#i think the fact he CAN'T really explain or defend himself

[sludgekludge]

What's your thoughts on Octavia?

she sure does exist

ok real talk, she's inoffensive, but not really a character archetype i care for, the moody goth teenager. i don't hate her though and her situation strikes a chord. brandon (i believe? correct me if im wrong) calling her a cockblocking bitch or whatever was like. kind of insane and offputting. she's in a really sad situation with a shitty dad but the narrative is so determined to defend stolas over everything and now she's in the wrong for being upset over it? gonna use this to jump off and ramble about stolas abandoning his daughter at every turn because i don't really have much to say about via on her own and i've wanted to complain about this like, forever

like 'stolas is a good dad!' when he:

actively has an open affair in front of her that seems to have kickstarted constant fighting between her parents. stolas does not seem to comfort or communicate with octavia over this whatsoever until she literally runs off crying over it in loo-loo land. even then, he's still fixated on specifically blitz protecting him. go look after your fucking daughter instead of whining about the bodyguard you don't need, dude.

tangentially, invites his affair partner (a stranger that is playing a part in actively disrupting octavia's life and relationship with her father) to what is meant to be a daddy-daughter day (ignores the fact she's not having a good time and then acts surprised when she tells him such) and flirts with him sexually in front of his (underage) daughter. seems to ignore octavia's worsening mood in favour of blitz until the aforementioned tears. has little to say for himself when confronted but assures her he won't abandon her. lol. lmao, even.

promptly forgets about something important to her and abandons her to once again in a foreign place to have sexual banter with his affair partner. is an all-powerful demon who could've pulled blitz away from funny sitcom shenanigans at any point to go look for octavia, but has to be reminded by blitz (sexily, for some reason) that they should go look for their daughters after the sitcom shit is cut short by accident. maybe via can't exactly be killed or hurt but literally anything else could've happened to her while she, a presumably quite sheltered teenager, was running around the human world for the first time by herself. she has to get a pep talk from a stranger (the daughter of her fathers affair partner, by the way) about how her dad might be a fuckup but totally loves her, despite having just spent the last afternoon fawning over blitz instead of worrying about octavia. this stranger is also the only adult bothering to look for her in any capacity. octavia would have spent the entire afternoon lost and alone if it weren't for loona being the only one to give a shit.

'what about my daughter', noticeably just kind of goes home with blitz after everything in mastermind and makes no effort to even call or text her. 'erm he was probably traumatised and exhausted-' literally everyone was just under the impression blitz was going to die. i'm sure they're all traumatised and exhausted. stolas lost his powers and his stupid ass house for a little bit, not even forever, over an affair he actively exploited a power dynamic to consciously have, not caring about how it effected his daughter, or the potential future consequences thereof. hitting the impeccable 'i wont abandon you my daughter who i definitely care about' then instantly forgetting she exists 2 seconds later because he of a hole he dug for himself. the point is he once again prioritises blitz over via. was it that easy to forget about her?

tangentially, if you want to believe that stella is an abusive mother (we haven't seen it in the show but i wouldn't be surprised if they wanted you to perceive it that way) then stolas is doing all of this while allowing stella to have octavia. alone, might i add.

via is objectively right to worry stolas is going to abandon her for blitz because he Does. she doesn't appeal to me as a character persay but her situation is miserable enough that i can't bring myself to really dislike her

[match-your-steps]

just read a review of the lego movie from 2014 and it is genuinely a horrible piece of literature and through perusing the comments underneath the review, I have gained an intense dislike of the reviewer. it's not even that I liked the lego movie and he didn't it's just that a lot of the stuff he says is factually incorrect, really stupid-sounding, or he doesn't provide any real reason, and in the comments, he reacts to even the friendliest and politest constructive criticism as if it's a personal attack on him.

[go-fornicate-yourself]

Every day I am in the trenches fighting for my life defending this poor man. He was going through so much and people online demonize him and say he's as bad as his abuser

(I've got a lot of thoughts about this so I'll make sure to separate things to make it easier to look at lol)

Curly is a victim of abuse. Jimmy is his abuser. This is something that I feel a lot of people tend to brush over or don't acknowledge it often.

And I'm not just talking about post-crash. Jimmy's abuse of Curly is there pre-crash too. The party scene where the crew learns about the company going under is a huge example of this. Jimmy verbally abuses him, he gaslights him, he blames him for their (his) misfortune. Jimmy accuses Curly of thinking he's better than everyone (better than him), that he doesn't care about them (about him). That he's going leave them (leave him). Which is not true. Curly tries to explain himself but Jimmy shuts him down and he just takes it.

The fact that he just allows this to happen makes it seem like he's used to this... That this kind of behavior is a recurring thing with Jimmy. And the fact that nobody else tries to defend him or stands up to Jimmy just normalizes it for him. When Anya tells Curly what Jimmy did it catches him off guard. Bc he genuinely didn't think that his friend was capable of that. It wasn't something that was obvious to him. There were absolutely many red flags in the past but they were subtle enough for him to not see them bc he cares for Jimmy, he trusts him. Jimmy's the only one he feels he can open up to, who he can let his guard down with. Jimmy's his home. That's how close they are.

Because of this deep love for his friend and the subtlety of Jimmy's cruelty, he doesn't see the constant verbal and emotional abuse as what it is: abuse. Which is why he finds Jimmy's abuse towards Anya so shocking and jarring.

He isn't a man covering for his rapist friend bc of the 'bro code'. It does look like that from a certain angle and it's understandable why people see it that way but that's not what his character is really about as much as it makes sense otherwise.

He's essentially a battered housewife who's still in love with her husband but is realizing for the first time that the man she loves is a monster. That the man she loves and devoted her life to has been hurting her this whole time and she didn't even realize it. That the man she loves and spent so much of her life caring for has gone and hurt someone else. That he's most likely hurt others before and she's been utterly unaware of it the entire time she defended him and made excuses for him when he wasn't the best or the fairest or the most responsible or when he screwed up yet again solely bc of how much she loved and cared for him.

And Curly barely had any time to process ANY of that before Jimmy decided to try and kill them all to avoid the consequences of his actions. It was ultimately a selfish act even if he thought he wasn't just doing it for himself. Jimmy is selfish and needs to be in control or he loses it. He cares for Curly. He loves him. Curly's done so much for him. Curly's the only one who understands him, who doesn't hate him. Curly's his home. He resents how 'successful' he is but that's only bc he thinks so highly of him. He constantly puts himself down and put Curly on a pedestal and worships him while simultaneously mistreating him.

He treats his best friend like shit, he's awful to him. But he's not aware that this is the case or maybe he's in denial about it. He can't or just refuses to see how he's doing all of what he does for himself in the end. He justifies his attempt to kill them all (to himself and to Curly) by claiming he's doing this for them both. That if they were to get back to earth it would all be Curly's fault, that it'll ruin his life and career... despite the fact he had basically nothing to do with Anya's abuse. Jimmy's shifting the blame on him while acting like he cares for him. Well, he does genuinely care for him but clearly not nearly enough to not mistreat him or use him as a scapegoat for his own guilt.

Jimmy is the rapist, Jimmy is the one who does all of these horrible things. And yet it's highly likely that Curly would just blame all of it on himself bc that's exactly what Jimmy did to him. He's in so deep he can't see the facts of the situation.

It takes abuse victims so long to come to terms with their abuse. It takes time and reflection to see things with an unbiased and healthy perspective. Abuse (especially years of it) isn't just something you can just escape. It consumes you and can twist your reality. Curly had about a week or less to process all of it and then take action in a way that protected his crew and abided by Pony Express' guidelines. Dealing with something this serious in a setting that makes resolving it extremely difficult in a practical sense is already hard.

There were no locks on any of the doors except for medical and the cockpit. They couldn't just kill him. There was nowhere they could detain Jimmy that wouldn't involve corporate potentially penalizing the entire group. They could have used the cryopods but then there'd only be three available for any actual emergency and there were already five crew members and four pods in total. Also, I doubt corporate would be 'okay' with them using the cryopods for anything other than their intended purpose. Hell, even if they were able to make it back to earth without any incidents there's a good chance that corporate would consider the situation 'poor team synergy' and collectively punish the entire crew for Jimmy's actions.

So on top of having to deal with an already difficult situation, Curly has to grapple with the realization that Jimmy a: abused Anya, b: has been abusing him as well (for a very long time too), and c: has probably abused others before Anya and he had no idea about it. He needed to act but he didn't and it doomed all of them.

But it's so unrealistic (maybe even cruel) to put that much pressure on someone, force them through an utterly earth-shattering realization, and then expect them to do the correct/right/responsible thing in that moment. It's a little ironic how people vilify him for that when other characters do the same thing that nobody blames for it.

Anya is the ship's nurse. Curly is the ship's captain. They both have duties and responsibilities on board the Tulpar. She has to keep the crew healthy and safe and is the only one with enough medical knowledge to do so. He has to make sure that everything goes well and goes according to procedure. He's responsible for the crew, the cargo, and even the ship itself. Both positions are integral and require a lot of responsibility to do properly

They're both put through distressing and traumatic situations where due to them being human people with emotions and fears that make them essentially avoid their responsibility/doing what's required of them.

Curly has a freeze response and doesn't act when he should have when it was crucial to have done so. Anya has a fawn response and essentially puts her patient in danger and harm's way. She knew full well what Jimmy was capable of. She experienced it herself and she witnessed it happening to Curly as well. And yet she allows Jimmy to be alone with Curly while being fully aware of how dangerous he is. Which she shouldn't have, that wasn't the 'right' thing to do. Keeping him safe was her responsibility.

But Anya's human. She's going through a lot at the moment. She's terrified of Jimmy and she's trying to appease him so he doesn't hurt her again. It's a natural very understandable thing to do even if it's not the 'right' or 'responsible' thing. They failed each other when they needed each other most and I think that's the most tragic part of it. If anything, all of them failed each other in some way, shape, or form.

So it's incredibly frustrating to see people give Anya so much sympathy and grace for doing something so human yet still 'wrong' but then turn around and give Curly none of that for doing essentially the same thing she does.

I don't know for sure if it's actually because Curly is a man or if it's only part of it or maybe some people just lack that sense of awareness but it's depressing and frustrating as fuck as a male victim of sexual violence and abuse to see this kind of behavior and this much victim blaming towards a character who is undeniably a victim of abuse like I am.

[tossawary]

I think it would be fun to do a "character swaps with older version of themselves" fic with Moshang. A post-canon Mobei-Jun who has been happily married for a while (probably at least 50 years old) accidentally touches some plot device artifact and time travels, swapping places with his 20ish-year-old self. Older MBJ wakes up in head disciple Shang Qinghua's bed where his younger self had been napping.

Younger MBJ lands in his own palace, where he is quickly found and fawned over by Older SQH, who can't help but think this MBJ is so cute. The System quickly confirms for Shang Qinghua that this situation has been sorted into a "multiple timelines" thing, so SQH doesn't have to worry about "protecting the timeline" by doing anything like hiding the fact that he's MBJ's husband. (So, there's an alternate timeline younger version of Airplane Bro now? He's just going to... ignore having an existential crisis about it. Yeah.)

Which is great because Older MBJ would not have thought about this at all as a potential issue. Older MBJ also thinks Younger SQH (Younger Airplane Bro) is incredibly cute and has no problem informing him that they're married in the future. Younger Airplane Bro is trying to figure what the fuck is happening, but he's having trouble thinking over the sound of how MBJ only became hotter: MBJ didn't get much taller, but he did get wider, heavier, more muscular, and hairier. Holy shit. Older MBJ doesn't even have any problems passionately kissing Younger SQH just to prove that they're married. And he smiles! He's so gentle and communicative! Comparatively!

("Luo Binghe is the Demon Emperor in my time," Older MBJ says. "Ah? Who's Luo Binghe?" Younger Airplane Bro lies very badly. "Hmmm, so you did know," Older MBJ says, and then makes some comment about LBH's husband that makes Younger SQH go, "HIS WHAT NOW?!")

Younger MBJ is trying to be cool, not really confused or scared, and Older SQH spoils him rotten by showing off the home that they're made together and how well the palace works to serve and defend MBJ. Linguang-Jun can't show up here because SQH will light him on fire if he shows his face. Younger MBJ doesn't even really like his SQH yet and is also struggling with how good Older SQH looks: a little taller, broader, relaxed and easygoing, answering all of his questions and explaining important things to him, dressed like a beloved demon lord's spouse, efficiently ordering everyone around. "Call me Gege," Older Shang Qinghua said with a wink, and it went straight to Younger MBJ's defenseless heart; he is developing new kinks immediately. Help him.

In the end, after a few days at most, they manage to switch Older and Younger MBJ back without too much issue. Older SQH is a little annoyed that his husband kissed an alternate timeline version of himself, but mostly because he sure would have liked that experience when he was only a disciple! Okay, SQH may have pet Younger MBJ's head and pinched his cheeks and hugged him and brushed his hair a little and shamelessly lavished him with good examples of human affection, but it's not the same!!!

Younger MBJ and Younger SQH in the alternate timeline are left in SQH's tiny head disciple house, completely flustered, sitting next to each other and barely able to look at each other. What. The. Fuck. Eventually, Shang Qinghua manages to say, "Uh, do you want to make out?" at the same time that Mobei-Jun says, "We should get married as soon as possible. Tomorrow."

[enhafilthandfiction]

Enhypen kissing you during a argument!🥹

Enhypen Kissing you during an Argument

A/N : This is literally so sjsdksd 🤭🤭 Anywaysss, I hope you enjoy and I don't disappoint this anon :))

Pairing : Bf!Enha X Fem!Reader

Warnings : Arguments, some swearing, crack, kisses.

Word Count : 2,130 Words (About 300 words each)

Masterlist

» Lee Heeseung «

"I already told you Heeseung! You can't get mad at me, your girlfriend, for interrupting your stupid game!" you yelled, anger laced in your tone. He's been too obsessed with that game he's playing that you can't even talk to him or he'll scold you for 'distracting' him.

"It's not stupid and hey- It doesn't really matter okay?" he tries to defend his game but you won't stop until you've proved your point.

"No, it is in fact stupid, it even makes you stupid!" you let out, scoffing.

He sighs out and rolls his eyes "Look, why are we fighting over this damn game anyway? I won't scold you next time" he promises.

"I know for a damn fact you will Hees-" he cuts you off, gently placing his palms on your cheeks as he pulls you in for an apologetic kiss. He hates how this game is getting between you, and he knows he's to blame on the most part.

He pulls away, looking at your dumbfounded face before explaining "Look, I'm sorry, maybe I do get mad at you when you interrupt me, but from now on it won't happen anymore okay?" he declares.

You sigh and offer him a sheepish smile, not fully sold on his statement. "Yeah, we'll see how that goes" you say rolling your eyes.

"Pinky pwomiseee" he says in a sweet tone, holding out his larger pinky. You intertwine pinkies with him, staring him dead in the eye. "Scold me one more time and I'll erase you game" you threatened, watching as he physically gulps.

» Park Jay «

Jay was spending too much time in the dorms lately, and it was making you worried. The amount of time he was spending in there made you think he was cheating on you or something.

"Y/n, I promise you, I just had to take care of the members" he assures, trying to calm your worried state.

"Jay, you weren't even coming home these past days!" you point out, your voice coming out higher than intended. You were just worried. He places his palms on the counter to hold himself up as he sighs, watching you from behind the counter. "What do you want me to tell you Y/n?" he asks, not really knowing how to get out of this situation.

You look back at him, eyebrows still furrowed as you shrug, not knowing what you want from him yourself. You lift your eyes from the floor when you notice him making his way over to you, his eyes on yours.

When he's close enough, he leans down, pressing his lips onto yours. You realised that he didn't need to say anything, telling you everything through the kiss. His hands find your waist, lightly squeezing.

When he pulls away he offers you an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry for spending too much time in the dorms. Thankyou for looking after me, but the boys really needed me this week" he explains, caressing your cheek.

Your expression softens as you slowly smile up at him, kissing his thumb, making him chuckle. "I'm sorry for yelling, Jay"

» Sim Jake «

"What the fuck was that about Jake?" you spat at him once you came back home. He looks at you with his eyebrows knitted in confusion.

"What?" he asks, trying to think of what he did wrong.

"You literally didn't acknowledge me the whole time we were with your friends, you literally invited me to come along and then not even look at me the whole night!" your voice starts to get higher as you let out your frustration, referring to how he kept laughing with his friends and literally ignored you.

You felt like you were overreacting, or like you were needy for attention and with the way he remained silent, you thought he was judging you. As tears started brimming your eyes, he sat down next to you on the couch, sighing before wrapping his arms around you.

"I'm sorry I didn't notice baby, I was just too focused on what they were saying" he explains, knowing he messed up.

"What do you mean you were too focused on them?" you ask, trying to get away from his affection. Before you can yell at him more, he turns to his side, looking at you before capturing your lips with his, making you melt in his touch.

"I'm really sorry for being a dick, I swear I'll make it up to you" he promises when he pulls away, moving your hair out of your face and attempting to dry away your tears.

You avoid his gaze and look down at the floor, giving him the silent treatment. He rolls his eyes and chuckles, grabbing a hold of your hands and swinging them. "C'mon Y/n, will you let me show you how sorry I am?" he asks, flicking his eyebrows up and down.

Now you couldn't deny him anymore.

» Park Sunghoon «

"Hoon, you were literally flirting with her!" you let out your frustration the second you arrive home. He sighs for the millionth time.

"Y/n, I already told you, she's just my friend!"

"Yeah, just a friend that you're extra close to" you spit, rolling your eyes "I mean, c'mon, anyone who doesn't know you would've guessed you were dating!" you exaggerate a little, crossing your arms.

"Just because I bought her a drink and laughed along to her jokes doesn't mean she's my girlfriend" He chuckles in disbelief "I was just being kind!" he explains himself, waiting for your reply.

"Whatever, I'm sleeping on the couch tonight" you declare, heading to the living room.

"No you're not" he says in a softer tone, gently grasping your hand before you can get out of his reach. "You're sleeping in bed with me because you're my girlfriend. Not her"

You huff as he brings you closer to him, his face inching closer to yours, before he presses a soft kiss to your lips. You don't kiss back at first, making him smile at how stubborn you were.

"She was actually kind of annoying me to be honest" he admits, giggling. Seeing his eyes turn into lines and his dimples on display, you couldn't be mad at him anymore.

You get on your tiptoes and kiss him back. "You're a dick Hoonie" you say, this time wriggling out of his reach. "But I'll still sleep in your bed"

» Kim Sunoo «

"You've got to be kidding me" you whisper to yourself as you open your expensive body scrub which you bought just last week. It wasn't even smooth anymore, someone had dug their hands in it. Your boyfriend.

"Kim Sunoo!" you yell, your voice booming out into the corridor, reaching his ears. Shit, he messed up. He hesitantly makes his way over to you, taking cautious steps to the bathroom before peeking his head inside.

"Y/nnn" he begins, not sure what he did wrong.

"Did you use this?" you ask, shoving the little tub in his face. He gulps and admits that yes, he did.

"You used up like the whole thing!" you exaggerate, a frown visible on your face. As you continue to rant, he just tries to tell you that it's fie because he can buy you like a hundred more if you want. "It was so expensive too!" you cry out.

"Y/n," he begins, placing both palms on your cheeks before he leans in for a kiss, shutting you up. "I'll buy you a new one" he assures after pulling away.

You stare at him for a quick second, still not wanting to forgive him for using your product without even asking first and literally emptying it.

"Let's go today" he says, trying to make you smile, which you unwillingly do.

"Fine, let's go before I scrape that body scrub off your face"

» Yang Jungwon «

You wanted to curse Heeseung for starting Jungwon's obsession with legos. It's like everytime you two went to the mall he'd come home with a new lego set and start building it excitedly.

You'd always watch as he gets lost in the piece he's building, eyebrows furrowed in concentration of this complex piece he way building.

You were always very cautious around his legos, until you weren't. You were just walking around the kitchen counter before involuntary knocking over one of his pieces, watching as it shatters on the ground, lego pieces decorating the whole floor.

As soon as he heard the noise, you stop shocked in your tracks as he runs to the kitchen to see what happened. "Y/nnn" he whines out annoyed when he sees his newly built masterpiece on the ground.

"I'm so sorry Won, I didn't mean to" you try to explain, kneeling at the floor to pick up the little plastic pieces. He huffs out and gets on the floor too, helping you out.

"Maybe you should be more careful" he spits, rolling his eyes "Now I have to rebuilt this all from scratch" he huffs.

"Hey, it's not my fault it was right at the edge of the counter!" you try to defend yourself, having had enough of his bullsh already. "I'm sick of your stupid legos and your obsession with them!" you sigh out angrily, standing up and refusing to help.

He grabs your hand just in time, standing up too. "Oh, so I'm gonna have to pick up the mess you made?" he asks in sarcasm.

"It doesn't matter! They're just colourful blocks anyway!" you let out "You can always rebuild it" you try to reason, but he wasn't having it.

"Yeah, but I've already spent hours building it and now I'm gonna have to spend more time rebuilding it!" he explains back, trying to get his point across.

You sigh out at how blinded he was by these bricks but as you tried to walk away again, he wouldn't let you.

"Hey, I'm not gonna let legos make us fight" he says in a much softer tone, finally giving up his legos. "I prefer you way more than the legos anyway"

You finally listen to him, crossing your arms and watching as he comes closer to you. His eyes have softened as he sighs, brining his face to yours and placing a gentle kiss on your lips.

Your arms loosen up and by the time he pulls away, both of you are smiling. "I'm glad you don't pick the legos over me" you try to keep up the act, but fail a little. "Maybe I can help you rebuild it?" you ask hopefully, watching as his face brightens.

Even if it took another hour rebuilding it, Jungwon didn't mind, he spent more time with you and his beloved legos.

» Nishimura Riki «

You knew Riki was overworking himself in the studio, always trying to be perfect with his moves and never accepting mistakes. You scolded him so many times whenever he came home really late from the studio, but you only wanted what's best for him.

Today was another one of those days when he came back home way after dinner time. He sighed and rolled his eyes the second he stepped into your shared apartment.

There you were, arms crossed in your pj's, with a tired yet annoyed expression on your face. "Where have you been?" you asked already knowing the answer "Oh right, let me guess, at the studio"

He tries to ignore you, "I'm not in the mood to argue" he says under his breath, getting past you to go shower.

"No, but you promised you wouldn't stay in the studio late again!" you try to get your point across, not wanting this to happen again.

"Blah blah okayyy" he whines, completely ignoring your statement and getting his things for the shower.

"Riki!" you try to get his attention. He looks back at you and shouts back jokingly "Y/n!"

"You're literally ignoring me when I'm trying to care for your wellbeing" you reason, glaring at him. "I literally told yo-"

He shuts you up by pressing a quick kiss to your lips, making you melt under his touch as he places his hands on your hips. "I know and I'm sorry, I won't do it again okay? I appreciate you taking care of me but I'm really not in the mood for a scolding" he admits after pulling away.

You sigh and look up at his taller figure, nodding understandingly. "I know, I'm sorry Riki, I was just worried" you look down, feeling his hand beneath your chin. He lifts your chin up "Promise me you won't stay there late again?" you plead.

He smiles "Promise" he even steals a kiss too. "Don't sleep yet, I'll shower quickly" and he does, joining you in bed shortly, kissing you and cuddling you just to make it up to you.

Thankyou for reading! I hope it was good :) Have a good day/night and remember that ily! <333

[fellthemarvelous]

Holy forking shirtballs

I'm choosing violence today. I started this on Twitter, but I'm going to finish my thoughts here like I always do.

But what really blows my mind the most is the way that people look at Aziraphale's "choice" at the end, as if he had one to fucking begin with.

I'm sorry, but Aziraphale knows how messed up Heaven is. He told The Metatron, more than once, that he did not want to go back to Heaven! We can debate what each of us means by "choice" all night because my "choice" and your "choice" might be two different concepts. He could have been strong armed by The Metatron or he could have looked at where things were headed and realized he had no choice but to intervene himself.

You need to ask yourself what Aziraphale has a moral imperative to do.

What do we owe to each other?

Seriously, if you have not watched The Good Place, I recommend you go and watch it, because it absolutely shaped how I've viewed Good Omens 2 since its release.

My levels of frustration with the bad faith mischaracterizations of Aziraphale are off the charts. If you are blaming him for everything, implying that he should have to grovel and that Crowley has a right to hurt him back, you have missed the point of Good Omens entirely.

I defend Aziraphale, but I don't think one of them is more right or wrong than the other. They're equals. They're a group of the two of them, acting and reacting to each other throughout history. They're Alpha Centauri.

I cannot even begin to explain how fucking devastated I felt when Crowley said these words, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. What he said took a lot of courage because he's finally admitting something they've both been too scared to publicly define for 6,000 years. Crowley has had to spend so long with a rough outer shell because he fell and had to hide all of his softness.

The look on his face was one of pure joy when he created that nebula, but I think the fact that he got to share that moment with Aziraphale is what has always stuck with him.

So yeah, seeing Crowley with a broken heart at the end of "Every Day" was sad for me as well.

My brain still lives here!!

But Neil has said that Good Omens 3 is not quiet, gentle, or romantic. I imagine it's going to be more like the the first season in which they are not central to the plot. GO2 will help us make sense of how they ended up where they are when we see the bigger picture with all the other major players involved with GO3.

Aziraphale was still a soldier and accidentally got himself discorporated in his own magic circle in season one. He had a platoon waiting on him to start Armageddon, and he deserted them to go save the world with Crowley instead. Aziraphale is a deserter. I need everyone to remember that. He yeeted himself out of Heaven and sought out Crowley before even locating a body just to warn him about what was happening so they could try to save the world together.

I can't help but think of 1941 and that magician who had been arrested for being a deserter.

Aziraphale disobeyed orders. That took courage but it branded him as a traitor against Heaven. They tried to destroy him for it the same way Hell tried to destroy Crowley for his part in stopping the war.

Aziraphale and Job are the only characters we have seen interacting with God directly. Aziraphale has spoken to God before and he is determined to do so again.

Aziraphale knows Heaven is flawed, but he also knows it's supposed to be good. He wants it to be good. He does not like the way the system works and he wants to make a difference. (And I'm pretty sure he's also determined to talk to God without being intercepted by The Metatron.)

Since when is that a bad thing? I don't get it. And I've had this discussion before.

If you need to change the system by burning the old one to the ground, it's still change, and we don't know what Aziraphale has planned.

It seems to me that people just want to see Aziraphale fail because it would punish him for returning to Heaven instead of running off with Crowley.

Some of y'all take everything Aziraphale says or does and twist those things into malicious anti-Crowley actions because you think the only reason Aziraphale exists is to make Crowley happy, and if he isn't thinking only about Crowley then he's doing something wrong.

Aziraphale does not exist as a plot device to further Crowley's character. They come as a pair. They've been learning from each other for 6,000 years. Crowley challenges Aziraphale just as much as Aziraphale challenges him.

You can be mad at Aziraphale all you want, but villainizing him is gross. Defending Crowley does not mean you have to tear down and mischaracterize Aziraphale anymore than defending Aziraphale means you have to tear down Crowley (but I don't see that happen on nearly the same level it happens to Aziraphale). Stop painting Aziraphale as an abusive partner, for fuck sake.

Aziraphale knows there are flaws in the system. He wants to make a difference, and since he has seen that Gabriel can change, then maybe the whole system can. He has to at least try, and if he can succeed then maybe he and Crowley can stop hiding and finally be together without having to look over their shoulders all the time.

Why is that a bad thing? He's just as protective of Crowley as Crowley is of him!

But don't forget that Aziraphale's wing was covering Adam and Eve too. As much as a wants to protect Crowley, he has a moral imperative to keep humanity safe as well.

He sent Adam and Eve into the unknown with a flaming sword so they could protect themselves.

As much as he wants to be with Crowley, there are 8 billion people on Earth heading toward the Second Coming and Judgment Day. They'll work together to fight alongside humanity in the end. Aziraphale should not have to humiliate himself just to earn Crowley's forgiveness. That's a rancid notion.

The Resurrectionist was a whole ass moral dilemma for Aziraphale, which is why I brought up The Good Place earlier, but that's a post for a different time.

Aziraphale has his own motivations and they're just as important as Crowley's, and they don't have to be chalked up to Aziraphale being the bad guy. Weird, I know, but shades of grey.

"To the world."

[sanni276]

Joker Jr. AU but a bit different

I have recently seen and read several Tim Drake AU's where he is Joker Jr. They were all really interesting but I noticed how Tim was (obviously since that's like the main trait of the Joker) always insane in these fics, which has given me the following idea: Tim is Joker Jr. but he is not insane and actually purposefully became him to at as a spy.

Hear me out: Little 11/12-year old Timothy was out at night doing some nighttime photography (*cough* batstalking *cough*) when he witnessed the Joker doing something so brutally sick and wrong (Barbara being shot maybe?) that Tim decided that Joker needed to be stopped and it had to happen soon. Somewhere in that thought process it somehow got into his head that he had to do something.

I am sadly not actually smart enough to explain to you how he did it, but Tim tricks the Joker into making him his "son" and into thinking that he is insane. However instead of bringing chaos and harm upon the people of Gotham, Tim is using JJ as a cover to infiltrate the world of Gotham's rogues and send warnings to the police and citizens before attacks so they can be stopped or at least as many people saved as possible.

Another use of Tim pretending to be JJ is, that he can slowly convince Harley to leave the Joker over time and even better: Joker might take him to Ethiopia where Tim saves Jason. Through Jason's vague memories of being rescued in the last second by a child that was with the Joker? the Bat's finally become aware of the fact that Joker has a child (i imagine that they only heard rumours about it before and they kind of brushed it off since the story didn't really add up or some other excuse like that). They are obviously very concerned but when they finally find Tim and expect to meet a traumaticzed child that has become close to insanity, this happens instead:

*Batman and co. dramatically landing on the roof JJ is standing on*

*Tim turning around and starting to wave exitedly when he sees them*: Hi :)! Omg I can't believe I'm meeting you guys, i am a big fan do you need something from me? Information maybe? That would be no problem although you might have to wait a bit if you need like specific info on a rogue because i would have to investigate first and-

Nightwing: Wtf B?! You told me to come from Blud tonight since I am the best of us with children but I wouldn't touch whatever this is with a ten-foot-pole.

Batman (ignoring his son): Hello Timothy (yeah they figured out his identity), we are here to rescue you from the Joker and bring you home to your family.

Tim: Rescue me? Why would you have to rescue me? *whispering to himself* and my parents have found out i'm not at drake manor? I am going to have to check they're travel plans again.

*Bat's sharing a concerned glance*

Jason: I know this is hard to understand for you and you must be so scared, but Joker is very dangerous. We can help you. You are safe now and you don't need to defend him.

*Tim looking at them with a confused Pikachu face*: Ewwww, I would rather drop my camera off a roof than defend the Joker. I think we are having a little misunderstanding right now.

Tim, completly convinced from his Hero's greatness, just assumed that the Bat's knew about his existence, who he was and that he was only pretending to be a rogue. Why wouldn't they? There the best detectives in the world after all!

He then procedes to explain to them how he is literally the perfect spy, since his parents wouldn't even really miss him if he died and he already made contingencies that would assure all the data and evidence he has on people would be automatically deleted.

The Bat's leave that rooftop not only without Tim, but also somehow even more concerned than before.

In conclusion: Give me an AU that is just Tim my sweet-summer child doing the most reckless shit that is somehow atually very helpful for everyone while the Batfam is just desperatly trying and failing to convince Tim that he has no obligation for what he is doing and that his sacrifice would not be worth it (during the many encounters they have, Tim slowly turns out to be the perfect adoption bait and I think we all already know how this is going to end.)

This is literally my first ever tumblr post or post about the batfam so I hope I did this the right way and this was somewhat possible to enjoy. Please tell me if i made any mistakes since english isn't my first language and feel free to write fic's using my idea!

[enby-axels]

i used to disagree with the interpretation that jiang cheng was using jiang yanli as a political pawn to improve his relationship with the jin clan, but then i reexamined this scene here:

like this conversation has layers to it. throughout it, wei wuxian is the only one who's actually concerned about jiang yanli, while jiang cheng barely spares her a thought. and i'll explain why i think so

starting from the beginning of this excerpt, we see that jiang cheng prioritizes his relationship with the jin clan. he berates wei wuxian for defending jiang yanli, but he does so in a way that completely negates her. instead, he characterizes it as wei wuxian picking a fight with jin zixuan and harming the jiang clan's relationship with the jins.

i found this really interesting. is jiang cheng doing this on purpose? is it subconscious? it's hard to tell. either way, it's incredibly revealing. by erasing the actual cause of the conflict, he can pursue his own ambitions while maintaining the illusion he's acting in his sister's best interests. (and at this point in the novel, jiang cheng has already established a pattern of lying to himself to avoid inconvenient truths. a self-gaslighting icon)

and then jiang cheng goes on to compliment jin zixuan's status, in response to wei wuxian complimenting jin guangyao's looks. he makes it clear that what he cares about is maintaining amicable relations with the jins' future clan leader.

with this, wei wuxian can no longer tolerate jiang cheng's self-justifications. he outright confronts jiang cheng's motivations for bringing jiang yanli to the phoenix mountain siege hunt. his phrasing is interesting: "you made a special point of bringing shijie along." i cannot know how exactly that went down, but it does imply that jiang cheng was unusually insistent about having jiang yanli be present at phoenix mountain.

there's room for interpretation here. was jiang yanli pressured to go to phoenix mountain? we can't know, although there is a consistent pattern in mdzs of her having very limited agency in her life. what we do know, at the very least, is that jiang cheng brought jiang yanli along and he was set on it; it was primarily his decision, not hers.

and jiang cheng all but confirms wei wuxian's suspicions! in response to wei wuxian accusing him of trying to arrange a match between jiang yanli and jin zixuan for political reasons, he says "it's not entirely out of the question." he doesn't even try to deny it; instead he justifies himself

wei wuxian can't tolerate this either. promises and hopes of jin zixuan changing for the better aren't enough. they live in a patriarchal, feudalistic society. if jiang yanli marries into lanling, she'll be completely at their mercy, and there would be little that he or jiang cheng can do about it. how can he sit back and let such a fate befall his shijie?

and while wei wuxian refuses to shy away from the precarity of jiang yanli's position and the possibility of jin zixuan turning out like his father, jiang cheng dismisses his concerns, merely saying, "he wouldn't dare!" but how can he possibly guarantee that? it's a flimsy defense and he knows it. we, as the readers, having the benefit of knowledge that while jin zixuan is flawed, he would never do such a thing. but jiang cheng and wei wuxian have no reason to trust the man who's already humiliated jiang yanli once before.

interestingly, jiang cheng immediately deflects from the accusation aimed at his own motivations by directing the conversation to his sister's feelings. jiang yanli likes jin zixuan, so "what more can we do?" but this is an obfuscation of jiang yanli's circumstances. while jiang yanli does like jin zixuan, at this point in time she did not want to be around him! in fact, she never once pursued a relationship with him

notably, this line shifts the responsibility from jiang cheng (whom wei wuxian is accusing of using jiang yanli as a political pawn) to jiang yanli herself. but we as readers know better. we were there for jiang yanli and jin zixuan's conversation during the siege hunt. she has little say over anything, even her own life

throughout this conversation, jiang cheng is evading inconvenient truths and mentally avoiding his sister. he loves her, but it's a selfish sort of love. he is, perhaps subconsciously, rewriting her reality to serve his own interests.

this is in sharp contrast to wei wuxian who asks uncomfortable questions and, rather than running away from reality, confronts it. it's important that after his argument with jiang cheng, he seeks out jiang yanli herself to hear her opinions on love.

i could write a whole other post analyzing the sequence of scenes following jiang cheng and wei wuxian's argument — particularly the flashback to when wei wuxian first arrived at lotus pier and how this could tie into his resolve to support jiang yanli, just as she did for him.

but i want to conclude this analysis by focusing on jiang yanli. because even her location here speaks volumes. wei wuxian asks where jiang yanli is, and jiang cheng answers that she can't go anywhere but the kitchen, her chambers, and the ancestral hall. "and sure enough," the narration notes, "there she was." by illustrating how she's trapped on a physical level, the story is outright telling us that, as a woman, jiang yanli is confined. (more specifically, she is confined as a woman with weak cultivation. while her mother, a powerful cultivator in her own right, was able to travel and night hunt as she pleased, jiang yanli lacks this privilege.)

i think this was a fitting way to punctuate and contextualize the preceding argument. nothing jiang yanli wants for her life is allowed to matter. it never has.

what can she do? jiang yanli loves jin zixuan, but that alone will never be alone to transform their relationship into a mutually loving one. she lacks the power to force him to change, and more importantly she doesn't want that power. back at phoenix mountain, she eschewed what little power she was (forcibly) granted by madam jin. even though she was pressured to accompany jin zixuan during the siege hunt, she still refused to use that opportunity to get closer to him.

because jiang yanli doesn't just love. she loves selflessly and without imposition. she could never pursue a relationship with someone she believes hates her, even if the basis of that hatred is unfair to her.

so based on her established character traits, i don't think jiang yanli is someone who would want her family to arrange a marriage to someone that (supposedly) hates her. nor can she be convinced by them into believing it will magically work out. the only one who can transform her relationship with jin zixuan is jin zixuan himself — not just because he has the power to as The Man, but also because he is the sole person on this planet that can convince jiang yanli that he truly loves and wants to be with her

[deadbydad]

Captain Curly (Mouthwashing) - When You Can't Fix Everything and Why He's a Victim of Jimmy

There are many discussions surrounding Captain Curly all around the internet on whether he is a good person or not.

Some say he isn't while some say he is, but the question simply has an easy answer.

Curly is a morally grey character.

Captain Curly, when we first play as him and see through his perspective, we come to learn a lot about him with the short amount of sections where we do play as him.

We know that he is very optimistic, he cares deeply for his crew and always tries to look on the bright side of things. He just wants everything to be fine, and will always try to fix it if it isn't because, well because he's the captain.

But him being so optimistic is what was his downfall, and I think that's what makes him such a well written and realistic, morally grey character.

Curly isn't innocent, but he is a victim of Jimmy just like everyone else on the ship is.

Let me explain.

Curly was the first person Anya told about when Jimmy assaulted her and how she was pregnant, and Curly told her he would talk to Jimmy.

He would fix it.

I hate when people say that he didn't care about Anya or didn't believe her. Curly never said he didn't believe her, and he never said he was defending Jimmy either.

This is one of the examples of his optimistic views doesn't work out for him.

We know that Curly invited Jimmy to work with him in Pony Express and we immediately assume that because they're friends, then Curly is defending Jimmy.

But if you replay and really pay attention to Curly and Jimmy's conversations, you come to realize that Jimmy is borderline controlling and abusive with the way he talks to Curly.

He isn't and doesn't see Curly as a friend, but Curly being too nice and tends to look past that type of stuff, that made it easy for Jimmy to manipulate Curly.

After Anya told him, Curly did talk to Jimmy about it, but he went about it in a calm way. I think what he did is pretty realistic for the situation they're in, but I'll talk more about that later.

Curly talking to Jimmy is what led Jimmy to crash the ship and get Curly injured and fuck everything else up. Not to mention that Jimmy wanting to get rid of Curly so he could be captain also played a huge part in it.

Jimmy never saw Curly as a friend, he only saw him as someone he could use to get what he wanted.

Curly trying to fix what happened by talking to Jimmy was his wake up call, his karma in a way.

Because of the crash, Curly understands Anya in a way when Jimmy starts to hurt and force him to take the pain meds. Curly being brutally hurt and injured can only lay and not do anything to stop it.

He finally understood what Anya had felt in a way, and he probably hates himself because he didn't do something to protect her.

And her killing herself in front of him and watching the rest of his crew die to the hands or consequences of Jimmy, even Jimmy himself, was what made Curly realize that he simply can't fix everything.

Curly is absolutely a victim of Jimmy like everyone else on the ship is.

He was manipulated, abused, and not to mention Jimmy literally ate some of his body. All of this was because Curly was too optimistic.

Curly is one of the most realistic characters, and I think people saying that he's as bad as Jimmy just aren't thinking about the fact that he was a victim of Jimmy himself.

Yes, he could have done more to protect Anya, most likely by switching her over to a room that has locks.

But I believe that he couldn't do anything besides that, especially when it comes to Jimmy.

He knows how crazy and angry Jimmy gets. He was probably thinking that he couldn't just go up to him and start a fight because, let's be real, Jimmy was going to kick Curlys ass and he was probably going to crash the ship no matter what.

Curly, in my opinion, while yes, he didn't do anything to protect Anya, he wasn't protecting or defending Jimmy.

Curly was trying to look at how he could fix it, but I think no matter what he did it wouldn't have mattered.

I see people saying that Curly could have shot Jimmy with the gun or locked him up in another room or contacted the higher-ups of Pony Express. I don't think any of this would have realistically worked.

One, he can't kill Jimmy because he is the co-pilot, and they needed a co-pilot for the ship, and locking him in a room wouldn't have worked either.

Curly couldn't have called the higher ups either because Pony Express wouldn't have done anything because they simply just don't care about their workers.

No matter what Curly did or what he could have done, none of it realistically would have worked or done anything to solve the problem.

I'm not defending Curly at all, I'm a victim of assault myself, so I understand Anyas feelings, I'm simply saying that we should look at the other possibilities and should start thinking about what Curly was actually thinking before saying he was as terrible as Jimmy.

Curly isn't innocent, but he was a victim of Jimmy.

His optimistic views on life and on people are what caused his downfall.

[kairiscorner]

question of the day: who would fall the hardest if they ever fell in love?

well... i've got 4 candidates in mind, and i think... (1/4)

miles g. morales — guilty of falling hard for you.

summary: miles morales always struck you as an apathetic guy, one who wouldn't particularly take relationships too seriously; until you both fell for each other, you realized... he did indeed fall for you, but he fell hard, way, way too hard for you. pairing: miles 42 x gn!reader genre: fluff !!

miles g. morales was, to you, such a cold, apathetic guy who always looked calm and composed in everything he did. he seemed like a guy that, you believed, wouldn't care too much if he was in a relationship–that he would put himself before his significant other; though you didn't have any evidence to back it up, save for how distant he seemed to you at first. but oh, were you wrong.

miles g. morales wasn't really all that insensitive as you thought when you got to know him, in fact–he was more sensitive to your thoughts, needs, and wants more than any other boy had ever been for you. it took a while, but the longer you spent around him, the more obvious was the fact that he truly, truly cared about you, from the bottom of his heart.

miles g. morales was the boy who'd stay after class, waiting for your class to finish so he could meet up with you and just be around you. ask him to explain why he's always risking his ass getting scolded for loitering outside your classroom, he can't give you one straight answer. "we had free time", "i had no where else to go", "i... left a pencil in that classroom. yeah."

miles g. morales would never admit to your face that he does indeed stare at you sometimes when you're not looking. whenever he sits close to you in class, be it behind, next to, or diagonally across to you–he always finds every angle of you to be a perfect angle to stare at and admire. don't be mad that he's looking, though, he can't help himself; you're way too mesmerizing for him to handle.

miles g. morales whose sketchpad gradually became a book full of... you in it. it started off as simple, small doodles of you; little cartoony you's that he found adorable and kept drawing when he wasn't focusing on anything else. but as time went by, he found himself focusing on you and your features more and more, almost as if he couldn't rip his gaze away from you.

miles g. morales had also noticed that whenever you speak, he hangs on to every word you say. he thought it would've creeped you out at first, how he can remember all the little details you'd tell him when you're telling him about something that happened in your day or how he remembers all the names of your pets, friends, favorite restaurants, favorite bands and artists–he hangs on to every word you utter, and he can't help it; your voice is just too tantalizingly sweet and attractive that he can't not listen to every word you speak.

miles g. morales was the boy who would use his intimidating appearance to his advantage and defend you against assholes who wouldn't take 'no' from you for an answer. he'd stare them down and glare at them, remind them for you that you said 'no', and if they didn't get the message the first time... they'll have to get through him to get to you. "i'm not gonna back down just because they're bigger than me, because i don't fear them. i don't fear them because, for all their brawn, they sure don't have any brains. and whatever happens after, i'll make sure you don't get in trouble; i'll shoulder the fault. i'd do this for you, every time."

miles g. morales would never wish to get in trouble or have beef with anyone else, but if it was you that others were bothering, then he'd willingly do everything he can to keep you safe and unbothered. he doesn't care what happens to him, so long as you stay safe, so long as it isn't your face being beaten in. you insist he shouldn't do these things for you, but... he can't help it. to picture you in danger makes his heart feel heavy; to get rid of that heaviness, he does these things for you, because he... he loves you.

miles g. morales doesn't dream at night, or at least didn't dream for a long while–or maybe he did and just forgets what he dreamt of the previous night–but when you two became much closer friends, he began to see glimpses and images of you in his dreams. in his wildest dreams, he was able to tell you in all kinds of scenarios that he felt weird around you–a good kind of weird. he'd feel a kind of warmth in his chest, accompanied by the pitter-pattering of his heart when your eyes lock with his, and he feels this urge in the corners of his lips to smile widely when you smile up at him. and, he'd never tell you this, but... in those dreams, he'd tell you how he really feels, and you'd teach him how to handle those feelings by placing your hands on either sides of his cheeks and pulling him close to your face–your nose feeling so soft against his own when your noses brush together–and with the feeling of your hot breath against his own lips... he wakes up.

miles g. morales wakes up to the reality that you probably only see him as a very good friend, a friend you used to think wouldn't care about those who love him but was proven very, very wrong. the friendship bracelet you made for him sits there by his nightstand, next to a cutely frame photo of the two of you at your birthday party. you designed that photo frame for him, and despite how a guy like him probably wouldn't care for cute things... he finds comfort and solace in a bit of cuteness in his life; he just wishes he could express that to you, you, who is cuteness personified. he wears that friendship bracelet every day–and wears it proudly. he doesn't hide it under his sleeve nor tuck it away when you're not looking; he's always got it on and shows it off by just having it on him. he loves having mementos of you on him, it gives him a feeling he hasn't had in a long time... and he hopes that, by some miracle, you'd feel that feeling for him, too.

tags !! @ii01vq @luvstarrstruck @maxoloqy @k4tsu3 @solecitoszn @toneystank-3000 @popeheywardssecretgf @lovefrominaya @onginlove @meowmoraless @euphovlq @anikaluv @conitagray @q2ie @zalayni

[all-pacas]

OKAY. 13 AND CHASE IN AFTER HOURS THO

The fact that when 13 needs help, she calls Chase. Why does she call him? Why doesn't she call someone else? She needs someone to deliver her a portable ultrasound, and okay, you could argue Foreman is a bad call because he's her ex and would pry. That House would just refuse. Taub would have been a good pick tbh, he would drop it off and just go home no questions asked. But no, she calls Chase

(And I love that call. "You doing anything?" "Oh, yeah, I'm just about to go out," Chase lies blatantly, asleep in bed with a book on the crusades on his chest. Like the loser he is. I don't know that it was done well but I love how S7 examines his Dumb Whore tendencies: it isn't really him, it's a rebound. He does it again when he gets stabbed.)

And of course the second he shows up he immediately sees through 13's excuses and pushes his way into the apartment. Because we love Chase's observation skills triumphing over his laziness.

13 tells Chase the prison backstory. Like! It's kind of glossed over. She hasn't told this to anyone else. She doesn't hide it. I killed my brother. It wasn't murder. Chase is just pacing, you just know he's twigged as hell, he's so anxious all at once as she tries to brush past it. The idea that 13 kind of had to tell him to explain Darrien's presence but she's also — House is the only other person who knows.

CHASE: Have you talked to anybody about it? I mean, are you okay?

Like we know this immediately triggered something in Chase, but 13 doesn't, and seeing him so anxious and pacing and ignoring the bleeding dying woman as 13 works, it's just. Incredible. It's good. He cares immediately, he's relating to this immediately.

But I love seeing them work together. Like they just immediately go in sync, Chase offering suggestions and 13 doing the work. They're just. It's nice.

SIDE NOTE: House says he called everyone before he called Cuddy. We see him call 13 and Taub. Chase is off picking up drugs, we don't see House call him, but like. He had to have called Chase first, right? Did Chase not pick up? Did he blow him off because he already was dealing with someone bleeding to death in someone's apartment??

The way they fight oh my god. The way 13 just is trying to fucking murder Chase. She punches him, she claws and shoves him, and then he just clocks her and stares horrified as she falls to the floor. Like it's an actual fight, it's brutal, it's so good. They hurt one another. I can't explain it but I love how brutal it is, that they both walk away with bruises, that it isn't pretty. Incredible. Amazing scene.

CHASE: You were defending your friend beyond all rationality, granting her the right to die in your bedroom. Was it really all because of a promise? 13: That word means something to some people. CHASE: Not that much. […] CHASE: You promised your brother you'd euthanize him and you think you won't feel bad about it as long as you can blame it on the promise. That's why you have this twisted obligation to keep all promises… or your carefully constructed defense mechanism could crumble down. 13: I saved my brother from a lot of pain.

!! Chase keeps bringing it up, he keeps bringing up her brother, not out of I can't believe you did a murder or I can't believe you went to prison but: you must hate yourself. He's calling her out on her coping mechanisms, he's calling her out on her guilt, and it's so fucking clear what he means is I get it but he's not saying that part. 13 killed her brother and now has to believe she did the right thing, no matter what, no matter how she feels. She's taking away her own agency: it was for a promise, it was his decision, she had nothing to do with it, it's fine, it doesn't feel bad. Chase killed Dibala and told himself it was for the greater good, it was morally just, it was the right thing to do, it doesn't feel bad. And it nearly destroyed him. And so he's pushing and pushing at it. He never goes 13 went to prison! he never goes it's so crazy you did that! Whenever he brings it up it's only in the context of how worried he is about her. Has she spoken to someone? Is she coping? Is this healthy? Is she okay? He's so worried. He cares so much.

I adore 13 and Chase running out of ideas with Darrien and calling dad. Most sibling coded of all time. Just. And the fact that House doesn't allude to also being in the hospital, actively bleeding and in pain, just, yes, we gotta help bail you two idiots out. Beautiful moment.

Chase getting 13 ice and coffee and still feeling guilty for punching her out, and 13 not blaming him at all. Like. You know. Don't beat people up. But in this one case I totally approve. Because I love it.

13: Darrien had to shoot that kid. It was the right thing. Completely justified. But it didn't matter. She destroyed her life trying to forget. I'm afraid that's what's gonna happen to me. CHASE: You really should talk to someone. 13: I've talked to a therapist. It didn't help. CHASE: Well, maybe you should talk to someone who isn't a therapist. 13: Do you really think you have any idea what it's like to live with something like this? CHASE: Let's grab a coffee.

Since the second Chase found out, this is what it's been leading towards. I love that he doesn't answer, he doesn't say a thing, but this is what he's been thinking all episode, why he's been pushing, why he's been so worried and caring: talk to me. Tell me you're not okay. Tell me everything isn't fine. And 13 holds it back until the end of the case, until it's over and she has no distractions. It's not at all clear Chase himself has talked to someone about Dibala, btw. He probably hasn't.

And how insane is that. He never told Foreman or House; they figured it out. He told Cameron: she left him. (Imagine being 13, hearing this. Realizing the timeline. She went to their wedding. What did she think happened when Cameron just … left? How quickly does she figure it out now?) House told Chase to talk to someone, Chase tried Confessing, but whenever he's tried to tell anyone it's gone terribly for him. I don't think he has talked to anyone. But he repeats House's advice to 13: talk to someone. (Talk to me.) He's offering her what he never got. And their situations are different, hers is much more sympathetic and easy to accept than his. Chase never goes I never got help or you have nothing to feel bad about or implies he doesn't think it's a big deal: his entire reaction is just empathy. He wants 13 to get what he didn't get, he wants to help.

The song that plays over the end of the episode is Bon Iver's Flume. And as much as you can apply it to House, and Cuddy, and Wilson, and all of that — it's a song about feeling isolated, feeling alone and being afraid of letting go. Of holding on to things that stain and hurt. The lyrics that play while 13 and Chase are having their coffee in the conference room, though:

i wear my garment/so it shows now you know

And I just! I love! Them! The ways 13 and Chase are so alike and so damaged, the way Chase reacts with empathy and care and wants her to have what he didn't, the way they know one another's secrets and worst moments and rely on one another so easily. 13's secrecy is a meme, in and out of universe, but Chase is absolutely no better: he won't even admit he's Catholic when talking to a nun. They're private to faults, they mask by sleeping around and taking risks and pretending not to care, they hide their hurts and then somehow, they punch one another in the face and know everything. I'm just. I'm so obsessed with them. I want them like this always.

[0rb0t]

no but i fucking LOVE the concept of "evil morty" being considered "evil" because he's tired of Rick and wants to do anything he can to get away from him. This is like a PERFECT metaphor for victims of abuse.

You do not owe your abusers kindness. In fact, if you're trying to get away from someone who is TORMENTING you, actively hurting you, etc., I personally believe you are within your rights to do whatever you can to get away from them. Of course, I'd personally say that you shouldn't endanger surrounding family, friends etc, but that's just it... Evil Morty is symbolic of someone who has been stuck in this cycle of abuse for so long he doesn't fucking CARE if there's collateral damage, and why should he?

When no matter who you go to, and try to explain your case to, and they take the side of your abuser. When no matter where you go, your abuser is praised or adored, and it feels like only you are aware of how this CAN'T continue-- and anyone who IS sympathetic is telling you things like "Oh you have to be the bigger person, you can't stoop to their level, just think positive" or whatever.

Evil Morty says it himself "I'm only evil because I'm sick of him. If you've ever been sick of him, then you're evil, too." And I resonated so strongly with that line.

So what does he do? He gets the fuck out. He does the work, he gets to a point where he feels like he has the same pull, the same influence, and then he burns it all down just so he can get the fuck away. It's not meant to be emulated, but I really feel like you're supposed to, in some ways, root for him. Because it resonates with some part of you, more so if you've been where he's been, metaphorically.

And when we next see him, he's not trying to "win" or amass power, he really, TRULY, just wants to be left alone, but he's willing to defend himself if necessary. And I think that's beautiful.

There's so much I could say, I just adore that character so SO much. I don't mind calling him Evil Morty, it feels empowering honestly. I've been considered Evil, but those standards. I'd rather be Evil than Good.

[transmutationisms]

hello! im just finishing up my read of structures of scientific revolutions, which has genuinely been very useful and shifted my understanding of science in a way being around people doing scientific research all day really didn't! i don't have a liberal arts education so i would love to get a sense of (a) what else of the philosophy / history of science canon is worth reading in the original (b) standard review papers or introductory textbooks and (c) critiques of the canon. i understand this is a big ask ofc, so feel free to point me to good depts / syllabi from good courses. thanks :)

yessss such a fun question >:) so, the thing that was so great about 'the structure of scientific revolutions', which i'm sure you've picked up on, is that kuhn pushed historians and philosophers of science to challenge the positivist model of science as a linearly progressive search to 'accumulate knowledge'. the idea of a 'paradigm shift' was itself a paradigm shift at the time; it was an early example of a language for talking about radical change in science without giving into the assumption that change necessarily = 'progress' (defined by national interests, mathematisation, and so forth). this is still an approach that's foundational to history and philosophy of science; it's now taken as so axiomatic that few academics even bother to gloss or defend it in monographs (which raises its own issue with public communication, lol).

where kuhn falls apart more (and this was typical for a philosopher of his era, training, and academic milieu) is in the fact that he never developed any kind of rigorous sociological analysis of science (despite alluding to such a thing being necessary) and you probably also noticed that he makes a few major leaps that indicate he's not fully committed to thinking through the relationship between science and politics. so for example, we might ask, can a paradigm shift ever occur for a reason other than a discovered 'anomaly' that the previous paradigm can't account for? for instance, how do political investments in science and scientific theories affect what's accepted as 'normal science' in a kuhnian sense? are there historical or present cases where a paradigm didn't change even though it persistently failed to explain certain empirical observations or data? what about the opposite, where a paradigm did change, but it wasn't necessarily or exclusively because the new paradigm was a 'better' explanation scientifically? how do we determine what makes an explanation 'better', anyway, especially given that kuhn himself was very much invested in moving beyond the naïve realist position? and on the more sociological side, we can raise issues like: say you're a scientist and you legitimately have discovered an 'anomaly'. how do you communicate that to other scientists? what mechanisms of knowledge production and publication enable you to circulate that information and to be taken seriously? what modes of communication must you use and what credentials or interpersonal connections must you have? what factors cause theories and discoveries to be taken more or less seriously, or adopted more or less quickly, besides just their 'scientific utility' (again, assuming we can even define such a thing)?

again, this is not to shit on kuhn, but to point out that both history and philosophy of science have had a lot of avenues to explore since his work. note that there are a few major disciplinary distinctions here, each with many sub-schools of thought. a 'science and technology studies' or STS program tends to be a mix of sociological and philosophical analysis of science, often with an emphasis on 'technoscience' and much less on historical analysis. a philosophy of science department will be anchored more firmly in the philosophical approach, so you'll find a lot of methodological critique, and a lot of scholarship that seeks to tackle current aporias in science using various philosophical frameworks. a history of science program is fundamentally just a sub-discipline of history, and scholarship in this area asks about the development of science over time, how various forms of thinking came into and out of favour, and so forth. often a department will do both history and philosophy of science (HPS). historians of medicine, technology, and mathematics will sometimes (for arcane scholastic reasons varying by field, training, and country) be anchored in departments of medicine / technology / mathematics, rather than with other faculty of histsci / HPS. but, increasingly in the anglosphere you'll see departments that cover history of science, technology, and mathematics (HSTM) together. obviously, all of these distinctions say more about professional qualifications and university bureaucracy than they do about the actual subject matter; in actuality, a good history of science should virtually always include attention to some philosophical and sociological dimensions, and vice versa.

anyway—reading recs:

there are two general reference texts i would recommend here if you just want to get some compilations of major / 'canonical' works in this field. both are edited volumes, so you can skip around in them as much as you want. both are also very limited in focus to, again, a very particular 'western canon' defined largely by trends in anglo academia over the past half-century or so.

philosophy of science: the central issues (1998 [2013], ed. martin curd & j. a. cover). this is an anthology of older readings in philsci. it's a good introduction to many of the methodological questions and problems that the field has grown around; most of these readings have little to no historical grounding and aren't pretending otherwise.

the cambridge history of science (8 vols., 2008–2020, gen. eds. david c. lindberg & ron numbers). no one reads this entire set because it's long as shit. however, each volume has its own temporal / topical focus, and the essays function as a crash-course in historical methodology in addition to whatever value you derive from the case studies in their own right. i like these vols much more than the curd & cover, but if you really want to dig into the philosophical issues and not the histories, curd & cover might be more fun.

besides those, here are some readings in histsci / philsci that i'd recommend if you're interested. for consistency i ordered these by publication date, but bolded a few i would recommend as actual starting points lol. again some of these focus on specific historical cases, but are also useful imo methodologically, regardless of how much you care about the specific topic being discussed.

Robert M. Young. 1969. "Malthus and the Evolutionists: The Common Context of Biological and Social Theory." Past & Present 43: 109–145.

David Bloor. 1976 [1991]. Knowledge and Social Imagery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (here is a really useful extract that covers the main points of this text).

Ian Hacking. 1983. Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Steven Shapin. 1988. “Understanding the Merton Thesis.” Isis 79 (4): 594–605.

Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer. 1989. Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Mario Biagioli. 1993. Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bruno Latour. 1993. The Pasteurization of France. Translated by Alan Sheridan and John Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Margaret W. Rossiter. 1993. “The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science.” Social Studies of Science 23 (2): 325–41.

Andrew Pickering. 1995. The Mangle of Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Porter, Theodore M. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton University Press, 1996.

Peter Galison. 1997. “Trading Zone: Coordinating Action and Belief.” In The Science Studies Reader, edited by Mario Biagioli, 137–60. New York: Routledge.

Crosbie Smith. 1998. The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chambers, David Wade, and Richard Gillespie. “Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge.” Osiris 15 (2000): 221–40.

Kuriyama, Shigehisa. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. Zone Books, 2002.

Timothy Mitchell. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

James A. Secord. 2003. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

Sheila Jasanoff. 2006. “Biotechnology and Empire: The Global Power of Seeds and Science.” Osiris 21 (1): 273–92.

Murphy, Michelle. Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers. Duke University Press, 2006.

Kapil Raj. 2007. Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650–1900. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schiebinger, Londa L. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Harvard University Press, 2007.

Galison, Peter. “Ten Problems in History and Philosophy of Science.” Isis 99, no. 1 (2008): 111–24.

Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison. Objectivity. Zone Books, 2010.

Dipesh Chakrabarty. 2011. “The Muddle of Modernity.” American Historical Review 116 (3): 663–75.

Forman, Paul. “On the Historical Forms of Knowledge Production and Curation: Modernity Entailed Disciplinarity, Postmodernity Entails Antidisciplinarity.” Osiris 27, no. 1 (2012): 56–97.

Ashworth, William J. 2014. "The British Industrial Revolution and the the Ideological Revolution: Science, Neoliberalism, and History." History of Science 52 (2): 178–199.

Mavhunga, Clapperton. 2014. Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lynn Nyhart. 2016. “Historiography of the History of Science.” In A Companion to the History of Science, edited by Bernard Lightman, 7–22. Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell.

Rana Hogarth. 2017. Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780–1840. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Suman Seth. 2018. Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Aro Velmet. 2020. Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, its Colonies, and the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

i would also say, as a general rule, these books are generally all so well-known that there are very good book reviews and review essays on them, which you can find through jstor / your library's database. these can be invaluable both because your reading list would otherwise just mushroom out forever, and because a good review can help you decide whether you even need / want to sit down with the book itself in the first place. literally zero shame in reading an academic text secondhand via reviews.

[raphaellight]

Can we talk about how Adrien is actually a good liar in Miraculous? And I mean, GOOD good liar, so good if he wanted, he would give Lila run for her money?

I don't know if he looks at Marinette or Croussaints

So, he is Chat Noir and the fact noone figured him out yet is placed mostly at the fact that 1. People are generally blind in this show 2. He acts so differently with the mask on actuall viewers forget he is Chat. But I want to make a case that he is second best liar in the show after Lila and only second best because he is good hearted.

But first, why would he be a good liar? Apart from having to cover his superhero identity, what other reasons he has to lie? Well, remember the saying "Strict parents raise great liars" and it shows in my opinion. Take Chloe as an opposite. She is many things but I think we never see her rely on lying to achieve what she wants. Quite the opposite, Chloe as a villain of many plots threatens to expose uncomfortable truths, she never makes things up. Or Marinnete. She can spit some lies, but she is overly dramatic anytime she has to say them. "No, me, like you, NOOOO, I just like fashion, YEAH, FASHION, that's it." "It was totally a prank, I knew all this time you were a statue, OF COURSE, what other thing would it BE?" "I'm in love with you Chat Noir". She has engaged, but preety louse parents. As long as she hits her marks and doesn't cause much trouble, Mari is let louse and can do whatever she wants without explaining herself, so she doesn't have to lie that much.

Adrien? This boy didn't have a single free second until Gabriel brough his digital rings to the market and made digital copy of Adrien to use. And yet, Adrien sneaked out to school, which Chloe knew he was coming, despite Adrien not having his fathers approval yet, sneaked out constantly out of his room, managed to run from his parents to see the movie. All while one misstep and he was severly punished. That enviroment teaches kid how to be on his toes. Strict parents raise great liars. Now to some examples:

"Technically not, because I never told him about it." The one with akumatized train. Best lies are unspoken ones. Adrien knows that everytime you lie you need to defend it so the best strategy is not to lie when simply shuting up about something suffices (that's actually something he does better than Lila, that b*tch can't shut up).

"We're not leaving, we're just gonna help a friend." Best case of 'attach the lie to the truth' strategy. We will help friend, how long will it take and where will we need to go to finish, especially given that it's Marinette? Who cares, I never lied (not the one that will most surely keep him out of trouble, but good enough in a moment for his guard and Kagami's mother to let them walk away from them)

M: "I got transformed, into a knight" A: "So do I. What a knighmare." Lanching onto someone elses explenation that is really hard to argue, while not giving time to be confronted about it AND adding a stupid joke so people's attention is divided. Important disclaimer, I don't think Adrien does it intentionally, he is just attuned to phrasing things in a way that got him into the least amount of trouble with his strict upbringing. It's more of a sharpened thru years instinct than some masterming constant chess game. Like here. He just made a joke, but it perfectly fits into him wanting to hide the truth.

"I wanted to apologize for my Kwami. I don't know what he was doing in that elementary school" Marinette as Ladybug combined mouse and fox miraculous to create an illusion of being in two places at the same time to make sure Chat doesn't suspect her of being Ladybug. Meanwhile Adrien manages to completly lose the trail of himself with one sentence. It's great on so many levels, as he not only phrases it so casually noone would think he carefully chose every word, he also attaches the lie to the truth (Plagg was acting up) and puts attention somewhere else (I apologize for his behaviour), like he didn't even mean to say it was elementary school. Everything mentioned before combined in one, casuall sentence that rivals Marinette's conveluted plan based on superpowers. Yep, he is good liar.

And last but not least, "I'm sorry I asked you stand in for me earlier. You must think I'm not very brave." If you look for advice how to lie, you will eventually meet the 'cover the truth with lie that is embarrassing/puts you in bad light' advice. Adrien is willing to weight his options and sacrifice his ego to fit whatever goal he has in mind.

And don't even get me started on how he managed to catfish Ladybug by pretending to be Catwalker for a whole night. He is so capable of twisting the truth he can bend his miraculous suit to his means. It took a bit of effort, but as far as we know, no longer than a day of practice. And also, he had his schedule filled in possibly to the last minute. But out of superhero pair, he is always the one with spare time to spend with LB. He has to lie almost everyday to everyone around, to people that get PAID to keep an eye on him, and he manages to get away with it this hole time (almost, of course there are setbacks). Really, when Adrien said in season 5 "Lila is a compulsive liar and really good at it" he knows from his own experience. Game recognizes game. Good he uses it mostly to ditch on his responsabilities and cover his superhero identity.

I haven't watch any season 6 episode yet, so I really hope this post doesn't become disproven in a moment by dumping our boy down. Miraculous has a nag for doing that.

[pochipop]

＃FNAF MOVIE !! ♡ — IT'LL BE ALRIGHT (MIKE SCHMIDT X READER).

#. synopsis! — mike is used to walking on eggshells, just waiting for another tragedy, and you really don’t want to be just another person who's let him down.

#. characters! — mike schmidt .

#. warnings! — vague references to past traumatic events (canon compliant) , references to a verbal argument .

#. word count! — 1.8k .

#. alt accounts! — @ddollipop (nsfw) @hhoneypop (moodboards) .

#. others! — navigation & masterlist .

Mike is used to people leaving. They come and they go like stray cats who've found someone better to nab food off of, —leaving him with more ghosts in his life than he'd care to admit. At least these ones are metaphorical and melodramatic, though. His saving grace has been the fact that he chooses wisely who to introduce Abby to, just in case. She's been through enough, and she's so young that the absence of anyone would be duly noted. Not that it isn't when it comes to himself, it's just. . . He's learned how to live with loss. Maybe not effectively, but he does it, and for right now, that's probably as good as it's getting.

He's got more pressing matters to attend to. He always does. That's what he argued about with you, —what he fought tooth and nail to defend, even when you backed off. At the end of it, he knew he'd gone too far for no real reason. He wasn't arguing with you at that point, he was arguing with all the people that have left him starved for their affections and their care. The words he said to you were so far beyond your scope that it was almost pathetic to think about all the bullshit he unloaded on you like it was somehow your job to fix it, even when he knew it wasn't. So really, it's no wonder he's adding you to that list of people who've walked away.

For once, he truly deserved it. 

And now he's got to explain this to Abby. Because she likes you almost as much as he does, —almost being the operative word there. Mike sucks at a lot of things, and showing you he cares tends to be one of them, but he loves in his own ways. . . And now, he fears he'll have to do it from afar.

He sort of wishes Abby was the kind of kid he could bribe with ice cream for breakfast to break bad news to. It'd be easier to scoop her some off-brand Neopolitan and tell her she'd never see you again if that would help soften the blow. But it won't, and he knows that. He knows her too well to even try.

Still, he finds himself putting chocolate chips in her pancakes that morning in spite of himself.

When he places the plate in front of her, she narrows her eyes, as if to ask him what he's done so wrong. . . Asking what he's offering silent apologies for in the form of sweet pockets stolen away inside her favorite breakfast food. He opens the fridge in search of orange juice just to avoid her gaze.

Before she can even take a bite, he opens his mouth.

"Listen, Abby—"

She looks up at him with those big, doe eyes, and he probably would have cut himself off anyway if not for the knock on the front door. Mike mumbles for her to hold that thought, then goes to check who's outside.

And there you stand a little awkwardly on his doorstep, a brand new bottle of orange juice in your hand. Once again, it's like you've read his mind, and he's as sick of it as he is thankful for it, especially right now. Still, he can't turn you away.

"Morning," you say, almost hesitantly. "I brought juice. . ."

He tries to think of something to say, but hears the quick pitter-patter of Abby's feet fastly approaching. She calls your name so happily, and you smile at her.

"Good morning to you too," you laugh, returning the hug she gives you with no hesitation.

Mike just stares, as if he can't believe you're even here right now. If you're just here to grab the items of yours strewn about his house, he feels like the least you could have done was wait until Abby was asleep or something.

"Can I have some?" Abby asks, pointing to the orange juice in your hand.

"Yeah, that's what it's for," you smile, handing the bottle to her.

She scurries off to the kitchen to pour herself a glass.

"Mike," you say softly now that she's out of earshot, "can we—"

"I'll get your stuff together," he cuts you off.

Your jaw slacks.

"What?" Is the only thing you can manage to muster up in response.

"You could've done this at a different time," he snaps, trying to keep quiet so Abby doesn't hear. "It's gonna be ten times harder on her now for me to explain why you're not coming back."

You stare at him, trying not to cry. Out of all the things you expected to happen this morning, such a drastic change of heart on his part wasn't one of them.

"You. . . You're breaking up with me?" You question.

He pauses, a lot of the frustration dissipating from his features, replaced by genuine confusion.

"Didn't you already break up with me?" He asks.

Your brows knit together quizzically. 

"No? What are you even talking about, I never said I wanted to break up with you," you point out.

Sure, you didn’t say it. But most of the others had never said it either. It was like flipping a lightswitch. One minute they were there, and the next they weren’t. That's why he'd gotten so good at keeping his relationships at a distance, and he'd taken the biggest leap of faith in introducing you to his sister.

"Yesterday evening?" He says, but it sounds more like a question.

"We had an argument," you acknowledge. "It was stupid, and you hurt my feelings. I'm sure I hurt yours too. That doesn't mean I want us to be over."

Mike stares at you like he's not sure what to say, because he isn't. He's not used to someone caring enough to fight for him, and for what festers between himself and someone else. He's learned to let go before the thread pulls too tight, —before it wraps around his throat and slices through every defense he's built up for the sake of protecting himself, his heart, and the little girl that depends on him.

"Mike," you say softly, almost cautiously. "I care about you. One bad night doesn't change that. . . Not for me."

God, it was stupid. It was so stupid. You weren't even mad at him specifically, and you're fairly certain he wasn't really angry with you in particular either. Long days on both your parts collided like a warm front to a cold one, and the things both of you said in the wake of it were uttered through venom and gritted teeth. Sweeping generalizations, a lot of rolling eyes, some tears that were more about frustration than they were anything else. . . But you still loved him at the end of it, even as you found yourself walking home alone.

In fact, that walk was particularly sobering. The crisp chill of the autumn evening was enough to convince you that you'd rather be back at his place where he keeps an extra toothbrush for you in the bathroom and emptied out a drawer just so you could have a place to store some clothes. The sleep you got in the night that followed was shallow at best, restless enough to leave faint bags beneath your eyes by morning, and you were determined to make up any excuse in the book just to swing by.

So you went out and got some orange juice, knowing there wasn't any left in the fridge, and you stood outside his door for a while, working yourself up just to knock. You thought about all the things you'd need to apologize for, and you were ready to push aside your ego if it meant Mike could understand just how much you care, even when you're upset.

He swallows, just to give himself something to do while he prolongs his own response, because he's just not sure what to say. Somehow, a part of him is whispering that this would be easier if you just didn't give a fuck. . . If last evening was the end, and he could go back to finding comfort in silence again.

That's how it's always been. Someone leaves, and he copes, and then he files them away with the rest. But here you are, and Mike knows he can't bring himself to put you in with the others.

"Mike, I'm—"

"No, I am," he breathes, reaching forward to pull you into his arms. "I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings, and I'm sorry that I suck at being a boyfriend, but I don't know what I'm doing and all I can tell you is that I'm trying."

He feels the tension meld away from you, and it's then, before you even open your mouth to reply, that he starts to think everything is how it should be.

"You don't suck at it," you answer lightly. "I know you're trying, and that's genuinely all I could ask for, and I'm sorry about yesterday evening. I was in a bad mood, and I took it out on you, and that wasn't right."

"We both took shit out on each other," he corrects, ready and willing to share the blame.

"True enough," you acknowledge with a weary smile, finally pulling away from his embrace.

"I'm sorry," he says again. "When things go wrong, I. . . I've just learned how to slam on the breaks. If I stop things before they feel like they'll suffocate me, I can avoid them. But I love you, and I know I don't want to avoid that."

"This isn't a one way street," you remind him. "Relationships are hard, and sometimes things happen in a way that they shouldn't, but I'm here for you, and I want to be here for you. . . It's not contractual. One bad night doesn't take away all the times you've made me feel like the happiest person on the face of the planet, Mike."

He sniffles a little, then lets out a relieved sigh.

"Are you hungry?" He asks. "I can make you some pancakes. Chocolate chip."

You raise an eyebrow.

"Chocolate chip? Are you apologizing to Abby for something?"

God, a part of him hates that he's so obvious, but another part loves that you know him so well. It makes him feel even stupider for just assuming that you'd be willing to throw in the towel after one rough night.

"No, not really," he shakes his head. (Not anymore, at least.)

Mike glances toward the kitchen, just to make sure Abby's still preoccupied with her breakfast, then steals a quick kiss from your lips.

"I'm sorry," he says again.

You smile.

"Me too."

"And I love you," he adds.

Your smile widens.

"I love you too. Promise."

With that, he pulls you to the kitchen, and you sit down beside Abby at the table. She tells you that when breakfast is done with, she'd like to show you some new drawings she's done, and you nod, telling her you're excited to see them. And you are.

Mike stands at the stovetop, his back to the both of you, not bothering to bite back his grin. 

He feels his foot ease off the break.

[bugboysgf]

Hate + Love

Chapter 3

series masterlist 

Previous chapter 

Summary: There is a thin line between love and hate but what if it's way thinner than you thought?

“Do you think that's his boyfriend?” Q asked.

“I don't think so,” Kitty said.

Right now you,Q, Kitty, and Min ho were sitting at the lunch table having lunch, you were too busy on your phone laughing to even hear what they were talking about.

“I don't see the problem, just ask if he is seeing anybody.” Min Ho said.

“If only it was that simple.” Q huffed. “What do you think y/n.”

You didn't respond, you were smiling at your phone not having a care in the world. Min ho thought it would be a good idea to throw a chip at you to get your attention.

“What the hell dickhead.” you glared at Min ho.

“Why do you keep smiling at your phone?” Min ho asked.

“Oh Derek was sending me pictures.”

“So what's going on between you?” Kitty asked

“Nothing really, he asked me on a date yesterday.”

“Wait what?” Minho looks at you in shock.

“You heard me.” “When's the date?” he asked.

“If you must know it's on saturday.”

“I'm so happy for you.” Kitty said.

—-

“I don't get it.” Min ho said to Q.

“Get what?” Q sat up on his bed.

“Why is y/n going on a date with Derek.” “I don't know. What's the problem with it anyway?” Q asked, confused.

“Why would she choose him, that's all.” Min ho wondered.

“Maybe because he gave her his number.” Q said like it was obvious. Minho just stared at the wall thinking. “Listen man if he bothers you that much just tell her.” “It doesn't bother me.” Min ho said a little too fast. “You're lying, it does.” “I don't understand why I care so much.”

“Maybe because you like her.”

“I will not stop saying that.” Min Ho said, clearly annoyed.

“There's obviously something there, if it does bother you.”

“It doesn't, I was just thinking.” Min ho defended himself, but deep down he had this feeling about you and he couldn't figure out what it was.

—

“Q come on, open the door.” you said knocking on the door. You heard footsteps so you stopped knocking on the door.

“What are you wa- wait are you crying?” Min Ho asked.

“No” you swiped your tears. “Where Q” you asked.

“He's not here, he's sleeping at his friend's dorm tonight. What's wrong.” Min Ho asked concerned.

“Nothing, I'm going to go.” you turned around but Min ho grabbed your hand pulling into the dorm. He shut the door and looked at you.

“Just tell me what's wrong, I'm not going to make fun of you or judge you.” all you did was look at him, you were not believing that. “Pinky swear.”

“I'm not five Min ho, can i just go, it's not a big deal.” you explain to him.

“If you're crying, it has to be a big deal,” he says.

“Okay…it's my necklace my dad gave me.” you open your hand and show it to him. “I broke, and i don't know what to do, it was the last thing he gave me and-”

“Slow down y/n, its okay”

“It's not,” you said in a weak voice. “I can't tell my mom, she's going to be so mad, and i dont have the money to fix it.” Min ho looks at you not knowing what to say, he's never had a girl cry in front of him.

“I'm sorry for putting this on you.” you apologize.

“I'll fix it.” Min Ho said.

“What?”

“Give it to me, I'll try to fix it.” you had no choice to hand it over to him, you didn't know what to do.

“I should go, it's past curfew.” you said.

“Stay here”

“Why?”

“I just want to make sure you are okay,” he says.

“What if I get caught?”

“Nobody is going to see you plus there's no class tomorrow. You can take my bed” he explains.

The next morning you woke up in his bed, then it hit you that you cried to Min ho last night about a necklace. You cringe at the fact that Min ho saw you cry. You get out of the bed and go into the kitchen and sit down.

“Good morning.” Min Ho says.

“What time is it?” you ask. “2pm”

“Oh my god, I have a date at 5.” “You have time,” he says. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a box and hands it to you. You look at him confused but you open the box. In the box was your necklace that you gave him last night.

“Oh my god, you fixed it.” you smile. “How?”

“I went to a jewelry shop early in the morning.”

“How much was it? I will pay you back, I swear.” you tell him.

“Don't worry about it and I apologize.” “Apologize for what?” you asked him confused.

“Apologize for bumping into you at the airport.” “Who are you and what have you done with Min ho.” you joked.

“I'll take the apology back.” he smiles.

—

“I'm nervous.” you said to Kitty.” “Dont be you look good.” She says.

“He's supposed to be picking me up any minute now.” you tell her.

10 minutes go by and he doesn't text you saying he's going to be late. You text him ‘hey when are you going to be here?’ but you get no response.

Another 20 minutes go by and you finally get a message

From derek: Sorry but I can't do this, i dont think it's going to work out.

“What did he say?” kitty asked

“He says it's not going to work out.” you say quietly.

“Oh I'm so sorry y/n. He doesnt deserve you.” “Min ho was right, it had to be a dare.”

The next day you decided to not let it get to you. Kitty asked if you wanted to go to breakfast most of the time you skip breakfast but you were really hungry.

“What are your plans for today?” Kitty asked.

“Not sure.” you said. Kitty looks behind you and sees Derek walking towards you.

“Don’t freak out but Derek is walking this way.” “Oh my god.” you roll your eyes. He sits next to Kitty and gives you a look that's supposed to say ‘I'm sorry.’

“y/n-”

“Save it, I don't want it here,” you cut him off.

“y/n i really wanted to go but Min ho-” “Min ho? What does he have to do with it?” you cut him off once again.

“He threatened me, he said he would release a video of me. I can't let it get out it would look bad on my parents company.” he explained “So he threatened you to not go on a date with me?” “Yes and a lot of other guys.” “What the hell, why?” Kitty asked.

“I'm not sure but he doesn't want guys dating you.”

“This doesn't make any sense.” you said.

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