#not confrontationally in any way

[anormaladn]

Can you draw Genya as a girl?

Curious about why you ask me that specifically but yeah, maybe, sure

[verstappensrealwife]

Last Request - Fernando Alonso x Reader

[fernando alonso masterlist / f1 masterlist]

ʚɞ in which... reader breaks up with Fernando for the better of their relationship... until she drunk calls him accidentally. ʚɞ fluff, smut  ⋆⭒˚.⋆ 1900 words ʚɞ warnings: Sex, P in V, oral (Fem receiving), swearing/cursing, drinking, being drunk

Part 2/2 part 1 here.

-୨♡୧-

You hadn't seen him since that night. Of course, you missed him, but you couldn't have him anymore. It had been almost 3 months and still he wouldn't get out of your head. You couldn't stop thinking about him. About the way he loved you, the way he held you, the way he listened to every word you spoke.

Your friends however, agreed you needed to move on- or at least get a rebound. You really weren't sure about leaving your bed, nor up for the idea of a cheap hook-up to distract you from the once love of your life, but you agreed to go out with them since you did need to get out your apartment for a little while.

You went to a club in the nearest city- well a few clubs- and after a few drinks you were officially feeling like yourself for the first time in months. You took shot after shot, drank a dozen glasses of aperol spritz, and by the end of the night ended up singing Dolly Parton to a whole club of people for karaoke.

Once you stumbled off the stage, giggling to yourself about the applause you were getting, you realised your friends had disappeared. Huffing, you walked outside the club and you pulled your phone out, hitting your friends caller ID and immediately hitting call.

After two rings she picked up. "F-Fiona? Hey Fi, where are you. I think I'm a bit lost," You hiccupped down the phone.

"Y/N?" A man said.

"Who- Who are you!" You shouted at the phone confrontationally. "Where is Fiona Harris, Mister."

"It's Fernando," He said. On the other side of the phone, he was lay in bed, at 1am. He- in all honesty- was hoping you'd called him purposely, to get back together, or to meet up for... things... He felt slight disappointment when he realised he wasn't who the call was meant for, but he didn't hang up, he wanted to hear your voice again. "Where are you?" He said, already getting out of bed and pulling the first clothes he could find, on.

"Where's Fernando- w-wait..." You laughed at yourself getting the names wrong, "Where is Fiona?"

"Where is Y/N?" He asked, already out the door.

"I am at the club!" You announced happily, "The one with the pretty flamingo on the sign."

Fernando knew, by such a small clue, "Don't move okay, my lo– Erm, I mean Y/N,"

"Okay mister man." You slurred, "Can you stay on the phone please mister man..." You asked, but then interrupted him and started talking about how much you really hated the club scene. He already knew every single thing you spoke about during the quick 10 minute drive.

When he got to the club, you were leaning against the brick walls of the club, still talking into the phone as it the receiving end of your call wasn't 10 feet infront of you. "O-Oh hey Fernando," You hiccupped, "What you doing here- hey!"

He picked you up and literally carried you to his car- to any passers by they would be inclined to think he was kidnapping you. Once you were settled in his passenger seat and fought your drunk hands from trying to grab at his face while he was trying to put a seatbelt on you, he drove you both to his home. "When did you get this car..." You asked, as you inebriatedly messed with the radio, dash board, and glove compartment.

"A few days after you broke up with me..."

"Oh- I don't like that answer... Make a new one please."

He chuckled, "A new one?" You nodded quickly and snapped your fingers for him to hurry up with his new answer. "Oh- Okay... I got it last week after a party."

You smiled and nodded. "Is it home time now?" you frowned confused.

When you got to his house, you already knew the procedure he'd make you do. He did it anytime you were drunk.

First, drink water, water and more water. Check.

Then brush teeth. Check.

Then, attempt, to wash your makeup off. Half check.

And finally, kiss him goodnight...

You stepped out the bathroom into the bedroom. He was stood stiffly with a pair of your old pyjamas in his hands and another bottle of water.

"You- You are so good." You slurred, "C-can you help me." You said as you struggled to unzip the back of your dress.

He nodded, putting the items on the bed and turning you around. His hands lingered a little long on your shoulders after pushing your hair from your back. He, slowly, dragged the silver zipper down to the bottom of your back. He shamelessly stared for a moment before turning around. "What you doing?" You asked, "Why you not looking... You've seen before?"

"I- I know I have I just don't want to intrude."

"You can intrude..."

"Not when you're drunk," He replied. You simply nodded- not that he could see- and began to dress into more appropriate clothes to sleep in.

After a few minutes, when you got into bed, he was about to leave when you stopped him quickly, "Don't leave baby..." You babbled, tiredly. Baby... "I trust you- sleep here."

"I- I don't think–"

"I think yes. Come please." You demanded.

He gave in. Lying stiff next to you. You wriggled towards him, giggling to yourself as you, in your eyes, sneakily got over to him and grabbed him. He melted at the touch of your hands on his stomach and your head on his chest. You both fell asleep quickly, it was the first full nights rest Fernando had gotten in a while. When you woke up, you had rolled over to the other side of the bed. Nothing out of the ordinary since you moved alot in your sleep.

He heard you groan under your breath as you were waking up, then a gasp. You sat up quickly and looked at Fernando next to you. "Oh my god." You mumbled. "Oh, my god, oh, my god." You repeated it a few times before Fernando shut you up.

"I didn't sleep with you, stop shouting it is early." He said, in that deep morning voice you always loved.

"Oh."

"You called me drunk about how you lost Fiona and whoever else,"

"That's absolutely humiliating." You mumbled, "S-so nothing happened? Nothing at all?"

He shook his head, "Only you tried to get naked for me so," He laughed, when you groaned in embarrassment. "Don't worry, I looked away..." He said, "You want me to make you breakfast?" He asked, before you could reply he interrupted himself, "N- no, never mind I'll get you an uber- stupid thing to ask..." He mumbled, taking his phone from the side table.

You quickly snatched his phone. He looked at you stunned. "You know how i like my pancakes," You smiled. He looked at you, almost with hope in his eyes. When you smiled at him he felt his heart burst open. He shot up out of bed.

"These will be the best pancakes you've ever tasted," He promised. You chuckled and watched as he ran out the room, then minutes later hearing a clatter in the kitchen. You rolled your eyes and ventured the house to find him.

There was a bowl on the floor, three forks and a spoon, as well as a cook book.

You stared at his back muscles, you won't lie. You didn't forget he slept shirtless. "How's the cooking going 'Nando?" You laughed, his heart skipped a beat. He spun around quickly with a nervous look on his face. He slowly shuffled to the side to reveal a mess of what looked more like cookie dough than pancake mix. "Need help?" You laughed at him, there was flour on his forehead and half an egg yolk on the counter. He nodded silently. You're smile was still on your face as your laugh died down. You stepped infront of him, first throwing whatever he had made away, then picking up the items from the floor and finally standing infront of him. "You have a little..." You pointed at his forehead, he tried to wipe it off and missed. Completely. You smiled and pressed your finger to his head, carefully wiping it off his skin. He stared at your face, eyes, nose, the few freckles on your cheeks and finally your lips. He couldn't help but imagine himself against them again.

"Kiss the cook, huh?" You chuckled.

"Huh?" He was pulled out of his trance. You pointed to his apron, "O-Oh yeah, Lance got it me... the same day we uh... yeah."

You nodded silently, you were between the counter and his body, you hadn't even realised until he got closer and you were against the cold slab of marble. His chest was rising and falling quickly, his eyes staring all over your face, lingering on your lips.

You pressed your hands on his chest, he took a step back, maybe it was too far.

That was what he thought until your hands gripped the fabric of the apron and pulled him back into you.

"Is this wrong?" You questioned him.

"How can this be wrong?" He replied.

"Kiss the cook?" You asked quietly. He was quick to pick you up and put you on the counter, pressing his lips onto yours, he stood between your legs and held you by the waist, while you hands held the back of his head. "God, I missed you," you sighed.

"Not as much as me, my love." he replied, his lips then immediately back on yours. The kiss was needy, wanting and longing for you for months.

You pulled the apron off his body, putting your hands on his bare chest, wrapping your legs around his waist before he pulled you off the counter and to the bedroom. You shrieked a giggle as he carried you through the house, his lips never leaving your neck, his lips tracing the skin, savouring the taste.

He let go of you as you got to the bed, "This is okay?" He checked, to which you nodded thoroughly.

He pulled your pyjamas off your body like it was an inconvenience to him. He crawled down the bed and pushed your legs apart, licking his lips before putting his head between your thighs, your hands instinctively grabbing at his hair, your heels digging into his back as his hands firmly held the flesh of your thighs.

After pulling 2 orgasms out of you he was lining his cock up with your entrance. You nodded as he looked at you once again for a go ahead. He pushed in slowly, dropping his head to your shoulder and groaning curses. He sped up after a moment, and you quickly became a wreck beneath him.

A whining, moaning, shaking, wreck.

"F-Fernando..." You whimper, "I- I'm going to..."

You don't even get the words out before you scream and spasm, everything tingling and throbbing as you tighten around him, bucking and thrashing, pleasure and heat flooding your entire body. He's quick to follow you, bottoming out inside of you before pulling out of you and rolling next to you. "Jesus." You say, before laughing a little. "That was probably the best sex I've ever had."

He nods in agreement, he's staring at you like you're God yourself. "S-So does this mean like-"

"If you'd like to, then yeah it does."

You barely finish what you're saying when he jumps back onto you and smothers you with kisses making you laugh hysterically. "I love you so so much, my love, I'm not letting you go again," He announces, before getting up, pulling a robe over himself and then going to the window of the bedroom before shouting out of it, "She's all mine!"

El fin.

hope this was enjoyable. first fic I've wrote for Tumblr. anywho.

<3

[clangenrising]

Month 9 - Leaffall

“Go home,” Russetfrond insisted for the third time. 

Nightfrost shook her head again. “If Razor comes back, you’ll need me to be here.” She was still rattled from the encounter with him and Ghost earlier that day. It wasn’t just that the city cats had come so close to their home, that Razor had been so close to starting a fight, that they had clearly intended to return. It was the way that Razor had leaned in close and tasted her scent like he owned it while making a threat in the same breath. She knew that he was probably just trying to upset her but that information didn’t make it feel any better. 

Even from her small interaction with him, she could tell that Razor was a tom who had power and liked to wield it. She wasn’t going to let him catch her or her Clan unawares. And so she had stayed out when Russetfrond, Sparrowpaw, and Ospreymask had come to relieve her and intended to join Goldenstar and Branchbark for the night shift. Her replacements had been less than pleased.

“We need you to rest,” Russetfrond said, stomping out in front of her path. “If they show up now you’ll be no use anyway.” 

“I’ll be fine,” she grumbled. She tried to ignore the fact that her paws had been numb for a while. 

“Nightfrost, please,” Ospreymask cut in, leaning up against her side. “We’ve got it. If something happens we’ll send Sparrowpaw to get you and you can come right back.” 

“Yeah!” the apprentice piped up. “Please, Nightfrost?” 

She looked at him, his bright golden eyes shining with the courage of youth, and she imagined him breaking between Razor’s teeth. “No,” she shook her head firmly. “No, I’m fine. I want to stay.” 

“Fine, then,” Russetfrond huffed, squaring his shoulders confrontationally. “Maybe I’ll send Sparrowpaw to find Sagetooth instead and she can talk some sense into you.” Nightfrost glared. He had picked the one cat she knew she couldn’t argue with and she knew it wasn’t an empty threat.

“You snake,” she growled, half joking. 

“Yeah, yeah, go curse me out back in camp,” he said. Sighing, Nightfrost turned towards camp. She didn’t like being beaten but even more she didn’t like that he was probably right. Already, as she crunched her way through the snow, she felt exhaustion starting to creep into her bones.

“Rest well!” Ospreymask called after her. She flicked a disgruntled ear in response. 

Her paws felt like clumsy chunks of ice at the end of her legs as she picked her way through the snow drifts. Now that she had agreed to return to camp, the desire to curl up and sleep was starting to take hold of her mind. She closed her eyes, imagining Yarrowshade’s warmth and weight against her flank. 

Oh, stars. Yarrowshade had been waiting for her this whole time. She groaned at the thought of facing him now. She had been so harsh with him lately and she hated it. She knew he didn’t deserve it, but for some reason, his insistence on his continued friendship with Scorch had been getting on her nerves. She knew she was being petty about it. She knew she was being unreasonable. That didn’t stop her from taking her frustrations out on the both of them. She’d started scheduling them on separate patrols, started inserting herself between them every time he tried to reach out. 

She was hurt. How could he stand to be around her now that they knew the truth?! Didn’t he understand what she had done? Did he care more about her than his Clan? She knew that wasn’t fair. Yarrowshade was a relentlessly kind cat. It was one of the things she loved about him. Like Goldenstar, he somehow saw something worth caring for in Scorch, something she was probably too guarded to see. 

Was she jealous? Maybe. She didn’t think that he was interested in Scorch like that. He had promised her he wasn’t and she was inclined to believe him. Still, she realized, she was jealous that he cared about her at all after everything she had done. How could he still spend so much of his time worried about a cat who had been so favored by Razor? 

Razor. She shuddered again at the thought of him. Or maybe she was just shivering. She sniffed hard at the snot dripping from her nose. The longer she walked the more she felt like she might collapse. Luckily, she could hear the sound of cats speaking up ahead. She spied a dip in the white sheet of snow and knew she was nearly home. She sighed in relief. 

As she headed down into camp, she found Yarrowshade standing by the nursery talking softly with Smokyrose. The moment he saw her, he sat up straight and stared as if he’d thought he’d never see her again. She smiled fondly. 

“Nightfrost,” he started then, realizing his mistake, said, “Excuse me, Smokyrose. Thank you.” 

“Anytime, dear,” purred the mediator, turning a kind eye in Nightfrost’s direction. She slipped inside the den as Yarrowshade stood to meet Nightfrost at the edge of camp.

“Hey,” she mumbled. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, eyes wide. “When you didn’t come back, I…” 

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she said. “A little cold, but fine.” She sniffled again and swiped her tongue over her nose to clear the snot away. 

“Why don’t we go see if Sagetooth has some herbs for your nose,” he said, “and then we can curl up in the Warriors’ den with a fat dove, yeah?” 

“Sure,” she nodded. She didn’t particularly want to go see Sagetooth, but she was so tired. She didn’t have the energy to protest. 

Yarrowshade smiled and pressed his pelt against hers, spreading warmth through her thick, frosty fur. Together they padded to the Healers’ den and Nightfrost felt at home, perfectly fitted to his side. 

“I think I love you,” she mumbled without thought. 

Yarrowshade stopped. “What did you say?” 

She blinked, drowsy, and said again. “I think I love you. I don’t know why it took me so long to say that.” Yarrowshade was staring at her, open jawed. She smiled. What a ridiculous adorable face he had. 

“Nightfrost, I…” he laughed breathily. “Wow! I’m sure you don’t need me to say I love you too.” 

“It would be nice,” she hummed. Stars, her eyes were so heavy. 

He smiled and stepped closer, pressing his forehead against hers. “I love you too, Nightfrost. I have for a long time.” She leaned into his warm touch, purring, and he purred in kind. She bobbed tiredly and he laughed as he reached out to steady her. “Woah. Let’s get you inside before you pass out, alright?” 

She nodded and leaned against him again, letting him guide her into the warmth of the Healers’ den. Oddstripe was sitting in the back of the den, carefully winding cobwebs around a stick. Sagetooth supervised from her nest, probably resting her old joints after the storm. She looked up at the both of them with a scowl. 

“What do you two need?” she asked. 

“Nightfrost has a runny nose,” Yarrowshade laughed, his tail twining with hers. Sagetooth sighed. 

“I can handle it,” Oddstripe offered, but the old healer shook her head.

“No, no, you stay right there. I’ll handle it,” Sagetooth said as she heaved herself from her nest and plucked a few mint leaves from the stores. She padded over and placed them in front of Nightfrost. “Chew those.” Nightfrost obeyed, already salivating over their menthol smell. She purred at the taste and settled down to warm her freezing paws under her belly as she did. Yarrowshade curled up beside her, also purring. 

“You’re awfully cheery,” Sagetooth observed with a frown. 

“I am,” Yarrowshade chuckled, glancing at Nightfrost. 

When he said nothing more, Sagetooth grumbled and rolled her eyes. “Alright then. You’ve had your mint. Off with you.” 

“Aww, you don’t want to enjoy our company?” Yarrowshade said playfully. 

“No,” Sagetooth said flatly, turning away. “I have no time for lovesick fools.” 

“Is it that obvious?” Nightfrost asked with a tinge of embarrassment. 

“With Yarrowshade?” asked Sagetooth. “Always.” 

Yarrowshade chuckled and stood. “Okay, okay, we’ll get out of your fur.” He looked at Nightfrost and she smiled. She couldn’t wait to go take a warm nap beside him. 

“Thank you,” she said and Sagetooth grunted. Nightfrost moved to stand and then hissed in pain. Suddenly her paws felt like they were on fire. While she was sitting on them, they had started to prickle, but she had thought nothing of it. Now that prickling stung up through her paw pads under any kind of weight and she thumped back onto her side. 

“Are you alright?” Yarrowshade asked. 

“My paws are stinging,” she said, lifting one to give it a lick.

“Ah-ah!” Sagetooth snapped, interrupting her. “Don’t you touch those paws! Let me look at them.” She padded back over and took one paw in both of her own, tilting it gently to look at the pads. “Tch! Your skin is nearly black! What were you doing out there?” 

“Protecting the border,” Nightfrost said lamely. She stared in disbelief at the stinging flesh of her paw pads. The exposed skin had started to turn black and necrotic. 

“Why didn’t you come back sooner?” Yarrowshade fretted, “Weren’t you in pain?” 

“No, they just felt numb,” she replied. 

“Fool child,” Sagetooth scoffed. “Tuck those back underneath yourself. We need to warm them up immediately.” Nightfrost obeyed. If only her shame could heat her paws and not just her face. 

“Oddstripe,” Sagetooth continued, “We’ll need those cobwebs and some fresh garlic.” 

Oddstripe shifted awkwardly. “The squirrels got to the garlic patch, remember?” 

“Fox-dung!” Sagetooth cursed. “Horsetail then!” 

“We’re still out,” Oddstripe said, ears pressing back guiltily. “I can go find some though.” 

“In this snow?” Yarrowshade asked. He looked very pale. 

“Great,” Sagetooth shook her head. Her tail twitched back and forth as she thought, eyes flickering over the ground. “Alright. We’ll clean the wounds and bandage them tonight. Tomorrow, if it isn’t snowing, we’ll both head out first thing in the morning in search of horsetail. Maybe you can get your kits to lend a paw.” 

“Of course!” Oddstripe said. “Between the five of us we’ll definitely find some, Sagetooth, I promise.”

Sagetooth frowned at him. “Don’t promise things you can’t control.” 

Oddstripe deflated under her stare. “Right. Sorry.” 

Nightfrost shook her head again. “I can’t believe I let it go so far. I didn’t think I was out there that long.” 

“You were gone for a long time,” Yarrowshade said softly.

“And it only takes half an hour for frostbite to set in,” said Sagetooth. “You’re lucky its not worse.” 

Yarrowshade settled down beside Nightfrost again, curling around her and starting to groom her shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “Just… get your rest.” 

“Thank you,” she sighed, butting her head against his. “I love you.” 

“I love you too,” he said back. “I’ll be here as long as you need me.” 

“Thank you,” she breathed against his fur.

“It’ll be okay,” he said again. “Right?” He looked up at Sagetooth. The healer pursed her lips and sighed. 

“We’ll do what we can,” she said. It wasn’t very reassuring. But she supposed that she preferred that over a promise Sagetooth couldn’t keep.

UPDATES: - Nightfrost stays out too late and returns with frostbite. - Nightfrost and Yarrowshade confess their feelings and become mates.

[generational-atrophy]

heyyyy! I'd love it if you could write about how the hetalia main 8 would be like during a fight/argument with their s/o, thank you so much <3

(Hetalia Main 8 x Reader) Getting in an argument.

(Gender Neutral) Headcanons ~ A/N hey guys might have pretty long waits between requests now got a lot going on in my personal life ):

Trigger Warning: Some of these guys are toxic as hell.

Alfred, like with many things in his life, treats any fight with you extremely childishly.

If he’s frustrated with you, he’s definitely not gonna say anything until he has to. Instead of being honest, he’ll just ignore you.

But once you reach a breaking point, he’s immediately yelling. Like, even if he’s not that angry, he’s just loud.

It’s very hard to make any actual points because when he’s pissed off he does not think straight at all. Plus, he has a bad habit of talking over people, which really comes out in any argument.

Instead of trying to make any actual arguments, he just gets really emotional. Most of the time, he doesn’t even actually resolve the issue either. He’ll just storm off for the day.

But he always apologizes. If you want him to actually listen, getting in a fight is not the way to go.

Arthur may seem the gentleman, but that facade drops in fights.

It really depends on the type of spat you guys are in though. If you come at him non-confrontationally, he’ll probably actually listen to you. He’ll be a little salty about it, but he’ll make an effort to change.

But if you start off mad, he’ll get pissed off too. And when you guys actually fight fight, Arthur gets very manipulative.

Everything that you say is immediately turned against you. Even if he doesn’t mean to, he reads everything as an attack and will attack you right back. 

He’s very well-spoken, so he doesn’t seem as childish as someone like Alfred, but they’re very similar in that way. He tells you you’re accusing him of things you’re not, trying to hurt him, and that you’re being completely illogical.

He also tends you to storm off but in a much less intense manner. You step out of the room for a minute and he’s just… gone. But he won’t be out for more than a night, and he’ll still apologize. But in a much more… “sorry not sorry” way.

Francis approaches every argument in a very earnest manner, but that doesn’t last long.

When you first confront Francis with something, he always sets aside everything to listen to you. He’s always very concerned with your happiness, so he’s very flexible when it comes to your relationship.

But if you get overly critical, he gets upset easily. He starts taking everything as a personal attack. Specifically, he always asks you if your whole relationship was a lie the whole time.

Needless to say, he��s sensitive. He doesn’t mean to take everything in the worst way possible, it just happens. And once he’s upset, he gets so panicked he stops listening.

He won’t storm off though. He’ll just start crying over the littlest thing and try to get you to comfort him. (Jeez, how exhausting.)

Basically, he’s very good about arguments as long as you’re… overly civil and nice to him.

Yao has never been good with confrontation, and you’re no exception, unfortunately.

Any argument you two get into always starts the same. Yao, confused and angry, and you, probably just trying to get through. He’ll raise his voice and try any way to escape the situation (often resorting to petty insults he doesn’t actually agree with…)

But if you’re persistent, he’ll end up listening. As long as you’re not overly emotional, he can settle down. He’s very good at working out problems as long as you’re willing to fully explain yourself without getting upset.

It’s surprising, really. The longer the fight, the less upset you two end up being. But that doesn’t excuse the early awkwardness. Especially at the start of your relationship, it’s hard to get through all of his harshness.

Ivan may seem like he takes everything well, but that could not be farther from the truth.

When you try to confront Ivan, you immediately have his full attention. He’s very passive and agreeable, barely arguing against anything you say.  Without any protest, he’ll promise to change for the better, considering everything you said.

But… those changes take a long to actually happen. If you want him to actually do anything, you’ll have to argue with him over and over again. Every time you get angrier about it, he gets more and more sensitive.

By the time he’s actually doing the things he said he would, he is ready to burst into tears if you say anything slightly wrong. Even the smallest problem has him yelling and crying about how mean you are as you stand there absolutely confounded.

Frankly, I can’t even think of a way to get him to stop doing that. He just… really does not know how to properly take criticism.

Feliciano may be sensitive, but he also has lots of relationship experience.

Surprisingly, he’s very good at being civil and actually listening to what you’re saying. Most arguments don’t really turn into… fights per se? The only time he gets really upset is when you’re upset to start off with.

Even in times when he’s already emotional, he doesn’t take it too personally.  Arguments with him actually make sense, big shock! He wouldn’t turn your words against you, anytime he takes things the wrong way, it’s out of actual confusion.

And he would never storm off. Even when he’s angry, he finds the best way to cool off is just to be around you, not saying anything, as soon as you’re comfortable with it.

Of course, if you start insulting him, he’s crying though. Immediately. But that’s to be expected. He still has a hard time understanding how the heat of the moment may make you a lot more harsh than you meant to be.

As intense as Ludwig may be sometimes, he never gets angry with you.

Arguments with him never escalate. Even if you’re screaming at him, he wouldn’t scream back. He’ll just be like, hm… that was a mean thing to say. And then start trying to find out why you’re actually upset.

If you have any issue with him, it’s very easy to talk to him about it. He’s good at communicating and he really only wants you to be happy anyway.

Although sometimes he may seem a little too relaxed about it. Arguments with him are less emotional and more like a public debate. Which is… a little weird. Expect your every claim to be met with an “ok, and why do you think that?”

He doesn’t take much personally and he never fights back too rudely. So basically, he’s the healthiest of the bunch.

Kiku may seem like he’s listening, but it’s going in one ear and out the other.

Kiku hates confrontation, maybe more than anything in the whole world. If he’s got any issues with you, he’s not saying a thing. Ever. So you have to initiate every argument.

And because of that, he’s doing absolutely anything for the exchange to be over. He’ll agree to anything, but he’s not actually listening to what you’re saying. He refuses to fight back in any way, so he’s probably not talking about what he thinks either. Passivity… but at the cost of insensitivity.

Once you’re done confronting him, he’s escaping the situation ASAP. You probably won’t hear from him for a while, maybe a day or two.

Probably the only way to get him to actually be honest with how he feels is just to keep provoking him. Sure, it hurts a lot, but for the sake of your relationship, you gotta fight.

[bi-bats]

TRICK OR TREAT !!!!!!!!!!! =D

!! HAPPY HALLOWEEENNNNNNN LEOOOOOOOO

I can't NOT give you a jaytimkon snippet for Halloween. I know what you're looking for in the candy bowl 😂 SOOOOO here's the beginning of the next chapter of Bad Days!! I really want to get it posted soon but I have to write smut for it and that always takes me forever to do 😂😂😂

Anyways, I won't delay any longer, here's your treat!!

~ ✨ ~

Kon hovers an inch above the fire escape, hesitating. He’s already been here for three minutes, trying to work up the nerve to knock. 

But he’s just being a bother, isn’t he? Jason doesn’t want him here. He’s fine with having him around sometimes, sure, but Tim is always there. 

It’s Jason and Tim, and Kon. 

Just because they get along, had like, one actual real conversation and they all took a nap on his couch? That doesn’t mean that he wants to let Kon mope around his apartment.

Even though Kon kinda wants to see him.

He should leave. It’s ridiculously late anyways, so ridiculously late that it’s actually ridiculously early, and Jason’s probably falling asleep, probably has his mouth hanging just a tiny bit open and his head nuzzled into his pillow the way he nuzzled into Kon and his heart does a soft little squeeze in his chest and why is he still here he’s just been floating out here like an idiot he needs to leave—

The blinds on the other end of the window he’s staring at pull up, and Jason looks at him through the glass, unnaturally bright green eyes dancing with something amused. 

Jason’s thick, calloused fingers pop the lock on the window and slide it open, and Kon’s stomach goes tight.

“You gonna hang out there until the sun comes up?” 

A smirk begins to crawl across Jason’s lips as he leans his palms on the windowsill.

Kon feels his face go warm as his eyes drop down at the fire escape. He floats down far enough to toe at the metal, rubbing at his arm.

“Nah, man, sorry. I was just— looking for Tim, but he’s not here, so. Yeah, it’s cool, I’ll see you—”

“Kon.”

Kon’s eyes flicker up and snag on the frown on Jason’s lips. 

“You’ve been out here for the last five minutes. You okay?”

Kon opens his mouth to say Yeah, dude, I’m fine, don’t sweat it, I’ll see you later, but nothing makes it out. He ends up just sort of floating there, saying nothing, for a solid five seconds before he clamps his mouth shut. 

Then he floats up a few feet, ready to just fly off because seriously, what the fuck is he doing there? 

And then Jason’s hand wraps around his ankle, warm and steady. 

“Come inside,” he says, his tone a low, steady rumble. 

Kon hesitates, letting Jason hold him there, before he gives in to the lull of the request. 

“Okay,” he says, and his voice is quiet and contained in a way he tries not to be in front of anyone.

Jason doesn’t release him, holding his leg like the string of a balloon as he tugs him into the apartment. 

He only lets go to close the window, and Kon lets himself float down until he’s hovering just above the ground, not quite putting his feet down. 

The apartment is clean except for a few guns on the counter and some dishes in the sink. The couch is laid out into the futon, the blanket they all slept under draped across it like Jason was sitting there the whole time Kon was outside, a book open and face down next to the slightly sunken spot. 

It smells like the lemon cleaning spray that Alfred uses at the manor, and soy sauce and onions and pork from whatever Jason has on the stove, and the scent of the cologne Jason uses, warm and sweet and spicy, and at the bottom of all of it, it smells like Jason himself, that warm human smell that Kon doesn’t realize he’s looking for until he finds it.

“What are you doing up?” Jason asks, walking to the sink and turning on the tap.

“What are you doing up?” Kon asks back, still hovering in the space between Jason’s couch and the little wooden dining table he has set up in the corner.

The question didn’t come out as confrontationally as he thinks it does, but he still blushes. 

God, what’s wrong with him?

“Sorry, I’m — that was rude.” Kon shifts his weight from one foot to the other in the air.

Jason gives him a shrug. “S’alright, I get it. Bad day?”

“Yeah,” Kon mumbles.

Somehow, the look that Jason turns and gives him makes him feel even more self-conscious than he already does.

“Dads, huh?” Jason asks, raising an eyebrow.

Kon clenches his jaw a little, so he doesn’t scowl. 

“You hungry?” Jason asks. 

Kon’s jaw loosens. 

First, the answer to that question has never been no, and the smell of sweet and salty Asian barbecue pork isn’t making him less hungry. 

But also, he thought Jason was going to ask what happened, and then he’d have to explain when he doesn’t even really have a right to be upset.

“Yeah, I could eat.”

Jason nods and turns, shutting the tap and silencing the rush of water before he grabs a dishtowel and wipes his hands. 

He glances back at Kon, then drops his eyes to the inch of space between his feet and the ground. Jason grins a little, something amused glittering in the bright green of his eyes.

“The floor isn’t lava, you know.”

Kon hesitates for a moment before lowering down slowly, letting his feet graze the floor. 

“Take a seat, I’ll grab a couple of plates.”

Kon walks to the couch, touching his feet to the hardwood on every step without allowing the ground to bear his weight. He lets himself settle on the couch where Jason was sitting so he can watch him move around the kitchen. A rush of steam plumes out of the steamer basket when he opens the lid, his feet make soft noises as his socks pad against the wood.

He tucks his knees up a little, not quite all the way against his chest, but enough to make room for Jason to sit down across from him. 

Jason places the steamer basket on the couch and hands Kon a plate, then drops three buns on it. 

“If I’d known you were coming I would’ve made some classic comfort food.” 

Kon snorts humorlessly, picking up a bun. It’s a little bouncy under his fingers, and he already knows it’s going to be fluffy and delicious before he even bites into it. 

He doesn’t think he wants to eat anything that reminds him of Ma’s kitchen right now anyways.

“Don’t sweat it, I’m already interrupting your—morning,” Kon decides after a glance at the clock on the stove.

“I wasn’t busy,” Jason says, tearing off a chunk of the bun in his hands to let the inside cool. Steam pours out of it in a puff, carrying the smell of the spices.

“Thanks,” Kon says, biting into his bun without waiting. He was right, it’s fucking delicious. The pork is moist and tender and the dough didn’t get soggy at all, and he makes a pleased noise as he rolls it over his tongue. 

“That’s a nice benefit of your genes, huh?” Jason says, blowing on his food and eyeing Kon’s lips.

Kon shrugs. He doesn’t really want to think about his genetics right now. 

“So, where do I aim?” Jason asks. 

Kon’s eyebrows furrow as he tilts his head at Jason.

“Shoulder? Head? I can steal some kryptonite bullets from B in the morning.”

Kon pauses chewing for a second, looking at the amusement in Jason’s eyes before he swallows his food. 

“Are you giving me the Clark is an Asshole special?”

Jason grins, crooked and wide and a little dangerous, and Kon’s stomach does a flip.

[iraprince]

any advice for starting sketches? once i have a coherent foundation it's easier for me to work on the drawing but i struggle SO BAD with actually making my initial sketch something that makes sense. when i try to start the sketch it feels like im just trying to get lucky with something i can actually work on. it's like i cant transfer what i want to see in my head to the actual work and it's insanely frustrating. it's like i can only know what i want to do when it's already there, not when nothing is there. ive been drawing for over 10 years and this is something I've never been able to change no matter how many different ways I've tried to go about this and it's why ive gone everywhere from drawing multiple times a week to not doing it at all for months/years at a time. i never want to try because the process of attempting a new sketch is so frustrating a majority of the time and i wish i could enjoy it or know why i cant get my sketches started. it's fine when i do get lucky, it's just the blank page that torments me

hmmm this is a really good question. it's something i have an easier time with digitally than traditionally, somehow -- like, i can't tell you how many stacks of paper i have sitting around that are full of, like, 20% of a floating head because i keep getting that far on starting something and then deciding i hate it, vs with digital sketches i do still often scrap/give up on sketches very early but somehow there's less friction irt just making a new layer and trying again, over and over pretty quickly. maybe it's that digital feels faster + more ephemeral, vs w traditional i'm faced more confrontationally with the paper i'm "wasting," etc

also i think just like. "what's in my head will not show up on the paper" is just the universal problem forever, it's the tide we're always swimming against and we'll go through waves where it feels more or less true depending on the current development of our technical skill vs our critical eye, but i don't think it ever fully goes away

this is just what's true for me but if it always feels like you're just trying to get lucky, the fastest brute force solution for that is leaning into quantity, imo. draw a LOT, draw FAST, and -- easier said than done, but -- try your best not to CARE if they look bad. even in the shittiest drawing there is often something you can salvage for later. i can't remember where i saw it but i once saw it said that drawing is like a clogged pipe -- there's a bunch of shitty drawings stuck in there and you have to get those all OUT before you can expect the real stuff behind it to start flowing

lower the stakes, in whatever way you can. in my experience, it's not that drawing itself is really that hard or taxing -- it's that the emotional toll of doing drawings and then not being happy with them is hard, it's disappointment and being down on yourself that's hard. if we do our best to strip away all the emotional baggage, that's that part that can actually make art so grueling and difficult to keep up with imo. so try the best u can to just make it, like... not that serious. remind yourself over and over again that there's nothing actually wrong with making drawings you're not satisfied with. it's not doing anything bad to anyone. i literally mumble it to myself sometimes -- when a drawing is coming out shitty or i just can't get where i want to be on an illustration i say to myself "it's okay, that's fine" and try to pump the brakes on the negative thoughts before "ugh, that's not what i wanted" somehow internally transforms into "you SUCK and you're a HACK and there's no point to ANY OF THIS!!!!" lol

in terms of more concrete stuff to try -- one of my fav exercises to loosen up is song sketches. i put a huge playlist (usually like literally all my music, i have it all in a folder on spotify) on shuffle and then draw a bunch of quick sketches only for the duration of each song, and usually trying to match the drawing to whatever the song makes me think of -- so if it's a 2 minute song, i literally only have 2 minutes. if i hit some 7 minute club edit, then great, i have 7 minutes to bang out something slightly more polished. depending on how fast you're used to working, you may find that at first you struggle to get ANYTHING coherent down in 2-3 minutes -- that's OKAY!!! another point of this exercise is to acclimate yourself to making unfinished, incoherent, dogshit drawings without it being a big deal. the point is that if you're limiting yourself this much (in terms of actual drawing time AND in terms of not being able to overthink/plan, you have to hear the start of the song and decide what ur gonna draw IMMEDIATELY), you will end up churning out a lot more drawings without individually agonizing over each one as much, and there WILL be something salvageable in the pile.

i hope some part of this is helpful!!!! good luck!!!

[loving-n0t-heyting]

non confrontationally, re "it is worrying [...] that very name", do you have an example of the first thing?

That was in response to a thread sneering at some crazy anprim shit about how we should be willing to lay down our lives if it’s necessary for the biosphere. More than one person in the thread described the sentiment as “eugenicist”; you see similar stuff in the way ppl talk about indifference to deaths that result from mass de-masking

I didn’t want to comment on the thread directly bc I basically agree with the sentiment: the only way to actually implement anprim bullshit successfully would be mass killing vast and horrific enough to make the Holocaust look like bad manners, a fact recognised by clearsighted ecofascists like pentti linkola (rest in piss). The extent of the outrage is probably misplaced given the total impotence of primmie types to effect actual change, but it still gets the insanity of the politics right. Even so, calling for ppl to give up their lives for an imagined pristine “biosphere” isn’t eugenics any more than any other call for sacrifice and martyrdom. There’s nothing in there particularly about actively promoting “eugenic” offspring and discouraging “dysgenic” offspring—a low bar sadly not passed by many cretins on the libertarian-adjacent right

I cannot adequately express the depths of my hatred for eugenicism. Whenever I see ppl coming out in favour of the alleged genetic hierarchy of human lives I am possessed of violent impulses. A cancer upon human thought. I am well and truly proud to take active part in the high IQ dysgenic assault on the human gene pool

[mathlann]

Divorceposting Returns!

Maybe not a fully comprehensive divorce rundown but I did do the "Void. Take. You." version of the Dinner with Heinrix and actually extra points for emotional damage and dysfunction. I love it. Its so fucked up and just a general culmination of how much they dont work ans probably were never going to work. Because for Heinrix, being part of the Inquisition means he doesn't fully belong to himself, and for Casimira, being Rogue Trader means she belongs only to herself, and so they just fundamentally are going to be at cross purposes regarding their relationship.

So this time around I did play Cas more confrontationally in the previous acts (calling him a coward at the Magnae, criticizing the Inquisition in Commorragh, etc) and generally refused to chase him. Cas made her interest known, but didn't tolerate his uncertainty that much and he did have to make the first move in Commorragh. But also their talk and opening up was kind of a big "thing" for Cas since that kind of emotional vulnerability isn't something she would normally allow. But she does have feelings for him, and their talk in Commorragh proved to her that they could work if all the other bullshit got out of the way. So she was especially patient with him during the dinner because she was expecting it to be a "I thought about what you said, and you're right Casimira" talk not a "let's not dwell on the fact we don't have a future" talk. Which immediately pissed her off because she's not going to chase where she's not wanted and honestly the turnaround was just....pain.

Just massive emotional damage all around because I have no doubt Heinrix is being sincere. He does love her, maybe to the point of heresy, and he doesn't want her hurt. But at the same time he is so mentally worn down from decades of not really having much agency in his life that actually making a choice is scary and painful. Because he says he isn't denying them a future because of fear but he is. Because if he only wanted to enjoy her company until Calcazar gave him a move order, kiss her sweet one last time and be gone, he could commit to that. He'd have to have told her that much earlier before she got invested though. So now he's in this middle space of coming to at least one of them needing to make a choice, and if it's him he may have to actually choose the Inquisition over her and vice versa, or otherwise start rolling things back to a more casual space. But he isn't emotionally ready to do any of that, so he wavers and puts it all in the hands of duty and noble suffering for the Imperium, and surely she understands as a fellow servant of the Emperor?

Which, frustrates Cas to no end because what duties she has are largely defined by practicality and her own whims. That Warrant's main use is as a heresy shield, and she's never pretended it's anything but. And the Inquisition doesn't mean much either, especially with Calcazar leaving the Expanse in the tatters it's in, so why does he keep allowing them to override his wants? If she is actually what he wants. And hearing the L word does give her some pause to keep her from walking out entirely, but she doesn't fully believe it, because everything around it doesn't back up that claim. He said he didn't want to hurt her but ultimately she feels led on and taken for a fool. Her frustration is made all the worse by the fact that she has her (paused) fling with Marazhai to compare. Because why does it seem like the Drukhari started things with her in a more open and honest dialogue than the man who just claimed to love her?

Like I do think the love confession kind of rolls off of her and while she feels something for him she's not going to say it back because he hasn't earned that from her. She's irritated, he best make it up to her, and they just fall back into their usual cycle except Cas' going to start closing herself off because she's just... on the brink of not caring anymore. They can be warm bodies to each other and let's not make the inevitable more painful than it needs to be. Whatever.

[hannigramislife]

Hello! I saw in your tags that you wanted a time travel fic where Jiang Cheng tells Jiang Fengmian to shove it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/43960344/chapters/110533362

He doesn't tell JFM confrontationally, but there's a few moments where he writes off JFM that always stuck with me. The fact that it's casual made it more impactful to me, especially with this Really Important Moment that turns out to be less important than all the small everyday moments.

And I wanted to thank you for pointing out that just because there's a culture of familial values doesn't mean we have to give parents an automatic pass! (It's a bit different for me, I think, because I've learned alot about my parents' childhood via casual-relative-storytime to realize that they are also Jiang Cheng realizing he can treat Jin Ling better than he himself was treated...they did their best... there just were external mitigating circumstances and they didn't have all the psych resources I do today hence all the crying I did on the bus after seeing your post lol.) But it's still something I struggle with a little and I appreciate you circling back to bring it up.

Dude, first of all, thank you for liking and replying to my post. That means a lot to me! Secondly, I hope I didn't come oft rude in any way in my earlier response!

You're godsent for sending me that link 🙏 gonna eat it up.

Also, I understand ans sympathize with your struggle! My father's parents were borderline abusive, and they went through some highly traumatic shit, but they're much better parents by a mile. It's always good to remember that they're also experiencing life for the first time, and doing their best.

My main issue witj Jfm was that he continually treats Wei Wuxian better than his own child, and has many chances to comfort/reassure/teach Jiang Cheng, or dispel any rumors/ideas he might have about what Jfm feels about him (and Madam Yu too).

Man simply doesn't. There is no effort. That's what kills me and I shall not forgive.

[jttw-dadkong]

Dadkong chapter 2, who sneaked into heaven and stole all those peaches?

Nezha and Wukong searched diligently in the Immortal peaches Grove, hoping to find any hints about the culprit. As Wukong effortlessly scaled the trees, he noticed traces of monkey fur on certain branches.

he held the little hair at his fingertips, he jumped down from one of the Immortal peaches trees, he spoke to Nezha “i found some monkey fur “ he showed it to nezha with a frown,nezha lead forward to look at the price of fur in bet

he showed it to nezha with a frown,nezha lead forward to look at the price of fur in between Wukong fingertips.

Nezha’s suspicion grew as he plucked the fur from Wukong’s fingertips, his raised eyebrow displaying his distrust. With a hint of suspicion, Nezha held the fur from Wukong’s fingertips and asked, “Are you certain this isn’t your own fur?”

Wukong forcefully retrieved the fur, retorting, “ found this piece of monkey fur, it's not mine, and the color doesn't match either."

Nezha replies, “are you so certain it isn't yours?"

Wukong "I assure you it's not my own! Why would I want to deceive you when I'm conducting the investigation myself?!"

Nezha, with an expression that revealed his skepticism, confrontationally warned Wukong, “I am well aware of your deceptive tactics, Wukong. You won’t easily fool me.”

Wukong retorted with an irritated huff.

"Hmph, you're are a fool. This isn't my fur, let me show you, that it not mine" he then ripped out a piece of fur from his head hair, His fur was the (color of old gold, precious but worn.)

The other, on his other fingertips,(is the color of light antique gold), close to Wukong's fur color.

he held both furs in between his fingers, put them both in his mouth, chewed on them, blew the fur out of his mouth, he spoke "Change!"

Only one fur changed into a clone of Sun Wukong and the other fell to the ground,wukong caught the little strands of fur, but before it hit the ground, his clone popped back into fur, and he caught it.

Nezha replied, "It seems like you're correct." With impressive and shocked expression,he crossed his arms.

Wukong speaks with confidence, with a snigger. "damn right I am,old monkey is always right. I proved it wasn't me, so was it then? "

Nezha rubbed his chin, his eyes wandering the Peach Garden. He soon noticed on the marble floor muddy footprints, the size of a little monkey's footsteps

"I do not know, but I have found a trail. "

Nezha took the lead, his eyes scanning the ground for any signs. As they approached the prints, he walked to their side and knelt down for a closer inspection. Wukong commented, “Those little monkey feet, about 12 years old. I can easily recognize the size of my young ones’ feet.”

Nezha replied to Wukong in a firm and curious way. He bent over to look closely at the muddy footprints, "It seemed so, monkey, how did the flower maidens not notice this?"

Wukong replies "The little monkey must have been Sneaky,come into the peach garden, when the flowers maidens were asleep,in the died of night" he stands up again, his tail swishing.

Nezha and Wukong go back to the Jade Emperor, and they report the clues they found in their investigation. The jade emperor says, "A little monkey you say, how do you suggest the little brat came into heaven? "

Wukong replies, "The little monkey must have come into the delivery horse cart and sneaked in that way. "

With Wukong explaining how the little monkey came into heaven and stole the Immortal peaches, the Jade Emperor reply "no good,we need to find that kid"

Golden star of Venus speaks up, "My emperor,may I suggest Erlang shen,he could find the little monkey with his trusted dog"

(OOC: Sorry if it isn't greatly written, but here it is)

[surrexi]

so i've been working at my new job for a little over two months now. i'm supposed to be having weekly one-on-one meetings with my boss to track how i'm settling in etc but because he's outrageously busy (like, the kind of busy that indicates there really should be two people with his job) i'm really having them every two weeks or so.

anyway i had one today, about an hour and a half before the end of the day. and it was going all right, if a little awkward because i'm a socially awkward penguin and i don't know how to mask right yet in corporate land. we were going over the various projects i'm working on, pretty normal, except every so often my boss would make an aside comment that would make me worry Something Was Wrong.

finally at the end of the meeting he's like "so there's a couple things that have been brought to my attention" (did not specify what things, like if it was something i said or i way i handled a situation or work that i did). he sends me a link to a training module he's working on building and points out a specific section that talks about a particular business dude's book about how to be a good team member, which says the key is to be humble, hungry, and (people-)smart.

boss is like "before i talk to you about [the unspecified reasons i am being made to feel vaguely in trouble], i want you to look this over and think about it. and we'll pick this up in our next meeting."

which is currently scheduled for next friday, but he's traveling that day so he absolutely might put it off longer.

he also made sure to say multiple times that if someone doesn't agree with this business dude's take on team building it's fine but also it means they won't fit on boss' team and to mention that although "many states" are at-will employment states (meaning during your first 90 days an employer can fire you without having a reason; note that texas is one such state but he weirdly didn't mention it), the company we work for "doesn't do that," which boss thinks is "very generous" of them because when he was a disney exec disney would absolutely fire the shit out of people at the drop of a hat.

so now i have NO IDEA what i did to make someone upset and/or angry at me or what i did wrong, but by god i have at least a week to obsess over (a) what i did and (b) who the fuck narc'd on me without idk TALKING TO ME FIRST?!

boss has said way more about his weird libertarian politics than i have about my own politics, i have only mentioned my religion in passing/in the context of discussing easter weekend plans with a coworker. i don't think i've behaved inappropriately or confrontationally with any of my coworkers, like with my anxiety i'm always worrying about doing my best to be clear and polite and not make people hate me lolsob.

the only thing i've thought of so far is that i've been pretty firm about working 8-hour days/40-hour weeks unless there's a concrete reason to graciously donate my time since my company doesn't do overtime pay and i'm salaried/exempt. like i have never said i would never work overtime and there's already been several days where i worked an extra 30 minutes to an hour that, again, i do not get paid for. unsurprisingly, boss frames being salaried as "we get to work more than 40 hours a week without it being a hassle because of overtime rules." and i do make offhand pro-labor comments/jokes a lot, but i haven't actually, like, threatened to unionize my fellow office workers. i live in texas ffs, if you say the word union too loud the cops show up.

i just feel like this is unhinged levels of psychological warfare from my boss and it took me SO LONG to find this job but now i'm like... maybe i'm not a good fit for your humble/hungry/smart team, bro. but god knows i don't want to be unemployed again. i just got decent health insurance! i can pay my own rent! and buy groceries and medicine!

ugh. why is everything hard.

[rastronomicals]

What do you expect from your heroes? Are they some kind of unimpeachable paragons of judgment, 50-foot beacons for whom the tough calls are easy, for you? Do you walk around wondering what [fill in your hero's name right here] would do?

Because God, that'd be fucking stupid of you.

You could probably make the case that having heroes is stupid in and of itself; hell, I wouldn't argue. Yet I do have a few.

But the thing I've noticed, especially today, I've noticed, is that these heroes, their mistakes, their miscalculations, their errors, are as glaring, and are as unmistakably apparent as any I might notice from the ones whom I call the villain.

The thing about Steve Albini, I think, was his twin directives. When he landed in Evanston, the burgeoning Chicago scene around him drove him to become a guitarist and a musician, but the nationally-recognized journalism school he was enrolled in pushed him towards becoming a critic. And obviously, because he was hard-wired the way he was, he took both potential undertakings seriously. You* might say too seriously.

The problem in treating with art, the problem with even considering to do so, is that as soon as you start, there are necessarily people engaged in making it, who treat it less seriously than you have already decided to.

And just what the fuck should you do about these people?

Should you perhaps treat them with contempt? I mean, it's one thing not to care about art, and then you let the people who do care prattle on to one another about it. But to merely *pretend* to care? To produce therefore only a semblance of it? Those are serious crimes, or so at least the young Steve Albini thought.**

We live in an era of increasing empathy, and that's not a bad thing. But the thing is, that it's quite possible that those who should be doing better should be spoken to or spoken of in harsh terms.

Albini ended up contrite over those awful things he said, about the Pixies or The Smashing Pumpkins, or about EDM, or sometimes he was only contrite about the way he said them, but either way seems to me from over here that either you soften up, or you die friendless. And that dying friendless, now that I mention it, is something critics often do.

Although I love music very much in the way that Albini did, I don't think I can be said to hate it in the way he did. If I hear a genre that doesn't click, I'll just push myself non-confrontationally away from the table, and say 'this one's not for me.' Which is the right reaction for these times, arguably any other, but doesn't necessarily push myself much, or anyone else.

So Albini's opinions didn't rankle or offend me; they just kinda left me amused, if not always dazzled by the courage it took. But I was also never the target.

The important thing, though, is that almost everything he said, like almost everything he did in a professional capacity, whether it were as a musician or an engineer, and no matter how foul, came from a place that sought integrity in himself and in others.

This world is so, so lackng in people of the same character, that to focus on anything except that character at this lousy, benighted, hero-poor moment in time is doing us all a grave disservice.

_________

(though not I) * and the old me, too.

[gumasantan]

morning forever: a cynonari oneshot

author's note: hey, hey, hey! i've written another fic that i'm quite satisfied about, and this time, i had to think hard about it! it's a long ass oneshot (~2.6k words) with a mystery (wooo~). this one focuses on cyno and tighnari's relationship so if you're not into those that i've mentioned, please scroll away. from this point on i'm planning to write in different styles. anyway, i hope you enjoy reading this one!

Therein lies a wooden cabin in the middle of a spruce forest surrounded by lush greens, bountiful patches of colorful plants, and littered with vines ever-growing upon the surface of the manmade structure. With how natural and one-in-nature this living space is, it won’t only attract those who love the sight of the undisturbed land, but it will also reel in those who have a passion in how this massive piece of soil came to be and anything of it.

A setting like that does not stand remarkable among many people apart from a few, considering how far they will have to be away from any signs of human activity.

The irrelevance one can feel in the presence of intimidation made real when one realizes how much the trees tower over their figure, it really makes you feel small. Inevitably, a description of such a place will conceive stories that will imply a ‘magical’ environment that lives within the forest, which is a bunch of mysticism nonsense obviously.

However, some will persist living here otherwise.

“I mean do you believe in all of that stuff? People randomly disappearing, seeing a creature, shadows in the distance or anything of the sort…what was that other one again? Something about time that those who come here find odd?”

The peaceful and quiet air filling the cabin is interrupted by a somewhat relaxed voice. 

“I’m just concerned about you, Nari.”

As replied with someone with a worried and serious tone.

Oh, the irony.

“Oh please, Cyno. Not me. We’ve been inhabiting our house here for how many years now, five? Six? Whatever it is, we know for a fact that we need someone to maintain this place we’ve always considered our true home, yes?” He tries to hide his annoyance.

“I know. I can handle being by myself just fine and I know I’ll be a maid of this house. I’m not stupidly worried about you like somehow I know the world is going to end later and I want you here by my side before the meteor hits us or something like that.” He replies back, attempting to justify that his worry goes deeper than what his boyfriend have said.

“That’s the spirit, Cyno! Thank you for clearing that up!”

He approaches his man with a hug, pleasantness floating in the air around them as Cyno hugs him back with a bit of relief not from his attempt at reassurance, but from his unexpected optimism.

-

“It’s just…there’s something else with the stories they tell. Irks me in the wrong places, you know? Or not…” He whispers into his long ears as they both hug his worries away.

His boyfriend then pulls away from the hug and holds his shoulders, making sure that he looks straight at him, like those types of scenes in the plays they have seen in the bazaar.

“Tell me truthfully, Cyno. Do you believe in them?” He asks confrontationally as he looks at him straight in the eyes.

He shakes his head once presented with the question.

“Are you sure? No traces of doubt left within you?” As he forces the issue in order to get it out of his system, and making sure of his feelings so that nothing may be misconstrued.

“Yes, none of it, Nari.” He finally replies as he achingly looks away from him when he let the last words slip past his lips. He glances at the clock on the top of the wall right in front of them:

12:15

Tighnari lets go of his shoulders with leniency expressed on his face.

“Besides, regardless if they’re true or not, I don’t think I should let those possibly false stories stand in the way of my own research. My love for my work is just as great as my love for you, and you’re not immature enough to ask anything like ‘Work or me?’ anyway, which is a great privilege by the way, with how much you’ve reassured me about it. Thank you for that, my love, really…” As he looks back at his love with a smile forming on his lips.

Tighnari had to admit that, hinting at the insecurity he had when faced with a situation like this. Always being stuck at a crossroads between his Cyno and his work at many points in their relationship. Yet, his sweetheart’s maturity have always prevailed. It has never come to a point where he invalidates his passion, and have even always encouraged him to keep pursuing it.

Cyno looks away from the clock and back at him, feeling warmth and fuzziness forming in his chest as they make him return the smile back.

“Let me just say that I don’t want to not talk about this. In fact, I do, and I’m willing to reassure you over and over again! It just didn’t stop me from being all exhausted about it…”

As he maintains his smile while sitting down on the stool beside the wooden counter, folding his arms as he lets his head down, wanting to rest himself for a short while.

Cyno approaches and hugs him around his waist gently from behind, looking to absorb and share some of that emotional fatigue that he’s sure that Tighnari is feeling.

Those types of choices weren’t easy.

He rests his head beside Tighnari’s, rousing some heartfelt intimacy between them.

“I’m sorry for being such a pain in the bottom to deal with, love. I know I’d let my worries take over me for a while. Trust me that this time is truly me you’re talking to right now, alright?”

“As if you’re not such a worrywart everytime we’re together, silly.”

Tighnari giggles.

Cyno giggles back.

He’s right, damn you.

-

“Here, how about this: Let me tell you a joke. What did the father told his son when returned to his home after buying out milk?” As he says looking at him. He looks to the clock as he waits for his answer, or rather, an attempt at an answer:

12:32

Ah, here we go again…

“What, Cyno?” Tighnari turns his face to that lovely face that made him fall in love hard to the side that was inches away from him as he prepares to keep himself from cringing laughing…

“Nothing. Why? Because the dad never came back. It was one of those running jokes that always implied abandonment issues.” As he said it with the…

…Straightest. Face. Ever.

What followed suit was something unexpected. His boyfriend has never laughed at one of his jokes since they were together…except now. He watches in surprise as Tighnari turns his face away from him and proceeds to laugh. Is it an honest laugh because it was genuinely funny? Or was it a mocking one because it was so bad it’s funny? For Cyno, either way was good enough for him.

Because he managed to be funny and make him laugh.

Cyno hugs Tighnari tighter than before and kisses on Tighnari’s cheek even as his lips would shape into a smile as his love kept on laughing.

I swear to God, don’t their bodies ache from positioning theirselves like this?

Cyno’s music in the room starts to settle as Tighnari’s lets his laugh fall silent. He couldn’t laugh for much longer: It was hurting his muscles and he had to catch his own breath before Cyno indirectly kills him from suffocation.

They let the laughs die down as they silently enjoyed their close presence together.

-

“So, tell me Cyno, why don’t you want me to go?” His boyfriend asks.

“Huh?”

Cyno faces him with a bewildered look in his face. Still locking his arms around Tighnari’s waist, he wonders what made him ask that kind of question.

“I know you never really believed in those stories in the first place. I know you’re smarter than that, and I know you know it too. Can you confirm in your own feelings that maybe you’re just urging me to not perform my work?” He asked an attacking question, but relaxed in its delivery.

“What are you asking, Nari? It’s just the stories and nothing else…”

Cyno answers as he felt a bit of confusion in Tighnari’s tone of questioning.

“Are you sure, Cyno? Head of the disciplinary division of the Academy, are you sure?” As he continues to press, wanting to confirm his suspicion about him since he brought up his concerns.

…

…

…

Cyno’s reply would be the dead air between them, as he sighs and looks back at the clock he’s been staring at all along. Tighnari follows suit as he watches his gaze:

12:48

“I…don’t want you to go.” He finally admits, as his hug would only grow tight and tighter by the minute. He still hadn’t let go of him actually.

“I am that selfish. I really don’t want you to go. I’ve experienced what it’s like to be left by you, and I’ll admit that I don’t want that to happen again.” He reiterates as he closes his eyes, anticipating some of his boyfriend’s sharp comments that he might throw at him.

“I see.” Was all that Tighnari could say.

“You value your work very much, and I appreciate that. My work in the academy is something you know I value highly as well! But yours…” Cyno trails as he tries to keep his voice from trembling. He feels the wetness around his eyes.

“…We both don’t know when I’ll come back.”

Tighnari finishes Cyno’s sentence with a blank look on his face.

Admittedly, his past researches had made him unsure of the longevity of his time away from him. It took him two months for his first, six months for his second, three months for his third, and a year for his fourth! And those are only selected from many! His research is seriously taking lifetimes away from him.

He feels his shoulder shaking and moving, hearing muffled sobbing and sniffing, while he looks straight, towards nothingness.

-

As the motion on his shoulders gets weaker and weaker made him irresolute, an undecided Tighnari asks his Akasha terminal of the date:

12:52 - Sunday, December 29

He sighs as he realizes what this day means. However, he doesn’t want to tell him, it would stress him even further, and considering how stressed he is right now, it won’t help the situation.

After a little while, the sniffs continued to stop. The wet feeling he had on his shoulders stopped flowing. Slight dampness poured over Tighnari’s clothes.

“You—you claim to say that I…am just as important as your work, right?” Cyno pleads with his boyfriend as let his defenses down and allowed his heart to speak.

“So, stay with me! Don’t go, just this once…”

Cyno is at his most vulnerable now.

He pulled away from Tighnari and waited for his reply.

Just please, stay.

“Cyno…” Tighnari spoke.

“You are the love of my life, and I love you…”

As he stands up from the stool and faces Cyno, paying attention to his eyes that has swelled from crying before, and may swell again.

“But…”

“BUT WHAT?!” Cyno shouts at him instinctively.

Tighnari was stunned in silence and started acting with hesitation in every little movement he makes: From where to put his hands to how he should stand. Those feet seem to be dancing.

…

…

…

“I have to do this. I really have to do this, Cyno. You know this has been my entire life…I can’t stop now.”

As Tighnari sighs, realizing the things that he had said, how bitter it would be not just for Cyno but for him as well. Even so, he clings to that little hope that Cyno may come to understand his reasons, like back then before.

There’s no turning back.

“Then GO!” Cyno shouts back at him.

Truth be told, it hurts for him to say that. For such a stoic man to become an emotional mess from a few spoken words is something that he is still getting used to. Tighnari has done that to him, and he didn’t regret any bit of it, but he didn’t expect that he will do it again in this manner.

“Get OUT OF HERE!” He continues to shout as he gestures to the camp and research equipment that Tighnari has prepared.

He turns back as he cannot bear to look at Tighnari anymore.

Never before has been his voice be full of emotions. He had always reserved himself just so he could successfully avoid letting anyone see any possible vulnerabilities he might’ve had, except for his boyfriend. Even then, it had never grown to this magnitude.

“I’ve…I’ve given up! I can do everything yet it absolutely won’t go in my favor…”

Cyno appeared to be beaten by Tighnari’s insistence.

“I’m sorry, Cyno.”

Was all Tighnari could say as he witnessed his boyfriend’s anger.

Cyno mustered all of his emotional stability just so he could only look at Tighnari: Speechless and full of guilt. He never meant to lash out at him like that, but his patience has run out.

Especially not how many times he’d tried before.

-

Tighnari walked towards Cyno to hug him, regardless if it means anything or not. To see Cyno like this, it was appalling, and he knows full well that it’s his fault. With how long they’ve been together, he somehow hopes that this would not affect their relationship more than it has to.

Cyno sees Tighnari going towards him, expecting a hug like he’d always give, but his expression gave that careless look. Instead, he only seemed to care about the time as he looked at the clock:

12:59

Shit.

Cyno realizes what’s about to happen.

And as he thought of it, he feels his vision getting blurry; darkness enveloping his peripheral vision. A sudden rush of weakness spread throughout his body; especially his legs that are draining from energy that allowed him to move. But now, he doubts if he can even stand for any longer.

“Cyno, what’s wrong?” Tighnari asks him with a curious look, anxiety infecting his tone of voice.

It’s too late…

Cyno tries to speak but to no avail, even just as Tighnari is attempting to support him, he is losing his posture. The muddiness of his head is starting to get heavy and he starts hyperventilating as he tries to get ahold of himself. The panic is setting in.

“CYNO!”

It was the last thing he ever heard from him before pure black took over.

-

A sudden loud gasp was heard in a bedroom.

The man looked shocked as if he’s had a horrific nightmare. With widened eyes and alert senses, he attempts to recover his distraught state of mind and troubled breathing. His distress prompting him to carefully examine his area to make sure that he’s not in any danger.

After a short while, he manages to compose himself towards a state of normalcy. He’s calmed down at the moment. He finds out that he was sleeping in the cabin. His figure being more relaxed as he grasps this reality. He quickly looks to the empty space on the bed in his right.

Oh, I’m back here again.

He gets his Akasha he removed prior on the drawer without looking as if it's déjà vu, and asks it about the time and date:

8:50 - Saturday, December 28

“Cyno?”

A voice was heard followed by the creaking of a door.

“Cyno, what happened? I heard a loud noise coming from here…”

It’s him.

The man with foxlike ears stared at Cyno with a curious expression.

Cyno inhales and exhales to release any traces of edginess he had experienced waking up.

“It’s fine, Nari. It’s nothing really…” Cyno answers assuredly.

Oh, darling. We’re back here again.

-

“Well, you better get up! I’ve prepared you breakfast on the counter. Oh, and after that, help me pack my belongings, alright? I know it’s still in midnight but I have a lot of things to carry, okay love?”

Tighnari asks cheerfully.

Cyno would just keep staring back at Tighnari with an innocent look on his gaze.

“Well…?”

Tighnari asks once more.

=

Do I have to subject myself through all of this again?

Whatever I do, it’s always the same outcome.

We couldn’t even celebrate your birthday this time properly.

It seems so never-ending.

How much long should I be stuck like this?

What’s the meaning of all of it?

=

“Yes, my Nari. I will help you.”

He answers back with a smile on his face.

His boyfriend would give the largest smile he has ever given him, as a 'thank you' for reflecting his upbeat confidence in helping him with his errand at later midnight.

Hey, that’s the first time since you smiled that big!

“Alright, alright! Well, what are you waiting for? Come with me at the counter and eat before the food gets cold. I’ll give you a kiss after!”

Tighnari remarks as he goes to the living room, leaving Cyno alone.

-

I never quite realized how much time I’ve been given with Tighnari this way.

Cyno closes his eyes, trying to fathom that sweet but cruel manner of having his time with him.

But is it worth it if he chooses to leave him in the end?

The pain of having to beg for him to stay.

The pain of bearing his priorities for work over me.

…

…

…

Maybe.

He sighs.

“I wish it was morning forever…”

[purecommemasolitude]

you do understand that the character is not affected by readers. Right. Because like, yeah that cherry post is valid, but nobody is affecting the character by opinion. Your perception of the character is being affected by their perception. Which actually validated their perception. But whatever. Because people like you don’t understand the difference between fiction and reality, and your opinion and facts.

i mean. yeah. obviously? i'll be honest man that part at the end was mostly a joke, and furthermore i really don't pay much attention to people who think cherry was the villain simply because it's not a very prevalent attitude on tumblr, which is the only social media site i use for fandom-related activities, so it doesn't cross my mind enough to colour my actual perception of cherry. as for "validating their perception", i'm not entirely sure what you mean by that so i'll leave it alone, but either way "this internet stranger doesn't understand the division between fiction and reality or their opinion and facts" is a very large assumption to make based off of one (1) lighthearted post i wrote in one minute that was not meant to be taken as a dissertation on fandom culture.

moreover, if anyone can provide me with textual evidence that cherry is meant to be the villain, i'll read it and genuinely consider it. however, to me, it is pretty clear that the messaging and themes of the outsiders completely contradict this possibility, and maybe one day i will make an actually serious post laying out my own evidence. one can dislike a character all one wants, though i do question the widespread attitude of pardoning male characters while crucifying female character in this fandom, but in terms of authorial intent, cherry being the villain simply makes so sense to me. again, though, i am willing to genuinely hear someone out if they lay out any evidence beyond "she did a thing i don't like" and "this action of hers, despite not having any ill intent, lead to negative consequences, much like the actions of five other characters that i completely ignore while lambasting her", which seem to be the dominant arguments of people who consider cherry the villain from what i've seen.

finally, if you really hated my take that much, i suggest you do what i do when i encounter similar situations and block me, rather than coming into my inbox on anon with a confrontationally-worded message. i do not see a productive goal from this ask, as it does not allow for a productive conversation unless i actively choose to ignore & reverse the dismissive attitude that permeates it, which is a conversational burden that is not ideal for open-minded discussion. in fact, coming into a disagreement with mannerisms such as the ones you chose above only makes it more likely that the person on the other end will respond in kind and decide your opinion isn't worth hearing out. therefore, unless your goal was genuinely to start an outright argument in the inbox of a stranger over one post that said stranger has thought about more in responding to this ask than in creating it, this endeavor was ill-fated from the beginning, and it would really be better to either attempt to express your thoughts in a manner that allows for intellectual conversation, or block the stranger and move on with your day.

[lindsayrps]

eleanor "nell" howard, twenty four, red cross nurse

from the outside, it would appear as if john and caroline howard are not a perfect match. look a little closer and…they’re still not a perfect match. he’s overbearing, quick to anger, and not someone who’s entirely anywhere close to something resembling warmth. caroline is the exact opposite. capable of warmth, to a degree, caroline is confrontationally avoidant and subservient to her husband, first and foremost. 

that they had children was probably not a surprise but also probably not entirely the best move either. thomas is first and two year later, nell joins the party. for a while, it’s the two of them until nell is eleven when the youngest and second boy, robert, joins the family. the howard family calls eden, new york home for as long as nell can remember.

to say that the way nell’s mother grew up dictated the way she raised nell and her brothers is a bit of an understatement. caroline was raised to be a wife and a mother, first, and everything else second–to raise children and keep the house was just about the most important thing she could possibly do with her life but the little one room schoolhouse in eden needed a teacher for all the other children in town and she took that on, too, shouldering it like it was her responsibility long before she'd even taken it on.

thus, nell was raised to be the obedient listener with intentions to serve everyone else but herself while thomas and robert were, more or less, given free reign because “boys will be boys.” naturally, this did not work out for anyone involved for…several reasons.

namely, nell and thomas being extremely close. with just over a two year gap between them (as opposed to the near eleven between nell and robbie) they were basically never out of each other’s, or their mother's, sight for a good portion of their childhoods. she doesn't tell anyone when he thinks about fudging his age to join the navy without parental consent at sixteen and he doesn't say anything when he catches her smoking with her friends behind the church two years later. by the time robbie arrives, caroline spends most of her time tending to the baby and leaves the two of them to their own devices, for the most part.

the expectations placed on caroline as a young woman were eventually passed onto nell, too, to no one's surprise. on the face of it, being a wife and a mother is not the absolute worst thing in the world and she wouldn't hesitate to say that she doesnt want that to be part of who she is one day but by the time she's a teenager, nell starts wanting more for herself.

not wanting to go completely off the rails and disappoint her parents, she decides to go into a “respectable” profession (in the eyes of her mother) after she graduates from high school and chooses the one she's best at–nursing. while there was nothing wrong with several of the other options available to her and despite being fairly maternal, nell didn't think she'd be a very good governess nor music teacher, mostly because she was hardly musically inclined enough to do so. she's always been someone who wanted to take care of others, whether it had been expected of her or not, so the leap to nursing is not as drastic as it could've been. 

the howards struggled, like so many others, during the depression years. while they didn’t struggle nearly as much as some of the people that they knew, to say that it was a walk in the park, as a result, was far from the truth. john howard loses his job at the lumbermill, taking it a little more personally than he really had any right to, and while caroline did her best to support the family through hers, there were five mouths to feed for a time and, then, only four when thomas enlisted in the us navy at eighteen, with parental consent because he wasn’t yet twenty one years of age.

she goes straight into nursing school after graduating high school in 1937. unknown to her, at the time, thomas paid for her to go because, after spending her high school years in the most dismal years for the american education system and with the ongoing depression, thomas didn't want her to worry about how she was going to pay tuition for the three years she'd be in training. he'd been in the navy for two years, at that point, sending a significant portion of the money he'd socked away in that time back for nell’s schooling and to help ease the burden on their parents as the depression lurched forward through the end of the decade. 

by the time war breaks out in 1939, thomas is stationed in hawaii at pearl harbour and in april 1940, he gets assigned to the uss arizona when the pacific fleet makes PH it's home base.

while the us hadn't a thought to enter the war, it still became a point of worry for nell–he is so far away from family and what if something happened to him? he assuages these fears by insisting he's fine and he's made friends with enough of his fellow sailors that they'll look out for him and besides she's got a fancy new career in a hospital in eden to focus on instead. 

when pearl harbour is attacked on the morning of december 7, 1941 thomas is aboard the arizona and is one of the crewmen who die in the subsequent explosion after a bomb hits the forward magazines. the howards find out about the attack through news coverage that afternoon like everyone else. caroline is inconsolable, john does his best to comfort her, in a rare moment of concern for his wife, and robbie is mostly shielded from it.

nell is working when she finds out. she’d been a nurse for less than a year, at that point, and when the chattering starts at the hospital about what had happened, she becomes catatonic and they send her home. she doesn’t need confirmation because it feels like it’s never going to come and, deep down, she figures she already knows that the worst had happened. they don’t get a funeral, they don’t get to say goodbye, they just have to sit with the knowledge that their son and brother is gone and find a way to move forward.

when the us joins the war effort, nell doesn’t think twice about volunteering for the red cross. it’s an impulsive decision built on the heels of immense pain and if she’d thought about it for a little longer, she might not have gone through with it. but, in the moment, she thinks: she’s a nurse, they’ll need those, and plenty of them, in the coming months. she’ll go wherever they want her to go, they just need to send her somewhere. she doesn’t think she can stick around eden while her family grieves thomas and she needs to do something.

it's not a decision that sits well with her parents. they lost their son, they weren't about to potentially lose their twenty two year old daughter, too, and no amount of telling them she wasn't going into a literal combat zone was going to appease them or make them back down on chastising her for doing something so foolish.

the red cross decides they don’t need anymore nurses, not yet, but they suggest she volunteer for the clubmobile service in the meantime. she’s exactly what they need, she’s sociable and cute and maybe she’s a little on the younger side than they’re used to but it’s quick entry into the war so she does it. they send her over to england with a few other women but she doesn’t give up trying to get into a hospital, somewhere, somehow.

nell doesn’t doubt that her parents love her but for the majority, if not all, of her life thusfar she’s never really felt loved by them. by all accounts, she was the perfect, obedient daughter they wanted, always twisti herself into whatever they’d wanted her to be in any given situation and it still felt like there was an unspoken level of…disappointment there. leaving the way she had hadn’t helped matters, she’s sure, but she can’t exactly take it back now.

she’s never once in the two years since his death talked much about thomas, if at all. it hurts just as much as it did, then, and was a monumental moment in nell’s life that altered her in more ways than one. for one, his death spurred her on to being more outspoken and sure of herself and her place after she left new york, letting herself be soft in spite of circumstances. she’s a lot less willing to compromise on her beliefs and the things she wants for herself now. in another way, she doesn’t want to get involved with anyone in uniform because she can’t stand the thought of losing someone she loves the way she lost her brother.

nell is…fairly conservative with the time she spends with the men on base. no disrespect to any of the women who decide otherwise, because you do you, but she is not willing to be a one night stand, as it were, for any of them. she does believe this is also partly due to the way she was raised attending church and being a good christian. dating was a means to get married, sex was not something you did before getting married or simply had in any capacity that wasn’t procreation related. she didn’t have to be told that indulging in any of that meant she’d be considered less than in the eyes of god for her to Get The Hint.

she is unlearning a lot of those beliefs, though, and realizing that at the end of the day, she’s not a bad person and will never be a bad person for not being Totally And Completely Innocent. now if she could just work through the grief she’s been ignoring for two years and realize that forming connections with people doesn’t mean they’re going to die horrible deaths as a result, that’d be great!

[malottie]

do you ever think you have an alright relationship with someone, but whenever you stumble upon a comic, or book, or just a citation that talks about trauma, or difficult relationships, or any emotion-heavy subject, it makes you think about that person

and you're just forced to admit that the relationship with this person is complicated and bad in weird ways and at least slightly abusive and just burried under mountains of non-confrontationality and 'I care about you'