#i will point out here that nobody has ever been able to clearly explain to me what this privilege is or how it materially manifests

[beaft]

i don't get involved in transandrophobia discourse because it always seems to devolve into bickering about the implications and definitions of specific words, which is fun if you're a philosophy student and less fun if you're a trans person just trying to peacefully exist online. but last week i did come really close to responding to a post that argued it was Fine for trans women to say "i hate transmascs", but it was Not Fine for transmascs to say "i hate trans women", and i don't know, man. i think maybe neither of those things are Fine. i think maybe it sucks to say that you hate an entire category of trans people no matter what your gender personally is

[raerae2727]

When they blow up at you: multiple One Piece men x reader

You make them upset and they lose their temper + how they apologize

Includes: Ace, Kid, Law, Sanji, Crocodile, Doflamingo

GN! Reader, established relationship

Warnings: language, crocodile is neglectful and doffy is toxic, both reader and kid are lowkey toxic together, ace sanji and law’s parts are sweet tho💋

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Ace

He’s always pretty upbeat and tries not to show anger around you, but one day you make a joke that takes it too far. Your relationship had always been full of humor and you simply misunderstood what was acceptable to joke about and what wasn’t. You know you messed up when Ace goes quiet and puts his head down. You put your hand on his shoulder and frantically try to apologize, but he clearly isn’t having it as he stands and tries to walk away from you.

“Ace, wait! Listen!” You call as you try to pull him back, eager to explain yourself and properly apologize. He suddenly turns around and, in front of everyone, begins to lecture you.

“Why don’t you ever take anything seriously?”

Your guilt quickly turns to anger at the hypocrisy of Ace’s words. It always seemed to you that no joke was “too far” because of the way he so freely poked fun at you, your interests, and those you care about. How dare he pin this accusation on you?

“You’re the one who can’t take anything serious!” You respond, raising your voice louder than his.

He’s basically yelling when he responds, “At least I know where to draw the line!”

“What about all those times you made fun of me? Is it only an issue when I do it back?”

Everyone is staring at you two by this point, but all you can focus on is holding back tears when Ace yells, “I guess we just don’t go well together!” He slams his hand on the table, “Good luck finding someone else who’ll put up with you for as long as I have!”

Ashamed and heartbroken, you rush to your room and cry into your pillow. It feels like an eternity before you finally hear a knock on your door. You don’t respond but Ace opens it and lets himself in anyways, setting down his hat. He sits on the edge of your bed and breaks the silence with, “Good thing I stayed calm out there, right?”

Amazed that he still has the audacity to joke around, you sit up and scold, “Ace!”

He holds up his arms defensively. “Sorry, Sorry, I’m ready to talk about it if you are. And for the record, I love putting up with you.”

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Kid

Your relationship was always explosive because of your captain’s temper, but he must have already been on edge today because this was worse than usual. Killer wanted some rest so Kid is trying to make dinner for the crew, but he absolutely sucks at cooking. He refuses to listen to your advice and tension is growing as you continue to try and help.

“Stop being so controlling! I’m the captain here!”

The smell of burnt food is getting stronger, and you can’t help but take the pan off the burner yourself. “We’re hungry. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with just accepting help for once.” You try to keep your tone neutral to avoid a fight - which is clearly ineffective as Kid grabs you by the arm and pulls you outside of the kitchen.

“Why are you so set on embarrassing me in front of my crew!?” He shouts, gripping your shoulders.

You roll your eyes and speak calmly to make him feel like he’s overreacting. “It’s not that big of a deal. It would be more embarrassing if nobody was able to eat because your ego is too big to let me help.”

Kid is infamously bad with words, so he just responds by cursing and shoving you with much more force than intended. You go tumbling back until your head hits the wall and you fall to the floor. Kid looks shocked but before he can kneel down to help, you shoot up and shout, “What the fuck was that!?!”

“I don’t know!! Are you okay?” He yells back, panicked.

“No! I’m gonna tell Killer that you’re abusing me!” You scream, not realizing the whole ship can probably hear you two by now.

“No!” Kid responds fearfully, one-upping your volume and holding you in place by your shoulders again. “I swear I’ll always listen to you from now on! I promise! Please don’t tell on me, you know it was an accident!!”

Before you can scream back, the kitchen door swings open and you two stare at Killer like deer in headlights.

“Get in here and set the table. I knew you guys wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

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Law

Law always stretches himself too thin between working late, taking care of his crew, and making sure they don’t get themselves in too much trouble. He must have been losing a lot of sleep because of this, as he’s asking you to bring him his 4th cup of coffee today and it’s not even noon.

You tell him, “I don’t think I should do that, babe. I’m sorry. You should get some rest instead.” His under eye bags are especially dark today and his hair is messy.

“I have to get this done,” he responds calmly, though you can detect a hint of annoyance in his tone. “Can you at least get someone else to make it?”

When you go behind him and rub his shoulders, he sighs and leans back in his chair. He must be exhausted. “Please, babe?” He asks once more.

“Law, you of all people should know the importance of rest.”

He pulls away from your touch and crooks his neck to look in your eyes. “And you, of all people, should appreciate the work your captain does to keep this crew out of harm’s way.” He doesn’t yell, but the scolding tone of his voice hurts you more than yelling ever could. He stands up and walks to the kitchen, presumably to make his own coffee, and you follow behind. “Can’t you just give me some alone time for once?” He snaps.

You’re growing increasingly frustrated at Law’s stubborn attitude. “You need to rest! I’m not going to leave you alone when you’re putting your health at risk.”

“Sometimes,” he grabs you by the chin and leans in, “I have to make sacrifices for this crew. Be thankful.” You can’t help but start to tear up. His harsh words stung extra when he looked at you like that. Law lets go of you and his gaze softens when he realizes how upset he’s made you. The tone of the conversation immediately shifts. “Sorry, I-” he pauses, “I didn’t realize you cared that much.”

“Of course I care.” You cry. “I love you.” You pull him into a hug and he leans down to rest his chin on your shoulder.

“I’ll take a nap if you promise to stop crying.” He whispers, rubbing your back.

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Sanji

“Can you add a dash of salt to the soup, love?” Asks your boyfriend. He’s recently taken to including you while he cooks, which is an honor coming from someone who takes it so seriously. He’s gentle, patient, and excessively romantic with you in every aspect of the relationship, though sometimes finds himself being a bit more firm when cooking. You waltz across the kitchen, handing over him a knife, stirring a pot, or cleaning dishes for Sanji, whose hand finds your waist each time you pass. You dip your finger into the sauce he’s making and give it a taste.

“It’s good, maybe a bit bland though,” you comment.

“Noted, head chef,” he teases back playfully while accepting your criticism and adding more seasoning. When you go to take another taste, your elbow knocks over an inconveniently placed jar of olive oil, spilling it into the sauce and all over the counter.

“Shit! I’m sorry Sanji, I’ll clean it up.” He looks a bit disappointed, but gives you a soft smile and pat on the back.

“Don’t worry love, it happens,” his tone shifts to something more firm yet still gentle, “but we only have one jar left, so try to be a bit more careful for me in the future, yea?”

“It won’t happen again, promise.” Your mistake makes you shaky with nervousness because you know how seriously Sanji takes food waste. When you reach for a towel to clean up the oil, of course you accidentally knock over a pepper shaker. It falls to the ground and shatters, pepper corns bouncing all across the floor.

Panicked, you stutter out a pleading apology while you scramble to find a broom. “Oh my god babe, I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I’m so clumsy to-”

“How about you just leave the cooking to me.”

You look up, surprised at his stern voice. He doesn’t look back at you, just grips the handle of his mixing spoon angrily. Your heart drops into your stomach in shame.

“Go find someone else to help me clean up this mess, okay?” You can tell he’s trying his absolute hardest to contain his disappointment, but it’s still evident in his tone. You silently leave the kitchen, embarrassed tears stinging your eyes.

You try to calm yourself down in your room before dinner, you don’t want any of your crew mates to know about your humiliating mistakes. Not even five minutes after you had left the kitchen though, your door swings open. Sanji is on his knees with a bouquet of flowers and big puppy dog eyes looking up at you.

“I have no words to describe how sorry I am for getting upset at you. My anger was a bigger mistake than any amount of spilled food.” Your emotions quickly turn upside down and you laugh at the dramatic display.

“Sanji! I should be the one apologizing!” You run up to him and pull him into a tight hug. You reassure him, “It’s okay to get frustrated sometimes. I’m not mad!” He lets out a relieved sigh and squeezes you tight.

Smelling the bouquet, you ask, “Where did you even get these?”

“I have a stash,” and you both burst into laughter.

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Crocodile

It seems like all he does is work, and you’re fed up with it. You get so bored sitting around in Crocodile’s mansion all day while he’s locked up in his office. Luckily, he left the door ajar today and you’ll be able to force him to give you the attention you deserve. You slink through the door and hoist yourself up onto the edge of his oversized desk.

“What.” He says gruffly, not looking up from his papers.

“I’m booored,” you whine, swinging your feet, “wanna go swimming?”

Crocodile sighs and rubs his temple in annoyance, still not looking up. “Go fetch me a drink and I’ll consider it.”

“No you won’t!” You argue, “you always say that!”

He slams a fist on the table and finally looks up to meet your eyes. “Maybe I would want to spend more time with you if you weren’t so whiny! Now go!”

You’re shocked and hurt by his unexpected anger and leave defeated, looking back one last time to see him continuing his work, seemingly unbothered.

Later that night, as you’re lying in bed reading, you hear the door softly creak open. Crocodile is holding an unopened expensive perfume with a ribbon tied around it.

“I know I haven’t had a lot of time for you lately, and I’m sorry.” He sighs, setting the gift on your nightstand and undoing his tie. “We’ll go swimming next week, I promise.” He places a gentle kiss on your forehead before getting into his robe.

As you drift off to sleep, you look at the various expensive gifts he’s gotten you as apologies, knowing he will never follow through with his promises.

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Doflamingo

Making Doflamingo angry is always the last thing you want to do, but his immature sense of entitlement can be infuriating. The two of you were watching the sunset by the poolside and discussing your latest reads while waiting on a servant to bring another bottle of wine. You didn’t notice how long it was taking until he brought it up.

“What’s taking that damn worm so long?” What’s so hard about fetching a bottle of wine?” The veins in his forehead started to bulge, a telltale sign of his annoyance.

You take his hand in yours and rub your thumb into his palm, trying desperately to keep him calm. “I’m sure it’ll be here soon, Doffy. Let’s not worry about it for now - keep telling me about your book.”

He could see right through you. Any attempt at influencing his emotions always only made it worse.

“Don’t baby me. This is an act of utter insolence and I don’t know why you expect me to tolerate it.” He slaps your hand away. “I’ll give that rat a piece of my mind once it gets here.” As much as you want to just leave it at that and enjoy the rest of your evening, your unrest with Doflamingo’s behavior has been growing for weeks and you speak before you can think.

“Can’t we just have one nice evening where you don’t have to abuse someone over the tiniest thing? It’s just some wine, we’ll live.” You’re terrified to see his frown turn into a wide grin as he starts to laugh.

“Have you forgotten who I am? Who you have the privilege of being close to?” With one sweep of his arm he knocks your glass off the table, shattering it and making you jump in fear. “Get out of my sight,” He hisses.

Offended by his quick switch-up, you bargain, “Doffy, can’t we just talk abou-”

“Out!” He yells. “And that’s Young Master to you!”

You scurry inside the palace, knowing things could get ugly if you chose to stick around. You wait all night for him to come knocking on your door with a superficial apology, even a passive aggressive one, but he never shows.

That petty man child was avoiding you. A whole week goes by before you even see his face. As you’re playing chess with Diamanté (who’s even more insufferable) to pass the time, you find yourself wishing you were with Doflamingo instead. As if on cue, he struts in and ruffles your hair from behind.

“What do you say we go share a drink together, just you and me, hm?” He muses, rubbing your shoulders as if he hadn’t just disappeared for a week. Your anger towards him subsides at his touch. You know you only feel this way because of his manipulative charm, but you let yourself love Doffy anyway.

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[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

the amount of times i Do This must be a joke at this point but here i am. doing it once more. izaya's highschool videogame SCREAMS "i just found out i have aspd and i am NOT taking it well." and i shall explain how

a preface: wrt "how did he know in high school, don't you have to be 18?" you do.... with the dsm guidelines. japan, iirc, uses a conbination of the dsm and icd to diagnose mental illnesses, and the age stipulation isn't in the icd. also, shinra could have told him, and lbr shinra wouldnt care about strictly adhering to the age thing

anyway i went thru and highlighted different parts of the videogame's text, so i can easier explain which part means what. i'll primarily be focusing on the chronic boredom associated with aspd- since izaya's game deals with patience, most musings in it will be related to that boredom. but the boredom, especially izaya's, IS important, as its the boredom that drives him to do what he does. to be what he is.

(shoutout to miyukiwinter for the scan)

so... the red bit. this relates to izaya's worldview of the need to keep evolving to escape the mundane, and it not mattering if you aim high or low. now at this point, izaya was solidly in some shady shit and clearly on the path of the low aim. but the thing is, about aspd... the boredom is all consuming. you'll do ANYTHING to not be bored. i've seen people say they developed substance abuse problems to escape the boredom, and i confess... i've done it too. it truly is THAT bad

i say all this because... izaya will never be able to stop going lower, and lower, and lower. he's fated to fall forever. maybe he wouldve been able to brush his behavior off as teenage craziness, but with a diagnosis like aspd it becomes increadingly obvious that there is no "oh, i'll mellow out once i reach my 20s." it's not going to happen, at least, not without great effort. and lets be real, nobody has any faith in aspd's recovery rates, less so in the early 2010s, so izaya upon diagnosis would see NO FUTURE for himself. no escape from the cycle. he's trapped.

the blue bits are a bit more vauge, but the undertainty turning to loss evokes the next stage after the initial shock of diagnosis: grief. and make no mistake, there IS a grieving process with mental health diagnoses. you go from being shocked and scared, to being depressed and numb.

but there's... another layer to this, with aspd. you see it with cluster b disorders in general, but aspd is HUGE in the pop culture zeitgeist

the layer is, the idea that People Like That don't feel emotions. that any emotional display is false and an explicit ploy to mainpulate someone

and when this inevitably ends up untrue, you might start to feel... odd... about feeling those emotions people say you can't feel. and one of the biggest emotions aspd gets that with, is fear and by extension, anxiety.

some aspd people genuinely do feel reduced fear! but it's far from being a diagnostic criteria, and aspd can actually be comorbid with anxiety disorders. but scientific facts and wider culture rarely match up, so the idea persists

so izaya might have started to think.... was he ever truly anxious? or worried? was he really more rotten than people thought; was he just mainpulating people the whole time? does he really not feel anxiety? was his nervousness over things like shinra leaving him or hell, this diagnosis, rendered null and void?

and then we reach the teal portion.... despair

(just a sidenote, tumblr has no teal color option so it'll just be blue)

in this sense, "the hole" refers to the endless downward spiral, and his diagnosis- but not just having it. no, "the hole" most likely refers to the moment izaya developed it in the first place.

who are you, if you thought you were in control your whole life, but you found out that the reason you do the things you do were because of foeces beyond your control? who are you now, having a label you know will cause everyone to see you as nothing but a stereotype?

why was he still alive, suffering like this? what point is it to be alive, controlled by something you can't fight, forced to make your life worse and worse and worse, until you die young?

so now what? who did this to him?

in the game, the hatred is towards "the player." and honestly this could have multiple different meanings when applied to izaya's own life

does he hate god? was he raised religious, his father being a christian, and was this what made him lose faith? what loving god would condemn someone to suffer like this?

does he hate his parents? after all, it was their genetics that passed this down, their upbringing that nurtured it, their neglect that made him the way he was. is it their fault?

or... does he hate himself, for being the way that he is? for having it in the first place, for not being able to overcome it, for having such a bad reaction to it?

for being too cowardly to kill himself?

which brings us to the final segment. awareness.

he says outright, the game is depicting the player's life. in the game itself, this ties into his mockery of players, but in a meta sense, it could be a hidden admission that it's depicting his life

especially the talk of meaningless games- fooling around with nakura creating small gangs, betting pools, and his eventual adult pastimes of messing with people. is his life enriched? no, it's merely occupied, and he knows it. he might have repressed it as an adult, but here, in high school, at this moment, he knows.

and if he can never truly alleviate his boredom, never truly be fufilled, then he can act like he's in control all he wants, but he's no better than a man falling in a hole.

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Ok I am in rant mode again, sorry, this blog just happens to be a place where I dump all my thoughts negative and positive both, unfortunately for all who follow me. But I have seen some bad and incorrect takes from anti darkling/darklinas. So here’s just a few things I want to say.

Firstly LB has never stated that she based the darkling on her ab*sive ex. This is misinformation that was spread by antis. The only thing she has ever said about an ab*sive relationship was that she wrote the first book, Shadow and Bone, at a dark time in her life right after she had got out of a bad relationship. She has said in the past that the darkling was inspired by every bad boy she’s had a crush on in fiction including david bowie’s the goblin king. 

So it seems from these comments like the character was supposed to emulate those types of characters that woman find attractive, the ones you would fall for. 

I’ve also seen the argument that LB clearly wrote the darkling as a villain, well LB might disagree with you there as she herself has said on multiple occasions that she doesn’t write villains: 

LB says that the darkling believes he is doing the right thing and that ‘you can make a case for most of the choices he makes, even the despicable ones.’ So if LB says that she doesn’t write villains and that you can make a case for his actions you can’t really blame darkling fans for doing the same. 

The truth is LB promoted the heck out of both the darkling and darklina (or as it was known back then Darlina and Alarkling) when she was writing the og trilogy, even admitting to ‘fanning the flames’ when talking about people shipping m*lina and darklina and was clearly encouraging the shipping of both ships: 

She also put out teases for the darkling and darklina:

And promoted darklina fan edits even using the ship tags: 

It was only post the release of book three that she changed her tune, likely because of all the backlash she got about the ending of the books. So no LB wasn’t always against fans shipping darklina or liking the darkling. All of this information is easily found with a simple google search, I wasn’t even in the fandom back then being a show watcher first and yet I was still able to learn all of this with minimal difficulty. 

Which brings me to the whole darklina being an allegory for a older man manipulating a younger girl and how the darklina fans ‘missed this’. Well if they did miss it then it was for a very good reason, but the truth is darklina’s didn’t miss it, we just didn’t think it made sense within the narrative, the darklina fandom have talked about it, myself included, in fact I’ve already posted a whole pretty much essay on the topic. But let me explain why some people may have ‘missed it’ and why it doesn’t work in the story or with darklina as the allegory. The first is because LB chose to use an immortal/immortal couple for this allegory. The thing with immortality in fiction, especially as love interests, is it makes age pretty much meaningless. The whole point of immortals is that they are ageless. Immortal ships have always been accepted within fiction and this whole age gap issue has never come up before. Nobody was going omg but the age gap yuck with Bella and Edward when twilight came out, or when Magnus and Alec got together in Shadowhunters or with any of the ships in Vampire Diaries. Yet now anti’s are trying to use the argument that the darkling is 100s of years older than Alina and that’s creepy all of a sudden. Sorry but not in my book, an immortal is always going to be significantly older than anyone else what’s the alternative they spend eternity alone, never knowing love? At least with darklina they are both immortal. Another reason why it doesn’t work is because of how the darkling is described in the book, he is said to not look much older than Alina, so in the books he looks like a teenager. So of course people weren’t going to pick up on the older guy/younger girl allegory because the darkling isn’t presented in the books as an older guy. He’s described the same way every other immortal being in every YA book at that time was. It’s also worth noting that I am not sure if LB ever actually said that darklina were supposed to represent a older guy with a younger girl or whether that was something the fandom came up with. I’m not saying she didn’t just that I myself have never seen a direct quote from her that I recall and I wasn’t able to find one. I think the first time I heard of it was when someone sent me an ask about the topic. I know that she has said it was meant to serve as a warning of attractive and charismatic men being able to manipulate young girls but I don’t know that she herself has ever talked about an age gap or specifically mentioned older men? 

Another thing that I have been seeing alot of are comments like darkling/darklina fans only like him because he is hot. What bothers me about this is firstly even if that were true and the only reason people liked him was because he is hot, so what? There’s nothing wrong with that, its fiction and fiction is used to escape for a bit, its for enjoyment and entertainment, so if that enjoyment and entertainment comes in the form of staring at the hot guy irregardless of whether they are the hero or villain, let them be. Why are you criticising the way someone enjoys fiction? Sometimes a gal just wants to look at the hot guy. Secondly its just a really irrelevant argument because the darkling is not the only hot, charismatic character in the books or show. M*l is also described as being attractive and charismatic with no shortage of friends and girls, Nikolai is another character that fits that description, so by this argument the only reason M*l fans like him is because he is hot, and the only reason Nikolai fans like him is because he is hot. Thirdly its just plainly not true, whilst I am sure there may be some fans who only like him because he is hot, again nothing wrong with that, most fans like him for a variety of different reasons because he is an interesting and complicated character. As someone who spends a fair bit of time in the darkling/darklina tags the most common reason I have seen for fans liking him is because of his dedication to the grisha, his willingness to fight for the grisha something that he has dedicated 100′s of years of his life too. Personally I like Aleksander/the darkling because he has a sympathetic backstory, because he is fighting for the grisha and when seeing that they had no place to go where they could be free from fear he vowed to make them a safe place, a sanctuary, of course I am going to root for that goal too. I like him because he is complicated and complex and despite being an immortal being who has become deeply effected by past traumas there is still something beautifully human about him, particularly in the show. I also like the connection he has with Alina, the whole yin/yang of it and them being each others balance. I love the complexity and angst of them having this deep connection and pull to each other but also having this anger and sense of betrayal, how they have to try and navigate around having different points of view and seeing the world in a different ways, it makes for a very compelling story and their chemistry in the show is electric. The fact that he is hot is merely a bonus, but even if he wasn’t a conventionally attractive person I would still like his character because of those complexities, because of that connection he has with Alina. But one thing this rant has done is make me curious as to what my other fellow darkling/darklina fans like about the darkling? What drew you to the character? Anyway that’s enough ranting for one day, again my apologies, I am going to go and rewatch season 1 of shadow and bone in preparation for season 2′s release tomorrow...sheepishly shuffles off my soapbox, waving awkwardly.   

[via-the-cryptid]

Ive been thiking a little about some things:

1.- I dont remember if one of the Rules of Prismo's Wishroom was that you have to arrive on your own to get a wish or you could be invited, but even if thats the case they could still have Farmworld's Enchiridion (because here there is no backstabbing that ends with the book destroyed) to open a portal so Simon gets his wish the right way.

2.- Talking about Farmworld, I cant imagine how Finn, who has been living with a magical snow mom for a couple of months/years by now, would react to seeing a magical ice version of himself in Crossover.

3.- Continuing with Farmworld, we assume that both that and the regular timeline advance at the same time, so if they go into the multiversal adventure with Finn still being a Teenager, that would mean that Farmworld Finn would also be a Teenager when they arrive. But that could open another story, maybe they find him after his parents and brother died/left for some reason and he is on his own with normal Jake and Bartram, maybe when he meets his future wife AKA Huntress Wizard.

4.- If you think about it regular Marceline its indeed stronger than the Star we saw on canon because while the Star has the powers of all the Vampire Council, Marceline has that +VK pure vampire soul. Also idea, this Star was raised by The Empress instead of the VK, because she was the one who wanted to create an Empire on Stakes and in this AU maybe she trained Marceline to take down VK and get the throne. Also that opens the chance to have Betty saying "Empress! You're a bad Mother!"

answering in sections again:

1. I don’t think it’s ever specified if you have to arrive naturally or if you can be invited when it comes to making a wish — the only rule I remember (and there may be others that I forgot, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) is that you can only have one wish per person. as far as I know, Magic Simon should be able to make his wish when he’s first invited to the wish cube in order to explain the Snow Queen situation. however, if you do have to get there naturally and you can’t be invited if you’re making a wish, he’d probably just tell Finn, Jake, and Marceline what he was doing so they could help him collect the jewels and open the portal with their own enchiridion.

2. Finn would probably be very weirded out by Ice Finn, and it would also make him consider the whole Snow Queen situation even more. He sees this version of himself who’s absolutely destroyed by the crown, and then he turns around and sees his mom, who’s just… kinda senile and obsessed with her husband. I feel like that’s gotta mess him up, to know that the crown that made Betty obsess over Simon, also turned Finn into a monster in a different reality. if he talks to Snow Betty about it later, she’ll probably be able to explain the way the crown corrupts and what she was like at the start, as well as Ice Finn’s motivations for doing what he’s doing (because it’s not purely malicious, Ice Finn clearly talks about keeping everyone safe with his ice and trying to protect them), but that will be have to come later since they’re pretty busy avoiding the interdimensional cops when the two Finns meet.

3. you are right, and I actually didn’t consider that before, but I definitely should have. in that case, Farmworld Finn probably still has his wife (could be Huntress Wizard, Phoebe, or even Rosalinen from the Puhoy episode) and might have already had Jay, maybe? but probably none of the either children, and Jay would still be a baby, as would Little Destiny. I think Magic Simon and Snow Betty & co would probably still follow someone out to the crater, but in this case it’s more likely to be Farmworld Finn showing them that the crown is already destroyed, at which point they find the Jewel and decide to use it to find another version of the crown, and then Scarab shows up and they gotta book it real fast. Magic Simon may be way more powerful than he has any right to be, but nobody wants to risk him or anyone else getting put in one of those eggs if Scarab manages to hit them at the right moment. Farmworld Finn runs as soon as Scarab arrives, specifically because the Ooo gang told him to and because Magic Simon immediately started having a wizard showdown, and Farmworld Finn ain’t getting involved in wiz biz.

4. you’re RIGHT, she IS! and you’re also right about the Empress probably being the one to take a front role in raising her, because it seems like the VK is definitely following Empress’s plans here. Snow Betty would definitely yell at her and probably chuck a rock at her head, which I doubt would do anything but it would certainly make Snow Betty feel better. Marceline and the Star also get to have a showdown while Vampworld Bonnie watches and realises that maybe perhaps she has a bit of a crush on this alternate Marceline. just a small one. maybe actually a really big one. regardless, I think that VK is still the one with the crown and is ‘in charge’ of the empire, but he’s a little senile and it’s really Empress pulling the strings and mildly grooming the Star as her replacement if she or VK ever falls.

[cars2-renaissance]

Ugh it’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep but I’m wide awake but not fully and kinda delirious

But my brain picked up this idea the other night when I was chatting with my cousin that what if Doc Hudson had been around for cars 2

Now hear me out because he’d still be McQueens crew chief right so Mater would not be tagging along. What if instead of Mater going to the bathrooms on that fateful night in Tokyo, it was doc instead?

This is a half baked idea, so I’m just laying out whatever first comes to mind. Doc backs out of the stall instead of Mater amd sees this beat to hell car. Something is clearly wrong! Even if Torque is like I’m fine, Doc would stick around to ask more questions.

Which gives Holley the time to actually go into the bathroom and see Acer and Grem. Now she’d probably book it and with a good excuse of “oh I’m in the wrong loo!” Then she’d tell Finn what she saw.

At this point Grem and Acer would be getting very antsy and start pressure Doc to gtf out but I don’t see Doc just leaving torque there. No. “These are good folk around here, who care about one another.” He’d, make sure Torque was okay so maybe Grem and Acer decide to jump him.

Doc”s not a martial artist (that we know of) but he’d probably be able to hold his own against these two at least long enough for Finn McViolence to arrive to beat the ever loving shit out of Grem and Acer. Finn has been WAITING to beat the shit out these two.

At this point. Doc can connect the last dots that this is an organized attack and he wants no part of it. He’d get Holley to help him push Torque to whatsoever nurses station that have in that building and he’d get Torque running again then he’d piece the fuck out.

He’d never say a word of this to anyone. No one would know.

Finn would probably show up on his doorstep three months later to make sure everything is okay and Doc would run him out of that town so fast. Or have him arrested for trespassing or some shit. Then run him out of the town.

Look, if Finn and Holley just had Torque around, they would’ve had it made. Torque could be like “here’s the picture. It’s a SHITTY PICTURE, LET ME EXPLAIN” and then either out Axelrod right there or be like hey man I actually have no idea but look, we can track these parts he’s ordering from this little French guy and Finn would be like “THATS MY BOYFRIEND!!! I GET TO VISIT HIM!!”

Honestly I feel so bad for Holley having to put up with these two. Like yeah she had to put up with mater and Finn in the movie but Torque “your mom” Redline is not better. He is not.

YOU KNOW he and Finn would be feeding off each others sarcasm and bad jokes like nobody’s business.

Now here’s where it gets better.

I can just

smprickle a little more headcanon on here and e voila! We have the plot thickens!!!

Torque was on the oil rigs at the same time as Finn and Leland. Soooooooo it’s entirely PLAUSIBLE that he helped Leland fake his death. I mean there are possibilities. The potential is endless.

So say Finn and Torque get to talking and torque drops the whole, “hey, I was on the boat when Leland got captured. They were working him over but I got them to let me take over and I helped him out of there. That cube of metal wasn’t him. It was my spare disguise that we ran into the compactor. But I lost track of him when all hell broke loose. If he’s still alive, he’s still on the platform.”

Cue, Finn rocketing himself back into the Pacific Ocean.

Here’s where the movie can split povs. Torque and Holley clean up the mess with the Grand Prix and start breaking down the plot with the camera while Finn goes full rescue mission and rips that oil rig apart until he finds Leland.

Say they all meet up back in France so Finn can find Tomber’s sneaky ass.

Now we have Finn, Torque, Holley, AND Leland in France. (God I would pay money to see that)

Holley and Torque get to witness whatever chaos goes down now yhat we’ve got Finn and Tomber flirting and now Leland is there to make things so much worse. Like this is a show at this point. Finn is that ho over there and now his two boyfriends are fighting.

(Yeah Even with Torque there, this takes just as long to solve the allinol case.)

So they finally get their shit together JUST ENOUGH to connect exactly two dots and make it back to Italy for the lemon mafia meeting. Which they now have to infiltrate without a convenient tow truck.

Out of the four of them, Torque is the only one who is competent with a disguise. Holley has no experience, Leland has too much experience, and Finn will just blow them up before they can get the intel but they can’t just send Torque back in there after he’s just been outted so they have to send Holley who now has these three in her earpiece trying to keep her alive. They all think they know what’s best.

She could dress as one of those cars selling the air fresheners and sneak into the meeting.

Leland would actually be interested in the race because he’s an old racing jag so he’d be like hey isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that wherever these big races are, the junkyard mafia follows?

And ohhh yeah you’ve got a point then BOOM! One of the racers explodes and OHHH SHIT WHAT IS THAT????

Finn and Leland take off and Torque is like, okay let’s maybe assess the situation first?!!? He spots the camera and is like okay that’s the target.

F and L are tearing through the streets they make it up there but Torque STAYS PUT and sees the helicopter and tells them, WHOA!! It’s a trap.

Finn enters a gun battle with said helicopter while Leland takes out the camera.

McQueen never chooses Allinol as his fuel for the final race so they have time to investigate the camera and the fuel at a reasonable pace. The lab studies come back. It’s traced back to Alexerod. He gets put away. The spies all go out for some drinks. It’s a lovely evening. The end.

[jeniffercheck]

oops sorry i dropped this “instead of tom finding shiv booking an office and scheduling her crying sessions, it was karolina” over here 🚶‍♀️

thank you for the prompt!! also on ao3<3

“Are you sure that’s all they requested?”

Shiv freezes as a voice fills the office. It’s Karolina, of course she’d be able to pick that voice out of a hundred, but it wouldn’t really matter if it happened to be the fucking President; nobody else is supposed to be in here. She stands as Karolina comes fully into view, a doe-eyed subordinate at her tail, no doubt trying to establish themselves as someone Karolina can trust at the top should she survive the merger. Karolina stops in her tracks the moment she lays eyes on Shiv, inquisitive gaze and fucking perceptive mind always overpowering Shiv in even the most manageable of situations. She tells the straggler to leave, something about cross-checking all of the buzzwords requested in the press release because Shiv’s dad just died but making sure computer algorithms pick up each of Waystar’s announcements on the topic is more important than just being genuine.

“Is everything alright?”

It’s a stupid question to ask, Shiv thinks Karolina knows that, but it’s the one you’re supposed to under circumstances like this, and Karolina is really good at doing exactly what she’s supposed to do. Shiv? Well, she just does what she has to.

“I have this room booked out,” Shiv says, a non-answer and they both know it. She tries not to sound completely and totally devoid of all emotion, because she doesn’t have to hide, not in front of Karolina, but she’s still at work and if anyone can just come barreling into an office that she’s booked out—clearly, it’s on the schedule!—then she’d rather not risk it anymore. Regardless, her efforts to show just the right amount of contempt and sadness and professionalism are futile, because Karolina knows her a little too well at this point, and it doesn’t matter that Shiv is supposed to be in this room and Karolina is not, because Karolina’s here now, and Shiv knows she sees straight fucking through her.

Then, her phone betrays her anyway. The alarm blares and rears its ugly head to tell her that time’s up, that she has to go back out into the real world and look like she’s managing, that the sight of this very building and all of the people inside it don’t make her sick and that if she could be anywhere else in the world it would be six months ago before she decided that winning something she never even wanted was more important than her dad, who was all she ever fucking wanted. She tries to shut the alarm off like if she does it quick enough then maybe Karolina won’t even have heard it at all, but that’s a sorely stupid thought as well.

“What do you have it booked out for?” Karolina asks.

Shiv knows she’s trading lightly, giving Shiv easy outs, the room to retreat and lick her wounds in private should she wish, but she’s tired, and Karolina is right here.

“To cry,” Shiv says plainly, because she doesn’t think she needs to explain it. Karolina knows what it’s like to be a woman inside this cesspool of testosterone. If Shiv acts weak in front of anyone right now, they’ll use it against her.

Karolina doesn’t react, not outwardly, anyway, but she does set her planner gently on the table and moves toward Shiv, stopping when she reaches Shiv’s end of the table. She doesn’t look at Shiv as she reaches for the phone, and Shiv doesn’t stop her, Karolina’s hand rotating the device to clearly read what’s on the screen.

A twenty-minute timer lighting up the device exposes her.

“How long have you been doing this?” Karolina asks, eyes flickering back to Shiv.

“Since the day after,” Shiv says.

Twenty minutes, once a day. Ten to cry, ten to get the fuck over it. It’s worked well enough, and she knows there are probably better ways to do it, but she doesn't have the time. Her brothers are icing her out, apparently trying to tank the Matsson deal, and now she has to work five steps ahead, seemingly caught in this huge pile of shit with nothing and nobody to help her out of it except the fucking skin of her teeth.

She doesn’t want to look at Karolina, what with the pitying expression she knows is bound to be there and the condolences that are probably sitting on her tongue, and whatever else she can come up with to make Shiv feel like a charity case because her dad decided to die and that’s all people can seem to see when they look at her. She should know better though, because Karolina has never been like everybody else.

“Have you heard about Roman’s pre-grieving?” Karolina asks, and Shiv fights against instinct to take a look at Karolina, who just has that signature look of decimating mockery all over her face. No matter how much Shiv wants to brood, she can’t help but let out a laugh at the question, because of course Karolina knows that if there’s anything that can get Shiv to smile, it’s making fun of her brothers’ absurd antics, because really, what the fuck is pre-grieving?

“I think he’s confusing that step with denial,” Shiv says.

“And you?” Karolina says, inching closer. “What step are you on?”

Shiv crosses her arms, thinking maybe if she can just hold herself together physically then the distraught inside of her won’t have a chance to come pouring out.

“Um, I don’t know—“ she says. “Maybe the one where my head hurts and my brothers are fucking insane and everyone else is acting like this is somehow the opportunity of a lifetime instead of remembering that my dad just fucking died.”

Karolina can’t hide her reaction to that admission, because it’s probably the most honest Shiv has been since it happened, and her reaction alone is enough for Shiv to break open wide again because it’s all so much and she’s only one fucking person. Karolina mumbles a soft, “Hey,” and wraps her arms tightly around Shiv, and Shiv doesn’t think she can do anything but succumb, just throw her face into Karolina’s chest and just be. Be fucking sad. She doesn’t forget the fact that her minutes are dwindling down, and there’s no chance she’s making it to the next meeting put together, but she supposes she’ll just have to deal with that punch the way she deals with all of them, absorbing them and harnessing the anger for later. Then Karolina’s speaking, but not to her.

“Hey, Sarah?” Karolina’s voice rings out. She’s on the phone. “Yeah—PR needs Shiv for something urgent—Yes, that’s fine—”

There’s a light mumbling on the other end, and Shiv can feel Karolina’s chest rise and fall with haste as she huffs.

“Well, if Andy has a problem with it then tell him that he should be more concerned about the emails he’s been opening on his work computer than presenting a slideshow without the President holding his hand—Yes, you can tell him I said that,” Karolina says. “Great, thank you, Sarah.”

There’s a moment of silence after Karolina hangs up, Shiv now not sure whether she’s crying out of the looming sadness, adoration, or pure relief.

“What’s in his email?” Shiv asks, because she’s upset, sure, but she’s still a gossip.

“Porn,” Karolina says, evident disdain in her voice. “The dumbass.”

Shiv laughs very halfheartedly, more at the audacity that the men in this building always seem to possess, but the small ounce of amusement doesn’t last long against the stronger emotions still sitting deep inside her.

“You have forty minutes,” Karolina says lightly.

“How many do you have?” Shiv asks, because of course she doesn’t want Karolina to leave, though she wouldn’t dare say those exact words out loud. She can see out of the corner of her eye as Karolina pulls her phone out again, typing briefly and then swiping through a couple of apps, selecting things that Shiv can’t make out.

“I,” Karolina says, making one final tap, “have forty minutes, too.”

She puts her phone away and when her hand returns it lands softly on the back of Shiv’s head, Karolina immediately running her fingers soothingly through Shiv’s hair. Shiv will say thank you later, when the prying eyes aren’t around and the threat of mass destruction via business acumen doesn’t seem so unbeatable, and for now, she just accepts the small ounce of comfort granted to her, grateful to have at least one person on her side.

[gemsofgreece]

You remember the dreadful situation with the 12 year old girl from Kolono who was forced into pr*stitution? Okay a movie now reminded me of it and it's called "Sound of Freedom". It's a heavy but important movie about child trafficking but there's something strange going on...cinemas refuse to release it and sabotage it like turning off air conditioning, online shows sold out places when in fact they are empty, movie glitches so people in general leave the theatre.

It's almost as if people in power like Hollywood don't want us to see it and the problem is that this movie who brings awareness to this topic is viewed as "conspiracy theory" when it's not.

I don't know when society has come to this but nowadays they try to normalise it and a small country like Greece has many evidence of it...

I had to do a little bit of research about this. I believe there must be a conspiracy theory behind all the sabotage accusations, at least up to a degree. Here's why: the film was produced by a Latin American subdivision of 20th Century Fox. Disney bought Fox and - perhaps unsurprisingly - they shelved the movie. Clearly, Disney did not want to tackle any of this. However, the filmmakers gathered donations and they were able to buy the movie's release rights back from Disney. They then approached Angel Studios, a new production studio which operates with equity crowdfunding and Sound of Freedom is only its second theatrically released movie. They are a small and new company, which explains why the film was released in few cinemas and there was not much press about it.

As for the sabotage itself, I doubt it is true because in such cases, the powerful people have a way to operate much more quickly and effectively. Either Disney would not sell the movie at all or Hollywood would have somehow prevented the movie's release from the beginning. They would certainly not wait for viewers to see half the movie and then start filling the theatre halls with smoke or whatever else is claimed in those videos. Don't forget that one who has seen half the movie has ways of seeing the rest of it by buying, renting it, streaming it or even pirating it after all. My point is, nobody is effectively prevented from watching the movie this way. If they wanted it, they would simply not allow it to be released. The Head of Angel Studios said there is no truth in such claims and that on the contrary more theaters start playing the movie ever since its surprising initial commercial success.

And again, the truly powerful do not operate so stupidly. On the contrary, they can use this to their advantage. According to Wikipedia, guys like Mel Gibson, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have all endorsed the film. Trump will also host a special screening to which the filmakers and cast are invited.

This story is unrelated to Greece but Greece is in a dire situation as proven by this crime you mentioned. Anon refers to an uncovered crime of child trafficking, when a 12 year old girl was repeatedly forced into prostitution with the parts ignorance - parts tolerance of her family. Her pimp was a friend of the family, a seemingly lawful small market owner who somehow has too many connections to wealthy people and actors.............. makes you wonder. Her case moves slow as a snail and too little information is on the press lately. 25 men have been arrested but there are rumours that there are many more and those caught were the easier targets.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball GT 55

✨GT Stands For Gushing Tang✨

This is the one where Bulma proposes a way for Vegeta to become a Super Saiyan 4.  I think it’s one of the most memorable episodes of the series, especially among the Vegebul side of the fandom, because... well, it’s the only episode to really focus on Vegebul in any real way. 

Unfortunately, the dirty little secret of Episode 55 is that it’s just a glorified clip show.

So we open with Goku and Nuova Shenron powering up for their big boy fight, and Vegeta can sense Goku using Super Saiyan 4 power, so he rushes off to join the battle.  Bulma pleads for him to stay put, and when he refuses, she asks him if he can win.  I guess that convinces him not to leave, because...

We smash cut to Vegeta training on a bike.  I remembered this opening pretty well, but I didn’t recall it being so ridiculously fast-paced.  One second Vegeta’s outside, and then he’s suddenly here.  For a moment I wondered if this was a flashback. 

So Vegeta gets so frustrated that he tears up the bike and goes to take a shower.  Then he checks in on Bulma, who reveals that she’s working on a way to turn him into a Super Saiyan 4. 

The theory is pretty simple. During the Baby Saga, Bulma used a Blutz Wave Amplifier to turn Baby into an Oozaru, compensating for the absence of Vegeta’s tail.  It worked, and Bulma kept the design specs after they returned from the Tuffle Planet.  So she proposes using this same technology on Vegeta.  This will turn him into a giant ape, and since Vegeta was always able to control himself in ape mode, he should turn into a Super Saiyan 4 immediately, whereas Goku needed a whole episode and Pan’s tears to get him where he needed to be. 

Vegeta points out that if this were going to work, then Baby should have turned Super Saiyan 4, but he never did.  Bulma believes that Baby’s cells prevented the SSJ4 transformation.  Now that Vegeta’s body is purged of the Tuffle infestation, it should work just as well as it would for Goku. 

Then Vegeta asks why he never turned SSJ4 back when he had a tail.  This seems like a silly question, one that the dub managed to avoid altogether somehow.  I mean, the answer is that a Saiyan has to be able to control themselves in ape mode and have the Super Saiyan form at their disposal.  Vegeta’s only ever been able to do one or the other until now, so of course he didn’t turn SSJ4 back when he first invaded Earth.

Then again, this show never really spells it out, so maybe it’s worth bringing up.  Bulma speculates that Vegeta “didn’t have enough training” back then, which is true enough, but it kind of ducks the point that he wasn’t a Super Saiyan until after he lost his tail. 

The only Super Saiyan we know of who could do both at once was this nutty little character.  And I guess you could ask why this one never went Super Saiyan 4, but... yeah, nobody’s got time to go over that.

Anyway, Vegeta’s all thrilled to try out Bulma’s plan, since it promises to put Vegeta back in the lead.  During this episode, Vegeta says that he gave up chasing after Goku like he did in DBZ, but he still wants to push himself to get stronger, and Goku’s mastery of Super Saiyan 3 and 4 has clearly demonstrated that there’s a lot more Vegeta could accomplish, if only he knew how.  So after all these years, it seems like the path has been opened for him.  He’s even talking about Super Saiyan 5 like it’s a thing.  

And Bulma’s like “Yeah, I’m your wife, wink!”  Now that I think about it, she probably only worked on this because she heard from Chi-Chi how amazing Super Saiyan 4 Goku is in bed. 

✨"Good" "Ideas", Poorly Executed✨

So let’s talk about the problem here.  Turning Vegeta into a Super Saiyan 4 isn’t all that complex a proposition.  It takes Bulma about two minutes to explain it, so why did they dedicate an entire episode to this?

A large, large chunk of Episode 55 is devoted to flashbacks.  We basically cover Vegeta’s entire run in DBZ.  The first fight with Goku, his death on Namek, the second fight with Goku, his reconciliation with Goku during the Buu saga, it’s all here.  And honestly the flashbacks are a lot longer than they really need to be.  A lot of this material was used in three different flashback-heavy episodes of the Buu Saga, and the clips were a lot shorter back then.  They only had to establish how Vegeta felt about Goku.  This time, it’s like they’re just using the scenes to pad out the runtime.  For example, we see the part where Goku asks Babidi to take them somewhere away from innocent bystanders.  That isn’t exactly critical to this episode, which is about how Goku keeps surpassing Vegeta. 

Now that I think about it, they really should have trimmed some of this stuff down and made room for Goku battling Cell, and Vegeta being all despondent when Goku died.  It matters more than Vegeta dying to Majin Buu, I think. 

I could complain that Toei did a clip show for no other reason than to cut corners, but I think there probably was a valid concern that viewers might not understand Vegeta’s motivations at this point.  When GT first began, there was a deliberate effort to keep the older supporting characters in the background.  Tien, Yamcha, Piccolo, and Vegeta were mostly absent from the series.  I think the only reason Vegeta got as much screen time as he did was because he was Trunks’ father, and he literally lives at Capsule Corp. Also, they needed his body to power up Baby, but I don’t count Baby’s possession of Vegeta as legitimate Vegeta appearances. 

The thing is, as the series wore on, and they were compelled to bring the show back to Earth and focus on epic battles, Toei re-learned the same lesson that Toriyama figured out with DBZ.  Vegeta’s just too useful to be ignored for long.  If you want to kill him off or write him out of the story, that’s fine, but when Super 17 is wreaking havoc on Earth, and Vegeta lives on Earth, it doesn’t make much sense for him to sit this one out.  He enjoys fighting, and he’s usually strong enough to make a contribution, even when he’s outclassed.  Not involving Vegeta is kind of a plot hole.  In that regard, it made a lot of sense to go the Grand Tour in outer space, because that kept the main cast they wanted to focus on far removed from the other characters that they didn’t want to use. 

 But now we’re back on Earth, and the Shadow Dragons are going o wreck everything, so why should Vegeta stay out of it?  And Toei might have come up with a reason to keep him on the sidelines, but they wanted to do a Gogeta episode, so that only works if you have Vegeta ready for action.  And if they had planned all this out better, then Vegeta would have already been established and ready to go.  As it is, however, Vegeta’s barely appeared in GT, and most of the appearances he’s made have just been him playing a grumpy dad.  His rivalry with Goku and his backstory as a former villain are barely mentioned until Episode 55.  

So I think Toei started preparing for this climactic battle and they realized that they needed Vegeta in the mix, and then they realized that younger viewers might not understand who Vegeta was, so they had to reintroduce him in a hurry.  And this goes to show how slipshod this series really is.  Hey, remember Trunks?

After the GT crew returned to Earth, he sort of got lost in the shuffle, but he still shows up in the opening credits.  But now he hasn’t even appeared on this show since Episode 48.  He’ll be back, but only as part of the jobber squad featuring Goten, Gohan, and Uub.  I just find it kind of funny how they started out with this bold plan to make him one of the three main guys on this show, and now we’re on Episode 55, and his dad has basically stolen his spot. 

And this is what’s fundamentally wrong with GT.  People like this show, and they like Super Saiyan 4, and they like that Vegeta got to become a Super Saiyan 4, and that’s fine.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  My point here is that this show started out doing a mostly Vegeta-free concept, and then it flip-flopped back to the classic formula with Vegeta as the deuteragonist.   One is a bold, perhaps risky choice, and the other is a safer-but-popular choice.  But by failing to commit to either path, GT ends up failing both. 

Like, Dragon Ball Super went full throttle on Vegeta as the deuteragonist.  Beginning, middle, end, the whole series was very clear that it was all about Goku and Vegeta.  That made the show very consistent in that respect, and I know that there are fans who don’t like Vegeta, but I think the consistency is worth displeasing them.  It would be nice to point to GT as a show where they went the other direction, except GT failed to do that.  They steered clear of Vegeta for a while, and then started using him anyway.  And if anyone liked GT Trunks, well, too bad, because he pretty much peters out after Episode 28.

✨Positivity Page✨

Sometimes I joke that this is my favorite episode of GT, because 80% of it is a DBZ highlight reel.   And they’re good clips, but I don’t know, it’s kind of pointless when I can just watch DBZ whenever I want. 

It’s also nice to see Bulma helping Vegeta this way, but there’s just so little to see here.  Her plan is basically all the same stuff she explained to Baby back in Episode 35. And she has to go over it again later on, when she actually uses her machine to make Vegeta a Super Saiyan 4.  So there’s really not much to make this episode worthwhile. 

✨Is This Episode Worse than "The Roaming Lake"?✨

I’m kind of melding these two segments together, because I think it really is a glass-half-full/glass-half-empty kind of thing.  The clips from Z are good clips, and the Vegebul interaction is good for what it is, but it’s all stuff we’ve seen before.  Hell, this isn’t even the best Vegeta shower scene we’ve ever seen. 

It’s all a lot of reruns, and I’m not very fond of that.  Also, this episode is structured in such a way to suggest that we’re gearing up for some epic Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta action later, and maybe he’ll have that big rematch with Goku down the road.  Well there is no “down the road”, because this show goes off the air in a few months.  Thematically, this episode is a lot like the one where Bulma nurses Vegeta back to health after he breaks the spaceship, and he has that dream about not being able to turn Super Saiyan.  But that episode worked because there was an entire Androids/Cell Saga to allow Vegeta to show off the results of his hard work.  GT 55 is ultimately just in service to GT Episodes 59-61, which just isn’t enough to justify this.

Say what you will about the Roaming Lake, but it managed to avoid a lot of useless flashbacks.  I think there were a few flashbacks to the world tournament, but they didn’t take up half the episode.  TRL wins again, 56-0.

✨The Blade Braxton Memorial Haiku*✨

Meanwhile, Goku’s still

Powering up this whole time.

Just get on with it.

[justmanic03]

Amethyst - Chapter Twelve

A/N: As I've said a few times life has been kicking me up the bootyhole as of late, and I've run into a bit of writers block as a result ;-;.... I really wanted to get a chapter out though, apologies that nothing MAJOR happens here but it's packed with humour and fun (also please comfort Lisa, she really needs it here)

Mackenzie was the one to break the awkward silence following Lisa's outburst. "I guess we should start trying to get down the mountain?" There was a pause before I nodded, along with Lisa, who was visibly dejected. As she trailed behind us, her head hung low as we began our descent down the slippery pathways. Stalagus led the way, letting out a squeak to let us know every time we reached a dangerous point. As the path to Krodania became visible, we were able to jump off certain ridges and land softly on the snow. As Mackenzie ventured ahead, I felt a tap on the back of my shoulder. I turned around, and Lisa was whispering, "Thanks for standing up for me back there."

"Don't mention it," I shrugged my shoulders.

"No, I mean it. Nobody's ever stuck up for me like that before."

"What about Mackenzie?" I queried.

"Nah, he's too much of a pansy. Completely clams up whenever he's faced with confrontation."

"I heard that!" An angry Mackenzie growled, eliciting a slight chuckle from the two of us.

"You're pretty tough though, as a person as well as in battle. You'd make an excellent Team Moon grunt for sure."

"Yeah, about that, Lisa, there's something I need to tell-"

I was abruptly cut off by an earthquaking roar that completely shook the mountain and knocked us all over onto our backs. The sound had caused the snow to blow upwards, dusting in our eyes. The feathers of the terrifying bird were initiating a whirlwind as it glared down at the three of us with beady blue eyes. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS THING?!" Lisa screamed out.

"IT'S ARTICUNO! A LEGENDARY ICE POKEMON!" Mack called in response, though his voice was mostly drowned out by the noise from the Pokemon and rumbles from the ground.

We immediately threw out our Pokeballs. Lily, Hydroxica and Lisa's Gryffin paled in comparison to the legendary Pokemon hovering above them. However, I was determined that we at least stood a chance. The rage inside of me that had been ignited by Harp Girl, and her elitist attitude only served to fuel my determination.

I decided to make the first move and hit the bird with a new normal-type move I had taught to Lily myself rather than by TR, Aegis.

Gladlily used Aegis! The opposing Articuno's defence harshly fell!

"Lisa! Do a powerful fire attack!" I commanded. Ironically, the usually dominant Lisa just complied, and proceeded to use Fire Fang. Although it was supereffective, it only knocked Articuno's HP down by a tiny 8%. Mackenzie was next to attack, using Waterfall. The bird shook its feathers in protest, before using Brave Bird against Lily.

Gladlily fainted!

I proceeded to then send out Zelda. In the meantime, Mackenzie had already achieved two hits on the Pokemon using his Hydroxica. Yet, for some reason, Lisa was holding back. This was so unlike her.

***

Several minutes passed, a slew of attacks were exchanged between both sides until Articuno became weak enough to be captured. Mackenzie yelled out, "Articuno is weak! Y/N, throw a Pokeball now!"

I hesitated for a second, and then turned towards Lisa. "Do you want to catch him?" I asked. She stared back, clearly not expecting this, yet she nodded anyway, and threw out a Great Ball. After three tries, Lisa had managed to capture the legendary Pokemon. "Thanks... but why me?" She asked.

"Because what that girl said seemed to have really rattled you. I thought catching a legendary Pokemon might help you feel better." I explained.

Lisa eyed me suspiciously, before shaking her head. "You're not being honest with me, Y/N. You let me catch it because you feel sorry for me because I'm not as powerful as you or Mackenzie."

"N-no, that's not it at all!" Mackenzie protested. "You're the one who trained me up. How can you say that, Lisa?"

"Because it's true." She sat down on the floor and proceeded to cross her legs. "I'm no use to either of you. Or to Team Moon. I'm always the last to pass each gym challenge of all of us."

"You're still faster than Danny." I remarked. Mackenzie nodded in agreement.

A smirk grew on her face. She couldn't hide her amusement. "Yeah, that's true. That guy only ever goes on about how strong he is. I don't care for him at all,"

"Anyway, that doesn't matter." I continued. "Articuno is yours now. And you must be pretty special since he let you catch him, being a Legendary and all."

"Y/N's right. So come on, Lisa! We've got a Steel Gym to take on! And you've still got to face off Danny!" Mack encouraged.

The purple haired girl smiled, before rising to her feet once again. "You're right. I'm no use to Team Moon whilst I'm down in the dumps. Let's rock on!"

I knew this wasn't the right time to tell her the truth, but I also knew in the front of my mind that I couldn't let her go on for much longer thinking that Team Moon were heroes. Now that I had heard it directly from an Elite Four member, there was no doubt in my mind, Team Moon were dangerous.

***

"So this is Krodania?" Lisa asked, marvelling at the modern city behind the gates.

"Yep. Pretty cool, right?" Mack asked.

This particular city was very modern, with electric trains running across tracks in the sky. They reminded me of roller coasters as they whizzed in all directions at an incredible velocity.

Krodania was known for being the hub of inventions and innovations amongst Taldoursians. There were even ancient coal mines with plenty of treasure down there. It reminded me of the Galar Mine I had seen on TV, where years back Flossi and Kossi had posed for a photograph with Chairman Rose, holding amethysts and sapphires, which were later used in the making of their Champion's Crowns.

"Hey Slowkings and Slowqueens!" A familiar voice called from behind the three of us. We all spun around to see Danny jogging towards us.

"Hey Danny, how's the badge collecting coming along?"

"Pfft! Easy! I just came from the big hill at the back of the Church and battled about fifteen trainers there. Crushed the lot of 'em without barely lifting a finger." He crossed his arms triumphantly. Although I rolled my eyes at his smugness, a part of me was relieved that he had bounced back to his normal self after being defeated by Mackenzie the day before.

"Aha, now that's the Danny we all know!" I patted him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, good job, pal!" Mack chimed in.

"Thanks guys, so I guess you're all headed into the Steel Gym to take on Maddie, huh?"

"Yeah that's right." Lisa said, although her tone was still somewhat glum. "I'm going to let Y/N and Mackenzie get in there first, though. Still got to train up that legendary Articuno of mine,"

Danny's eyes widened. "You caught Articuno?!" He gasped.

"Yep, it was on the mountain. Y/N and Mack were there to back me up, but I did most of the work." She boasted.

Mackenzie and I exchanged a knowing look that she was embellishing the truth.

"I believe you guys still have yet to battle!" I interjected.

"Oh yeah, I was gonna ask you about that." Danny scratched the back of his head.

"Why do you keep touching your hair like that? You have nits or something?" Lisa inquired.

We all burst out laughing, except for Danny of course, who just looked on in horror. She really was a head case. I bid my opponents goodbye, and as Danny and Lisa prepared for their battle, I headed into the Steel Gym to get my Steel Badge.

[morlock-holmes]

I wanted to emphasize that I really don't disagree with the OP; it's a tremendously important point.

I just feel that the allistic people who say it almost universally underestimate the scope of the problem.

Suppose I was learning English as a second language, and I say to you, "Hey, how do I make plural nouns?"

You might say something like,

"Well, there's no single one way to make a plural noun. English is kind of irregular about this and it's going to depend on the specific noun you mean. In fact, even native speakers will often use the incorrect plural when confronted with an unknown noun."

Everything you just said is 100% true.

And I have no idea how to make a plural noun.

And what happens when I listen to enough English and realize that in the vast majority of cases adding an "s" onto the end of the noun is correct, and in the minority of cases where it isn't correct people will understand what I mean and be able to correct me?

I have experience in this:

I'm going to be pissed off at you for your utter inability to speak clearly about something that you actually know about.

Here's a story:

Once upon a time, back in, oh, 90 or 91, I would have been in first or second grade, and I was standing in line at school singing a song from a My Little Pony cartoon that I liked. Another boy asked what it was about and I told him and he and another boy made fun of me for liking My Little Pony.

Now, we live in more enlightened times; when I talk about that with people today, they say that's very sad and those boys shouldn't have done that.

I have never, ever, not once in my life found an allistic person who was surprised by that story.

Because, at least in my memory, and in the memory of dozens of other similar incidents, I was surprised! After all, we talked about Ninja Turtles, why shouldn't I talk about another cartoon that I like?

And hey, you allistic people didn't get the rulebook either, there's no consensus in America, so I bet, like, at least half of you will be as shocked as I was back then? You'll be just as surprised as I was that boys weren't supposed to like girl things, right? And how come that second boy joined in? Isn't it crazy that I found two little boys in 1990 who thought it was funny for a boy to like My Little Pony even though they didn't have any kind of rule book either?

Funny how that kind of thing doesn't actually play out that way.

Funny how I keep running into situations where everybody tells me that there's no consensus and no rulebook but somehow 90% of the people I meet act the same in that same situation.

It's funny how often I meet people who tell me that I don't even need to be looking for a rule or pattern because there aren't any and then, 10 minutes later, tell me what an outlier I am, and that maybe I should consider trying to fit in a little more.

By funny, I of course mean god damned infuriating. Sometimes I want to hit people about it.

America has, genuinely and truly, way less consensus on what "appropriate" behavior is than it did 60 years ago. The scope of appropriate behavior has also expanded. When my dad was a kid random people would give him shit if his hair was shaggy enough to grow past the ears. Today I work in a formal restaurant and wear two foot-long braids and nobody bats an eye. Honestly even in my childhood society was so sexist that I am surprised that I've gotten nothing but compliments.

But what has also happened, and there is profound denial about this, is that when people do have concrete expectations of others, they are much worse at articulating those expectations than they used to be. There is more expectation that you conform yourself to the expectations of others by intuiting those expectations, rather than having them explained to you, even in cases where they can be easily explained. There is a profound discomfort, on the part of allistics, (Particularly younger and more left-wing allistics) with articulating what they expect from the people around them.

I cannot emphasize this enough: This is the case even when the allistic person in question has incredibly concrete expectations.

My autistic peeps, I have one bit of advice for you.

Be extremely selective about who you accept social rule feedback from.

Most autistic folks I know tie themselves up in knots, trying to figure out this social rule book that everybody else seems to have gotten, that they didn't get. In fact a lot of the "rigidity" that I see other therapists complaining about can be put down to the natural effects of people trying really hard to find one goddamn rule that will stay put.

The thing is- most people walk around as if they have the one universal, unassailable, common-sense rule book for social interaction.

And they are utterly full of shit.

In the US in particular there is incredibly low consensus about how people should behave. Just go post on twitter about whether it is or is not rude to wear your shoes in someone's house, or as a 70 year old and a 20 year old about phone etiquette. That's before we get into other demographic differences. Don't even get me started on "professionalism".

Neurotypical people get that feedback to, but are, on average, way more able to flag it as either 1) a rule for working with that person/similar people 2) bullshit. NOT as a universal rule they should have already known, that they should feel bad about not already knowing.

The number of things that people actually universally agree on is really low.

So when people give you feedback that the social rule they expect you to follow is obvious, they are often being a total dick.

Ask questions, look for patterns in specific settings, and make sure you've worked on your values enough to have a reasonable ecosystem of guiding principles.

But remember that nobody has that rule book.

[todoshotoroki]

𝘽𝙖𝙠𝙪𝙜𝙤𝙪 𝙜𝙚𝙩'𝙨 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙝𝙚'𝙨 𝙟𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙨

Warnings: smut, light spanking, heavy degradation, sub f bodied reader x Bakugou.〤 Minors DNI

Word count: 1.7k 

   Katsuki didn't like sharing. He made it very clear, the things that were his were not to be touched. Now, this didn't mean he wasn't good at hiding things. Nobody could have known that you and the great Bakugou Katsuki had been fucking behind everyone's back. So while he couldn't exactly show you off, he had other ways to make sure you'd always come back to him.

   So you should have known better then to start hanging around that fucking nerd.

   You should have known he would have found out, how Izuku Midoryia would walk into the common room absolutely swooning about the wonderful chat you two had together in the elevator just moments before. You had been on your way to class, and happened to pass each other on the way out. 

   It was harmless, really. Izuku was a good friend to you.

   Bakugou had to teach you a lesson. That was why he waited outside for your class to finish, before wordlessly grabbing your hand and pulling you down the hallway that was packed with students. You tried multiple times to avoid eye contact with anyone else, Katsuki was literally holding your hand for the first time in public. Plus, it only added to the suspicion when he yanked open the nearest janitor closet, pulling you inside and slamming it shut. He clicked the lock into place.

   “So are you going to explain, Bakugou? You do realize everyone just saw that right?” Your voice was irritated, and you crossed your arms over your chest. Clearly, you weren't happy. That didn't matter to him though, he wasn't here to make you happy right now. “Don't talk” He said, taking a step forward to grab your backpack, pushing it past your shoulders and onto the floor. “Excuse me? What do you think-”

   His face instantly turned into a scowl, and his hand came up to grip tightly onto your jaw, the pads of his fingers and the tips of his nails digging into your cheeks. “Shut your mouth before I fucking shut it for you” He growled, leaning close to your face to make sure you could hear him clear enough. “You think your so fucking hot, hiding away in an elevator with that fucking idiot. You wanted to make me jealous? That why? Fucking brat” The closet was dark, but his piercing red eyes burned into yours as he pushed you all the way to the back of the wall. 

   “W-What are you talking about? I wasn't flirting with Izuku-” Your protest was interrupted by a harsh slap to the cheek, your face lurching to the side from the impact. “Say his name one more fucking time, I dare you little girl” 

   This was new. Katuski had always been dominant, it was his personality. Though, you had never seen him practically seething with jealousy. Your thighs were already getting sticky. “B-but I really wasn't” You weakly defended yourself as Katsuki’s free hand traveled down to your skirt, shoving it down past your hips. “B-b-but i-i-” He mocked your voice harshly, his fingers reaching behind you to roughly grab at your ass, before landing another harsh smack to your lower cheek. 

   “Your so fucking dumb, you don't even realize the effect you have on people. You need glasses? Huh four eyes? Couldn't see how he was gushing over your little talk today?” His grip on your jaw slowly slid down your neck and across your throat, pinching the sides between his thumb and index finger. Enough to hurt, but air still flowed to your lungs. “Maybe I just have to show you baby. You were a virgin when i first fucked you, my little virgin, right?” 

   “Y-yeah, Katsuki, please..” Your face burned in shame, but you couldn't deny the desperation he made you feel. It was so hot to see him all bothered like this, how possessive he could be. You weren't even publicly dating yet.

   “Guess ill just have to show you that I'm the first and last cock you'll ever fucking have” His hand came down to unbuckle his belt, yanking it off his hips and letting his jeans fall to the floor. “The only fucking one that can make you cum baby” He let go of his grip on your neck, instead placing both hands on your hips and turning you around to press your breasts up against the cold wall. It wasn't cold for long though, because Katsuki’s burning hot hand slithered between your shirt and the wall to grope at your breasts, pushing your bra up your chest.

   His knee parted your thighs, his foot kicking each of your ankles to spread them. “Open your fucking legs” He grunted in your ear, his free hand gripping tighter on your hip. You weren't sure when he took his briefs off, but you could feel the throbbing head of his cock parting your folds to rub up against your clit. “Katsukiii- Just fuck me already” You begged in a small whine, tilting your head back to lean up on his shoulder.

   Bakugou leaned down to press a loud, sloppy, wet kiss to your lips as he began to gently fuck his cock between your thighs. “You want me to fuck you baby girl? You sure you deserve this cock? You've been naughty, so fucking naughty” He growled in your ear as he began to teasingly fuck himself between your thighs, smearing his precum all over your soft skin, painting them white in his milky substance. 

   “Yes, yes please, I want it Suki, I want you nooow” Your whine was switched into a sing-songy tone. You reached between your legs, your fingers dancing on the tip of Bakugou's cock as it rubbed at your clit each time he fucked himself between your thighs. His hard cock throbbed between your legs for attention, and his breathing shuttered at your touch.

    “Naughty girl” He muttered, pulling his cock back just enough to push it as far as he could go into your pussy.

   “Fuck, Fuck, your so tight baby” He groaned, his arms circling tightly around your waist as he felt the weight of your body slack against his at the sudden intrusion of his cock. “K-Katsu- you- you went all the way in-inside” Tears pricked at the corner of your eyes, Katsuki leaned forward, his tongue rolling across your salty cheek to lap up your fallen tears. “Yeah baby, it's because you've been such a bad girl, gotta show you, gotta.. Fuck, gotta teach you to be good”  

   He pulled almost all the way out, just barely emptying you before slamming his cock back into your guts. He instantly hit the right angle, his cock filling you so perfectly and hitting you in all the right spaces. One of the lewdest moans you've ever heard fell past his lips and slipped right into your ear, and you were so thankful his mouth was right next to your ear.

    “Your such a fucking slut, getting my cock wet like this”

“Katsu- Katsuki wait-”

   No, only good girls were able to make demands, and you had infuriated Bakugou Katsuki to the point where even now he was holding back from fucking you too harsh, constantly aware if he was setting his quirk off or not. He almost wanted to say fuck it. 

   Too fast? Too harsh? Too deep?

   “Too fucking bad, your my little bitch right now” He growled, his movements speeding up and causing a new course of pleasure to shoot through both of your bodies. He reached up with his left hand, gripping your jaw and tilting your head to press a sloppy kiss onto your lips, roughly digging his teeth into your bottom lip as the sounds of smacking skin echoed in the room. “You- you’re so mean Kacchan” Maybe he was, but the way your pussy clenched and desperately sucked at his cock told him how much you were enjoying yourself.

   “No, no I think you're the mean one. Letting dumbass Deku think he has a chance with you- no fucking way” His sentence ended in a growl as the hand on your jaw returned to its place around your throat. “Not that he’d ever want you if he knew the truth- if he knew how much you loved fuckin’ creamin’ all over my cock, hah, fuck” His movements sped up, your legs felt tingly and the knot of ecstasy begin to pile in your stomach. 

   “‘M sorry, ‘m sorry Katsuki, please make me cum, please” Your words were weak, pathetic little whines tumbling helplessly past your lips. “M so sorry, I won't do it again, just please” God you sounded so hot. Your voice sounded so hot. The wet sounds the mixture of his dick in your pussy made together were so fucking hot. 

   “Dirty little girl, aren't you ashamed to be cumin all over me? All over my cock?” Katsuki couldn't deny his own release approaching, but he held off for that beautiful moment when you finished together. “No, betcha get off on it, you sick, twisted slut. My cheap little whore” 

   He knew when your head leaned back into his shoulder and your hand reached behind to grab the base of his hair, that you were cumming. As if the tightening around his cock wasn't already enough intel. On top of that, you knew what pulling his hair did to him, you knew, you dirty little succubus- 

   “Fuck baby, that's it, cum all over me, cum all over my cock sexy” His hips sputtered as you both came, his cock vibrating inside your pulsating walls as he shot out long spurts of semen inside of you. “So good ‘Suki, so good inside of me”

   Both of you spent a few moments panting, catching your breaths. Bakugou laid his head on your shoulder, placing kisses along your collarbone. With a breathy chuckle, he was reminded of the hectic hallway just outside. Surely there would be rumors now, rumors that would reach Izuku Midoryia and crush every single one of his hopes and dreams. 

   Slowly, he lifted his head up to smile at you. “Hey, dumbass” He said with a cocky grin. 

   “What would people say if they knew you were such a slut for me?”

𝐼𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒:  "𝙇𝙪𝙨𝙩, 𝙆𝙖𝙩𝙨𝙪𝙠𝙞, 𝙡𝙪𝙨𝙩”

𝑂𝑟 𝑚𝑎𝑦𝑏𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑑 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑘 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 ♡

© all copy rights reserved, do not claim, copy, or repost

[felinedetached]

Fandom Ableism in the MCYT Community

[Edited 14 June 2021]

One thing I’ve noticed about the MCYT (Dream SMP, specifically) community on both Tumblr and Twitter is that when informed of things that are ableist, or harmful to ND people, a lot of people ignore the post/tweet, derail it or actively fight against it.

“I’m ND so I can’t be ableist” is a common statement, which is blatantly untrue. Even I’ve used ableist terms and phrases before, without realising they were harmful. So as a neurodivergent person, with autism, BPD, depression/anxiety, dyslexia, psychosis & brain damage*: here’s some common ableist things both CCs and fandom say almost constantly**.

*note that not every neurodivergent person will agree with me on these, but these are commonly ableist things people have previously talked about online, and/or have been discussed between me and other neurodivergent friends. No minority can ever speak for the entire group.

**note that a lot of these are common outside the MCYT community as well, and that some of these are just considered societally acceptable. This isn’t okay, but it explains why a lot of people don’t recognise jokes or comments like these are wrong, and it means that it’s not a direct moral failing of people that they don’t immediately or directly recognise these comments as wrong.

Now, let’s get into the things you might not have realised are potentially ableist:

1. Use of “Psychopath/Psycho/Sociopath/Schizo” and other demeaning terms for people with mental illnesses as insults, or to describe characters who are considered villainous. Psychopath/Psycho/Sociopath are already terms that people with ASPD dislike using, even not as an insult, but using these terms to describe people or characters who you disagree with or see as villainous only contributes to the villainisation of people with ASPD and other mental illnesses. Using c!Dream as an example: Dream as a character is not confirmed to have any of these mental illnesses. He is, however, commonly labeled as psychotic/psychopathic, incapable of any kind of compassion.

He is also a character that fandom largely insists that nobody is allowed to sympathise with. This is a huge issue, and has hurt a lot of people, especially people with low empathy, or mental illnesses that cause them to relate to some of c!Dream’s actions (e.g. pulling away from all his friends, desperately grasping at straws to gain control of situations etc). Insisting that these characters are characters it’s impossible to sympathise with, all while calling them psychotic/psychopathic/sociopathic, is extremely harmful, and I hope this post draws attention to that.

Here’s another post that talks about that.

2. Use of the term “freak”, in general. As an insult, “freak” has been typically used to insult neurodivergent people, people with visible physical disabilities (ex. “freakshow”, and the term was reportedly created with the intent of insulting people with physical disabilities), or people who display any kind of abnormal/atypical social behaviour/physical aspects — people who are usually ND people who lack a diagnosis or people with physical disabilities. Recent usage has come to mean “people who do things that hurt other people”, but this is harmful as well; using words like “freak” or “weirdo” which mean “socially atypical behaviour” to refer to people who are actually doing things that hurt other people conflates the two, and often has a side effect of hurting disabled people who see it.

3. Calling ND ccs like Technoblade monotone/emotionless. While the term “monotone” isn’t ableist in and of itself, the fact that it’s being used against a neurodivergent man who emotes in a different way to neurotypical people rubs a lot of ND people the wrong way. I’ve partially discussed this here, in a tweet responding to a person who said that c!Technoblade, quote, “has no human capabilities like emotion for example”. This, however, is not something contained to c!Technoblade — one of the most common jokes in this fandom is how rare it is to hear emotion in Technoblade’s voice.

The issue with that is that neurodivergent people almost universally agree that Technoblade emotes perfectly fine, and, in fact, emotes more freely and clearly than a lot of others do. Hence, calling him monotone perpetuates the idea of ND people as emotionless/less able to be hurt/less expressive, which often hurts us. It also contributes to the dehumanisation of ND people — related to how ND symptoms are most often seen in robots or monsters in shows — and is generally extremely harmful, on top of being untrue.

4. Related to point 3: the infantilisation of ND ccs like Tubbo and Dream, usually paired with assigning “caretakers” of their friends, like Tommy and George. This is about the posts that spread like “omg, Tommy helps Tubbo with his dyslexia, that’s so cute” or “omg George is so patient with Dream, I could never sit through that” on videos of Dream vocally stimming because of his ADHD. This is another post that talks about this, but I wanted to talk more about why this is harmful here.

4a) With Tubbo’s dyslexia, from someone with dyslexia, it isn’t harmful to correct his spelling and move on. Personally, I think this is helpful — others will think it’s condescending, because not all ND people are the same — but as the above linked post mentions, this is not what Tubbo’s twitch chat does. This is not what the comments say. It’s all things about how it’s “so cute” that Tubbo can’t spell, how Tommy/Ranboo are “so patient” with correcting him. This is rooted in the need to constantly watch over ND people while acting like we can't live our lives without someone having us under constant vigilance. It feels like savior-complex ableism, like people are trying so hard to not be ableist that they spin back around to hurting us instead. And it feels like we are being treated like children. Like we are lesser than, and need to be monitored/watched over.

4b) Similarly to what people do with Tubbo, the comments on posts about Dream’s vocal stimming are often full of people calling George “patient” for “dealing with it”, or claiming they “wouldn’t be able to handle it”. This is inherently ableist. They’re praising George for basic human decency towards ND people, and claiming in the same breath that they wouldn’t be able to do that themselves. And then there’s these.

These comments infantilise Dream — claiming he “wouldn’t be able to stop/calm down” without George’s help, implying he’d “spiral out of control” or claiming “everyone is now my child”. It’s all related to the infantilisation of ND people, and the belief that without help/a caretaker we cannot take care of ourselves.

5. The way people treat ccs who likely have undiagnosed neurodivergencies, like Wilbur. Wilbur has openly admitted on stream before that his parents considered getting him an autism diagnosis. He also openly admits on stream that he has habits he doesn’t understand why he does, and hyperfixates on things for months at a time and doesn’t know why. Posts like this have gone around Tumblr, in which Wilbur displays blatantly ND traits.

And fandom generally calls him weird for expressing those traits. This video where he talks about eating sand because he likes the texture? That’s an ND trait. This video where he talks about his irrational hatred for anteaters? While mostly a joke, irrational hatred of something when you can’t explain/understand/articulate why is also a common ND trait. He spends 20 minutes during a Philza stream info-dumping about self-sustaining ecosystems (sharing the photo, because I think it’s really cool) and fandom begins calling them “Wilbur’s weird jars”. It’s demeaning to people who infodump, and as a ND person who hyperfixates and infodumps it’s really upsetting to see. It’s also upsetting to see other ND traits being called “weird” or “freaky” & made out to be soley some funny joke for NT people to laugh at us about.

Additionally: It’s strange to me that people think it’s okay to make fun of ND traits just because they know that or perceive that the person they’re making fun of is NT. It’s still making fun of ND traits. It’s still insulting ND people. It’s still ableist as hell. Why is it okay just because the person is NT?

6. Implying that c!Ranboo’s enderwalking is inherently violent. Ranboo has shown us time and time again that the enderwalk state isn’t a violent state. That the enderwalk state isn’t a seperate version of c!Ranboo that does horrific things. Why, then, is it so common to imply that Ranboo would be violent and hurt people why he’s enderwalking?

It comes back to the perception of c!Ranboo as a character with “two halves”, or as a character with DID. Ranboo has made it clear that his character does not have DID, but this headcanon about his character persists, and it persists in a way that is directly harmful to people with DID — and to people who dissociate or sleepwalk. We do not commit horrific acts while we dissociate, while we’re sleepwalking, because the majority of the time we’re just checked out, our body is on autopilot. Insinuating that we do is harmful. Insinuating that Ranboo has “another half” that’s inherently violent or evil is harmful to people with DID. I’m not going to ask you to stop writing these headcanons etc, but please consider the effect you have on people before you do.

7. Related to point 6: the perception of c!Ranboo as “soft” and “cute” and/or perfectly moral because of his canonical anxiety. This is really harmful, and comes once again from the infantilisation of disorders like anxiety and depression. Ranboo has made clear time and time again that his character isn’t moral, and in fact is extremely inconsistent. He’s portrayed his character as inconsistent, as someone who hurts his friends unintentionally and often due to his want to please everyone, and yet he’s constantly seen as “soft/pure/the only moral one” because of his anxiety causing to have repeated and consistent spirals on-screen. These spirals are not healthy. They don’t indicate his “perfect morals” or make him more moral than anyone else on the SMP. Please stop infantilising people with anxiety, it’s really hurtful.

8. Implying that c!Technoblade is inherently a violent person because of his voices. I’ll admit here: my hallucinations are visual. I do not get auditory hallucinations, and I cannot speak for people who do. But many people have spoken out about this, and discussed how talking about Technoblade as an inherently violent character because of his voices is harmful, and a stereotype of people with schizophrenia.

Technoblade’s character is, in and of itself, inherently a stereotype (despite the fact that his chat are more likely to be a supernatural entity than a symptom of a disorder such as schizophrenia) in that the idea of “hearing voices that encourage violence” is a stereotype of people with schizophrenia. As an actual symptom, is a very uncommon one. More common auditory hallucinations for people with schizophrenia or psychosis are, reportedly, whispers or unrelated conversation. One of my friends hears screaming.

But the issue is with the implication that c!Technoblade is “driven to violence” by the voices. Canonically, he has dealt with the “bloodlust” of chat by grinding withers. He’s perfectly capable of being peaceful, even with “voices pushing for violence”, and he’s perfectly capable of being violent without the “voices” influence. It’s the connotations and the history that fandom has in demonising and villainising c!Technoblade for even having the “voices” in the first place, and acting having them makes him inherently violent and unstable. There’s precedent for that already in society, and it’s not okay to perpetuate it.

[Edit: as of 22/05/2021, I do experience auditory hallucinations, and I can confirm that I am not any more violent, and the voices I hear don’t push me to violence. The clearest one just said ‘click’ in my ear.]

9. Jokes about brain damage and the use of “brainrot” as a term. I made a post about how common jokes about brain damage are here, and I would like to reiterate bits of it.

Jokes like these are really really normalized in modern society. I’m sure a lot of you didn’t even register it as wrong, and that isn’t a moral failing! It’s a norm in society, and that means the majority of people arent going to register it as something hurtful, because it’s said so often. But it does still hurt. The idea of using a disability as an insult is really harmful and it feels dehumanizing, like our disability makes us lesser, something that should be laughed at.

“Brainrot” as a term originated in Skyrim, as a disease that literally rotted your brain. However, as a term, it has very similar connotations to “brain damaged” and has been used in similarly joking and insulting ways. It’s something that feels really off to me and other neurodivergent people to see used by neurotypical people. It even sometimes feels uncomfortable when used by neurodivergent people, even if it’s used in positive ways. I know quite a few people who have removed it from their vocab completely because of the connotations, and I have personally done the same. Once again, I am just asking you to please consider your words before you use them.

10. Calling c!Wilbur during his Pogtopia Arc “Vilbur”. Yes, he was a villain. Yes, he hurt people. But c!Wilbur during the Pogtopia Arc only has one major difference from c!Wilbur during the L’Manburg Arc: a visible depiction of mental illness, specifically paranoia and psychosis. Treating him as a seperate person and calling that seperate person “Vilbur” comes across as extremely hurtful, and contributes to the villainisation of mentally ill people. His mental illness does not excuse him from hurting people, but calling c!Wilbur “Vilbur” upsets a lot of us, because wether or not it’s intended, it feels reductive, hurtful, and insulting.

If you got to the end of this post, thank you so much for reading. I hope that this helped you recognise things that you might not have known were ableist, and that you consider what I’ve said here. I also know that I haven’t addressed everything ableist that’s spread through the MCYT fandom community, so if you’re ND and have something you’d like to add, please feel free.

[wallflowerimagines]

Hi! I looove your posts! Thank you so much for sharing your writing!

I was wondering… could you maybe write about the Four Lords with a shy S/O that gets bold and defensive when someone insults the lords? or calls them names? And the Lord’s reaction to the S/O acting different? Dk if im explaining myself >.<

Again! Love your work! Have a great day!

We stan protective partners on this blog!!

Warnings: uh...insults? They're pretty over the top😅 Also swearing.

Alcina Dimitrescu

Honestly, Alcina is more than able to defend herself.

She's got a tongue like a viper, and the thickest skin imaginable. If you really want to hurt her feelings, you have to be someone whom she already respects to a certain degree, or she won't even be phased.

Still, when she leaves a room, there's always some idiot that thinks it's a smart idea to talk shit.

Maybe it's a maid, maybe it's a guest in the Castle, but either way you're not having it.

"God, you're annoying." There was a pause before they opened their mouth again, and you rolled your eyes. "No please, by all means, continue to share your lack of taste with the rest of us."

You disassemble this dumbass, starting small with comments about their personality (trying to keep it classy), but escalating the more they choose to double down on the comments.

Alcina comes back into the room to find you practically screaming at this asshole.

"Look, all you have accomplished here today is revealing that you are a fundamental disappointment on every possible level. My life is worse now that I've heard you open your mouth, you disrespectful, shit licking worm fucker."

Alcina is stunned. You do not give off "aggressive guard dog" vibes at all, yet here you are defending her tooth and nail. While she had seen brief moments of your inner strength and protective streak (mostly towards her daughters) she just...never thought you would do the same for her.

It's not because she doesn't trust you or love you! But nobody has ever done something like this for her before? Ever? She's never had anyone try to protect her--not physically, and not even verbally. She's been so independent for so long that it's... Strange to see you support her so openly.

She doesn't need you to do this for her, she doesn't even expect it, but you do it anyway for no other reason than the fact that you love her. You want people to give her the respect she deserves.

I'm going to be real here: Alcina has never been closer to swooning before in her life. You're overcoming your shyness because you believe in her so much-- it's not a gesture meant to be romantic, but Alcina can't help but see this as a massive statement of your commitment to her.

Seriously. This is such a massive thing for her that if proposals weren't already on her mind, she is mentally picking out a ring for you the minute this happens.

Then, of course, she glides into the room, kisses you until you're breathless and babbling, and smirks at the unfortunate peon who thought they could get away with insulting House Dimitrescu.

She's in such a good mood that she's considering going easy on the idiot. Maybe removing their tongue would be enough of a warning?

Donna Dimitrescu

You don't really know how it's possible but apparently some people don't like Donna Beneviento? Some people think she's scary and unpleasant????

Wild. Can't imagine what that's like.

The two of you are honestly the sweetest, most toothrottingly adorable couple-- blushing when you hold each other's hands, sneaking glances at each other across rooms, giving each other kisses and forgetting whatever was on your mind...

Honestly, anybody who's critical of your relationship with your girlfriend is just a hater. Fuckers can pound sand😤

Still, you are pretty shy, so it takes a lot for you to defend yourself if someone comments about you. It can take a lot of courage to stand up against rude remarks, and sometimes it's easier to walk away.

Defending Donna, on the other hand?

The minute someone even thinks about dismissing her, you are ready to throw hands.

"My lovely girlfriend already said no, meaning you're either deaf or too stupid to pick up on simple social cues," you purse your lips and give the rude and pushy Villager a patronizing once over. "You and your opinion are equally useless. Get the fuck away from us."

Donna blinks.

She... Was not expecting this??? At all?? You're so nice! You always tell her about your attempts to avoid confrontation! What's going on??? How did you get the guts to say what she's always wanted to say?

Meanwhile, Angie is LIVING.

The little doll chimes in to assist you with the verbal homicide, working as a tag team to absolutely murder this moron. She's half partner, half hype man, and is so excited to do this with you. Normally, she has to protect Donna all by herself, but she's relieved and reassured that you stepped in first.

'USELESS IS TOO NICE, THOUGH! THAT IMPLIES THEY AREN'T A POINTLESS, RANCID, LONELY FREAK. THEY LOOK LIKE THEY CRY WHEN THEY MASTURBATE.'

You high five Angie, still glaring daggers at the unfortunate villager.

The two of you continue to ream into the villager, while Donna hovers nearby.

As surprised as she is, she's also grateful. She's only really ever had Angie to help shield her from insults and disrespect (and occasionally inducing horrifying hallucinations that make people claw off their own skin), but having you in her corner makes her feel safe.

Not to get totally sappy, but you're like her knight in shining armor in a lot of ways. And the fact you two are so similar is really motivating-- She wants to one day be confident enough to return the favor. Until then, she's happy to watch her two favorite people have fun insulting some stranger ❤️

Salvatore Moreau

With you being so shy, Salvatore is surprised how often he takes the lead in your relationship.

He's not normally all that outgoing, but you seem to bring out a side of him that's very protective. Whenever you have a bad day he wants to bundle you up and keep you safe from the world.

If he so much as holds your hand you start stuttering and avert your gaze. It creates a feedback loop where you both get flustered, but Moreau has never felt steadier. Despite your shyness, you make sure he knows how much you love him.

You're sweet as pie and twice as kind--Salvatore is the luckiest man in the world, nobody can convince him otherwise 💕💕

So it comes as a total shock that when a passing fisherman spits in your path and calls him a freak, your entire demeanor does a 180.

Your posture straightens and you look the villager dead in the eye, "I don't believe anyone asked your opinion."

Salvatore: 😳

This is not the time, and he totally knows it, but, uh, something about your tone??? Really does it for him???

While he's attempting to process why exactly he's starting to short circuit, you proceed to verbally shred this person to bits with clinical efficiency-- nothing is off limits.

They might try to defend themselves, but it's useless. You do not let up.

"Ugly? Monster? Bitch your teeth are throwing gang signs, don't throw stones from your shining glass house."

You insult their appearance, what they're holding, their smell-- you get so fucking mean that you might even make them cry.

Moreau is just lost right now, trying hard to figure out how exactly you were able to gain all of this confidence so quickly.

He's not upset! In fact he's very flattered! But, he also doesn't want you to get into a fight with some unimportant stranger. (After all, if they so much as throw a punch, they're straight up dead. Moreau is a patient man, but he's not that patient. You do not hurt his partner and live to tell the tale.)

He may a healer but...

Eventually he steps between you and the fisherman in an attempt to deescalate the situation, but you just kiss him on the cheek and step around him, determined to make your point.

Blushing hard, Moreau lets you do what you want. What can he say? Fish man likes himself a protective partner 💞

Karl Heisenberg

Magnet Man is not the most social guy to begin with, so any opportunities you have to stick up for him are already pretty slim.

He mostly knows you as the shy, sweet, easily flustered partner that lets out a cute squeak every time he sneaks up to hug you from behind.

Karl's honestly happy just to spend time with you all alone in the Factory. It's not the best or healthiest mindset, but he'd be perfectly content to only ever see you for the rest of his life. Spending time with anybody else feels like a boring waste in comparison.

But occasionally, you do head out into town with him. Heisenberg wants you to be safe so he doesn't do it often, but running errands with you is a weakness of his. It's domestic in a way that he's never experienced before.

He likes it ❤️

What he does not like is the shopkeeper starting to give their opinions on the quality of your relationship with him.

Most insults Karl will let slide because he doesn't particularly care. However if anyone makes a comment on how scared (shy) you look around him, how you must be being threatened into being with him, how poorly Lord Heisenberg is treating you...he won't stand for it.

But before his fingers can even twitch towards his hammer, you snap.

"You're clearly the blindest cocksucker I've ever met--so wipe the cum out of eyes and mind your own fucking business."

Karl does a double take.

He's heard you curse before, but quietly. The words coming out of your mouth are WILD right now, he has NEVER seen you so angry. You're defending him with the aggression of a wild animal, and it's simultaneously HILARIOUS, but for some reason he's also getting a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest?

He doesn't need you to protect him like this, but seeing you blatantly argue how much you love and cherish him in public reassures him in a way he didn't know he needed.

Still, hearing you call the shopkeeper "shit for brains" is the funniest thing that's happened in years.

Heisenberg starts laughing, and the more you shout at the idiot, the harder he laughs. Is it weird how hard he wants to kiss you right now?

Eventually, he just has to drag you away, cackling as you continue to shout insults at the unfortunate shopkeep. There's got to be an alley around here for some good old fashioned privacy 💕

[jackalgirl]

Last day of testimony; based on the updated docs at the BoI website, I was thinking today would be mostly testimony about the search & rescue (SAR) efforts after comms with the Titan were lost. But no, today we're starting off with testimony from Matthew McCoy, who worked at OceanGate in their operations (mostly port-related things and small boat stuff).

McCoy had been in the Coast Guard and, in fact, had been a qualified Boarding Officer (engaged in enforcement) in Honolulu and Kauai in Hawai'i. So even though he hadn't been hired for Coast Guard/marine regulatory counsel or support, he was able to recognize that OceanGate was taking planning to take passengers for hire in an uninspected passenger submersible. He forwarded a copy of the relevant parts of 46 CFR 70.10-1 (for reference, here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/46/70.10-1) to his boss, and got taken out to lunch by his boss, Scott Griffith, and Stockton Rush, who tried to explain away his concerns and could not. The familiar excuse of "the regulations are stifling innovation" was trotted out, then Rush explained that they were going to flag the Titan in the Bahamas and sail out of Canada so that they wouldn't be subject to US jurisdiction (notwithstanding that I'm pretty sure both the Bahamas and Canada have regulations; the US isn't the only place that has them) McCoy explained that if any part of the operation touched the US, it would bring in US regulations. At that point, according to McCoy, Rush said that "if the Coast Guard became a problem, he would just buy himself a Congressman and make it go away." At that point, McCoy quit his job at OceanGate. "I've never had anyone say that to me directly, and I was aghast."

Two thoughts: what? and also: the idea that somehow the United States is immune to corruption is 100% false, if someone is breezily saying something to this to an ex-Coast Guard Sailor with a background in enforcement. To be fair (if "fair" is the right word), I don't know that Rush knew about McCoy's background. But somehow it seems even worse, that he would breezily suggest this to someone he does not know well and think it would be okay.

The next witnesses were talking about the Search and Rescue (SAR) response. But the biggest things were that:

o There wasn't any evidence in the records that OceanGate had notified the Coast Guard (any Coast Guard) that they were going to be operating dives at the Titanic wreck site. This seems consistent with Mr. McCoy's testimony that Stockton Rush didn't want to deal with the Coast Guard.

o However, Scott Talbot, the USCG civilian SAR expert who was responsible for chairing a board to review the response noted that there was a noted lack of documentation (e.g., the CG's old "MISLE" system, for recording incidents & information, is antiquated to the extent that it would be incredibly difficult for a watch stander to ensure that it was kept up to date). So we may not ever know if OceanGate ever notified anyone. But still, based on the evidence so far, I'm pretty sure that the company felt that it had done its own proper preparation for contingencies and did not need to notify anyone of where they were going or what they were doing.

o It did point out that the current guidance for SAR in the US (including checklists used by people receiving reports) is based on the idea that submarine accidents would involve a military submarine, so the plan was "turn it over to the US Navy", and the US Navy had made it clear that they were not able to respond to a commercial submersible accident. So...nobody was clearly ready to be the expert in this. The response effort changed out the person responsible for coordinating the response three times, which Talbot described as unprecedented, due to the incredibly novel nature of the situation.

o The NSTB rep mentioned that after the Johnson Sea Link accident in 1973 (here on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Sea_Link_accident), apparently part of the post-analysis was a recommendation to generate a and maintain a list of world-wide resources for submarine rescue, and the US Navy had later reported that this was done and the list distributed to the Coast Guard: Mr. Talbot had never heard of this.

So this Board of Inquiry has wrapped up; I am curious as to whether they will convene another (to cover such things as Mr. Kohnen's reference of a person in Germany who was willing to undertake classifying the Titan) -- the chair mentioned, in answer to a question from the (completely unmic'd) media, that it's possible there could be more hearings. I'd also be curious to find out whether a determination of perjury will be pursued, given the completely contradictory testimony provided by Renata Rojas and David Lochridge.

It's weird, though, that in response to a question, the chair insisted that the mindset of the master/CEO (in this case, Stockton Rush) is important, and yet when Karl Stanley tried to get into this, he cut him off (though the more I think about it, I can't help but think, just remembering the bitterness in his voice, that maybe he's got is own personal issues with the Bohemian Club, and perhaps Mr. Neubauer recognized this and this is why he put a stop to Stanley's discussion of it.

It was good to hear that the Coast Guard has already changed the way it handles receiving reports from OSHA, so that no one has to experience what David Lochridge did. I do hope that in the end, the regulations and guidance will actually be updated in a way that encourages, rather than discourages, people to follow it, rather than trying to cut corners (or "buy a Congressman").

This is important. I believe we need to expand, not restrict, exploration and understanding of the world's oceans. I believe that our human connection to the sea is so fundamental (it predates our acquisition of the consciousness that makes us human) that if people are able to go down onto and into the ocean, they cannot but fail to feel that connection, and we're going to need people to feel that connection if we're going to adequately fight climate change and other environmental issues facing us as a species. If we fail to preserve the seas, we will not be able to preserve ourselves.

I don't know if you all are following this -- as a retired Sonar Technician, this kind of stuff interests me intently. Trigger warning: some really scary descriptions of stuff that should not have happened, including people dying.

The guy who’s testifying today, David Lochridge, is mad (I mean, justifiably so, I think). He is mad at Oceangate, he is made at OSHA, he is mad at the Coast Guard. He kept receipts and notes for everything. They keep having to stop the hearing to reorganize their documents because he has so much. The Oceangate lawyer does not have the letter that Oceangate’s previous lawyers sent to this guy after they’d been informed of his Whistleblower status that basically reads like they followed the things that Whistleblower protection tells you not to do like a checklist of things to do.

Basically, I think the point he is getting across without actually saying this is, “I worked my ass off in 2018 and 2019 after Oceangate fired me to give you (OSHA, Coast Guard) what you needed to prevent this from happening, and you did not stop them.”

[lovelybarnes]

stood up- b. barnes

pairings: bucky barnes x reader, anderson x reader (?) warnings: angst, getting stood up, language, unrequited feelings about: prompts (DA29) “i got stood up.” + (DF30) “i think you’re my soulmate.” +(DF41) “are you going to cry? please don’t cry. a/n: i love to hurt but dw it’s a happy ending, i actually like this fjsk, a the time i finished this, i just posted another imagine, so i can’t wait for you guys to read this one in a couple days

every passing second makes you hyperaware of all the sympathetic stares that are currently directed at you. the feeling of pity is enveloping you whole, wrapping you in a thin layer of shame that you think must be related to the careful makeup you caked on your face for this date. your recently manicured nails scratch at the tablecloth, trying to avoid your new expensive dress, deep midnight color clinging to your nervous self. teeth stress your dark wine bottom lip, anxious eyes darting across the restaurant.

with each face that enters the place, none of them being his, the presumption that he isn’t coming solidifies. with it, comes the embarrassment. you can feel the warnings of tears, already threatening to ruin the mascara you had applied so carefully, not bothering to choose the waterproof one because why would you be crying on your date?

you suppose it’s your own fault- how dare you attempt to get over bucky? how dare you trust the words of a shield agent? you pick at your nails, gathering up the courage to stand up and leave. your waitress, however, beats you to it, a faux apologetic look on her face. “oh, so you’ve been here for, like, half an hour and it seems no one is coming, and we kind of need the table, so…”

you hold back an uncomfortable cringe, nodding stiffly as you stand. “right. i’m sorry. i don’t need to… pay for the water, right?” you ask dumbly, ducking your head when she shakes her head condescendingly.

pushing the door open, you step into the brisk air of the night, clouded over with an uneasy disappointment that you’re sure is because of you. you stand for a second to look at the stars, realizing how pretty of a night this would be if you weren’t so damn frustrated. the upset hasn’t passed yet, although the beginnings of anger are peeking up in your stomach.

while you stare up at the moon, the universe decides your getting stood up wasn’t enough, choosing to gift you with cold droplets of water that make your mascara run. it’s unbelievable, you nearly scoff tearily.

you walk to your car then, the moonlight that should have been romantic when you walked out of the restaurant now only making you feel lonely. you don’t let the tears come yet, having enough pride to not let the smitten couples appreciating the romance of the rain see you cry, deciding to put that off until you’re in the quietness of your room.

you drive in the sound of the pattering rain, concentrated on keeping your breathing even so as to push back the tears, not wanting to have an accident on the way back home because your vision was clouded over with sadness.

-

the relief you feel when you arrive at the compound is immeasurable; the knowledge that all you have to do is walk quietly to your room, and you can release the pent up emotions that eat you whole is unbelievably satisfying. the horrible itching feeling that comes with the tears arrives again when you notice your reflection in the impressively clean windows of the stark compound. through the stains of your ruined makeup, you can see the remnants of how dolled up you were, how much time was spent with the intricate details that made you smile when you looked at yourself in the mirror.

you swallow back the painful lump in your throat, opening the doors and sniffling at the dimly-lit room. your heels click tiredly on the floor, precious bracelet lightly jangling when you move. you can’t find it in yourself to care when you realize you’re dragging water inside, resigning to letting stark lecture you in the morning.

as you stand in the elevator, waiting for it to reach your floor, the emotions you’ve pushed so far down decide to spring back up in the form of an overwhelming dejected exhaustion that makes you physically slump. you lean against the cool of the metal railing, shutting your eyes hard to avoid looking at yourself. you only pry your eyes open when you hear the soft ding of the elevator, surprised and once again embarrassed to see bucky standing between the open doors.

“y/n?” he asks quietly. his demeanor immediately changes when he takes you in, body softer in the way it always is when you’re with him. his reaction makes you fall deeper, which reminds you exactly why you were going on your failed date. you straighten, clearing your throat, “um- i have to get to my room.”

your voice is thin, heightening his worries and stopping you with a gentle hand to your arm before you step off the elevator, “what’s wrong? what happened? are you okay?” he asks, and you nod blindly at all of his questions, realizing that the longer you stay with him- with his warm hand that you can’t help but lean into pressed against your cold arm- the more you really want to cry and scream because it’s not fair that he’s been given to you, yet you can’t have him, even if he has you.

“i’m fine,” you lie obviously, forcing your eyes again from his. “y/n, what happened? you’re clearly not fine,” bucky pushes, the hand on your arm beginning to rub stressed circles into your skin. you give up then, looking back at him. “i got stood up,” you say finally, words cracked. you shake your head, “and i just spent so much time on everything and-”

“that’s stupid. who would stand you up?” bucky interrupts, eyes genuinely confused while you scoff. “apparently anderson from security,” you respond bitterly, looking away. “he’s stupid, y/n. he has to be to not go to a date with you.”

you exhale frustratedly, “maybe not. maybe there’s something wrong with me and i’m the stupid one for even thinking someone would want to go out with me,” you countered. “hey, no, you are- you are amazing, y/n. amazing and stunning and intelligent and he missed his chance to be the luckiest guy in the world,” he insisted, gently pulling your attention back to him with a gentle hand on your cheek. you give him a watery laugh through the loud, unfair questions in your head: why don’t you love me like i love you, then?

you don’t realize the tears that run down the streaks of already ruined mascara until bucky points them out, wiping them away with his fingers, “no, no, don’t cry, please don’t cry,” he begs. you can’t help it, though, biting your lip to hold back your unrequited confessions of love.

“nobody wants me. i don’t even think i want me anymore,” you weep, oblivious to the breaking of bucky’s heart when he hears your words, pulling you flush against his chest. “don’t say that, doll. that’s not true-”

“it is. what other reasons can you think of that explain why i’m the only one that’s shown up to the rare dates i’ve been on? why have i had to go on those stupid dates just to forget how pathetic i am that i can’t get over you?”

you’re too deep in the ocean of your thoughts to realize what you’ve said, too little light available in the dark to let you realize the hints you have and will undoubtedly let out if you continue blubbering into bucky’s shoulder like the mess you are. your feelings are scattered, words so disorganized that any way you piece them together will be a mistake. “why else does the one person who i actually want to love me back not want me?”

bucky can make sense of the words you’re saying, the heavy weight they carry when he realizes exactly what they mean, and what you imply. he’s frozen, heart simultaneously fluttering at the mere thought of his feelings being returned and breaking at the cries you’re letting out because of him.

he’s refused to ever be the source of your pain, restricting his own poems of confessions because he didn’t want to hurt you, never wanting to be the reason you cried. he supposes now it was the wrong choice, one he needs to fix.

the bead of insecurity buried stubbornly in his mind shrieks, however, because he’s as clueless as you are and can’t possibly imagine someone like you- so kind and pure and good- loving him back. so he needs to make sure, needs to hear you say it in your voice.

“what?” you let out a watery scoff, full of embarrassment rather than annoyance at him, “don’t make me say it, bucky, please-”

“please say it- i- i need you to say it.”

a beat of silence passes before you sniffle, pulling away from the man you’ve called your best friend and wanted nothing but to be able to call him more. “i love you, bucky. in a way that makes me pretty sure you’re my soulmate because i don’t even believe in that but you make me feel like i should.”

bucky’s storm clouds lighten, doubts dissolving when he listens to what you said, tasting your words and examining each one just to remember it. he pulls your lips to his when they’ve barely processed. “you should,” he says when he pulls away for a second, only to make you lose your breath again when he aches for you immediately, kissing you again, “believe in soulmates.”

“why is that?” you ask breathlessly, letting him pull you back in because you both have been waiting- dreaming about this for so damn long, and he isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to keep away from you now that he has you. he presses a sloppy kiss to your lips, so perfectly imperfect when your teeth clash and you both laugh gently, noses nudging each other when he leans his forehead on yours, “because we’re meant to be, y/n. in that way that soulmates are.”