#i think my points stand regardless of if i vague in the tags so lemme vague vent i need this

[chinbiz]

Idk if this is helpful to anybody else, but control in abuse doesn't always look as obvious as straight up forbidding someone from doing something. It can come in the form of telling you that you can do what you want, and then weaponizing shame to discourage you from doing those things. It can come in the form of giving you repeated unwanted "advice" on how to look nicer, pass better, act more appealing. It can come in the form of punishing you by giving the things they know you want/already promised you to other people instead. It can come in the form of pressuring you to do the things they want, and trying to get you to believe it was your idea, and if you push back or resist, twisting it into a mutual idea. It can come in the form of comparing you to other people and telling you that this other person lets them take charge and why can't you? It can come in the form of subtly sabotaging you as a joke, like leaving a mark on your face after you've just done your makeup.

Stay safe out there, and remember that nobody's personality is just "so big" that they have to snuff you out. That's abuse. You're dealing with an abuser.

Also just a side note for polyamorous people but yeah it's a huge red flag if you and your meta regularly have to "unionize" to get your needs met. Like it sounds cutesy without thinking about it but you shouldn't have to gang up on your partner for them to listen to you. It shouldn't take 2 or 3 people for them to understand what they're doing is wrong

[jjba-hell]

Fate and Fortune

Part 6

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5,

Ya’ll gonna have to excuse this piece- it’s not my best work but I publish regardless TwT, I promise we’ll be back to our regular scheduled writing soon )^o^(

Content warning is REALLY mild like I can literally think of nothing in particular other than a painfully flirtatious Noriaki (yes, I do see him a bit more suave and intelligent, not very innocent)

For the moots @risottoneroo (hope you’re doing well) @fyre23 and @risottosplug (hi, I don’t know why you followed me but thank you, i appreciate (⌒▽⌒) and sorry this is the first piece you got tagged in, seriously the previously linked shit it better)

A/N: I’d love to keep things fresh on the blog- lemme know what chracaters ya’ll would like to see me write

“It feels like the only time you’re near me is when you’re healing me.” Kakyoin laughed as she hovered Fortune’s fingers in front of his mouth.

She chuckled quietly, “And whose fault is that?”

“Oh, you misunderstand. I’m most certainly not blaming you.” His hand wrapped lightly around the wrist closest to him. “I’m asking if I could get to know you a bit better than ‘Vera, the stand fever survivor’.”

She looked down at his hand around her wrist, feeling a moment of girlish glee until she shook it off and with smirk spreading over her lips, she looked into those amethyst eyes. “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were flirting with me, Noriaki.”

With a smooth slip of her fingers out of his hand she was standing straight, looking down at him as he remained seated on the bench outside the payphone.

Noriaki rose up and in the process, reminded her that she was the shortest one in the group. “Well since you know better, what is that you think I’m doing- exactly?”

Vera’s eyebrow shot up as a grin slowly spread over her lips. “Digging for information, of course... albeit a bit more charismatically than most. How’s your mouth feel?”

“It feels good as new.” He bowed his head at her in thanks as they approached the open payphone door to where Mr Joestar was standing.

Noriaki Kakyoin was most certainly a smooth talker, whether he was polite or sly, Vera couldn’t quite distinguish but obviously speaking to the charming redhead was certainly much easier than trying to talk to Jotaro.

“We’ll talk our next steps at the restaurant.” Mr Joestar had announced. Vera reached down for the duffel bag she had thrown together in the airport bathroom in Japan.

“I could have sworn I saw you traveling with a suitcase.” Noriaki remarked, the expected suave smile following. It was him looping her duffel bag handles into his hand that came as a surprise to her.

“Well, they promised me a ticket to Hong Kong if I could travel by hand luggage- had to leave half my suitcase behind I’m afraid.”

“My condolences.” Was all he said as she fell in line with him toward the restaurant- Jotaro’s broad back being the only thing she could see in front of her all the way there.

“Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you Kakyoin?” She nudged into his side gently. “I suppose I am in your debt for carrying my bag for me. So... I’ll be generous and offer three answers.”

Kakyoin hummed on contemplation. “My, my... what could I possibly ask?”

She shrugged, “Ask and find out for yourself.”

“Very well... where were you born?”

The snort of laughter she had to keep in was the most undignified thing she let slip in front of the charmer. “In the sky.”

The smile left Kakyoin’s face as he turned his head to see if she was joking. Up front Avdol was snickering as well.

“How is that possible?”

“That would be the second question...” she warned.

“Nonsense! You can’t be so vague in your answers!”

“And I suppose you’ll be the judge of that?”

Kakyoin gave just the tiniest pout before caving. “The curiosity would kill me, do explain.”

“My parents were flying to Egypt when I was born- yes, I was born on an airplane between Britain and Egypt.”

Kakyoin took a moment to laugh with her as they entered the restaurant and hid the bag away for a moment. “Well, if not for my own shock- I might have showered you in jokes of your angelic nature.”

When Jotaro gave an audible snort of laughter as he sat down at the table, she couldn’t help but smile politely back at Noriaki. “Goodness, you want more answers- am I that fascinating to you?” She slid into the chair Noriaki held for her.

The question hanging over Kakyoin’s head this time suddenly made his cheeks dust a rosy shade. “I suppose you are, I do find you and your stand fascinating.”

She smiled gently at him, purposefully placing a hand atop his own on the table- enjoying the blush spreading over his whole face a bit too much.

While letting Mr Joestar help the Frenchman that had arrived at the table, Vera left for a quick smoke break outside the restaurant- enjoying her choice of oversized jean jacket on her back.

Not much longer, Jotaro joined her around the corner in the alleyway beside the restaurant. For a moment he seemed to glare at her from below his cap yet again, and yet again- her gaze unchanging.

Then with another disinterested scoff he looked away. “Angelic, my ass.” He mumbled, turning to face the exit of the alleyway.

The laugh that left Vera’s lips was almost offensive. She held her side in pain as she laughed, other hand supporting her against the wall.

Jotaro only looked behind his shoulder at her in further distaste. “You laugh like a fucking hyena.”

Her breath came back a few gasps later and while wiping tears out of her eyes she walked up to stand beside him. “Aw, are you jealous Jotaro?”

He nearly whipped his whole body to face her, the reaction she was gauging from him being all she need to maintain that petty little smirk on her lips.

“What are you getting at, woman?”

She only shrugged, bringing her cigarette to her lips for a drag- maintaining eye contact with him through the blue white smoke. “I can’t think of any other reason you’d stare me down and invalidate a compliment intended for me.” She answered after letting the smoke dribble out of her mouth.

“You’re disgusting.” He grumbled.

“Well, Kakyoin is a disgusting flirt, I’ll give you that but don’t get angry just because I can flirt back.”

The frustrated groan and toss of his cigarette in the alleyway was more than enough evidence she needed. He didn’t like her banter with Noriaki but... he was gonna have to learn to open his mouth and say something to her if he was that painfully jealous.

She returned to the restaurant in absolute shambles- a table on fire and the Frenchman Mr Joestar was helping displaying his stand.

This time it was Vera’s turn to give an audibly obnoxious sigh and pull one of the abandoned chairs closer for her to sit down at. “Fucking hell, I only had some hot cola from a vendor today- I was looking forward to the beef chop suey just now.”

All eyes were on her as she sat down in the chair, crossed one leg over the other and dug inside her jean jacket pocket. Fortune had already phased the Frenchman’s passport into her pocket and was currently phasing his earrings into her other pocket.

With a dramatic flourish and an arm over the backrest of her chair she looked the gray-haired man up and down then looked at the open passport in her hand. “Jean Pierre Polnareff- that’s hopefully correct?”

Jean seemed to immensely tense at her casual display of her own ability but nonetheless, he brought the tip of the rapier closer to her face. “Mademoiselle, I’d rather not lay an unnecessary hand on you, if possible.”

She tipped her head back and forth for a moment, admiring her reflection in the stand’s silver armor- driving the point home by getting up and closing the distance- reaching in her pocket to hold his earrings to her ears.

“I think these suit me better, don’t you think monsiour?”

The realization dawned on his face and soon Polnareff was swatting at his neck like the earrings was supposed to be there.

“Let me guess- another sworn allegiance puppet for dio, perhaps money? What is it?”

“Vera, stop provoking him- his qualm is with me.” Avdol interjected, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Vera calmly looked back at her guardian, a slight frown to her face. “Not to seem childish, but do you see me as incapable, Avdol?”

The calm smile spreading his lips was all she really needed. She knew him well enough to know it was simply because he had a handle on his opponent.

At the Tiger Balm Garden- Vera sat atop a tiger statue’s back, near the entrance of their little chosen battlefield. Admittedly, holding back from jumping in and healing was more difficult than intended but Avdol had never been a victim of anything.

After the fight she hopped off as Avdol walked away from Polnareff’s flaming corpse- Fortune’d dials moving to help the healing process from the stand attack wounds.

“You’re not gonna let him burn to death, are you?” She asked, knowing that full well he wasn’t exactly listening to her but instead the mumblings of the burning man behind them.

With a snap of his finger, Avdol’s flames extinguished themselves and unsurprisingly- the flesh blood made itself known.

Fortune and Star Platinum followed to rid the world of another fleshbud. Vera had Fortune heal the unconscious man before following after the others to the docks.

Polnareff showing up was probably the last thing Vera had expected for their Hong Kong detour, but regardless Avdol and Jotaro refused the Frenchman’s thanks but Vera took hers with the smuggest smirk allowed.

The sight of Mr Joestar’s mechanical hand both fascinated and disgusted her- watching as he slipped his white glove back on as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“And for what reason do you need to find someone with two right hands?”

Cherie’s story was truly tragic but it seemed to have been completely forgotten as Polnareff went to snap a few pictures of the two tourists girls that tried to get near Jotaro.

“What a perv.” She muttered, more to herself but it got a chuckle from Mr Joestar. Just aside from Jean’s leg was a coul of rope- first tied onto the deck. Fortune moved out of her body and phased the coil of rope around Polnareff’s foot and then slipped the loop of rope from the deck off manually. The wind ad picked up just enough to tie around the Frenchman’s leg and watch as he he was frantically dragged off the deck and into the water.

“Hmmmm justice is best served cold.” She muttered, passing Avdol only to have her foot break through the wooden deck below her feet.

Avdol laughed openly, holding a hand to help her out with her knee stuck in the wood. “What we’re you saying about justice again?”

“Hey! This was for healing you guys! This was correlation! Not causation!”

[trashcatsnark]

What’s your opinion on Kerry being available to only male V when it’s mentioned in-game that he’s bi (correct me if I’m wrong, I have terrible memory)?? I feel like they should’ve had bi romance options if they were able to implement both gay and straight ones.

Oh anon, oooooh anon. I love you dearly, but you intentionally or not might as well have thrown lit dynamite in my ask box. This discourse has been such a strange beast within this fandom and I have definitely shared some vague thoughts about it before. I’m putting everything under a read more, to help stave off some....harassment or putting it in people’s lives who may not want it. 

 I still remember I was frankly heartbroken and upset when I first learned Kery wasn’t romanceable by female V when the game first officially came out, but before I played it; River and Panam weren’t even really known about, cause they weren’t talked about much in the promo material,  plus Kerry was shown in romance scenes with what looked to be female V. So, if you go back far enough you’ll find me in December cope posting and being the saddest and angriest of beans, because other than Johnny who I knew was likely off the table. He was one of the only characters I wanted to potentially romance. Now, I’m further away from it, have  processed my feelings regarding it and am more rational I believe regarding the issue. 

But, that being said, a large issue of this sort of discourse is that; no matter what anyone says, someone somwhere is upset. I’ve been insulted, blocked, accused of fetishizing gay men, and so much over my opinion regarding this matter. I’m still currently debating if I even wanna tag this, cause the issue almost always brings negativity to my blog and to me. I have very little interest in being berated for this, so we’ll see how I feel after I finish typing this all out. I’m going to try to go through all my issues, my points, my troubles and feelings about the matter. But, at the end of the day, it is merely my opinion. If someone disagrees, fine, just don’t attack people or berate them over pixels in a video game. Just dont. That’s all I ask. Okay, so I’m gonna divide this into talking points and whatever, now. 

Firstly, Kerry is bisexual. Point blank, period. I’ve seen folks try to argue that his wife was like comphet, which if you dont know means that sometimes exclusively homosexual people will try to force themselves into heterosexual relationships because society has conditioned them to believe they have to be straight. While, I’m not negating the fact that this happens, as a bisexual/pansexual (I use the terms interchangeably to define my experience and feelings)  person I’ve struggled with it when making sense of my attraction to women. It genuinely is something that happens. This is not the case for Kerry; he doesn’t ever hide his attraction to men, between TTRPG lore and the video game he has had two wives , and he is stated by game developers and TTRPG creator to be bisexual.He is bisexual. Getting that out there, saying other wise, in my opinion is a level of bi erasure. That being said, I do still have my grievances with how the game chose to handle his bisexuality and bisexuality as whole, also imo, the game generally doesn’t seem...to treat players who are attracted to men well… 

But before I get into that, I wanna make clear, I feel like Cyberpunk 2077 should have had more romance options for every orientation. If you’re not going to create a player-sexual style of romance; ie where every romanceable character is attracted to the player regardless and wish to focus on each character having their own predetermined sexuality; only have one character for each sexuality is kind of bullshit. If you’re a lesbian player and you’re not into Judy, you get nothing, except a fuck around with Meredith (who I will get to later). You’re a straight woman, but not into River, shit out of luck. You’re a gay man who’s not into Kerry, sucks to suck bud. You’re a straight man who’s not into Panam (kind dont get how you wouldn’t be but who am i to judge), well, you can fuck Meredith… so woooo. Oh also, if you’re not attracted to women, you will still be forced to watch in first person pov a sex scene with Alt and if you want Johnny to like you, you gotta date a girl. Also, all the male love interests will be sidelined mostly…. Hooray… But I digress, either go in with all romance options bi/pan/player sexual, or give more options for romance. Cause now you have the issue of people not getting the partner they hoped for and not liking their only option. Now, you got people trying to make the Judy  bi, which is lesbian erasure and lesbophobic, along with people saying Kerry isn’t bi and can’t be with women which is bi erasure and biphobic. Whereas, if you had just gone in from the get go with either more options or a player-sexual romance system; we wouldn’t be here, CDPR. 

Okay, so next thing, now that I’ve addressed my issues with the entire romance system and that yes, Kerry is bi. Should Kerry have been able to be romanced as female V? Yes and no. Which sounds vague, but I’m going somewhere. With the current set up of it; Kerry being romanceable to a female V would have unfairly given female players an additional love interest over male players. Female V would have the option of Judy, River, or Kerry. And Male V’s would have the option of Kerry or Panam. That’s not fair. I get that, inherently. CDPR painted themselves into a corner, by only letting there be two romances for “each” gender, one for “each” sexuality, and then using a canonically bi character for one of them. They played themselves, they were either gonna have to give an unfair amount of love interest to one side of their gender system or make a bi character who will only pursue one gender. So, they went for the latter. 

Now, some people feel thats fine, because Kerry having a gender preference is fine and its okay for bi people to lean a certain way in regards to gender and its okay for them to not be attracted to people. And that is true. I am a bisexual woman who leans a little more towards men, I get that. However, I have only been given one reason for Kerry’s preference for male V over female V. And it was by a developer of the game who stated that Kerry pursues Male V and not Female V because Male V reminds him more of Johnny… And I hate that. I personally, hate it so deeply, because to me it does a complete disservice to Kerry and V’s relationship and Kerry’s arc. Because even with female V you see him being preoccupied with Johnny and V’s connection to Johnny, then you see him move past that. So, to then state, its still a deciding factor in him romancing V is so wrong to me. Like why???? Why would you do that to people who like Kerry??? Why would you put that in their heads, that Kerry on some level, subconsciously or not, was thinking about Johnny when he decides to romance V. Cause that’s not in the game, in the game you get the vibe he’s moving on past Johnny, like he’s growing, developing, genuinely likes V. But that stupid tweet, just radiates rancid vibes, whyyy???  

And then, outside of that nasty tweet, I have to ask what other reason is there for why he prefers male V over fem V.  They’re...the same characters essentially, just with different pronouns and body type. They also can look like whatever you want; they’re completely customizable. So, Its based off of what the game associates with  gender characteristics and nothing else, meaning, his attraction is rooted solely in their gender and he turns down fem V by virtue of them being a woman and nothing else. Which, yeah, bisexual/pansexual people have preferences but when that preference completely excludes a gender based on nothing but gender…. Uhh????? See my issue???? 

And I’ve seen people saying, well, its better than CDPR playing into slutty will date anybody bisexual stereotypes. But, the thing is...THEY STILL DO THAT which is what drives me up the god damn wall; they managed to do slutty bi stereotypes and I don’t even get kiss the boy, which again, I get the need for fairness but wow, just wow. And lemme explain. 

Meredith is the only character, other than joytoys, whom you can have sex with regardless of gender, body type, etc. She is the only character who shows that she is attracted to V on some level regardless of gender. 

She is a one night stand. Her sex animations are the same as joytoys. She treated like a promiscuous love phobic woman.  And having characters like that is fine, my own V is promiscuous and love phobic. But, we can acknowledge that in a video game by a AAA game company having the only character who is at least physically attracted to the player no matter what, be nothing but sex fodder...isn’t great bi representation, right? 

Oh, and Kerry himself still is a promiscuous bisexual man, he just won’t romance female V because apparently, according to a dev, they don’t remind him of Johnny enough. AND THATS THE DEVS WORDS, NOT MINE, I HATE THAT. Like, Kerry is shown to have people’s lingerie around his house. He’s stated by Johnny to be someone who fucks around. He gets a blowjob from a man in a stairwell. 

The two most blatantly canonically bi character in this game are promiscuous; one wont romance V at all and just wants sex, the other will only romance a male V because at worse, he’s comparing them mentally subconsciously to his dead friend and at best….because….reasons…. Literally, from what I understand for Kerry to romance V, they have to have the “male” body type and “male” voice. Meaning, fem V could literally by all appearances look like masc V, body type wise, but because she uses female pronouns and has a feminine sounding voice...no… the stars say no… 

In my honest opinion, it is bad bisexual representation and a not so well thought out romance system for a game. 

But, that being said, I literally never romance anyone, because I’m a Johnny simp. So, the fuck do I know.

oh god do i tag this.... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh