are - but it's not Jon who caused the situation. It's Jonah. Jon was an unwitting victim. Martin blaming Jon is frankly horrible. But what bothers me much more is that the narrative presents Martin as being in the right, to the point that many fans started echoing that sentiment, even though it makes no sense and we are explicitly shown in canon that Jon is as much a victim as anyone else.

It's a horror story so Jon's relationship with Martin being destroyed or turning sour and downright abusive as it does isn't necessary a problem. Bad stuff happens in horror all the time. What I don't like is that the abuse is framed as ok.

And I also do feel it's ooc. Martin has been in plenty of stressful situations before. But he never once engaged in the type of behavior he engaged in in S5 or even tolerated other people treating Jon that way. Even in the first arc of S5 Martin doesn't treat Jon that way or victim blame him. It's starting in the second arc, when the writing takes a dive, that Martin's character and behavior also changes.

Upton House being a "respite" from the apocalypse doesn't really make sense. There's no in character reason for them to trust anything that's going on there or for them to feel relaxed. And Jon suffers horribly there but Martin doesn't care. Which again is ooc.

Also btw I hated the way Martin treated Jon's loss of autonomy due to having been made an Avatar against his will, and his dependence on statements which again Jon feels great distress over as an annoyance that he can mock Jon over. That's a horrible way to treat your partner. And again feels very ooc. and what's even more jarring tho is how this horrible treatment is presented as tho it's cute and fluffy and reasonable when it's not.

But yeah these are just some quick disorganized thoughts. I went into much more detail about why I think Martin is wildly ooc in arcs 2 and 3 of S5 here

[sunrizef1]

I'm sorry, but something about what the other anon said about Logan kinda gave me the ick in some parts so I felt the need to write this. I think Logan's situation is no where as straight as a line as they made it out to be, and in part I feel like you kinda have to be American to understand certain things. I heavily agree with you on how the "Americaness" is pushed onto Logan. In my opinion, Logan isn't even all that American? Like he's very toned down (which makes sense as he spent the majority of his teenage years + early adult years in Europe, and not in America). Even then, why can't he be proud of being American? We see other drivers like Carlos, Checo, and Guanyu to just name a few use this same very tacit! Williams is no where near as popular as a team as it used to be, and Logan being American brings in more fans and sponsors. I think the huge personality change from now to Prema is also BECAUSE of the ridicule he faced for being American. Americans in general have this pre-connotation of being very cocky which was dragged along with him during his rookie season, and coupled with the fact that his first year did not go very well it's no wonder he's not showing his personality as much. The other anon honestly said it themselves, you only know American stereotypes. When has American pride became synonymous with being a Republican? I don't want to become very political, but I think the bottom line is don't really comment on another countries politics that you clearly don't know a lot about. Also the gun part? That's just plain rude. I don't think we've ever heard of Logan saying he even owns a gun. Once again, you're laying hurtful and may I mind you ignorant stereotypes on him.

I do agree with his family being problematic though (The long history of America and their oil wars), and their undeniable ties to Trump (who I also don't agree with and his many, plainly stated, evil policies), but I think you also have to realize that almost all the drivers are shitty people and have questionable backgrounds. To come after just Logan for his family ties to a party is just you being silly.

The whole ask just seemed very insensitive IMO.

Yeah, there's fully compilations of Logan being “european” so to say lol. He often talks like someone who's been raised in Europe for their formative years, which he was sooo

Like if you think that Logan is “so american”, I know people who would give you a heart attack lmao

Just down south, horse-wrangling, truckers who play Willy Nelson songs on their guitars and have never taken their hats off their mullets in public lmfao

And yeah, American politics is one of those things where I refuse to listen to other countries opinions about it because, unless you've lived here, you don't really understand.

And I hate trump. But, also, this is one of the reasons I don't attach to the drivers.

Most of them, probably not wonderful people. Probably don't have wonderful families who I'd always get along with. But Im not cheering for those people, I'm cheering for car number 2 and that's really all I care about.

It always great to have some level of separation from the drivers, or celebrities in general, because a lot of them suck as people and I'm not about to get emotionally attached to someone who turns out to suck real bad.

(Lewis gets a pass in my book but, again, whole other explanation)

[wndaswife]

GURL FIVE YEARS AGO I FELL IN LOVE WITH A FRIEND AND IT LASTED FOR THREE YEARS!!

man— she was touchy and so cheesy 😭 all those mixed signals!!!! ugh I was so stupid thank God I got over her!!

so as a kababayan, i am telling you, u need to get over this infatuation that might turn into a shitty one sided feelings ASAP!!!!!!

LMFAAAAAOOOO THREEEEEE YEARSSSSS dude i fucking couldn't and im glad also my friends knew about my crush during and after it because i could never get over the shame they would cast on me for having a crush on this girl for 3 years... in lesser words they also tell me she doesn't deserve me like partially i couldn't do it to THEM to keep up with this.. im lucky to have friends really care about that

but dude ik what u mean the FUCKING TOUCHINESS LIKE JESUSSSSS and bruh my trenches were deep like it wasn't even cheesy she would straight up very sincerely say "you're not like my other friends" or "i think the world of you, you're the sweetest soul i've ever met" like go tell that to a man and tell me if you did you wouldn't start dating him like on the spot

but some things like... u just won't get explanations for... you can't reason why things are this way or why they do this.. and u don't need ur feelings and ur right to be loved in the way you should be attached to some answer you might not ever get

[prozach27]

Before writing my dissertation I’m required to write a 50+ page paper (without references or title page; with those, over 80+) that serves as a critical lit review of the research in my subfield that’s publication worthy. To be publication worthy, I need to tie the research together in a way that’s never been done before. This is a bit of an issue because there are multiple extremely prolific scientists in our small little subfield who’ve done lit reviews like this countless times, and I’m reading them to see where I can wade in because - according to my advisor - this paper needs to jumpstart the next ten years of my research.

My advisor has made it very clear she wants me to use her “model” that she created to tie the literature together in a new way. I focus a lot on in-group out-group categorizations and how this impacts face perception (such as perceptual mechanisms that lead to dehumanization of out-group members), and her “model” is meant to describe how we come to categorizations in the visual perception of others. The issue is that her model… is so *bad.* Like, really really bad. She would be eviscerated if she talked about it in the wrong room bad. She made these extremely broad claims about how all of perception works and some really WEIRD claims, and she uses only four scientific studies to support it? Four??? Like the four aren’t even good and are quasi-experimental. It’s absurd.

Everything I’ve thrown out she rejects and points me back to her “paper on her model,” but the paper isn’t even a published research article… it’s a chapter she wrote in a handbook where she throws it out as an idea. I’m going through it one more time to see if I was just being a hater but it’s killing me even more because I can fully guarantee this model is 100% wrong. Despite the fact my advisor harps on people (and makes fun of other labs’ grad students) for not being “well-read” enough on the scientific literature, a huge amount of research in our subfield gets published specifically from China, and my advisor only cares about and pays attention to large American names she’s personally met at old boys’ club conferences she has us attend with her. Like she just doesn’t know the literature in our field it feels like, and I think the only possible explanation for why this chapter was accepted for publication is because she’s a big name in the field.

I’m actively frustrated with my PhD experience because my advisor has turned out to be *really nice* like I always suspected, but she’s *massively out of touch with her field* and the research that goes on with her lab. I’m scared to publish with her because I know she doesn’t review student research and janky studies have come out of our lab as a result that claim to have controls in place but don’t. I’m trying to abandon ship as quickly as possible (I meet with another prof Tuesday…) but it doesn’t change that I have to write this 50+ page paper and my advisor just. Won’t approve any topic besides her shitty American-centric model that I would rather die than have my name attached to 😭

[urlocalnonbinarybastardwrites]

sorry in advance for shit grammar and maybe awkward wording i’m not used to doing requests lol

if possible could you do a matchmaking thing for the outsiders?

im a 5’5 ftm bi guy with a super heavy preference for men, i use he/him pronouns but i’m a-okay with it/it’s too. i’ve got brown wavy/slightly curly brown long-ish hair (think a shorter wolfcut type thing) and i can’t stand greasing or oiling my hair because i hate how it feels. i have heterochromia, freckles and longish eyelashes

i’ve got various little scars littering my body (arms, legs, etc.) thatre mostly faded from being a little clumsy

i’m admittedly pretty anxious and jittery not something i can help but i’m working on it. it ends up making me nervous and paranoid most of the time and i hate going out alone. i’m overall pretty nice and i love being sweet and polite to people but i stand by the “respect is earnt, not given” rule.

i use please and thank you consistently and apologize way too much

with my friends i like joking around a lot with my friends, im super chatty with friends but with strangers or if there’s a new person in the group i’m more reserved and don’t like talking all that much

i can get a little snippy after long enough and if it’s somebody i don’t like i’m a-okay with getting mean

i really don’t like being alone (in public places specifically) because i overthink things too much, ends with me practically being attached at my friends hips, but that’s alright because they don’t mind <33

i like wearing jeans, t-shirts and hoodies, jorts are amazing and i’m wearing them pretty much all the time if the weather allows it and i practically live in my favorite sneakers all year round, they get pretty banged up before i replace them but when i do i get the same brand, same style. i usually wear darker clothes, specifically shirts, but i also like most colors. as long as the clothes are soft and comfortable i’m happy

i love collecting little trinkets and keeping them around my room, it’s awesome

im really passionate about my interests and start internally freaking out when people mention them bc “omg!! i can maybe rant!!”

i love ranting. i can talk for ages and ages about nothing and everything

i love superhero’s, i can go on and on about my favorites for ages

cats are my favorite animal but i really love all of them!

im absolutely TERRIFIED of bugs, can and will cry if a spider gets too close, spiders are terrifying and i freak out when i see something even resembling one

i like nature (except for the whole ‘bug’ part..) and i like hanging out with friends, it doesn’t matter what we’re doing im just happy to be there

i like baking, it’s super fun and i can make banana muffins off by heart atp lol

i love pretty sunsets with all the different colors, i also love rain and colder weather

i still sleep with stuffed animals admittedly just because they’re soft and comforting

i love soft things in general, i freak out a little when a fabrics too weird

i like walking around pretty places or just streets!! i looove going to malls, i don’t even have to get anything i just like going around and looking

i love things like art and sewing

in school my grades are decent, im good at english

i like horror movies

not too sure about what else to add, if it was y enough, you’re not sure or just plain old don’t wanna do it that’s a-okay, have a fantastic day/night!! <3

Your Outsiders Ship: Dallas Winston

(Bro the enemies to lovers opposites attract vibes here is making my inner shitty Wattpad writer go IsosmsnKSSNJAIANAKS SHJAKAMABjananansks)

Explanation: starting off with looks, I think that he loves the way you look and I mean, he loves it. He would support you being trans and if anyone had anything to say, they can welcome his fist to their face. he really likes your eyes and thinks that they’re wonderful and your freckles are really beautiful. I won’t ever tell you until way later into the relationship, but whatever man it’s the thought that counts. He would think that you’re too nice to people and cut them too much slack and definitely try to lecture you about how you should be tougher and then you turn his own point around on him and he’d be like whatever man I guess ur right… it does get on his nerves. Whenever you apologize to people who don’t deserve it or apologize too much to people, especially who don’t deserve it, and if you ever apologize to someone in front of him who he didn’t deem as deserving of your words he would just say something rude to them to balance it out lol. Honestly, he thought it was super hot whenever he saw you being mean to a Soc that was always a hoodlum and threatening to call the police on him and things like that and you stood up for him even though he didn’t need it obviously (he did) I don’t know. He just like found it ridiculously attractive. He likes her clothing style, and if you guys were a similar size, then he would be constantly trading things with you. I also think that he loves seeing you wear his clothing because I don’t know just the possessiveness of it makes him go crazy. He probably doesn’t have a lot of the interests that you have, but I feel like he would love listening to you rant about them like he would pretend that he doesn’t, but then secretly kind of try to prompt you to get you to rant to him about some thing and he doesn’t really get like superheroes or comics or anything like that, but if you explain it to him, then I think he would actually kind of end up liking it a little bit and if you ever found out that he bought himself comic secretly just so he could catch up on a little bit of superhero pop culture. He would be so dead he would be so teased. He would also make fun of you for being afraid of bugs but then also refuse to go near a spider like he’s definitely the type of guy that would be like no big deal. It’s just a spider and then proceeded to let out the most like girlish scream if one was on him. He would love to watch sunsets with you and I also feel like he would make fun of you for having stuffy but then whenever you gave him a heart expression then he would instantly stop and honestly he can’t talk. But anyway, do not try to bring him into a kitchen. It will just end up in a flower fight because he cannot bake for crap and if you ever tried to bake something, he would just like end up eating most of it would step away from the counter like a spoon or something and then you come back and your muffins would be gone lmao. He would like to walk around with you a lot. I feel like he also likes just kind of walking around and just hanging out so I feel like you two could do that together. Also, I feel like he definitely cat called you and that’s kind of how you guys met and you guys definitely had an enemies to lovers type thing going on but when you guys are together, it’s really cute. 💚💚💚

[cagedchoices]

I saw a post the other day that said it's weird when people say “[muse name] is so spicy right now” because, in their words, “people who do that are just writing smut as a self-insert fantasy to get off to" I thought that was kind of reductive and untrue and it kind of highlights a growing issue I’ve noticed in the RPC and I kind of just wanted to talk about it from my own perspective.

I am an asexual, aromantic, and nonbinary afab person. My most consistently present roleplay muse for the past 4 years is a cis man I headcanon to be bisexual and biromantic. I feel like it should be somewhat obvious that this is not a self insert fantasy for me, but if it's not that obvious, I'll try to explain.

Initially, I based Caleb's sexuality off an admittedly narrow perception of his canon background. I interpreted his relationship with Francis as romantic partially because at the time, I thought “There’s no heterosexual explanation for how emotional Caleb gets whenever he thinks about Francis, so therefore he must have been in love with this man.”

In addition to that, Caleb had 2 failed relationships after Francis died and there’s nothing dictating what gender(s) those partners were.

I was also partially motivated by spite. How many times has everyone heard “ugh not every close emotional bond between two men has to be gay 😒” ? How many times has that been used to shut down any conversation on the question of sexuality when it involves two male characters? I was sick of it.

I used to say that though. Before I knew any better. I'd see two characters who had a connection I liked seeing as platonic, and instead of reasoning that it's perfectly valid to interpret these characters how you want, I would be like “no. absolutely not. these characters aren't gay because the author didn't write them to be and didn't say they were and actually it's pretty homophobic to think the only way men can be emotionally vulnerable is if they're gay” which is…STUPID lmao don't be like Past Me. That was a DARVO tactic and a particularly shitty one at that. I'm not like that anymore and I'm glad I learned to do better.

Anyways... I love shipping, but I’m less attached to looking through shipping goggles these days and I try not to look at anything from such a narrow point of view anymore. Now whenever I think about the bond between Caleb and Francis, I can see it in a multitude of ways. Which is the same way I see his bond with Dolores in season 3 and his bond with Maeve in season 4. And further how I see potential for ships I develop in roleplay.

But recently I'd been struggling a little bit with truly defining the difference between romantic versus platonic ideals. Most of the generic definitions I see out there describe romantic attraction as being “the desire to do romantic things with someone” and then the examples listed are something like “kissing, holding hands, getting married, spending time together, etc.” and I'm just like “okay what about when people do those things *without* romantic attraction involved?”

Like it just breaks my brain. People get married for reasons that aren't out of love sometimes. And as much as I like kiss scenes in fiction and I like writing them when my brain stops short circuiting long enough to actually do that, I think the entire act of putting your mouth on another human’s mouth and sometimes getting tongues or teeth involved in smushing your lips together over and over again is a really weird ritual to show someone you like them. I still write it though because it's cute. As for holding hands and spending time together?? Are we just not supposed to spend time with friends ever? What the fuck.

I stumbled across a video a few days ago by a neuroscientist who has studied the concept of love in the human brain and what she said helped me put things into a better perspective. Someone asked her if there's a good way to differentiate between platonic and romantic relationships when, especially in modern society, we don't have as much separation between the things humans do WITH romantic partners versus in non-romantic relationships and the lines blur more than they used to in the past.

What she said was that romantic love behaves similarly to an obsession or addiction in the brain. It's not just the fact that you want to DO so-called romantic activities with someone, it's more that you want to do them so badly with a specific person, you can't really let go of the thought until you follow the impulse to do it.

Kissing, for example. It's possible you might want to kiss a friend you have a strong platonic bond with, but if you don’t do it, then the interest usually fades and the brain will quickly move on. On the other hand, if you have a crush/partner/spouse/any kind of romantic connection and you want to kiss them, the brain will most likely fixate on the thought of kissing them until you actually go and do something. It will not fully move on until it gets the dopamine hit.

I guess since I’m aromantic, this means that for me, I don’t experience that addictive feeling of wanting to do something with someone so badly that it's all I think about. But I write a muse who is biromantic and does experience romantic attraction, which sort of requires me to know how it works, so I can actually write about it.

I see sexual attraction in a similar way. I’m asexual and in my case, I'm one of the ones who doesn't experience sexual attraction in any way and is not comfortable with being personally involved in sex. But my muse is bisexual and does experience sexual attraction.

So I decided to start writing smutty things last year and I had a couple reasons for it. The first is that I had never actually written smut before so it was something new to try, and practice would mean I would get better at it.

The second was that I have watched, for years, many of my mutuals routinely participate in sexy sunday and similar things. It probably sounds kind of like peer pressure, but it wasn’t like anyone was really encouraging me to do anything or not do anything. It was more like after years and years of existing in my own bubble of never engaging in it, I wanted to see what I was missing. Completely my choice.

Thirdly, after tackling the subjects of “where the fuck do you put your hands?” “does this position sound physically possible? or...comfortable?” and the like, writing simple kiss scenes or non-sexual intimacy no longer feels like a monumental task that I mentally freeze up on the second I realize I have to write.

For a while it also got very hard for me to figure out when someone wanted to ship with me versus when they didn’t. I was afraid to ask. I started overthinking everything to the effect of “what if they think I’m being presumptuous and pressuring them into writing a romantic relationship they don’t want?” or “what if they are afraid to tell me they actually Are interested in a ship in case i think they’re trying to pressure me into it instead?”

There was also quite a bit of “oh god what if they see that i wrote my muse on a date with someone in a certain location and when i put our muses in that same location for a different thread they think it’s a date too when it’s not?” or even “what if a mun of a duplicate muse sees me writing a ship with a different partner writing the same muse and they start thinking i’m only writing with them to add them to a weird little collection or something?” and all the social anxiety I fall victim to when my mental health gets tanked by stress and depression.

All of this to say, now that I’ve climbed back out of the pit of despair I fell into… I don’t think anything is as simple as “people only write shipping to fulfill the desire for a relationship/people only write smut to fulfill their own sexual desires.” I think you have to take it on a case by case basis and not make broad assumptions. Otherwise all you're gonna do is alienate people over things that really don't matter.

Plus, maybe it's just that “[muse name] is feeling so spicy right now!” is a lot quicker and easier to say than “the part of my subconscious imagination that [muse name] occupies is telling me that if this muse were a real person, they would be feeling sexually aroused right about now and I'm willing to write about it!” so like. Y’know.

[lolys001]

  I love you but you feel different. It’s hard to think he doesn’t hate me when he’s been distant even just as a friend. He’s been cold , he won’t reply to me until 5-7 hours later if I’m lucky enough and he never seems to be happy to talk to me anymore. Is this the treatment people who aren’t romantically involved with him usually get or am I overthinking things. Even then when I was his friend he didn’t even treat me this way. 

I lose sleep over thinking if he was in love with me or projecting. Hopeless romantics get attached by their own fantasies of loving somebody and aren’t genuinely in love. Explaining the reason why he reused the things that were originally ours or at least I thought were ours. Even then I’ve seen those things on him previously. I wish or at least hope I wasn’t another persons fuel. Unrequited love??(??) really fucking sucks I might sound like an idiot saying that cause again IDK!! I never thought this way until now. I wish I didn’t and who knows if that’s even true. His explanation didn’t make much sense to me so I’ll just get over it. I noticed he stopped a lot of things. Sad to say it hurts it really does. Even small things I’ve just noticed them. Even if they’re something he didn’t notice I certainly did. 

I think I’m just gonna stop trying to revert things to the way they were, even just platonically, if he doesn’t want to talk I’m not gonna try to spark up as much conversation as I usually would or seek out for him, I’m sure it pisses him off plus it’s not even like me to do these things. I’m not giving myself my place. I’m busy too and I’m being a selfish person to him and the person he’s with. 

He’s not even someone who I can even be with. He gives me false way of thinking sometimes. He has a way of getting into my brain and woo’ing me with the things he says even if they’re on accident. His actions speak very harshly though. Stupidly, this is a reason why I’m still so hooked onto him. Hope he could actually love me or even feel something for me.  I know I shouldn’t and who knows if he got over me. 

 He has a nice person with him and the more they know each other the more he falls in love and naturally isn’t as attracted to me or cares as much as before. Even after all these things I’m still bent like a folding chair for this dude. His face makes this harder. It’s not easy letting go of a guy who changed the beauty standard for you. I’ve just never seen someone with the most gorgeous eyes. His hands, his stomach, his skin, his brows, his lips and his smile. Forbidden fruit fah real!! I love his skin. I love how he’s structured and I love his face. His emotions are pretty and laid out perfectly. He’s perfect to me cause he’s just himself, even the things that he’s done that aren’t the best makes me love him more. Blaurgh this isn’t something for me to be gushing about Jesus. 

Temptation is real but I can’t be a shit person. God whatever I’m already a terrible person what the fuck is this gonna change bro. I can love someone but I can’t shake away the feeling of knowing I had everything once. I’m selfish. This is something selfish people think. I’m not proud of being in love because I can’t have it and I just hurt other people even subconsciously. I’m having my second thoughts and maybe I’ll keep it for a while, it could help w the process of just getting over the situation faster. I’m sick of throwing my guts up. 

I know I’m not the only person struggling. This sucks for both of us but from my end it looks like my rope is still burning at a shitty rate, it gets exhausting especially when there’s barely anything I can do. I’ll get over it or at least try, you’re admirable for being or seeming like you’re able to. Again the fuck ik, maybe he’s not even over it but he does a good ass job seeming like he just doesn’t care as much anymore. I hope he knows how much I love him, corny or not he’s one of the best people who ever came into my life. I’m always going to be happy he came into my life even if we’re not on good terms. He gave me hope that maybe there r good people who are willing to let me into their lives

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i've been trying to work on getting more specific about criteria i set my boundaries around and adjacent--namely around actionable behaviors as opposed to just things that tend to be accompanied by them, like 'if you engage with me to argue whether a dynamic i consider to be abusive is actually abuse i will block you' instead of just 'if you don't think [X specific dynamic] is abuse DNI.' but man sometimes there are things that are context-specific enough that if you don't specify that particular instance people are unlikely to know what you're talking about.

('if you call pericles a nazi i will block you for holocaust denial, [short summary or link to explanation]' is a personal example that comes to mind. i can name the specific shitty trope--'The Nazis Were Gay is a homophobic myth and it is holocaust denial, cut it out'--but if someone hasn't already made that connection with pericles, they are..... probably not going to unless you lay it out yourself. and it will probably involve a Lot of Context when your DNI is really just not the place to stop for a thousand-word essay about the tropes and framing and character dynamics in a piece of media, even if it's something you're happy to infodump about elsewhere.)

('if [criteria relating to the All Germans are Nazis trope or nazis otherwise getting thrown in for bad guy shock value] i will block you' i think gets closer to the broader issue--because hoooly shit there is so much nastiness that inevitably comes with, once again usually holocaust denial--but i don't even know where i'd start with framing that. 'if you do/don't engage critically with [X]' is a nothingburger and it's worse than useless. but like, chances are VERY good that if your policy is not 'look real fucking hard at the presence of nazis in a piece of media, what it means relative to the other elements of the story, whether invoking them is appropriate or even relevant, and the author's intent in doing so' you are going to have takes i do not want to engage with and think are really shitty to spread.)

and there's also not much nuanced shorthand language around for things like 'if you have [opinion] and didn't realize why it might be shitty before seeing it pointed out, i'll be understanding of that, but if you're going to double down when it's laid out in front of you i will block you.' or, for that matter, 'if you make unsolicited comments about my abuse history while discussing fiction i will bite your fucking head off and post about it publicly on my blog, with url attached. if you don't want that then stay off my goddamn posts and mind your business.'

there's also a really important distinction, i think, between the contexts in which you're laying these boundaries. you can't expect every rando who reblogs a post of yours that got big to click through and read through every single boundary you have to make sure you won't block them, but if they're going to follow you it is much more relevant to them to know if they'll just get blocked (or decide they want to block you). and some person following you to occasionally reblog aesthetics or fanart from a distance is a different level of engagement than someone who might take part in meta discussions on your posts, or draw fanart of your AU, or get in contact with you outside of the platform where you met to make friends. it's reasonable to have different expectations for strangers on the street, people you run into at the coffee shop now and then, and people you invite over to your house.

like.... in general i feel like DNI is just not the right name for it, because that presents a binary that might not always fit. if someone has an opinion i'm bothered by and don't want to engage with directly, but will go 'oh, huh i didn't think of it like that' when seeing an explanation from the outside, that's not a 'never breathe in my direction again' offense to me. if anything i think most people are basically decent and would like to be decent, and it makes me happy to be able to provide someone with the perspective to make an informed choice for how to do that.

as it is you're just kind of boxed into the corner of FUCK OFF GTFO GO AWAY, which is even more unhelpful when it comes to communicating criteria where you Really Fucking Mean It, like 'if you think it's acceptable to tell someone to kill themself then fuck off, fuck all the way off, stay the hell away from me.' that 'gtfo or don't' binary takes away the capacity for that emphasis, and honestly also contributes to the extreme black-and-white toxicity of fandom and internet spaces in general this past decade or so. if 'didn't pick up on a subtle depiction of abuse at first and was kind of insensitive about it' and 'literal suicide baiting' are exactly the same degree of Bad, then either the suicide baiting seems trivial, or people are going to feel Attacked and like they must be a terrible person for any slightly imperfect good-faith thought or opinion they might have, or have just not thought through.

in the latter case, even if they end up going with the Other Opinion(tm) because feeling attacked put them off, fandom these days is a nightmare of systemic abuse which weaponizes that binary. seeing it replicated even from people who are trying to push back against it--even if it's because those people have been pushed into a corner and aggressive Get the Fuck Away from Me is, understandably, all they have left--just reinforces that there is no other model for this, that the abusive framework for how to navigate the world is all there is. i hate the idea of contributing to that, and i wish i weren't having to feel out the alternative by myself while already being so goddamn burned out on the whole thing.

and like.... i think 'boundaries' as a term is definitely getting warmer, but by itself doesn't quite communicate its nature as a Thing for the specific purposes of navigating socmed spaces. just. hm.

[dinitride-art]

I've had an strangled relationship with Eleven since season 1, so much so that when s3 came around i had to stop watching because i couldn't stand the M!leven in it and so, it took me about 2 years to actually watch s3.... now after s4, and having watched it a few times now, i kind of made peace with her, because i absolutely love the bond she has with Will. I still sort of cringe at the idea of her and Mike, but Will is such a peacemaker, even within the show. I'm really at peace now.

Sorry for this stupid ask, i just needed to share it with someone i guess.

Don't worry, it's not stupid. I think I get it and it's making me think about some things. Mike and El's relationship... it's hard to watch sometimes. A lot of the time. (small warning, I get really into analyzing some stuff after this- whoops?)

Without knowing the ending we can't really see the reason that they've written it that way. It's not the easiest thing to trust them to do it right either. El's a bit more complicated, to me at least, because she's written to have reactions to things that need explanations. But we don't really get an explanation for her and Mike's relationship. Not like we do when she hits Angela in the face with a roller skate- and we get a flashback of Brenner. Or when she's crying in Mike's closet in season one and we see her in the lab, locked in a room. Those things, I think, give us the ability to understand El and root for her. Because we understand how what she's been through affects her. But when she trips Max in season two? Or spies on Mike in season three? Or when her and Mike fight in season four? We don't get to know the reason for her actions yet.

I really don't think that her and Mike's relationship was ever intended to portray romantic feelings. I think it was meant to make us feel uncomfortable. I remember trying to avoid thinking about Mike and El's relationship in season three because it just... I didn't like it. But after I started thinking about how maybe there's supposed to be something wrong with how I feel about it, it got easier to watch.

When El's with Will she's easier to... figure out? If that makes any sense? But when El's with Mike, and Mike's with El, they're both hard to get a read on. Mike gets frustrated quicker and El doesn't really seem to like giving an explanation for what she's doing. But with Will we can see what's happening inside her head. He can read her like a book. And so then we know that, okay. She's getting bullied at school. She doesn't want Mike to know. She's grieving Hopper's death. It's all easy to see. But when she starts yelling at Mike the next day, we can't see exactly where she's coming from. She didn't talk to anyone about "from, Mike" this is the first we're hearing of it. Sure, there were visual clues like the card attached to the flowers Mike gave her, but that's it. No further explanation is given for why she feels like this, or why she's only bringing it up now, or why Mike hasn't said it in the first place. We get nothing.

There's information they aren't giving us about why Mike and El's relationship isn't working and hasn't been working since it began. It makes it really easy to hate Mike. Without thinking that maybe he's not in love with El and doesn't actually want this relationship- he's just a dick. And I can see how it might make it easy to fell weird about El too. Because somethings wrong on her end of things as well.

There's a vagueness about Mike and El's relationship that looks like a shitty teenage romance at first. A crush. Nerd boy gets the girl with superpowers. Somethings off about it but we haven't been given a solid reason to think that. It's awkward and uncomfortable and looks like terrible writing at points- because we don't get to know what's going on under the surface.

Sorry that this turned into five paragraphs of me running around with my red string, but. Yeah, Mike and El are weird. Here's to hoping that there's a reason for it