#or have 'obviously' never been in fandom or whatever

[sensorydephrivation]

Amatonormative assumptions and the language of a hard launch: a rambly DnP essay thing

I have a lot of Discourse Thoughts about hard launching and all that, but there’s not much I can say that hasn’t already been said. This fandom is one that generally has significant representation on both sides of any major issue; any take you look for you can find someone genuinely believing. What I am interested in analyzing is how some people are insistent, whether or not they want it to happen or believe it will happen, that they haven’t Hard Launched, and others are equally insistent that they have. Because on the surface those should be completely contradictory takes, but a large amount of people believe each to be true.

I’ve seen posts making comparisons to PJ and Sophie, and I definitely think that’s a useful tool because it brings up the real question here: how do we speak about romantic and platonic relationships, and what underlying assumptions are at play when we use or don't use certain words?

Firstly, this issue is obviously mostly to entirely due to homophobia. Why do people assume PJ and Sophie are a couple just because they live together, even though they've never used the words? Because they're a man and a woman. Why couldn't DnP be publicly open about their relationship back in the day? Because they're gay. I'm not going to spend too much time on this point because it's obvious, but I feel like it's important to remember that Dan and Phil's relationship wasn't some Great Secret for no reason. They weren't no-homo-ing because of privacy or whatever, but because they weren't yet ready to face the immense challenges being publicly out sticks you with, especially in the early 2010s. If homophobia wasn't a thing, everything else I'm going to say in this post would still be true, but it would all be significantly less charged. Just remember that gay marriage wasn't legal in the UK when DnP met each other, and that 2000s pop culture overall was routinely, openly, virulently homophobic. Just keep that in mind. (Also, everything I talk about in this post refers to 2019 onwards, after they came out. I wasn't around for the no-homo era and can't speak on it. I'm also not going to be talking about the speculation around their relationship, because that's been talked about so much. It definitely is a factor in all of this, but you know that already)

Onto the main point of this post. The reason DnP haven't "hard launched" (that term itself is incredibly vague, but its popular meaning in this fandom seems to be explicit confirmation of a romantic relationship, which is how I'm using it here) while also having clearly done so is because their use of language does not line up with conventional expectations of how language around romantic and platonic relationships should be used.

The concept of "dating" as we think of it today is relatively recent, and language around it is even newer. The terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" only became prominent in the mid- to late- 20th century, and it took a while for them to gain the connotation (of almost always meaning a romantic relationship) that they have today. And yet people have still had romantic relationships for forever! How these things were described would depend on the society's norms around marriage and sex and often on the exact social dynamic of the couple. Today, we think we're better than all that and can find words for anything.

I'm no expert on what makes a relationship romantic vs platonic or even how to define those terms. I find it hard to define the concept of romance in a way that doesn't bring with it centuries of heteronormative amatonormative assumptions. And boy are there assumptions. (No, people who live together for life do not have to be romantically involved, that's a silly thing to believe.) When people see a relationship that lines up or does not line up with those assumptions, they expect it to have a clean, simple label. But the words we used for romantic relationships outside of marriage, due to how new they are, are completely not simple!

While these days they seem to be the most "unambiguous" terms to describe a romantic relationship, "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are essentially euphemisms that can seem infantilizing and demeaning of the seriousness of a relationship. It's easy to see how they aren't for everyone, even if many people are fine using them for serious committed relationships. "Partner" is kind of ambiguous on purpose, thought like bf and gf, I think it's on its way to becoming a word with mainly romantic connotations. The term "significant other" is out of fashion these days, but just like bf, gf, and "partner," it's basically a euphemism that doesn't mean much in and of itself. We have no words to describe an unmarried romantic couple that aren't on some level unclear or unindicative of the actual nature of the relationship.

Dan and Phil have acknowledged that they were once in a romantic relationship, have made many many jokes about having sex with each other, and are committed life partners. On some level, you can take the combination of these things as a very clear confirmation of a current romantic relationship, which many do. Yes, this requires making a few assumptions, but they aren't the craziest assumptions in the world. In fact, as one can see from the PJ and Sophie example, they are assumptions that are often normal and expected to be made in social situations. So why do so many others not see it this way?

Well for one, we are a mostly queer community that understands the complexity of queer relationships and how these assumptions do not get applied equally. We see how these assumptions are often used against queer people to devalue their identities, especially those on the ace-aro spectrum and/or in queerplatonic relationships. We also are an extremely online community, familiar with the complicated layers of discourse around RPF and shipping, and hesitant to make assumptions in a way that could potentially damage relationships or invade someone's privacy.

But honestly? It's because DnP don't call themselves boyfriends. They don't explicitly frame their activities in romantic ways (e.g. call things dates). The terms they use and jokes they make, even in 2024, are not the sort of things we expect from the set of assumptions that go with a committed romantic relationship. (This is also where the discourse about whether or not they're open/poly comes from, but that's a topic for another day.)

The Date Night video stretches this to its absolute max. The game is full of cards about kissing and other things that fit cleanly into the set of romantic relationship assumptions, but they didn't use any of those cards. They only used things that were ambiguous, and tried to downplay the romantic implications as much as possible aside from the lampshading of it at the start of the video ("this is a great game to play with your best buddy as well" "phil says no homo" as well as the entire "ugh i can't believe they send us this" tone of the intro). The use of "partner" in this video is the clearest example of this. The game uses this word exclusively- after all, it's a standard, accepted, gender-neutral word for people in a romantic relationship. Phil confidently reads it off the card, with the "I don't care which set of assumptions this assigns us" attitude that's been prevalent over the past year and past few months especially. Dan avoids it half the time, and at the end of the video, seems to clearly mock the term, saying it in a silly voice and then comparing it to how stereotypical cowboys use the word. This stuck out to me; it made it very noticeable that they don't use that word at least in videos, and made me think about the connation of the word they do use-- "friend." That term, unlike any of the words I've mentioned so far, implies literally nothing. "Friends" can be people with a barely positive relationship or people with an incredibly meaningful relationship they center their life around. With no other qualifiers, it also implies that the people in question don't have a romantic relationship (are "just friends"), or even (because of amatonormativity) that their relationship is not especially deep or meaningful.

Dan and Phil have defined their relationship in quite a few ways-- or rather, Dan has, in BIG and in his interviews for WAD. These quotes circulate on here constantly as people discuss the meaning of them. I'm not really interested in talking about those as they've already been talked to death. I do think it's worth noting that we only get these things from Dan-- the one time Phil has ever spoken on his "current dating life" it was just to say "I don't want to talk about that, the door is closed." Obviously some of this is because the interviewers were pushy, but also I'm sure Dan enjoys his elaborate poetic metaphors enough to not be able to shut up about them haha. (Very unrelated but I wonder if this will come up if they end up doing interviews for TIT?) The thing is, these definitions show a deep, meaningful, complex, committed relationship. They include directly romantic terms like "husbands," "soul mates," and "normal gay relationship." You would think being willing to call someone your husband, even with a million other words around it, would mean you wouldn't have a problem calling them your partner, right? Yet these words do not reflect the language they use when speaking about each other in videos!

There are times when they say "friend" "buddy" or "mate" in a clearly humorous, ironic way, and seem aware that it isn't a term that makes people think of a committed, long term relationship. Other times, they use the word as if it is a fully accurate descriptor of their relationship-- in the glue story, Dan jokes about being ashamed to be seen as "the friend of the glue guy," and in How Phil Nearly Died, he quotes himself telling the hospital staff he is looking for "my friend." I use the hospital stories as examples because they are high-stakes (or seemingly high-stakes in the case of the glue story) situations and examples of how other people in their real lives perceive them. The way they choose to tell these stories to the internet is one in which the fact that a random hospital worker would likely interact differently with Dan if he was Phil's friendly roommate as opposed to his life partner doesn't matter. In other words: if they actually do call each other "friends" irl around strangers, those strangers probably have a very different impression of their relationship than we do. Their consistency in describing themselves doing so just means that they want to consistently use the term "friends" in their videos, not that they actually do that in real life. But to a viewer who is unsure about their relationship status, the fact that they are clearly life partners, no matter platonic or romantic, but in all situations opt for a word that does not imply that seems to be confirmation that their relationship is not clearly romantic, or at least that they don't want to refer to it as such.

If I have to draw a conclusion from all this, it's that DnP consider their relationship very complex and unusual (ymmv on if it is, lol) and have had to deal with a ridiculous level of scrutiny about it nonetheless. Again, Phil has almost never spoken on this, but Dan clearly dislikes any descriptor that carries with it a sense of assumptions about the nature of the relationship, hence why he uses like fifty contradicting ones or strange metaphors instead. "Friend" carries with it no assumptions. You can be "friends" and be in a romantic relationship-- plenty of people say "I married my best friend." But our society considers romantic relationships to be more meaningful and important than platonic ones. People assume that if you are in a romantic relationship, you would want to describe your relationship exclusively using terms that carry that set of assumptions, because that is the most important part about it. I honestly think Dan is being quite subversive in refusing to do so.

I have no idea if or when this will ever change, but I hope I've given enough context for those who are convinced they've already hard launched to understand why others are still waiting, and for those who don't think they have to understand why the issue is more complicated than it seems. This topic has fascinated me ever since I first started watching them, and I hope this post can help people reach a bit more of a understanding, rather than inciting more discourse.

[flamedraco]

I want to rant about them. Buckle in, this is a long rant.

I want to just say that I love TNT Duo. Just as a whole. In whatever form they take. These stupid little men and their stupid little rivalries and tension.

I am not a "DSMP" fan in most senses of the term. I never really got into the story all that much (though the lore was cool and more well thought out than most people give it credit for) and there wasn't much to really keep me interested. But these two characters. These two.

shakes them

I love them. I love how Wilbur is emotionally unstable even on his best days and his entire arc of going from a leader that others looked up to slowly devolved into a man driven mad by his own legacy. Writing Arsonist's Waltz made me really take a long look at his character and how I wanted to write him in that fic and it really made me think about how young the character must've been when he died and how tragic that is. I think about him a lot. He's my favorite blorbo to torture for a reason he's the perfect character for tormenting really. And it's so easy to write him with a strained relationship with his family, seeing how Phil did the bare minimum for him and his mother is either a Fridge or The Goddess of Death depending on how you interpret the lore because personally I don't see either as being wrong. Or him being married to a fish (Sally go brrrrr). Or canonically being the one to give birth to Fundy. And the idea that he was usually such a doting father but the second Fundy needed him most he was just gone and the complications that brings to their relationship. I love him and how it's so easy to either make him just a guy or some eldritch FUCK. I can make him BIRD. I can make him FREAKY and INHUMAN and I love to torment him.

And then Quackity. Fuck let me talk about Quackity. This is the BEST EXAMPLE of a FALLEN HERO character I have EVER SEEN in my LIFE. And if you know me you know I am WEAK for Fallen Hero shit.

C'mere shrike bitch we're talking about you now!

(just picture me grabbing him by the back of his stupid little button up and holding him like that, I've scruffed his dumbass)

This FUCKER went from being one of the most goofy, joking, just fucking around and having a good time person, to one of the most well thought out and interesting character arcs in the ENTIRE SMP if you ask me. This man went VILLAIN no matter how you want to slice it and that idea of someone who GENIUNELY tried to see the BEST in others deciding "fuck it, I've had enough of this" is just. The best kind of Fallen Hero to me. I love his entire casino theme. Gambling is one of my favorite aesthetics, and I love how when I came into this fandom despite the overwhelming amount of Duck Q stuff I found I managed to find ONE PERSON who made SHRIKE QUACKITY and it was SO PERFECT FOR HIM! Like there's nothing wrong with Duck Q and I recognize why that's the most common thing in the fandom because obviously the fucker's name is QUACKity and he has his whole thing with ducks but like. Shrike Q tho. The leader of the Butcher Army being a Butcher Bird. One of the most violent songbird species known for brutal kill methods and eating other birds being reflected in the man who ATE THE FUCKING HEART OF HIS EX. Like C'MON. (Yes other birds will eat other birds all the time but I'd like you to point me at another songbird species that has the absolute BALLS to attack something so much bigger than them) ((seen a video of what I think was a loggerhead shrike attacking a duck once)) (((though if you can find more aggressive songbirds like this I would LOVE to see them and learn about them))) ((((FUCK I LOVE BIRDS)))) It's perfect. I don't care. I love him. I love him and his Loggerhead/Northern Tendencies.

I love him for all the ways he didn't START violent and cruel but BECAME that way because he felt like he HAD TO. His arc is SO GOOD. The way he manipulated others he perceived as being "forgotten" like him to try and join him. I just. This man. This man. I'm going to shake him. I'm going to put him in a jar in the /affectionate way.

And then THEM TOGETHER. There is so much APPEAL to this ship in how you can write their dynamic in any way you want. From the more playful early days of the SMP where they were clearly friends and enjoyed each other's company to those stolen tense moments of Pogtopia to the eventual EVERYTHING that was LAS NEVADAS. You can write them on some of the best kind of healing arcs, with the idea that no matter what you did or who you were that you can still find love and forgiveness with the right person. You can have them heal together and learn to love again after so much tragedy. Or you can go down the route of making them ABSOLUTELY tearing each other APART and making each other WORSE. They can be absolute BASTARDS to each other but keep coming back to each other because they are the only two people on the server that have seen SO MUCH of the other person and the paths they went down.

These two characters just. Scream a level of UNDERSTANDING with each other that they wouldn't GET with other CHARACTERS.

And can I talk about how flexible they both are when it comes to AUs? I'm going to talk about them in AUs. They are FASCINATING TO ME in AUs. HEAR ME OUT OKAY!

So as someone who's been in a lot of fandoms there's a keen difference between being into a fandom for the content itself of the world, and being there for a specific character or groups of characters. I was into BNHA because of the lore of the world, not really an attachment to the characters themselves even if I did love them. Persona 5 was driven, again, by a love for the world and also the aesthetic of the game itself (and also a bit of the characters, I'll admit they changed my brain chemistry a little). Danganronpa, in contrast, was something I got into for the driving force of the characters and the murder mystery aspects. Assassination Classroom, obviously more character driven. Fairytail, also more character driven than anything else.

I got into DSMP specifically because of TNT Duo and my friend introducing me to them. But I've discovered something interesting about TNT Duo and why my hyperfixation over them has been lasting for so much longer.

Because they're easier to pry out of their world than other characters are. Which is why I was so surprised when I found so much more Canon Divergence AUs and less AUs in the sense of other universes. Like when I came to this fandom there was: No flower shop AUs, maybe a single coffee shop AU or two, not a single dragon or naga AU, and maybe one Siren AU. And the rest of it was mostly canon divergence! Which felt weird to me because these two feel so adaptive to other AUs you put them in!

While other characters feel, in some regards, tied to their original universe, these two don't feel as heavily weaved into their world. When I try to take them out it doesn't feel like I'm ripping them out and damaging them as I do. I don't feel tearing seams or fabric ripping, they just kinda...pop out. Which let's me take them and throw them into any roles I want, any AUs I want, and what I've noticed is that people do this a LOT with SBI and that they don't feel tied to the universe they originated from either. And I feel like that's in some part due to how the characters have lore from previous SMPs, previous worlds, previous experiences, and even future ones where the characters flow and adapt to fit whatever situation they're put into.

Some people might argue that I'm misrepresenting the characters in my fics or characterize them differently from the original source material, but that's because these are characters heavily formed around their experiences! Which makes them SO COOL for AUs! Because obviously the experiences are going to be different in an AU versus the source material! Making them a superhero or supervillain isn't the same experience as starting a country from the ground up! Making them a prince or king is different from elections and surviving from the land. Or dying and getting revived. Or overcorrecting into becoming a villain so nobody can ever hurt you again. AUs bring different experiences and that's why the characters are so fascinating to put in different AUs. And obviously some characteristics will carry over, but it's up to an author to decide what they carry over from the source material. Usually I carry over Wilbur being related to Phil, Techno, Tommy, Kristin, and sometimes I'll carry over Phil and Kristin's divinity which sometimes makes Wilbur an angel or demigod. Some authors usually carry over his mental instability, I like carrying over his sense of individuality. I like that he's stubborn, good at leading but not always enjoying it, yet always having the qualities for it. For Q? I like to carry over his general gambling aesthetic because I write mostly Las Nevadas Q since that's kinda who I know best out of all of Quackity's characterizations in the DSMP. Which means I write him as a manipulative little shit most of the time, who sometimes has second thoughts but usually pushes through for what he sees as the best outcome. And for their relationship usually what I carry over is this sense of tension or opposition between them. Hero/Villain, Angel/Demon, Human/Fae, Hunter/Vampire. This sense that they are on opposite sides, but not so different from each other when they look deeper than surface levels and titles.

They are such interesting characters. And I love them so much. They give me so much brainrot. So many ideas because they can just. Go anywhere I throw them!

I think I'll write more about them later. How I like to characterize them based on what I know about them from DSMP. Maybe rant more about why I think Q is definitely a shrike and that Magpie Wilbur is the only correct option. I feel like talking about them. I want to talk about them more.

Talk to me about them. I like hearing other people's thoughts about these fuckers.

[thelaurenshippen]

genuinely think it's good and healthy to follow at least one person in each of your fandoms who reblogs good gifsets but has just...absolutely dogshit takes on the show, or who ships that ship you despise. keeps things fresh. keeps things grounded. you gotta stay humble

[fromtheseventhhell]

Another round of asoiaf "prettycourse", another round of people ignoring Arya's self-esteem issues and how it relates to her arc because their enjoyment of the series hinges on an 11-year-old being considered ugly.

[haeryna]

i would recognize you in a million lifetimes ↪ gojo satoru x reader x geto suguru

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summary: they say that a child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. you would've been more inclined to believe it, if you weren't the only person who got burned. but now, suguru and satoru are offering you the salve and you're not sure whether it's enough to fix the scars that they left behind.

tw: sfw! angst with a happy ending, satoru is a cocky shit, suguru spends half the time on his knees in this (BUT NONSEXUALLY), more abandonment mentions because it's crucial to the plot, mentions of homophobia. lots of misunderstandings.

notes: divider by @/saradika-graphics. sorry, this chapter is a little shorter lol but surprise!! love how i said i was gonna take a break and then one day i suddenly realized kind of what i wanted to ensuing conversation to be. ending is a little open-ended; as of right now, i have no further plot points, but obviously that could change in the future (feel free to let me know where you want it to go/what you want me to write more about set in this universe!). thank you to everyone who loved and supported me when i first started this series; it was my first time really writing anything for a fandom, or publicly sharing it for that matter <33

There always seems to be an innate misunderstanding that occurs when people encounter Geto Suguru and Gojo Satoru, in that Satoru is the one who calls the shots and Suguru merely follows. Though Satoru might have seemed like the arrogant one, and Suguru the mild-mannered, you are intimately aware that the depth of Suguru’s pride almost matches his patience. It’s why he always tends to win whatever petty squabble that starts, why he always obtains the results he hopes for. Suguru always wins, you’d complained once, and his cat-like eyes had crinkled in amusement as he watched you. Not always, had been his response, but you knew it to be a lie. You had watched as he left a trail of broken hearts in his wake, his past lovers drawn in by his honey-sweet words and careful, calloused hands. You were no exception. If Satoru is a work of art, then Suguru is the painter, and you the lonely observer watching from behind the museum glass. You wonder if the same pride prevented him from finding you years ago.

It makes it seem all the more laughable as you watch Suguru kneeling before you through the water that clings to your lashes. The man that had never given in on his knees for someone who gave it all. You are suddenly horribly aware of the air that passes through your lungs in shuddering gasps. Your skin suddenly feels too tight for your body as your heart pounds to the tune of the faint ticking of the clock. “Please,” Suguru whispers at last, as his thumb runs along the back of your hand. Satoru’s arms tighten around you as if committing you to his memory, before letting go. You can say nothing as you stare down at your fingers traitorously intertwined with Suguru’s. 

“What if I don’t want to listen?” 

Satoru inhales sharply, and Suguru pauses, before reluctantly releasing your hand. 

“Do you mean it?” 

“I wasn’t aware that you two cared about how I felt about your decisions,” you retort, watching how Suguru’s expression falls. It doesn’t feel quite as satisfying as you thought it would. You push the thought down. 

“Baby–” Satoru starts, and the facade you’ve built up begins to crumble. 

“Don’t call me that!” you snarl, pushing yourself from the floor. His eyes are pleading, but you steel yourself as you continue. “I’m not your lover. I’m not anyone special to you, considering how quick you were to replace me.” Your voice breaks. “Mocking me like this is low, even for you.” 

Satoru stiffens. “You were special to me. You still are.” Your hands curl into fists as he continues, voice twisting into something more arrogant. “Though, I’m sure Kenji couldn’t live up to me.” 

“Don’t.” Your tone is raw as you frantically try to reel in the anguish you’d been storing for the past five years. “Don’t you dare try to use my letters against me.” 

Satoru has the decency to at least look ashamed. The look on his face is an echo of when he would frown all day if you didn’t give him what he wanted. Satoru is selfish, you know, all heat and arrogance and childishness. You know it’s partially your fault; you were the one that spoiled him off of your love in the first place. 

Suguru calls your name softly, and you turn to face him. He’s still on his knees, gazing up at you with the devotion of a worshiper and the guilt of a sinner. “Tell me what I can do to make it right,” he murmurs. “Tell me what I can do and I’ll do anything you ask of me.” 

“Why didn’t you take me with you?” Your words are fragile, even to your own ears. Please tell me it was because you didn’t have enough money. Please say that it’s because you were in a rush. 

“That night was chaos,” Suguru admits. “Satoru was downright unconsolable, so it was up to me to purchase the tickets, to pack everything we wanted to take into two bags, to book the hotels and make appointments to find apartments.” He hesitates for a moment, and you can feel the piercing ice forming in your veins at the expression. 

“But you had enough money to afford a third.” 

“Yes and no. Realistically, we maybe could have, but, to subject you to the conditions we would have been in?” 

Angrily, you swipe the tears away from your face. “You still should have asked.”

Suguru’s eyes are impossibly tender. “I know you, my beautiful, stubborn girl. I knew that if I gave you that plane ticket, you would have followed us no matter what you truly wanted. I was willing to make the sacrifice. How could I have asked you to do the same?” 

“That wasn’t your decision to make!” 

“Call me selfish, then. Call me controlling, or foolish, or stubborn, but I will never regret ensuring your safety. I will never regret the fact that you were not subjected to the struggles we faced there, the things we had to do to survive. Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” 

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” You feel nauseous, stomach twisting violently into knots. The lies taste so sweet, but the truth is something that you accepted long ago. “Subjecting me to what? Your lifestyle? What struggles do you face when you have so much money that you don’t know what to do with it?” 

Satoru begins to protest, but you hold out your hand, silencing him as you watch Suguru. The betrayal of him cut deeper than you’d care to admit. Satoru might be cocky, but it is Suguru’s hand that holds the trigger, his hand that sealed your fate. “I know you,” you tell him. “I know you, and I know when you lie. Lie to me one more time and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that I never see you again.”  

“There is no lie-” 

“You don’t do that to the people you love!” 

“I did it out of love, why can’t you see that?” 

“No, shut up!” Your hands are shaking, teeth gritted as you try to stop the rush of angry tears that threaten to escape you. “You don’t get to act like I’m the person in the wrong here. You two, of all people, don’t get to treat me like this.” The sun is setting, harsh shadows casted onto Suguru’s hunched shoulders as if it is a load that is physically too much for him to bear. The words spilling from your mouth are sharp, desperate to make them bleed in the same way they’d hurt you. “You can’t tell me you love me, or that you missed me, when you left me here for five years. I was alone for five years, and for the first three, I thought something had happened to you two. Do you know how scared I was?”

Satoru reaches for you, but you shove his hands away. “I had to find out from a fucking television broadcast. I had to find out about Satoru’s debut through a television broadcast, and I had to hear your voice coming from the radio instead of through the phone. For three years, you let me fear the worst, and now you’re acting as if I’m crazy? You’re upset to find me bitter when you’ve treated me like a toy you can return to, and throw away when you’re bored? You made me this way!”

 Suguru closes his eyes. “I will never stop regretting how I’ve hurt you, my love. I knew how badly you wanted to get out of this town, to go to college and make your mark on the world. We didn’t know that…” 

We didn’t know that you’d still be here.  

“Maybe if you’d bothered to find me, you would’ve known.” 

“Please don’t blame Suguru for it.” Satoru’s voice is tired, as he runs his hands down his face. “Suguru might have been the one who handled our move, but I was the coward in the end.” 

Impressively, your heart manages to shatter into even smaller pieces. You can only gaze blankly at him as he continues. “I’m sure you’ve suspected it by now, but when we left, Suguru and I were dating. We still are. You know how it is where we’re from, where we are.” He curls in on himself imperceptibly, a star ready to implode. “I knew my parents were bad, but I didn’t know they were that bad. The thought of you looking at me, at Suguru, the same way they looked at us– I couldn’t.” 

You can’t help the almost hysterical laughter that tears through you. “Are you serious? That was your reason?” 

Satoru stares at you as you cover your face with a hand. You’re afraid that if you don’t keep going, you’ll start screaming instead. “Of course I knew,” you choke out, half-laughing and half-sobbing. “Suguru’s neck would be all marked up every time you two hung out without me, and Satoru suddenly stopped flirting with every girl that wanted to sleep with him. Just because everyone else was stupid and in denial, doesn’t mean that I was.” 

“You never said anything.” Suguru gazes up at you, eyes horrified. 

“I figured if you wanted me to know, you would just tell me.” 

“You always looked so uncomfortable.”

“Because I was jealous!” Your words hang in the air, and in this moment, for better or for worse, you know that there is no going back. “I thought I was losing my mind. I was jealous of both of you for having the other, and I hated myself for it. What kind of sick friend was I, to be selfish enough to not only desire one of you, but both of you at the same time?” You shake your head, wishing that it could be enough to remove the feelings from your heart that you had been clinging onto for so long. “When you left, I missed you. I thought it would go away. I hoped it would go away. Who else would be stupid enough to love the people who abandoned them?” 

The words pour from your mouth, acidic with your pain and despair. “Why wasn’t I good enough for you two? Why was it so easy for you to move on, while I was stuck here wasting away? Was it really that hard for me to be loved by you? I was there too!” 

“Darling,” Suguru says, stumbling over the syllables of his words. “You loved us?” 

You have to fight the visceral urge to slap him across his painfully beautiful face. “That’s what you took away from this?” 

“I dreamed of this for so long,” Satoru tells you roughly, delicate fingers tilting up your chin. An interviewer had once said that Satoru’s eyes seemed so cold and distant. You feel like he was trying to burn you alive as he examines you. “I can’t believe this is real.”

“Are both of you out of your mind?” you snap, rearing back. Satoru’s resulting chuckle floods your face with heat as he gives you a lazy, predatory smile. “Only for you, sweetheart.” 

“What Satoru is trying to say,” Suguru interjects, dazed, “is that we didn’t think you felt the same way.” Same way? You feel lightheaded, as if you’re not quite there. Same way? 

He continues on as Satoru leans against the wall, content to watch your reactions. “I, we, just assumed that you…I don’t know. We…” 

“How could I not?” you ask, voice breaking. “How could I not love both of you?” 

Before you can even react, Satoru is surging towards you, arms pressing you closer into his body as he holds you tightly. “You mean it?” he asks, voice uncharacteristically desperate. Needy for you, as he greedily savors the feeling of you in his arms. You can only nod, one hand twisting into the back of his sweater as you bury yourself into the slight hollow where his collarbone meets his shoulder. 

“Please,” Suguru breathes, taking your hand into his, rough fingers curling around the back of your hand as he strokes your palm with his thumb. “I know things aren’t going to be the same. We’re okay with that, we just…” He swallows, thickly, before pushing forward. “We just want to make things right, take things slow, and maybe then you can learn to love us again.” 

Gently, you pull yourself away from Satoru’s grasp. “It’ll be hard,” you admit, tugging Suguru up off the floor and towards you. “But, we’ll make it through.” A slight smile tugs on your lips, the sincerity bleeding through into the softness of your eyes. “Besides, I don’t need to learn how to love you two again.” 

“Especially because I never stopped.” 

Later, you’ll realize the depth of the Gojo’s betrayal to their son. Later, there will be just as many kisses as there are tears, plans to be made, and boxes to be packed. But for now, all you can feel is the overwhelming warmth in your heart as you finally allow yourself to be hugged by two of the people you adored most in the world. 

Welcome home. I love you. 

[stolasdearest]

Could I order a reader x husker & reader x Alastor (separate) where reader naturally smells like catnip?

I’ve been in the fandom for a while; and a running theme with Al is that he purrs. I personally think it’s really silly and cute; and I think if he purrs like a cat. Might as well be part cat 🤷🏼‍♂️

(I was also hoping for reader to be a sort of lamb demon; and you can decide if it’s smut if nah idm)

~🍖

Alastor x Reader ❦ Husk x Reader˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥

ׂׂૢ pairing : Husk & Alastor x Reader

ׂׂૢ cw : Not proofread

ׂׂૢ reader is gender neutral

𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠...

♪ to everyone's surprise he's absolutely glued to you at every hour of every day; it's starting to concern the others at how stuck to you he is, always smiling seemingly more genuinely. His cheek is very often squished against yours as you hear a barely audible purr emitting from the overlord, his eyes closed; you swear you see something moving behind his coat every time he makes physical contact with you.

♪ whenever he's not with you his ears are always flattened against his head and he seems irritable, upon finding out your particular scent you joke to him that he's having withdrawals which he didn't find as funny as you did, he's sulking for the rest of the day.

♪ shockingly let's you pet his ears because it means he gets to get closer to you and take in your scent for the 70th time today, it's always a sight for the others to see his head on your shoulder while your hand combs through his red soft locks, Alastor yet again struggling to keep his purrs to your ears only; knowing You'd never openly embarrass him like that, he trusts you alot so don't squander it.

♪ if you're ever alone in his room he gets very touchy, his hands are running all over you while you try and scroll on your phone or read; whatever you like doing before bed. He's constantly trying to rip your actual clothes off since they are restricting your natural smell and it's irritating him greatly; don't be upset or surprised if he fully expects you to be barely clothed while you lay in his bed; usually falling asleep with his arms snaked around your waist with his face buried in your neck.

♪ he regularly eyes Husk since he's the only one who's also affected by your aroma, Giving him a warning to stay the hell away from you if he knows what's good for him.

♪ like Alastor, everyone is surprised and confused by how quickly Husk had warmed up to you along with how seemingly dependent he was on you; always smiling at you and inviting you behind the bar, he'd even ask you to try and make drinks with him as a fun game so he could stand shoulder to shoulder with you, sneaky kitty.

♪ if it's late in the night while everyone else is already sleeping he'll sometimes rest his head against your chest as you scratch his head; loudly purring and quiet grumbling while he talks about the day he's had and his past; absolutely in a daze in your presence

♪ After you arrived he naturally acts more relaxed and calm, your scent over time just relaxing him even when he just thinks of you which is constantly but he'll never say that; this clearly making the other residents more happy and inclined to speak to him even Alastor is surprised by how his old buddy husker has loosened up!

♪ is not above grabbing one of your shirts and using it as a pillow cover even if you're literally right next to him, the more of you the better he always says. His tail wags and his ears slightly flick while he purrs into your neck; his slender fingers grabbing the small of your back and thigh as he goes to pull you closer to him, a deep chuckle from his throat as you begin to tease him about it and how "he's obsessed with you" he laughs it over however he never denies it.

♪ bring it up while the others are around? He's side eyeing you while he "growls" you obviously coo at him saying he's not looking very intimidating; having known what he was like in bed the night before you just couldn't take him seriously! His ears flatten while he turns away to hide the blush creeping in on his face his long tail loudly thumping against the bar table.

Authors note : I did this at 2:30AM, Man I should really fix my sleep schedule but what am I if not self destructive

[bickbickbarnes]

I’ve been thinking about why destiel doesn’t do it for me- because there’s been a resurgence. I think I finally figured it out! Usually, I’m a multi shipper. I have my favorite pairing, and then I really enjoy reading a bunch of other stuff. In most fandoms. Hell, if there are three characters, I love an OT3! And obviously, ship whoever you wanna ship, but destiel has just never done it for me. And I’ve never figured out why. Until now.

It’s the devotion.

When I’m shipping something in a fandom,- I like, I need- for the romance to be all consuming. For the two people to be the most important thing in each other’s lives. Put first no matter what. This kind of world ending love. Super unhealthy, super toxic, super encompassing (also probably why I don’t like kidfic. Doesn’t really work out that way.)

Dean Winchester? He’s taken.

Whatever love interest, Dean has, however much he loves him/her, Sam is still going to be his number one priority. He’s going to love Sam more than anybody else in the whole universe. No matter what. It’s built into the narrative. It’s fundamental.  it’s part of what makes him dean Winchester. Unless you’re going super AU and only keeping the names, Sam being the most important thing in the world is foundational. 

So I can’t ship Dean with anybody else. Not the way I like to ship. Because there’s the Sam of it all. 

[barblaz-arts]

I think people have been accustomed to couples being in that honeymoon phase when they’re shown onscreen together. We ALWAYS see that with newly-established couples in pretty much any type of media… But that’s not Chaggie.

Charlie and Vaggie have been together for years. Their honeymoon phase has long past. They’re not doing outlandish displays of affection. They’re just, comfortable. Doesn’t mean they love each other any less, just that those sappy moments aren’t as common anymore

Yes! also the way a lot of people are surprised that charlie and vaggie aren't only best friends is such a good example of the double standards wlw ships get. thinking they aren't dating is understandable. Overlooking that Vaggie and Charlie were meant to at least be shipped together is INSANE.

If i never knew they were dating already, i and so many other sapphic ship lovers would be eyeing tf out of Vaggie and Charlie's relationship. Lookit some of the things that happened/are established before the "she's my girlfriend" line in ep 5

- the newcaster lady made a homophobic comment towards Charlie, saying she "doesn't touch the gays" when Charlie tried to give her a handshake

- THIS

- just all the times Vaggie would soften up as soon as she sees Charlie smiling or being her dorky self despite being previously upset/angry

- Vaggie's whole friggin verse in Whatever It Takes is very obviously meant to be romantic

- Charlie being worried about Angel Dust while Vaggie gives her the most "i love you and im sad that you're upset but i love that you're upset over something like this because it shows how amazing of a person you are" look at Charlie as she tucks her hair behind her ear

- Angel: I think this belongs to you *hands Charlie over to Vaggie*

- just all the casual touches they do that would totally be read as shipping fuel AT LEAST if it happened between a male/female duo or two men

- the fact Vaggie woke up?? Looking beside her to find Charlie?? To show that they sleep in the same bed?????

- Vaggie offering her hand unprompted when Charlie was having a stressful phone call with her dad and Charlie readily accepting it

And I'm sure there are people who'd go "But it's always shown from Vaggie's end! It looks so one-sided!" So? Aren't there tons of ships out there that seem one-sided but yall are perfectly fine shipping? And it's harder to see Charlie's love for Vaggie because Charlie at her core is a very loving and affectionate person. Of course it's gonna be more obvious for Vaggie since she's so prickly towards anyone else.

If all these things still happened without any of us knowing that they were actually girlfriends, we'd have a certain section of the fandom shipping it hoping they DO become canon while others would be claiming we'd be ruining a perfectly good platonic friendship by making it gay. They'd say we're reading too much into things.

But they ARE a couple. we aren't reading too much into things because it was meant to be read as romantic. And yet we're still the delusional ones for thinking an already established sapphic couple is "cute and interesting" because now they're claiming they simply dont have chemistry. It's frustrating.

Of course I have my criticisms too. The show could portray more of how Vaggie is more special to Charlie than anyone else, have them flirting more overtly or something. But any argument that they're "so boring i thought it was het" is invalid to me because i damn well know if at least one them was a dude a lot of them would be saying otherwise.

[a-star-that-burns-brightly]

[ content warning: discussion of in-canon sexual abuse ] Maybe it’s just because I’m not too active in the ALNST fandom and mostly observe from afar, but I think this fandom brushed aside way too quickly the fact that Till was sexually assaulted. I have never seen anyone talk in depth about like, what that actually means in terms of his arc and the storytelling of his character. Which I find deeply, deeply upsetting because holy fucking shit.

This man right here has been told, basically his entire life, that not only is he himself not worthy of being treated as a human, but that his body is not his body, but a piece of property that can be owned. And whoever owns his property can use it for whatever, and however they wish. Now, dehumanization is nothing new or unique in this world, obviously. The very concept of Pet Humans is dehumanizing by nature, leaving all six of our main characters as victims to it, even those who are more well-off like Mizi. But Till is a specially fucked up case almost distinctly unlike the rest, because he is actually treated like a fucking dog.

(x) Ivan: If you keep rebelling like that, they won’t ever remove your collar you know? Till: This annoying bastard… — Ivan: I told you so, didn’t I? You didn’t listen? Till: This annoying bastard... (translation courtesy of @leiikos on youtube)

(x)

An unruly animal who needs to be leashed up and put in it’s place. Animals, as is common knowledge, are not on the same level as a human being. But they are ordained to follow the commands of those above them. And if someone (thing) isn’t doing as it is told…

It deserves to be taught better. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This is the mindset that has followed Till his entire life by the ones who were supposed to take care of him. He is not human, even less human than the existing inhuman. He is a pet, even more so than the other pets, an animal. A thing. Property. Something to own. And the best thing about owning something?

You gain the ability to do whatever you want to it. Till’s body was not his from the start. It was used as something to toy around with, experiment with, to train and train and train, presumably for his whole life. His body, his skin, his flesh and bone and blood, it was all nothing more than a plaything. So what if he screams? Just ignore it. Or don’t. If this competition has taught us anything, voices have the most value of all. On top of it being reinforced that Till is not deserving of humanity, he is also not deserving of his bodily autonomy. People are free to do whatever they want with his body because it’s not his body, it’s theirs. And that brings us, finally, to the scene itself

He can’t sing her song, he refuses to. This isn’t the first time he’s refused to do something, far from it actually. What was once an innocent puppy with dilated hope in his eyes has grown into an angry, disobedient mutt. And we know what happens to an animal that refuses to do what they’re told. But there’s something interesting about dogs, or rather about the ones they descended from, the wolf: When the circumstances call for it, they will bite the hand that’s supposed to feed them.

And here is where I intrude to remind you that this is the only time we see anyone physically fighting back against the aliens in the confines of Alien Stage. We see Hyuna and Mizi fucking up aliens in All In, but that was after they had escaped from the cage. And you could make a case for Mizi trying to escape the grasp of the guards that grabbed her in Ruler of My Heart, but from what we saw she didn’t actually lay a hand on them and more so just tried to force herself out of their grasp. though if you disagree with me on that that's fine Here though? Till has this bitch’s face grabbed into his palm with a bottle in hand ready to smash it directly in between it’s eyes. I consider this to be the first act of physical violence shown against the aliens within the uncomfortably tight enclosure. And it’s triggered not because of anything personally done to Till, which on its own could probably fill a list that reaches the ground. But because of the prospect of Mizi being dead. Till knows that this place is shit, that his life is shit. Said so directly on his profile.

Dislikes: Everyone, including Guardian Urak (translation courtesy of @kh47uo on twitter)

But he stays regardless because Mizi is there. If Mizi is dead, Till has absolutely nothing to lose…Right?

I can almost imagine him thinking: There’s nothing you can put me through that’s worse than every other way you’ve hurt me. …But there was. Oh there was.

A final, disgusting message to the pet to put him back in his place. Back on his leash. Making sure he will never forget where he stands for the rest of his days.

And that is really what the sexual assault of Till represents to me. It is a cruel reminder to Till that fighting back is impossible, having hope, being free, it might as well be a fool's fantasy. He will always be less-than-human, less than anything. His body will always be the property of the ones that were supposed to protect him, claimed, and then used used used until it’s worn out and dead.

And the aliens chose to exemplify that fact in the most direct way they possibly could.

So what if he screams? Just ignore it. Or don’t. If this competition has taught us anything, screams have the most value of all

[madschiavelique]

Okay but picture this, Miguel getting jealous cause of another spiderperson flirting with you

Like he is doing a briefing with a lot of spider people and one of them keeps trying to get your attention and miguel gets jealous, sends everyone away and has a heavily make out on his platform in his office🫣

HIHIHI twirling hair kicking feet at this bestie

summary : miguel gets jealous of a random spiderperson flirting with you (not proofread)

content warnings : posessive!miguel, just jealous miguel, no use of Y/N, fem!reader word count : 1,9k

tag list : @fandom-ash

Miguel had invited a good group of spiderpersons who were still fairly new to the society, to bring them up to speed or simply to remind them of the procedures to follow on a mission.

You were there, just to supervise. Having been part of Miguel's elite group of spiders for some time now, you were perfectly familiar with all the criteria and stages of the anomaly hunt.

Nothing more than a quick briefing. The usual team was there, Hobie, Gwen, Pavitr, Peter B, Jess and you. You stood off to the side, leaning against a wall, arms folded as you watched Miguel give his speech a bit farther away.

"Hey, I've never seen you around before, do we know each other ?

Your eyes went to the person who had just spoken to you. It was an umpteenth Peter, blond-haired, not far from your age, and of course new.

Although you didn't appear everywhere all the time, most of the spiders knew what Miguel's group looked like. So you were a little surprised by his remark, but not enough for it to be too striking.

"You might've seen me on his team," you said, pointing with your chin at your boyfriend, who you hoped wasn't terrorising the newcomers too much.

You tried to refocus on Miguel's speech. Your relationship with him was not public; you had agreed that, for the time being, you would prefer to keep it a secret. There were several reasons for this, such as the fact that you might be seen as a spider with more privileges than the others - which wasn't the case - or the fact that you simply wanted to avoid trouble. This lack of information didn't stop Peter from coming back for a chat.

"So... what's your name ?"

You didn't even look at him, simply giving him your name and alias.

"And you're a new Peter," you sighed.

"You never get enough Peters, am I right?" he smiled, "although I'm obviously unique in my own way.

"Unique?" you smiled with a little chuckle, "how?", because Peters looked and acted the same, they were after all Peters, so you wondered how he would stand out.

"Like this," he approached you, tucking his fingers behind your ear and bringing his hand into your field of vision so that you could see a little flower between his fingers.

You gave a little laugh, taking the flower in your hand. It was soft, light and smelled wonderful.

"A Peter magician?" you pouted, shaking your head, "that's progress."

Miguel was going over the formalities of multidimensional cells when his gaze inevitably drifted to you. But he froze, tensing up as his eyes took in the little scene unfolding nearby.

You, against a wall, an ordinary Peter caressing your ear to perform a crummy magic trick and make a flower come out of it. Too close... he thought, he was too close to you. He didn't appreciate the proximity with which he approached you. Of course, the other team-mates in his squad could allow themselves to be close to you, whether you were in their arms or whatever, but for one of the countless Peters here to allow himself to be at your level? That he could not condone.

He saw a small smile forming on your face, his blood boiling. Wasn't he good enough for you? Was it because he didn't give you enough affection that you let any spider approach you? Or was it that he didn't do you enough favours, like performing magic tricks?

But Miguel was so good to you, it was almost impossible to get out of his arms when he hugged you. He gave you everything he could give you, even loving you to the point of giving you the last empanada left in the cafeteria if there was only one left, no matter how much he wanted it, and that's how passionate he was about you.

So maybe... you didn't realise that Peter was flirting with you?

Ah, maybe that was it, maybe you were just oblivious to what the nerd was trying to do?

And the Peter took another step.

That one step was too much.

"Well, you've got most of the information. We're going to cut this meeting short, you can all go." he warned, teeth clenched.

The elite team itself looked surprised as all the other Spiderpersons scattered to leave the room.

"Miguel? Is there something wrong ?" asked Peter B, concerned that perhaps the reason everyone had just been dismissed was because of something he had received from Lyla that was important.

But his eyes were riveted like arrows ready to be shot at the Peter who was still chatting to you.

"I just have to take care of a little problem," his eyebrows were furrowed, jaw tight.

Peter B's eyes drifted back to where his were, letting out a quiet "Oh" before calling the rest of the team and persuading them to come with him to... whatever it was for, as long as the elite were leaving too.

"And so you caught three anomalies in a single mission?" said Peter, absolutely amazed by the feats you were telling him about.

"Yes, it's becoming routine," you confirmed.

You noticed the room beginning to empty, and deduced that the meeting must have ended.

"I'm so happy that there are Spiderwomen around, and as competent as you are," continued Peter, chatting to you, "especially when I see that they're as beautiful as you are."

"That's very kind of you," you say simply, "the meeting's just finished, I think you'd better leave before you get your knuckles rapped."

Advice from someone with a very strict boyfriend on organisation, you thought.

"Could we meet again? How about the cafeteria?" he offered.

"That's very nice of you to suggest, but-" you bit the inside of your cheek as he cut you off.

"Oh, or maybe the park? I hear there's an ice-cream parlour that sells ice-creams in our likeness." he laughed softly.

"Would you look at that."

You swallow, his voice was strained and falsely interested, your eyes landing on Miguel who'd just arrived near you.

It's almost comical how tall Miguel was compared to him, towering over him in both mass and size to the point where he could crush him like a tin can.

"Oh Miguel O'Hara-" greeted Peter as if nothing had happened.

"I've never seen you here before," Miguel remarked, a vicious flash in his eyes.

He intended to take great pleasure in showing how much better he was than Peter, and above all in making sure he understood that you weren't interested in his advances.

"Oh yes sir, I'm Peter," he said.

"How original," said Miguel in a honeyed, falsely curious tone, glancing at you.

"The Peters must be the best for there to be so many of them," laughed Peter, and you felt like pinching the bridge of your nose.

"I see them more as a weed that hangs around," he said, looking into poor Peter's eyes, Miguel looming over him.

"Well, I think you should join the other Spiderpersons," you simply breathed with a polite smile.

"Yeah um," he swallowed, lowering his eyes from Miguel's to meet yours, he was appalled. "I'll see you sometime maybe ?"

"Never," Miguel decided.

Peter took a few steps backwards, unable to say anything else, and headed for the exit.

"You look upset, what's wrong?" you asked as Miguel headed for the control platform.

"I see you made a new friend?" asked Miguel, his eyes locking onto you with a dark gleam as he stepped onto the platform.

"Not really," you replied, your voice a little smaller as you in turn joined him on it, coming to sit on one of the desks.

"What did he want?" he asked, his tone insistent as he looked at you, standing and taking a step forward.

"Nothing special, he wanted to get acquainted," you said softly as he took a step forward, his eyes gleaming strangely.

"Just getting to know each other?" he said, arriving just in front of you and placing his two hands on either side of your thighs, tilting his head to the side, questioningly. "You're naive if you think he just wants to be your friend."

His face was close to yours, his whole body almost covering you, leaving you unable to move or get away. Your eyes locked with his a little more, and you understood, a small smile forming on your lips.

You put your hand on his cheek, and he pressed against your touch.

"Do I detect some jealousy there?"

He sighed, his jaw contracting slightly, his tongue creating a tent in his cheek. You raised an eyebrow - was Miguel jealous?

His hand came to brush against your thigh, his fingers moving up until they settled and gripped you, pulling you towards him with this simple grip until your noses touched.

"I didn't like very much how he was so close to you," he admitted, his lips brushing yours.

He came to kiss you, demanding, his lips pressing almost brutally against yours as his other hand came to rest on the small of your back, the latter pressing to bring you closer to him.

You tried to respond to his kiss, his lips and jaw so strong that you felt he was going to engulf you.

He came and kissed your neck, a small sigh of comfort coming from between your lips, which were puffed out and moistened by his kiss.

"You know," you said softly as your fingers ran through his hair, "he never stood a chance against... you right ?"

The statement made his ego swell, as if a huge weight had just been lifted from his shoulders and he felt so light. His lips tenderly kissed your neck, and you felt it.

He sucked at your skin, marking it delicately. He needed, needed the others to know that you had someone. And although you both wanted what you had to be private, he had a terrible desire for people to know that you belonged to him, and not just anyone. He came back to your lips.

"Say that you're mine."

He had to hear it, from your lips that were full of him. You moistened them with a flick of your tongue, his eyes attentive, dark.

"I'm yours," you affirmed softly.

He came to kiss you again, pulling away from your lips to let his fall on your cheek.

"Make me believe it," he said, drunk on your skin. "Say that again."

His kisses covered your skin, wanting to coat it entirely with his lips so that he didn't miss any part of it.

"I'm yours," you whispered, drowning in his adoration as your fingers caressed his cheek.

"Again," he whispered as his lips kissed your eyelid.

"I'm yours," you whispered, your other hand coming around his chest to bring him closer to you.

"Again..." his voice was barely audible, kissing the tip of your nose.

Of course you were his, everything already belonged to him. Did he want your heart? It was full of him. Did he want your thoughts? He had replaced every one of your ideas. Did he want all of you? He would only have a body and a soul that was already attached to him.

When his lips returned to yours, it was you who kissed him, and he melted under the sensation of your lips on his.

"I'm yours."

Your eyes gazed at each other, each living in the other, and he wrapped his arms around you, pressing you hard against him, closing his eyes to enjoy the moment.

He wouldn't let any weeds near his flower.

[kedreeva]

You're sort of one of the kindest people i know on tumblr, so. um. i had a question.

how do i deal with it all?

right of the bat i will tell you i am a minor and my parents are zionists, so i have no income of my own or anything i could donate. everytime i post a single fundraiser that reaches my inbox and is vetted, i get 4-5 new fundraising asks for palestine.

most of them are unvetted, but i keep thinking that if i can't donate i should at least have faith in people and reblog the fundraisers even if they're unvetted, possibly that they're actually new and need as much help we can give, however, there's a possibility they are scams, and i don't want to draw away the attention vetted fundraisers might get.

how do you decide where to help out and how to live with your decision?

I have a policy that when it comes to asks (or messages) that solicit money or other actions (like boosting posts) I don't respond to or even publish asks that come from anyone that has never spoken to me before that moment, and that's a policy that has been in place for many years now, and is unlikely to change largely because the majority of asks/messages that are requesting money or to visit a blog post/their blog/their website are scams (or more often several years ago, led to virus infections on your computer!). My blog is, as it has stated at the top for over ten years now, a personal blog, not a fundraising/signal boosting/vetting blog for spreading donations- there ARE blogs like that, and people can choose to interact with those blogs or not, but my blog isn't the place for it and that's a hard boundary I enforce for my own well being. Tumblr is my place to rest and recover, however I see fit to do that.

A random ask to my inbox asking for money, regardless of what it is for, is (in my view) equivalent to a cold call from a stranger soliciting money. It's not about faith in people, it's not about right or wrong, it's not about can or can't. This is my home, and I don't answer the phone to unknown numbers. I will help friends/family/people I know personally (or parasocially, if I like them or recognize them), obviously, but that's a bit of a different horse.

As for how I decide where to help out, if I have the ability (funds, spoons, time etc), I will seek out information on the best place to donate that can do the most with the money to help the person/people/cause that I want to help. It's the Food Pantry Equation: I could spend $5 on groceries at retail price to donate, and maybe get enough for 1 meal for 1 person (though in this fuckoff capitalist hellscape, I'm not sure $5 would even buy a whole meal), or I could give $5 directly to a Food Pantry organization, who buys in bulk and knows where to get stuff cheap, so that my $5 can help five people or ten people or whatever. I also do my best to participate in fandom events that raise money for good causes; stuff like the fanworks charity auction I helped run to donate to a wolf sanctuary, or stuff like Fandom Trumps Hate (another charity fanworks auction event). Those kind of events are generally open about where the donations go to, and have done research into organizations to ensure the gathered money goes to good charities.

Like with the above, however, it's different if I know the person. If my neighbor comes and asks for a cup of sugar or my friend needs help moving or whatever, I'm gonna give them what they need without the middleman because we have that relationship already established. Donating $5 to a food pantry would probably help more people by numbers, but helping my neighbors and friends and family etc builds community in a way giving $5 to a random stranger on the phone soliciting money cannot, and even in a way donating $5 (or $5 worth of food) to a Food Pantry cannot. It's also usually a matter of one and done, as well as semi-transactional the way any relationship is a give and take; I can give my neighbor some sugar, and down the road they can return the favor the next time I'm in need of help. I help my friends move and I know whether or not I ever move, myself, that they would do the same for me if they're able. You can't say this about a random ask on the Internet and you likely won't ever be able to say it for most charities unless you somehow end up in their exact area of expertise. So it's different.

I feel like you should also learn about Tim Wong, the guy who basically single-handedly repopulated the Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly out in California. The lesson his story can and should teach is that... sometimes it can do more good for the world to care Very Much about one specific thing, and put your heart and soul into it, than it does to spread a little bit of care over a lot of things.

So, I guess what I mean to say here is... don't feel guilty about what you cannot do. There's no guilt in that. When you are ready and able to help, you can always go and look for a good way to do so (and what you end up helping may not always be the thing you think it will be), but you don't need to feel pressured by telemarketers or charity donation calls from strangers while you're trying to eat dinner. Especially if they don't even know who you are, either.

[unforth]

Alright not to like liveblog my breakdown on main but yesterday was a really bad day after a really bad, like, 4 months, and I've hit a bit of a breaking point and one of the only things in my life that can give is running @mdzsartreblogs , @tgcfartreblogs , @svsssartreblogs , @erhaartreblogs , @tykartreblogs , and @cnovelartreblogs , so that is what has to give. It's been a 99-out-of-100 days thankless job. A small number of people do say thank you and yall I appreciate you so much (HUGE shout-out to the artist I met at Flamecon who gifted me a zine when I said I ran these blogs, @bonesblubs you rock) but I have never done an act of fandom labor simultaneously this labor intensive yet this invisible before and, uh. It sucks. I spend an hour or more a day on this every day, if it's under 2k hours since I started the first of these in September 2020 I'd be shocked. And I do it because I love it but doing it means I don't have time or energy to do other things I love. And I really don't want to just quit, but I can't keep this up.

In a last-ditch effort to try not to just give up, I'm making the following changes:

1. Only watching one tag per fandom for the MXTX fandoms. I am going to check *only* #tgcf, #svsss, and #mdzs. Artwork posted to any other tag, I will not see unless a mutual reblogs it.

2. Reduced tagging (even more). I'm only going to tag characters and maybe overarching au type (eg, "modern au," "fantasy au"). I'll no longer tag creatures. I will continue to tag the same common trigger warnings I already tag.

3. If a work's appearance doesn't make it obvious what it is AND the tags aren't clear, I'm not going to reblog. I can't keep spending 5 minutes or more trying to figure out what I'm even looking at, scared that if I guess wrong the artist will get mad at me for mistagging their work. If I do reblog, I'll tag only the artist name and/or whatever else I can identify for sure.

4. I am no longer going to follow #link click. The fandom is just too big. I've started dreading checking it. If I was more into it and less busy I would make another spin off just for it but neither of those is true. (The art is so good, I hate to do this, but. If you love link click, highly recommend the main tag, lots of great stuff there.)

5. I will no longer tag any non-cnovel content in the art/post. Like, if someone draws, idek, Xie Lian and Marinette from Ladybug, I'm not gonna put any tags for Marinette, just for Xie Lian.

6. Basically if I run into something hard to tag or confusing or unclear, my new policy is I'm not gonna fricken bother.

I think those are everything but idefk, I cried for 3 hours last night and got 4 hours of sleep so I'm mostly fueled by exhaustion and desperation right now and my memory is even more fried than usual.

How artists can help. This is obviously all optional. You do you. But since some people might want to know what would make my life easier, I'm sharing. I'm not claiming I feel entitled to dictate how people fandom or anything like that.

1. Put the tags for the character(s) and ship(s) early in the tag list.

2. If you make art for a fandom that isn't one of the big ones (right now the only big danmei fandoms on tumblr as far as I can tell are the MXTX fandoms and maybe 2ha) I am begging you to use my tracked tag #cnovelartreblogs

3. Do mdzs art? Tag #mdzs. Do tgcf art? Tag #tgcf. Do svsss art? Tag #svsss.

4. Not only artists, but everyone, *please* stop tagging fandoms not discussed and/or depicted in your post. It's gotten to be stupid common for people to blanket the danmei fandom tags with posts only about one fandon (like, svsss-only works also being tagged mdzs and tgcf and 2ha for some damn reason). This isn't about just my sideblogs tbh this is just fandom etiquette that seems to have been forgotten or never learned by many. Tagging unrelated fandoms isn't "reach," it's annoying. People go into the #mdzs tag to see mdzs, not whatever not-mdzs stuff people have decided to tag for ~reach~, and seeing the same post in 8 tags, none of which it's related to, is so damn irritating, and makes scrolling the tags looking for content that IS relevant take that much longer. Knock it off.

Okay. I think that's as much as I'm prepared to meltdown where everyone can see. Thanks in advance everyone for your understanding, and apologies to everyone about to see this 8 times as I reblog it to each sideblog.

At least I'm not tagging it to everywhere. 🤣🤣🤣

[rookflower]

i do genuinely feel bad for people who were or are fans of thistleclaw, particularly because of pre-spottedleaf's heart content. i think you can find something to like in just about any fictional character, and warrior cats in particular is a fandom where a lot of fan content/animations kind of supercede the canon in the books when it comes to a lot of fan consensus, blurring the lines between the text, the paratext, and the headcanon. of course thistleclaw has fans! it's not like character quality and morality are the same thing anyways, that's silly. also, obviously, it isn't fun when information about a character you've grown attached to is added or retconned in that makes their character worse. i don't think somebody liking thistleclaw as a character, in a vacuum, is or ever has been indicitave of who they are as a person, especially if the version of the character they're talking about is the one who had not yet become "spottedleaf's heart thistleclaw".

now, having got that clarification out of the way, i have always found the way people talk about bluestar's prophecy thistleclaw pretty damn odd in how it positions thistleclaw as "rational misunderstood man" to bluestar's "stupid hysterical woman" in order to make him sympathetic, especially considering the fact that in the books thistleclaw is very clearly intended as an aggressive xenophobic asshole. hey older warrior cats fandom why do you think bluestar was such a cunt for being so meanies to him. why is he a wholesome loving dad who never did anything wrong and deserves better than losing the deputy position to that spiteful baby-murdering witch or whatever. hey old warrior cats fandom. hey. hey. h

[inoreuct]

would you agree that we all need more Sanji getting nosebleeds over Zoro in this fandom?

YES *pelting down a hill waving the proposal for this in my hand like a madman* YESSSSSS

the first time sanji gets a nosebleed over zoro is his clue-in that oh. i’m not straight, am i. the swordsman’s doing a bench press (shirtless, as always) as sanji walks by (and sanji sneaks a look, as always, because who wouldn’t?) and when he glances over the plates he has to do a double take because what the fuck. zoro’s pressing more than twice his body weight. zoro’s repping more than twice his body weight. he’s just registered that maybe he’s stared for a bit too long when he feels something warm and wet on his upper lip, iron dripping over his mouth, and he books it for the galley.

he slams the door shut and presses his back against it before he slides to the ground and screams into his knees because what. the fuck. it’s not even that he’s getting hot and bothered over a guy; it’s just that the guy’s zoro. he’s not supposed to get nosebleeds over zoro.

but he does.

and it gets worse.

zoro walking around shirtless on deck? nosebleed. zoro re-tying the sails and just hanging on with his legs around the mast? nosebleed. zoro strutting out of the shower door, damp with steam and hair dripping wet and a towel around his waist? nosebleed. zoro tsking irritably and grabbing all of sanji’s food and packages from him to haul the whole lot over his shoulder? NOSEBLEED.

and not even that. he starts getting breathless around zoro and his chest hurts. he kicks zoro back while they’re sparring one day and the swordsman grins, feral and unrestrained and all challenge and teeth, and sanji’s heart spasms so hard that he actually wonders if he’s about to go into cardiac arrest. he’s barely twenty, he isn’t ready to die— much less because of some stupid marimo. chiselled abs and a nice set of biceps are only worth so much of sanji’s dignity. he twists and smashes the sole of his shoe right into zoro’s pretty face.

still, it gets so, so bad that he’s elected to just. avoid zoro completely. he’s sneaking around corners and running across open expanses ducked low like some kind of goofy thief and he knows it’s so fucking stupid but he doesn’t. he doesn’t know if zoro likes— no. he doesn’t even think about it. there’s no way, and if he gives himself false hope he’ll just break his own heart. he doesn’t know if zoro likes men, or anyone, much less him; nobody in their right mind would, not really. he's nice to have but not to keep and he's come to terms with it.

…until zoro corners him in the galley and demands to know what the fuck’s going on.

sanji stays facing away, slowly washing the dishes even as his heart pounds so hard it hurts. he is painfully aware of the way zoro’s seething like an over-boiled kettle in one of the chairs behind him, arms crossed over his stupidly broad chest and stock-still because he never, ever shakes his leg even though sanji knows he wants to.

his sponge squeaks across ceramic. the water’s warm against his fingertips, and his eyes flick up to meet his own reflection in the porthole window; he looks… well, he doesn’t know. scared, maybe. nervous. his mouth is thin, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, a shudder running its fingers down his spine even as his heartbeat thumps between his ribs and god, fuck, it aches. and he knows. he looks himself in the eyes and he knows that somewhere along the line nosebleeds had turned into falling in love and he was the stupid idiot who had just let it happen because he was too weak to pry zoro out of his thoughts.

his gaze flicks down sharply when he hears the sudden scrape of the chair, and zoro spits, “look, i can’t fix whatever i did wrong if you don’t tell me what it is.”

sanji’s heart throbs. “what?”

he can hear zoro’s scowl. “what, what? i obviously did something. you’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”

the cook almost laughs. he bites it down and swallows his words, salty-sweet at the back of his throat. guilt nips at him; zoro’s his rival and and his personal annoyance and a blockhead but he might also, maybe, just maybe, be sanji’s best friend. and sanji hasn’t been very fair to him lately.

he swallows again, clears his throat silently. “you didn’t do anything, marimo,” he murmurs to the plate in his hands, trying for airy and getting more somewhat vaguely strangled. he coughs. “just forget about it. sorry i’ve been weird.”

sanji will deal. he will, somehow; he’d been careless and careless is dangerous and for perhaps the first time in his life, he has too much to lose. he’ll squash his heart into a box and lock it down tight like he always has and it’ll hurt, but when does it ever not? he mentally declares the matter done and dusted as he shakes off the plate and gently sets it on the drying rack.

his lungs hitch as a callused hand cups his elbow.

zoro pulls him around. he’s too weak to resist. the edge of the sink digs into his hip as stormy grey eyes scan his face and zoro looks tense, his jaw set in the way it only is when he faces off with a particularly vexing foe.

“did i not look happy enough at dinner?" he asks, and it could be mockery but it isn't, not with that edge to his voice; not desperation, but damn near. like filter paper burning its way to ash. "was it my clothes on the floor? my boots on the bed? what?”

sanji can't stand it anymore. he looks away, tries to twist out of the invisible bonds zoro has him trapped in, but fingers looped around his wrist are all it takes to make him stay and fuck, fuck, he's so fucked.

"sanji, what did i do?” zoro breathes, brow furrowed, voice too near and too damn earnest, and sanji's throat bobs as he digs the heel of his palm into his eye.

this isn't how it's supposed to go. zoro isn't supposed to care. zoro isn't supposed to be standing here in the galley saying his name in that tone of voice. a hand carefully pulls his own away from his face, and zoro doesn't fucking let go, and sanji feels too much like he's been stripped down to the bone.

"i know," zoro continues, gruff like he doesn't know how to be anything else, "that i upset you. so would you please tell me what i did so i can fix it?" he bends lower still, ducking to try and catch sanji’s line of sight but sanji just can't look at him. "i'll fix it, i—"

"you can't fix this." the words are out and in the air before he can stop them, and a bittersweet smile curves his mouth. "there's nothing to fix, so you can't fix it. just let it go, alright?"

zoro wants to argue. sanji can tell. but the swordsman lets out a measured exhale after a long moment and pulls back, face carefully neutral. "at least tell me what's going on, cook."

sanji looks down at his feet. "...i can't."

"like hell you can't," zoro replies immediately, and it's such an abrupt reminder of their normal banter that it wrenches a rough noise from sanji's chest. "i was the one who held your hair back after you had, like, seven margaritas too many. don't think you could tell me anything worse than the experience of trying to stop you from falling into your own puke."

"oh, jesus fuck," sanji swears on instinct, then laughs. it's unfortunately hollow. "that was one time, asshole."

"one time too many," zoro hums, raising an eyebrow. "so you gonna tell me what's going on, or do i have to make it a captain's order?"

sanji grits his teeth.

"i will drag luffy in here, i don't care—"

"fucking—" he holds his breath, flipping around to white-knuckle the edge of the sink and letting it out slow. "fine. you ever loved someone, marimo?"

"sure." zoro shrugs easily, crossing his arms as he looks out the window. "kuina, but i think i learned to love her memory more than anything else. luffy, nami—" a near-unnoticeable flutter of thick lashes. "you."

sanji exhales through his nose as he rocks back on his heels. squeezes out air till it hurts. "you know that's not what i meant."

"what did you mean, then?"

he turns to look at where zoro has settled lazily against the counter, the moon turning his eyes to silver. "I mean the kind of love that makes your blood race. that makes you want more even when you know you'll never take more than you're allowed. the kind that makes your heart hurt so badly you feel empty without it."

the swordsman's face is unreadable as he tilts his head slowly. "i did say i love you."

it hits sanji like a bullet. he sucks in a sharp breath, and his throat burns as he turns away and tries to stop his shoulders from heaving up. "don't fuck with me, zoro. not about this."

it feels rather like a cruel cosmic joke. he's so near yet so far, just one step away with a gauzy curtain between but he can't touch it. he won't. he's got too many things on the line and yet he can't even name one of them.

"hey."

he squeezes his eyes shut against the burn of salt that shouldn't even be there, and look at that. little sanji's gone and broken his own heart again.

"hey," zoro tries again, more insistent, one hand hovering in the space between them and sanji feels the pull of it like a magnet.

he doesn't turn away as it cups his cheek. doesn't run as fingers slide through the short hairs at his nape, a thumb behind his jaw. his lashes are damp. it is everything he wants and everything he cannot have and he can't—

"look at me."

"i can't," he breathes, lungs rising fast and shallow. he's afraid to open his eyes. he's afraid of what he'll see.

"yes, you can." zoro shifts closer and another hand joins the first. it's big and rough and warm and he holds sanji's face like he's the moon herself. "look at me, curly."

he can't.

he does.

zoro's gaze is almost painful to meet straight-on with how intense it is. he seems to realise, face softening as he leans closer, closer, posture loose enough that it would be no problem for sanji to shove him away. "you love me," he breathes. "yes or no?"

sanji's heart stops. his tongue is clumsy in his mouth, his brain a mess of yesnoyesyesnoiwon'tican’tido—

"don't think." zoro's voice cuts through the haze as he shakes his head slowly; a sword through smoke, silver-bright, singing in the air and leaving silence. "don't think. you love me, yes or no."

the galley swims around sanji as his vision blurs. he feels his tears spill hot down his cheek, knows the way zoro aches to brush them away and yet stays still. he opens his mouth and it feels like stepping out of the only shelter he's ever known; he is an open fucking wound and he's raw and everything hurts, everything but zoro. zoro. zoro. "yes."

just one word, three simple letters, and still it feels like damnation; if he'd never said it he could deny it but now it's real. the swordsman relaxes, shoulders dropping enough that his forehead brushes sanji's, and sanji tracks the way his throat bobs. the way steel-grey eyes flicker over his face, molten in the light of the electric lamps and the moonlight spilling through the window, gilding zoro like something out of a dream. a fairytale sanji read as a child until the edges of the pages fitted familiar to his thumbs as his little hands reached for a happy ending that was never meant to be his.

he shakes, now, as zoro reaches up to run tentative fingers through straw-pale hair. "let me love you. yes or no."

"i—" the sound that twists from his mouth is cracked jagged down the middle, unpolished as a common pebble picked up off the damn street. "you don't—"

"yes or no."

"i'm not what you want," he gasps, his face wet.

"yes or no."

sanji wants to break apart. because zoro sounds like he's begging, and he cannot fathom anybody possibly wanting him that much. he wants to scream and cry and claw at the walls until his nails break. he wants to shatter into pieces all over the floor without having to worry about putting himself back together. he wants. he wants, and zoro's looking at him with the closest thing to reverence he's seen in his life, and even that isn't enough for him to believe it. "i'm not what you want."

he can barely look at zoro. he can barely look at himself. the shame is clawing a pit into his stomach, and he lets it, feels every inch of it, because what kind of person doesn't know how to be loved? his breath catches wetly as zoro cups his jaw in both hands, tilting his face up, and once again sanji is too weak to pull away.

"you are everything i want."

the words are so fierce, so sure, and sanji is cracking apart at the seams. the stitches pulled tight by his own hand are unravelling and he can't stop it—

"yes or no."

zoro's breath ghosts warm across his mouth, fingertips in his hair, just far away enough for sanji to see the way his eyes are blazing and yet he waits. his thumb on sanji's cheek is the gentlest thing sanji has ever known.

"you'll get tired of me," he tries weakly, one last time for good measure, and zoro just shakes his head. the resolve in his expression does not waver even once.

sanji breaks.

"yes." the word scrapes itself out of his throat seconds before arms are going around him, and he sobs. lets the swordsman bring them both to the kitchen floor as he curls up in zoro's lap, fingers clawing into his white shirt, numb with how hard he cries because nobody, nobody has ever stayed. not without him getting hurt in the process. he pushes them away when he gets scared and they let him and then it becomes his fault when it all blows up in his face, but zoro's not leaving, and it's so foreign to him that he's shaking so badly and he can't stop.

a warm, heavy palm smooths over his spine and he lets himself be shifted closer, settles sideways as zoro wraps an arm over his shins and rocks them until his breathing evens out. the embarrassment hits like a gut punch; he knows he looks like a mess, face blotchy and hair everywhere and eyes puffy as hell, but zoro cards his bangs out of his eyes and looks at him like he doesn't care, and sanji turns away.

he feels... fragile. like he's made of tinted glass and spun sugar, like he'll cave in at the slightest touch. there is something melting in his chest and it drips down over his ribs; pools fresh as a river in spring, offset by the grounding presence of zoro's hands on his skin. "don't say i didn't warn you," he mumbles, masking his very real fear behind a layer of watery bravado as he hides his face in zoro's shoulder, and of course, of course zoro sees right through him.

the swordsman's thumb traces the swirl of his eyebrow before zoro rests his chin on top of sanji's head. "i don’t listen. you know that."

you know me, is what goes unsaid, and sanji doesn't deign to reply. he buries his face into zoro's chest and breathes in the smell of steel and sword oil and— he sits up slightly, eyes narrowing. "you've been stealing my deodorant, yes or no." the way zoro stills momentarily is a dead giveaway, and he yelps when the swordsman flicks his forehead.

"would you rather i be stinky?" zoro scoffs, rolling his eyes gently as sanji settles back down with a huff.

"you still are stinky. if we're gonna be together i'm expecting you to shower at least once every two days—" zoro groans, and he powers through, raising his voice, "—and if you aren't fussy i'll let you shower with me."

the way zoro instantly stops complaining cracks a laugh out of him. it's weak and watered-down, but it's a start. zoro's hands slide back into his hair and he hums as he lets his eyes fall shut.

the moon's full tonight. their ship rocks gently, and sanji gets comfortable; zoro's warm and solid and happens to make a perfectly respectable pillow. the thought that he can have this now sends a thrill through him.

he's not a fool. he's not optimistic when it comes to this. when it comes to love.

but with zoro's thumb rubbing mindless circles against the side of his thigh and a kiss pressed to the top of his head, he's got a pretty good feeling about this time around.

[biolumien]

Hiiii!!!! 😊👋 So I only just started Kaiju no. 8!!! New to the fandom and not a manga reader. Idk what’s going to happen in the next episode—all I know is that Hoshina better not d*e lol.

Anyways!!! Obviously I am a huge Hoshina fan/simp!!! I really like your blog and I have enjoyed your Hoshina fics!!!!!! 🥹 And since your requests are open, I wanted to know if I could perhaps make one??? 👉👈

If so, I was wondering if you could do something sort of related to your “say it!” fic??? Like where Hoshina (+ reader) somehow bumps into the ex from operations you mentioned in the fic??? And reader gets SUPERRRRR jealous (lord knows I would be especially if said ex was really beautiful and smart) and insecure. Maybe reader acts a bit distant/moody after the encounter but once Hoshina realizes what’s up he immediately reassures reader and let’s them know how much he loves/cares for them???

Sorry if this request is weird or doesn’t make sense to you, I’ve honestly just been thinking about a similar scenario ever since reading that fic of yours 😭😭 anyways thank you so much for your time 🫶❤️ and please never stop writing, your fics are beautiful 💖💕

notes: hihi; thank you so much for your request; i hope that this is okay; you sent this in before the most recent episode but hoshina's a fairly important character to the story of kaiju no 8 overall so he'll be alright... i combined this with a slightly different ask which also surrounded jealousy but with okonogi; it's very briefly mentioned though.

jealousy as the crux

soshiro hoshina x gn!reader no warnings should apply, i think. wc: 837

hoshina always maintained rather easy conversation with a lot of people—friendly conversation that sometimes got the better of your self esteem when he teasingly doted on okonogi or otherwise. 

you’d tried not to bring it up, to not bother him—because envy and jealousy like that was an ugly emotion, of course. it wouldn’t be right to burden hoshina with them–mostly because you weren’t even sure how he’d react. he was plenty envious on his own, you think–key point on think. but it might have been for more reasonable things, surely. like the envious desire to become stronger, or something noble like that.

nothing quite like yours. 

but stumbling on hoshina’s ex was never on your list of priorities at all. 

so the fact that she was here—was her name amaya?—only made you more uncomfortable. you barely knew anything about her other than the fact that okonogi spoke her name with strained reverence, cautious to never bring it up around hoshina. hoshina seemed to be uncaring of it all, even so–as if he couldn’t be bothered to remember. 

she was smoking indoors, her eyes tired and weary. 

hoshina didn’t seem to tense up when talking to her, which strangely irked you more. 

“hoshina,” amaya says, approaching hoshina with a raised eyebrow. she pats his shoulder, and he chuckles.

“you look well,” hoshina murmurs. 

“hm. well as i’ll ever be.” her eyes flit to you, her eyes narrowing. you felt uncomfortable under her gaze, as if you were some unique kind of insect to be pinned up in a collection. “this your new partner? they’re cute.”

“hm?” hoshina laughs. “aren’t they?”

the compliment doesn’t feel good, somehow, as it usually does.

“thought you said you wouldn’t date again,” amaya says, dusting off some ash off the tip of her cigarette, taking another breath before blowing it away from the two of you. “not that we really were.” she snorts. “you were too much of a coward last time.”

“hey,” hoshina says, sounding mock-hurt. “i figured we were better off as friends.”

“hm.” amaya exhales. “whatever you say.”

“i wish you’d sound more enthusiastic about this,” hoshina retorts, laughing again. it’s the same laugh he has when he talks to okonogi, that same doting laughter–but it also wasn’t anything special. it was the same kind of laughter he had when he talked to you, though perhaps it was tinged with more fondness when he spoke to you.

if there was anything hoshina was, it might’ve just been annoyingly consistent.

"it's hard to be enthusiastic surrounding you. your sarcastic energy exhausts me," amaya drawls.

you turn away from the conversation at this point–and yet you can feel amaya staring daggers into the back of your head. 

“i’ll let the two of you finish this up,” you say, and your voice sounds far more obviously strained than you’d like for it to be. 

hoshina was allowed to talk to other people. but why did amaya irk you so much? was it just the irreverent way she spoke, the way she seemed to be watching you so intently for no reason? what the hell was her problem? as you stormed off, your footsteps grew angrier as you continued to mull over it. no, seriously! what was her problem? 

but what was yours, being jealous in the first place? you were being irrational–worried because you wanted hoshina’s attention for yourself but of course it wasn’t right to worry this badly about it to the point that envy would turn your stomach like this, create the brittling sensation in your heart. it wasn’t right, and the fact that you knew it wasn’t right made the whirling sense of bad in you feel worse.

you rub your face roughly, trying to shock yourself into trying to just be fucking normal.

“hey.”

hoshina’s voice is quiet when you turn around, and his face is contemplative, brows furrowed in worry.

“are you done? talking to amaya?” you ask.

“for now,” he says. his eyes focus on your face, concerned now. “are you okay?”

“i’m…”

the words die in your throat.

“i don’t want to be jealous,” you say weakly. “of whatever’s going on. but, i–”

hoshina’s hands are on your face before you can even finish your sentence, squishing your cheeks together.

“mm, i see.” hoshina blinks, humming. “why didn’t you just say so earlier?”

you blink.

“you’re not… mad?” you ask.

“mad?” hoshina raises an eyebrow, cocking his head. it looks cute. “should i be?”

“no,” you say. “i–or, i don’t know. maybe? yes?”

“which is it?” hoshina asks, a teasing smile on his face before his brow furrows a bit. “if you would have just told me earlier i could have easily just told you that there’s nothing going on between me and anyone else but you. i chose you. don’t forget that, okay?”

you blink.

“and i love you,” hoshina says, completely straightforwardly, with sure honesty. “don’t forget that.”

you nod, and he squeezes your face, leaning in to kiss you on the lips.

[andy-wm]

I’ve just been listening to a podcast about the fabric of reality, and came on here for a bit of downtime. And lo and behold, you’re talking about reality and time passing, and that’s exactly it.

No matter what we think, no matter what we say, or theorise or claim, we don’t alter the truth, and that stands for everything that doesn’t pertain to us.l and our own lives.

I can think the earth is flat till the cows come home (I don’t, obviously) but that doesn’t alter reality. 

Same goes for Jimin and JKs relationship. I’ve seen people claim wild theories, bending and stretching to reach conclusions far outweighing a k drama or blockbuster movie, whereas I personally, think mundanely and simply, that they are together. 

Whose right? We don’t know. 

That’s the truth. We don’t know. 

We may never know, we may find out one day?. 

I’m saying this with a smile on my face because that’s the beauty of life right, as long as we are not harming others, or coming into others spaces and shouting. As long as we aren’t being disrespectful to others, and to Jikooks bond. 

I will say this though, an actual truth people seem to forget or quickly dismiss across the fandom as a whole, is that those men chose to enlist together and whatever we may think of their relationship that is what happened and we should do well to remember that. 

Hey Anon, that's what i call serendipity.

And I love this ask, thank you!

I absolutely agree, what we know - or think we know - has no impact on what truly is.

Even when we believe we know all there is to know, new discoveries and new understanding mean - hopefully - we're constantly learning and reassessing.

When it comes to Jikook, Occam's razor is my go-to: the simplest explanation is, in fact, usually the best. We don't need convoluted plots and schemes and conspiracy theories. There's enough information staring us in the face.

Sometimes we need to untangle that information - I'm not saying we should accept everything on face value - and we do have to look out for new information so we can adjust our understanding.

But that is the case with everything on earth. There is no static knowledge.

These things add layers of richness and complexity but they don't change the basic premise of our underatanding.

That understanding, for me, is that these two humans love each other.

As you say, there ARE things we definitely know, like their companion enlistment.

Like the fact that Jimin chose to have JK with him - next to him - when he talked about his depression on Beyond The Star.

We know Jimin flew 28 hours so he could spend 3 days with JK in NY and Connecticut.

We know that JK was ready to crack Yoongi on the head with a frypan when he though Jimin might have been hurt (by a 5g shuttlecock).

We know that JK never harms Jimin - in all the games and jokes they play, he never targets Jimin (spraying his butt with a watergun is not targeting him, before anyone gets huffy. That did Jimin no harm at all.)

We know that Jimin worried over how hard JK was working.

We know JK begged Jimin shamelessly in front of millions of people, to do a weverse live together.

We know JK watched and hyped all Jimin's footage when he was promoting FACE.

We know they jumped into the comments of one another's livestreams several times last year.

We know all these things, but imagine what we don't know.

There's so much we have no idea about.

Hours and hours of footage that never reaches our screens. Months of time they spend together or alone or with family or friends. That's as it should be - their their private lives are just that - private.

Yes, I have a lot of fun picking apart the little glimpses we get into their lives because i enjoy their dynamic so much and because I'm naturally curious (okay, yes, I'm nosy 🤣).

I look deeper not because I'm hunting for lies or flaws, but because these two delight me. Sure I speculate, but i don't purport to know what they are to each other or where their boundaries lie. And I'm happy not to know. Some things are none of my business.

Like you, Anon, I accept that i may never know the true nature of their relationship, and I'm quite okay with that.

In the end what does it matter?

Whatever they are to each other, they're happy, and honestly what more is there to life than love and happiness?

💜💛