#or... y'know what? i think i made my point

[indouloureux]

chewing gum

— david!superman/clark kent x fem!reader

— synopsis: a lot of things can kill you: a burglary, a building falling on top of you, and clark kent's personal vendetta– cigarettes. 

— a/n: back after a while :D 

"how many cigarette breaks do you need in a day?"

you shove the cart back in your pocket as you sit back down on your chair. clark kent's curiosity makes you huff in bemusement.

he's turned in his chair so he's looking at you, blazer tight around his biceps, which you found–up until now–startling given his sheepish and clumsy persona. but his looks made up for it; blue eyes that look like a mosaic when the sun shines on them, a smile that can make a man look both handsome and pretty at the same time. a face like his deserved a good body.

the first two buttons of his undershirt are unbuttoned, a telltale that he's relaxed for today rather than losing himself in revisions.

"on a good day, two in the afternoon, one in the evening." you reply, toeing your heels off and kicking them beneath your desk.

"and on a bad day?"

you finally turn your chair towards him in favor. "four in the afternoon, around two to three in the evening."

clark sucks his teeth in, tapping his pen on his desk. his dimples grace his cheeks like they're kisses from angels. "smoking kills, y'know?"

"so i'm told."

"lois wrote an article about smoking," he points his pen at her, head tilting down to look at her direction from above his black frames. "i should send it to you."

you scoff, bemused at his fact and lean forward to place your elbows on your knees. "lois lane? famous journalist known for covering scandals of infamous politicians and humbling superman, wrote an article about smoking?"

"it's true!" lois pokes her head up from her computer, smiling at you. "it was some of the ones i wrote during my internship."

"you ever tried vaping?" jimmy suggests, sitting down on clark's desk, who's not so pleased at the sudden presence of an ass being placed on where he usually worked, showing it in a frown. "i've been vaping for years and i'm healthy."

your nose scrunches. "are you though?"

clark uses his feet to drag his chair towards you, tumbling forward slightly given that he barely fits in the office chair. you blush at his sudden approach, leaning back on your own chair to try and ease yourself when he settles beside you, a curl joining the clump of hair over this forehead. then he reaches into his pocket, pulls out something green, and pulls out a thin, rectangular gum covered in tinfoil.

"try chewing gum," clark says. "maybe that'll help you quit."

"you want to help me quit?" your brow raises. "you don't think i've tried doing that for the past five years? you're cute, kent."

"come on!" he encourages, taking a gum out of his own and popping it in his mouth. "maybe you've been doing it wrong."

nonetheless, you take the gum he offers and chew it, mint engulfing your mouth and lightly burning your tongue. "nicotine gum helps, not regular gum."

you don't know whether or not oblivion is one of clark's quirks. you think it is, as he leans closer, close enough you smell the mint off his breath, but far enough to respect proxemics. his glasses sit crooked on his nose, and his pretty blue eyes stare down at you like he actually cares about the ashes that char your lungs.

"how 'bout i find an alternative way to help you quit, hm?"

"like what?"

"don't wanna tell you," he finally leans back. "sometimes unconsciously doing it helps you quit."

"he actually has a point," lois interjects, sipping from her coffee before continuing, "not realizing you're in the process of quitting will help you continue it."

clark taps his fingers on his thighs. "i'll reward you, too."

your ears perk up at the mention of a reward. please be a date.

"you're not gonna let me know that as well?"

"nope."

"fine," you take your pack and shove it in his hand, chewing the gum in your mouth obnoxiously he visibly grimaces. "if your method doesn't work, you owe me dinner."

—

clark's method, did in fact, not work.

or whatever his method was.

maybe it was through the email he sent you about baked mac n cheese that urged you to make one of your own, or another one about how cleaning your bathroom also cleanses your spirit. he'd sent a lot of articles since work ended, and somehow, you've done it all in a span of five hours.

it did not help you take your mind off of smoking.

you think clark's method was trying to get you to do a lot of things enough to distract you from actually thinking of smoking. and if it is that, well, he failed.

you text clark. your method failed bud. you owe me dinner.

on the bright side, you get to go to dinner with clark kent. you just hope he's not too oblivious and decides to invite lois and jimmy thinking it was a group date.

so you take the pack you hide in your bedroom drawer and stride out of your apartment and up the rooftop. when you reach the open area, you stand by the edge and prop a cigarette between your lips, roll the fuse of the lighter, and cup a hand in front to stop the wind from blowing it away.

you wonder where clark's sudden interest at helping you quit had stemmed from. because lois, despite having written an article about smoking, had never offered to help you quit (because she had vices of her own). jimmy vaped more than you smoke. but clark, after being your friend for years, his sudden urge to help you quit makes you form thoughts only a younger you would:

that he's helping you quit because he likes you and doesn't want you to die so you two could get married and move back to smallville.

now that teenage thought warms up your cheeks even more. but as much as you wanted that, addiction does have its way of tying a rope around your dreams and dangling it from its fingertips away from your reach.

smoke escapes your lips. and then, a sudden quick breeze.

"so the smell came from here."

you yelp, dropping the cigarette off the ledge. you gasp and lean over to watch the poor thing clash on fire exits and plummet onto the sidewalk. you groan in dismay, turning around with your hands into fists.

superman is standing on your rooftop. well, more like hovering lightly, with his cape dancing with the wind, his suit clean, unbesmirched from the lack of misdeeds for the past few weeks. you gape a little, at the sight of metropolis' very own savior, who is standing upon you with a soft smile you'd think he's known you for a while.

"superman," you greet. "you made me lose my cigarette."

"that's good." his arms cross, finally lettimg his feet settle on the ground, yet he remains towering over you. "you should lose all your cigarettes."

your eyes narrow, and something feels like clicking in your brain. and then you remember that clark has an unusual friendship with superman— something he and lois like to banter about since they have opposing views.

"are you clark's method?"

"hm?"

"clark sent you here to help me quit, didn't he?" superman seems to stammer, as if caught off guard. his body relaxes a little, like he deflated out of your sudden realization. "tell him it's not working. although, since you're here–"

"i only speak to clark for interviews." his hands raise to stop you from pulling out your phone. "i'm only here to help you quit."

"i'll quit if you let me interview you."

"we both know that's a lie."

you curse beneath your breath. he approaches you, walking with such courtesy that you feel slightly ashamed from how you were talking to him. superman stops only a foot away from you, allowing you to rest your back on the wall.

"did you know that more than 7 million in the world die from smoking?"

you laugh a little at his conversation starter. "did clark send you one of lois lane's articles?"

"indeed he did," he walks closer and eventually settles beside you, copying your posture of relaxing against the wall and placing his elbows on the ledge. "so why are you smoking?"

you look up at him, unbeknownst that he'd already been looking down at you, city lights adding specks on his blue eyes. you lick your lips and taste the faint tobacco that's left on the crevices of your bottom lip. superman tilts his head like a curious puppy.

"it helps me relax." you reply. "being a journalist is hectic enough. can't imagine what it's like if i was a journalist in gotham though."

your jab at the city makes him chuckle. "you know, there are other ways that can help you quit."

"like what?"

"chewing gum."

you laugh again, but his brows furrow and his mouth smiles just a little from confusion. his arms cross, tilting his body to face you a little.

"what's so funny?"

"did clark tell you to say that?" you giggle, sniffling from the cold and laughter. "nicotine gums, to be precise. but he's already helped me with that method and it didn't help me at all. he's also sent me a lot of articles that got me doing things, but it eventually led me into thinking of smoking. so maybe he sent you here as a last resort."

superman pouts. "i wouldn't think of it as a last resort—"

"so what is it? are you gonna give me a motivational speech about how i have more in life, or trying to die at a young age would stop me from claiming my dreams?"

he huffs like he's exasperated at your sarcasm since your first encounter a few minutes ago. "i could just follow you whenever you take your cigarette breaks and take the pack from you."

"that sounds fun, but i don't think you'd want to add another journalist to the list of people who hate you, right?"

"i wouldn't want to. that would just hurt me." he puts his left hand over his heart, clasping his right over it. "i can't have you hating me now, can't i?"

this blush was different– not from the cold, or the previous thought of marrying clark kent, but from his bold comment. you huff out a shy laugh, placing your palms on the ledge and pushing yourself up to sit on it. superman panics a little, his hands immediately darting up to save you. but:

"i'm fine!" you assure him. "i've learned to balance myself."

you shiver from the breeze's constant caress beneath your thin sweater. superman notices. he looks away from you for a split second, a quick beam of red light and then smoke on your peripherals, and suddenly he's shamelessly taking your hands and putting them in his.

hot. him and his hands are hot.

"figured you were cold." he chuckles, dimples forming beside his lips.

"really?" you bemuse, smiling softly. "thanks though, i forgot to bring my sweater—"

suddenly, from constantly kicking your dangling feet, you unconsciously push yourself off the ledge, falling backwards. air suddenly pushes past you, a sudden drop on your pelvis, and fear drumming through every nerve of your body.

luckily, superman is quick to take a tight grip of your hands in one hand, and the other on your back. you hover both from the side of the building, his face so close to you that his nose bumps against yours. you don't hear the pack of cigarettes falling off the pocket of your sweatpants, but you do hear your heartbeat in your ears and superman's light panting from shock.

his grip on you is tight like he thinks you might die, and your legs find themselves wrapping on one of his leg.

his lips look soft and maybe they are. and you can't pinpoint where you've seen those eyes before other than the fact that it looks like an ocean with the sun beaming over it. superman slowly brings you back on the rooftop, old cement meeting your feet.

"thought you've learned how to balance?"

and your eyes never leave his, just enough to not notice that he's reaching for something behind his back and shoves something in between your close faces.

a chewing gum.

you look down at the tiny tinfoil between his fingers. "w-where did you keep that? you don't have pockets—"

"just take it."

"did you keep that in the garter of your underwear—"

"take the gum," he says, annoyed. "and please don't smoke anymore."

you take it off his fingers and open it, popping it into your mouth. he nods in appreciation, and you wonder if this was the same gum clark offered you earlier.

—

"i take it my superman method didn't work?"

clark never seems to startle you despite his sudden appearance at the office's rooftop. you turn, cigarette between your middle and index, seeing him shove his hands inside his pockets sans blazer. you sigh sornfully, like you're sad you've disappointed him.

"it's not lit," you say. "not yet."

"throw that away."

you whine and his brows raise, so you do. you throw it off the ledge and immediately reach for a pack of gum. clark's lips pull downwards in interest. "gum, huh?"

"i've been chewing them since this morning." you say sheepishly. you offer him. "want one?"

"sure." he takes it off the box, the tinfoil looking tiny in his fingertips. "how was your encounter with him, though?"

interesting. "kind of meh."

clark scoffs, like he's the one who should be offended. "meh? what the freak, dude?"

"i mean he saved me from falling off the ledge, i'll give that to him." you blow a bubble and pop. "he's really hot, though."

the tip of his ears turn red, and he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. clark approaches you, trapping you between the ledge's railings and his ridiculously buff frame. your head tilts up. "give me your pack."

"but clark." you whine petulantly.

"please?" he puts his open palm between your chests. "look. i've lost a lot of people growing up, including my dad." his eyes soften, the sun revealing the crystals in his eyes. "and... you're really important to me, and i can't lose you early, too."

your heart aches at the sight of a sad clark kent, who's hair falls the same way his mood does. you reach for the pack in your pocket and put it on his palm, which his fingers immediately clasp around. and then you straighten:

he says you're important to him.

"clark, what do you mean i'm important to you?"

clark suddenly stammers, blinking rapidly; his nervous quirk. "oh! i-i- um-"

mint evades your mouth in a way that thrills you, and you wonder what it's like for him. clark's blushing profusely and you giggle, putting a hand on his chest. "can i have a cigarette so you could take me out to dinner?"

he shakes his head. "n-no. uh, i'll just take you to dinner." clark manages out an embarrassed smile. "by the way, my method worked."

your smile drops. "what method?"

clark walks away and crushes the pack in his fist before throwing it off the ledge. you follow him with large strides, disbelief radiating off your heel. "what method, kent?!"

a/n: the method was chewing gum. reader says it didn't work at first, but clark manages to actually make it work for her.

[jeromesankara]

Higgs is an Abuse Victim and I'm Tired

Hi. I think I'm about to make people mad with a hot take.

Spoilers under the cut for Death Stranding 2, as well as discussion of abuse and victims and assault.

Higgs is a male abuse victim. And I think if Higgs was a woman, he'd have been treated much differently.

And I know what you're gonna say. "Isn't this the 'you'd like Amelie if she was a guy' but in reverse?" No, actually! Because I hate the President in DS2 and he is basically having the same purpose as Amelie but that's not what this is about.

Higgs has been abused his entire life. From his Uncle to Amelie to the Beach. We know in his journals he was beaten regularly, there's even evidence of sexual abuse as well, but that part isn't as concrete as the fact that Higgs was raised in a living hell in a shoe box he could not escape from. So what did he yearn for above anything else? Power. Control. He took power back in violence to save himself, and I think that's really all Higgs has done after.

He knows violence keeps himself safe. It keeps himself safe when his DOOMS weakens and he has to kill to 'recharge' it. People liked him, though. Veteran Porter looked up to him. He started finding purpose. Maybe could have let the violence go if he didn't meet his next abuser, Coffin, who used him in her terrorist activism against Bridges and further poisoned the well.

Higgs was abused and he was left to rot in his abuse his entire life. He was a male abuse victim who was not expected to be savable. Fragile, meanwhile, was literally healed of the physical scars of Higgs, even. She will never completely recover from what Higgs had done to her, but she has the support to help her become a better person.

"But he abused Fragile!"

Yes! Which brings me to my next point. Fragile is ALSO an abuse victim under Higgs. He took away her youth, basically assaulted her and tortured her, and soiled her company and made everyone think she was a monster. But y'know what? Fragile was allowed help. Higgs, though, only spiraled deeper and deeper.

Higgs is still an abuse victim. And even in the shallowest of times where he was allowed to grow past being a victim, it wasn't for long. And it's because he had power to protect himself from being a victim again that he's seen as worse than the devil.

Now, Higgs did awful things in DS2 too. He killed Fragile. He tried to kill a baby. He brought violence into the world. I don't think DS2 Higgs could have been saved. I think he was past saving at that rate, as painful as it is for myself to admit. But he wasn't always past saving.

Higgs just walked on broken legs ever since he could crawl.

Higgs never had the chance to heal. This is even BEFORE the fact that we talk about this man constantly drowning in chiralium that drives people insane. And do you think being stranded on a beach that is so soaked in chiralium it can keep an eternal fire burning... for eternity is a great place for your mental health?

He didn't give weakness because he wasn't expected to. He wasn't allowed to break down when Extinction depends on his work, when God is in his ear telling him that he's finally achieved power to end the suffering he had endured. Higgs was given power he always craved and he was going to use it to stop suffering. Meanwhile Fragile just existed licking her wounds and waiting for someone else to get Higgs on his knees for her.

Fragile had Sam. Had Bridges. Higgs did not. Higgs had abuse. And maybe it's because Higgs is a man that he was expected to carry the pain of a lifetime of being used. Because his abuse also came from women. But I don't think anyone's really willing to talk about that, nor how Higgs has never had a figure he could trust to even begin healing.

And I'm fucking tired of people treating Higgs like he's a demon because DS2 forgot about his entire history and turned him into a one dimensional cackling monster. Higgs was not allowed to change because the story didn't want him to. The story only wanted a villain.

"But what does this do with Higgs being treated differently as a woman?"

Because women in this universe in general are treated differently. I know that's a blatant Kojima thing, but look at all the female characters and tell me that if they did what Higgs did that they wouldn't be forgiven in some way.

Amelie is just as abused in what is expected out of her as Higgs is. But she gets protected because she didn't have a choice. And yet Tomorrow clearly made the choice to not follow the path of Extinction at the end of the game after the fucking baby vore. So apparently. The choice has always been there. Thanks for that, Kojima.

Just look at Amelie.

Amelie. A fucking. Extinction Entity. Is forgiven. She started the Homo Demens. Not Coffin. Everything began with her. She strung Sam and Higgs along in a game to reconnect the UCA so she had a proper foothold to begin extinction. Even more than that, her being an extinction entity is a closely guarded secret throughout the entire world. No one breathes her name. But Higgs? Nah. Fucker tried to blow up the world all on his own. He's a boogeyman.

I could keep going. I want to keep going. But I'm just tired.

Edit: I'm adding one last note about how this game loved to string around the idea of trying to stop cycles of violence by supporting one another. People being brought into the Magellan crew to be supported. Even if Higgs couldn't be saved, it would have been nice for a single person to be like: "...Hold on." And really thought about what causes a person to be too far gone. No one speaks Higgs' name outside of venom.

He's just a Boogeyman. A monster. He is only evil.

[nomadelaide]

The weight of it all clung to her: dust, memory, loss... But the grin on Charles’s face—the glint in his eye as he stuffed his pockets like some half-drunk thief—eased something tight in her chest. Addie adjusted the bag on her shoulder, its contents clinking softly as she shifted its weight. “I got it.” She muttered, casting him a sideways look. “Just don’t go throwing out your back trying to make off with a desk lamp, gramps.” Her voice was dry, teasing; but the edges of her lips curved upward, pulled by something that felt dangerously close to joy... Or peace.

She stood there for a beat longer, glass crunching faintly underfoot, heart still beating too loud in her ears. The hutch doors hung open behind her, the mismatched spoon warm in her pocket and the ballerina figurine nestled safely in her coat pocket, cool against the warmth of her body. It wasn't much; but it was hers. She felt lighter than she had in days, years even—like stealing these pieces of herself back rewrote something small but essential in the universe. She glanced at Charles, mouth twitching at the corners. “I always liked the idea of a good heist." She murmured, voice dry. “Didn’t expect mine to come with a porcelain casualty count.” She paused once more, taking in the damage. "Yeah... Y'know, we should probably get going. Not about to wait and find out if Penfield called the cops..."

With one final look at the mess she'd made, Addie returned to the foyer, grey hues falling to the shattered study door before she made her way towards the front door. There was no point in sneaking back out through her childhood bedroom or trying to climb down the trellis with the efforts of their heist in tow. The front door was right there; and now that her magick was back, the brunette could mutter a simple little incantation to make the porchlights go out, shroud them in the safety of complete darkness for their escape.

The front door creaked open, its hinges giving a long, reluctant groan as she stepped out into the cold. Night air spilled in around her like a tide, sharp against her skin, curling beneath the collar of her coat. Addie didn’t hesitate. With one flick of her fingers toward the porchlight, she breathed out a single word—“Dorchadh.” The bulbs in the overhead sconces blinked once before fading into nothing, darkness folding around the porch like a shroud. For a second, it was quiet, ordinary. But then the air shifted. That old, impossible feeling struck her chest all at once—familiar and enormous, like gravity bending. Not a presence, but something... Someone. She turned slowly, breath caught high in her lungs. And there, just beyond the hedgerow, past the perfect tangle of her mother’s roses, two eyes caught what little light remained. Bright gold. Unblinking. Watching.

Her first instinct was disbelief; the second was something closer to awe. The eyes moved closer, stepping forward on silent paws, sleek and red and impossibly real. Addie's mouth opened, breath fogging slightly in the chilled air. “Cyril…?” It was barely a whisper, the name curling in her mouth like a memory. But the eyes didn’t vanish, the paws didn’t run. Cyril simply approached with that same quiet boldness she remembered from childhood, like no time had passed at all. He brushed lightly against her leg, tail flicking once, eyes tilted up with something far too knowing for any ordinary fox.

She dropped to a crouch without thinking, bag slipping from her shoulder and fingers carding through his fur like it was the most natural thing in the world. The stripe on his ear was still there, just as she remembered. Her throat felt too tight to speak; but something in her chest unlocked. She stood again slowly, turning to glance over her shoulder to where Charles loomed in the doorway. "Charles..." She began, voice soft but sure, a faint, incredulous smile curling at the corners of her lips. "I-I'd like you to formally meet Cyril, my familiar." Did he even know what a witch's familiar was, the significance and importance of one? Regardless, now was not the time to dive headfirst into lessons of witch lore.

“C’mon.” She finally broken the silence that had fallen over the front of the Sawyer Estate, glancing between the one person she trusted more than anything else in the universe and the beloved fox who’d found her again after all these years. “Let’s go home.”

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Charles didn’t say anything at first. His eyebrow raised when she told him to take the cash, and his grin slowly spread across his face before he stepped across the glass to the safe, reaching inside and grabbing the contents within. “I meant what I said, fuck your dad. And fuck your mom, too.” The porcelain shattered, and he jumped. “Damn,” he muttered under his breath, not with alarm but with the kind of awe usually reserved for watching someone win a bar fight or set fire to a love letter. “Remind me never to piss you off when there’s dinnerware nearby.” He joked, continuing to take little trinkets that he thought looked fun. “Is that too heavy? Or you got it?” 

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ He drifted toward the hutch as she stood there, tucking away pieces of her past. Bumping his shoulder to hers, he started laughing as he said, “You realize we just went full heist movie, right? You grabbed a vintage typewriter, a dagger, and a ballerina. All you’re missing is a getaway driver and a cool theme song.” A pause. “Though honestly, if it came down to it, I’d ride or die for you in a stolen Prius with a busted stereo and the Borzoi Book of Ballets as our only map.” He tilted his head to catch her eye. His grin softened. “Let’s get out of here, Addie. This place got enough of you already.”

[nubeesart]

Day 3 AND 5: Mammon/Leviathan

idk I just figured this could be something that happens from time to time. Trying to divide your time between 7 demon brothers can be difficult, specially when one of them is feeling a little bit too impatient to wait for his turn.

@obeymetournaments's obey me month list can be found here.

[whenthelightisrunninglow]

how's the other guy holding up

[mortalscience]

[baladiumdrive]

My take on FFXVI's ending - a fancomic

Here's my sad final fantasy xvi short fancomic on which I spend more time than anticipated

[lgbtlunaverse]

In hindsight it really is a good thing I watched atla at the age I did because I was in my "idc about romance blegh" era combined with my "I will imprint on a female character I have an unacknowledged gay crush on in every piece media I consume and if she wants a boyfriend she can have a boyfriend fine by me" because it meant I was neutral-positive on all the canon romances and had no shipping opinions whatsoever, which was the only way to have a good time back then.

Especially because if I had watched it with shipping goggles on I would've been a zukaang girlie and back in 2010s atla fandom that would've gotten me murdered to death.

[britneyshakespeare]

you know something i don't like about modern culture (and i wonder to what extent the prevalence of dating apps has to do with it) is that you're, seemingly, not supposed to ask people you just meet in real life on a date anymore? you're supposed to ask them to see you individually to hang out, and you're not supposed to call it anything...? people act like declaring intent is impolite or something.

this absolutely sucks if you're a woman on the receiving end of this kind of thing all the time, from men you don't wanna see privately that way. i've felt so much guilt about it in my life. whether i say no or yes. i know i'm giving that man hope that it's a date, that i wanna go on a date with him if i agree to see him for coffee or whatever. but if i don't wanna go on this undeclared date, i have to reject the very concept of spending time with him at all, which feels SOOO much meaner and more personal, doesn't it? it feels like that to me. and if i do go, and i don't wanna go on another one (because i never enjoyed the it-pretty-much-being-a-date element of the time), it feels like i'm crushing his hopes after puffing them up just a little bit.

and it's like. "date" is not a dirty word. we have so many expectations nowadays around things. women used to sit around and wait for a man to propose to them, and it would be basically the only decision they could make in their life. not even really the choice to marry, but to whom they get married. and obviously marriage was very serious.

as courtship continued to develop into modern dating and boyfriend/girlfriend culture, it sort of decentralized the importance or marriage and valued getting to know someone you like romantically, with the implicit assumption that you're doing it with the attempt to better choose the 'right one' by spending quality time with them. decent enough. although even the words boyfriend and girlfriend are much more serious than they used to be. they did not always imply a serious commitment like they do today, especially if you're... basically, just not a kid anymore.

people have a certain amount of expectation of what anyone over 18 should do or want to do with a "partner"—like, if this were the 1940s, i would've had several "boyfriends" in my adult life, but i never called them that, and the modern sense of that word would not be accurate. if i went on a date or two and flirted with them, that'd be enough to say "yeah i went out with a boyfriend." i'm mostly indifferent to this change of vocabulary, but the point is i have no word to describe any of those guys that i just gave a chance, never felt much for, and didn't wanna keep seeing. not bad things; it's just experience.

and if we aren't bold enough to call things dates for the sake of the atmosphere not losing the low-stakes nature... it's like, no, it doesn't do that. it's just two people spending time with the elephant in the room. perhaps that makes it feel more relaxed if both people really are doing it with the same intent, let's-just-see-if-we-get-along, figuring out if you like someone you don't really know very well yet. testing it. but like. that can be a date. that's what a lot of dates are. when you meet the person on a dating app and just grab coffee without setting higher expectations, you wouldn't hesitate to call it a date. if it's that person from your college class, that's ruder or more presumptuous, somehow?

a date doesn't have to be a candlelit dinner with the violinist standing by. a date doesn't have to be high romance. a date doesn't have to end with a kiss or lead to a commitment, if things go decently. a date certainly doesn't have to result in two people having sex. a date can be nonchalant and friendly and just trying to discover if you have any chemistry with this person who piqued your interest. why is that NOT the initial expectation anymore? why is "date" a dirty word? why?

[skrunksthatwunk]

i lied kuwameshi time NOW

[mildcicada]

[fazmid]

I don't necessarily support the reading that Crowley somehow wasn't aware of his own romantic feelings at all until confronted by Nina/Maggie but indulging for a moment bc it's really funny to imagine a reality where Aziraphale has known about his own feelings since 1941 and thinks they're on the same page of mutual unspoken agreement not to do anything about it while Crowley has no idea. Like Aziraphale truly said "you go too fast for me Crowley" with all the devastation of someone who knows what he's really saying and it went clear over Crowley's head. Can you fucking imagine. What did he think they were talking about

[teenagefeeling]

am i seriously starting to see jokes about asexuals on my dash again??? i chose the wrong time to accept myself.....

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[deadrocks]

Watching some of Ushizawa's Yakuza 5 LP and, comparing it to the English localization, one thing I hadn't realized before is that sometimes the English version will take scene where a protagonist isn't saying anything and turn it into an "inner monologue" moment.

Compare this moment with Saejima in solitary in Ushi's LP (or here with no LP cross-talk) to the same moment in English. Feels like there's less trust in the English version that the audience can be patient and wait for the story to unfold. It isn't a one-off thing, either. Take Saejima first talking to Oshima about Baba in English vs in Japanese. In the former, the player gets a hint that Baba's backstory is successfully making Saejima feel sympathy for him, but not in the latter.

I don't know how frequently this happens, as I haven't done a lot of this kind of side-by-side comparison. But, well, it's interesting. I know that translation changes more than the language a game is presented in; similarly, that localization does more than adapt cultural or historical references. I didn't realize that meant a shifting expectation of how much nuance or ambiguity a player could handle based on what language they were playing the game in. I'd be fascinated to know if Y5 translations in other languages followed the Japanese model or the English one in this way.

Updated note for a post I made 15 minutes ago: They do not do this in the original Yakuza 5 release. It's a remaster special.

[sapsolais]

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