#that did include 'behaves very very badly'

[whetstonefires]

Thanks, I really didn't know what to say to that interpretation of like. How gender and society even work. There were so many assumptions in those few sentences, I was at a loss.

To be uncomfortable with the patriarchy is a different thing from having a coherent feminist ideology, and the idea that opting for absolute primogeniture rather than agnatic is the the definitive feminist action is just. So far removed from my frame of reference I didn't even know where to start, even without the basic issue that this would be a choice that would harm literally everyone involved and accomplish nothing useful.

I want to pick up the bit about Wei Wuxian and the lack of commitment, but I'll save that for another time except for stating that Jiang Fengmian absolutely commits to not relating to Wei Wuxian as a servant.

He is a disciple. That is a specific social role that is not compatible with servant status. They have a master-disciple relationship, an affectionate one where they call each other 'uncle' and 'a-ying,' but that's still a formal, official relationship, which Jiang Fengmian uses to leverage Wei Wuxian into elite society as a member of it, on the strength of his patronage.

Other people don't let go of the issue of lineage. I don't think adoption would have fixed this even if it would have provided certain formal protections, and it would come with a lot of trade-offs including Yu Ziyuan as legal mother forever, but that's its own post.

@icyolive's remarks about Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan's marriage, I really want to engage with. But it's hard.

For one thing, idk how much your reading is influenced cql? Where romantic subtext between jfm and yzy is much more pronounced (because cql has a heterosexual agenda lmao) and most of Jiang Fengmian's characterization and Yu Ziyuan's interpersonal violence are omitted.

Ig just note that the adaptations need to be excluded for the sake of this specific topic, because I think they introduced significant characterization differences enough that you have to compartmentalize the versions to produce meta of any depth that makes sense.

Then, there's still a lot of space to disagree about what the actual issues between them are, even in the novel.

Personally I don't think romance is anywhere near the top of the list, I think their biggest differences are philosophical, and that the root of Yu Ziyuan's rage is simply helplessness--that she knows she has no power, and is trying desperately to seize it, and has been making the same desperate destructive useless attempts for so long it's hardened into a habit.

And I think that the marvelous irony of their relationship is that Jiang Fengmian gives way to her voluntarily at almost every turn in the effort to help with that feeling, to be kind and never constrain her if it can be avoided at all.

And either doesn't understand that it's the fact that he gives her all that authority and liberty, rather than her taking it, that drives her mad, that keeps it from lending the comfort of real power and freedom.

Or else he sort of gets that, but doesn't know what to do about it, because he can't change the fundamental facts of how gender is constructed in their society, or that he neither fears her enough that she can really take things from him by force, nor trusts her enough to give up his ability to constrain her, when she goes too far.

And he can't make her trust him.

But even if the issue were simply that Jiang Fengmian entered into an arranged marriage under his parent's insistence while the entire cultivation world understood him to have been jilted by a rogue cultivator in favor of his personal servant, and his wife felt personally rejected when he did not perform romantic love in the way she wanted it: I take serious issue with the idea that that would make him personally responsible for Yu Ziyuan's misery, let alone her behavior.

You do not owe your spouse in an arranged marriage romantic love. That is not part of the deal. That's a bonus extra. You do owe them good treatment.

In theory, Yu Ziyuan owes Jiang Fengmian not only kindness, but obedience and diligence. He never asks these of her.

In a timeline where Lan Wangji consented to an arranged marriage with Wen Qing, would she be within her rights to punish him for being gay?? Of course not. That's absurd. (And I don't think she would, either; in fact I think she's more likely to have wound up in the position of convincing him not to punish himself about it, because she's cold and hard but she's not cruel.)

There's a distinct, disturbing gendered thread of judgment that runs through a lot of interpretations of this relationship. I've seen a lot to the effect that Jiang Fengmian is shamefully henpecked and lets Yu Ziyuan do whatever she wants for fear of being yelled at. Which is factually incorrect per the novel (he overrides her regularly and while he clearly doesn't like getting yelled at, it never seems to actually affect his decisions) and tends to be grossly reductive of all the personalities involved.

I've been explicitly told that a woman is only ever violent with her husband for a good reason, so Yu Ziyuan feeling the need to shout and engage in emotional cruelty is sufficient proof in itself that Jiang Fengmian is abusive, and deserves whatever she does to him.

There keeps being this insistence in a multitude of variations that Yu Ziyuan's conduct is Jiang Fengmian's fault.

Now, there is a certain limited space within which this argument makes solid sense, and I've seen it spelled out as such: if we start from the premise that her behavior was sufficiently harmful to the kids that he had a duty to use his power as her husband to control her better, then he's at fault for what she did. There's something to this! I think if he'd known going in how much Yu Ziyuan would escalate and how long she'd keep it up, and how much it would harm Jiang Cheng especially, he would have made different decisions starting out, or even have changed up his methods midstream.

But this is asking him to have rather a lot of objective foresight, and to make some extremely murky and difficult ethical trade-offs, in the face of someone he did not wish to hurt screaming in his face that he was already abusing his authority over her, every time she didn't get her way.

So I don't think he made the best possible choices, but I think it was for very understandable reasons.

Especially when we take into account that he was the one behaving abnormally and he knew it; Yu Ziyuan is not always but often correct when she invokes the idea that her demands reflect societal expectations and norms, which gives her a lot of rhetorical weight.

So I think we can find fault with Jiang Fengmian on this head, looking at the situation practically! However this is not a. Feminist position to take. Especially in its more extreme forms.

'The woman's behavior is her husband's fault for not controlling her better' is an explicitly antifeminist position. Women are people. Yu Ziyuan is the party primarily responsible for her own actions.

As to the rest of it--the idea that her feelings are both his fault and his responsibility, and therefore he deserves the results--that's bullshit. That makes me really angry.

Not usually at the people who say it, but just. At the place it's coming from.

Because I know a lot of it is just...trying to correct for sexism, and just falling into a different sexist hole in the ground because our society is thoroughly pockmarked with them. But 1) sometimes women are abusive. And 2) leveraging shame and obligation and I have a right to this thing that I want and you are a villain for refusing me is a pretty normal format for emotional abuse.

You can't just...take people at their word when they say this. Sometimes they are talking out their asses. I could go on, but that probably needs once again to be its own post.

'I feel desperate and helpless therefore I am incapable of being responsible for harm' is the root of so much toxic shit.

Nothing Yu Ziyuan does is even constructive! She isn't accomplishing anything or helping anybody! Not herself, definitely not her son.

Just because a person is experiencing anguish for a real internal valid reason does not give them the right to hurt people about it.

It may make the action more forgivable. It does not entitle them to perform the act. Those are different things.

Yu Ziyuan is much wronged by society, in that as a woman her legal personhood is sharply constrained. And she resents this. And it's a valid resentment, in its way. But just like Jin Guangyao and Su She and even Xue Yang, she is not interested in this systemic injustice qua systemic injustice. There is only unfair to me.

She is a passionate upholder of the hierarchies of society, except within the small delimited sphere where her husband is above her, personally. Like tbh most girlboss types, she is not interested in the liberation of other women, nor does she respect them--she is in fact contemptuous of femininity.

The hierarchy of their society, since there is no government and the sects very explicitly and as a consciously adopted tradition attributed to Wen Mao work on a clan-centric basis, is entirely founded on patrimony.

A person's place and worth derive from their paternal lineage; nothing else is supposed to matter nearly as much as that.

This is why I said 'the patriarchy' is what Jiang Fengmian is uncomfortable with--it encompasses the relation between the sexes as individuals and roles, but also all the power systems designed to reinforce the concentration of power and worth upward toward the patriarchs of the great families, to keep people in line all the way up and down the chain. The diminishment of 'lesser' men within such a system is still 'the patriarchy' operating as intended.

Jiang Fengmian is one of the chief beneficiaries of this system, and his behavior in my opinion fairly consistently reflects not liking this. (I can pull quotes and discuss why but later; this reblog is too long already.)

Yu Ziyuan, on the other hand, believes in it religiously. Some people have more inherent value than others and those people will always arise from the correct lineages and be able to prove that they are the best through their performance; this is and must always be true. Deviation from this truth requires correction.

This btw puts Jiang Cheng in a really shitty position, because it means the element of his identity that his mother keeps building up as the defining source of all his worth is something that his father finds depressing and alienating, and is therefore incapable of validating him about in the terms Yu Ziyuan has set as the only ones that count. They are stuck in a no-win scenario together.

(And meanwhile he's invalidating himself as a person in his own eyes every time he doesn't do better than Wei Wuxian, because his bloodline ought to mean he's better without even trying, so being almost-the-best is worthless if someone from no family is still better.

It's a deeply pernicious worldview. Being inculcated with it while also being raised by someone who keeps insisting on 'fairness' and 'humility' as values is psychological devastation in a bottle; it's amazing Jiang Cheng isn't more unhinged, frankly.)

The marriage of Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian is a study in contrasts that ties into the themes of the book in a big way! I think that's really cool! I don't think everyone has to read it that way, although obviously I wish more people would, so I had someone to scream about it with.

But it kind of drives me crazy how much sexism and abuse apologism goes totally unremarked on this topic because ig hating on a man is obviously feminist praxis.

Honestly the most interesting thing about the Jiang interpersonal dynamics that is being totally slept on is how Jiang Fengmian's power as head of the family affects everyone, including him.

Yu Ziyuan knows Jiang Fengmian won't use his power against her unless he feels like he needs to, and that he doesn't fear her and isn't going to feel like he needs to act in self-defense unless she attempts significant physical harm, so short of that she can do whatever she likes against him, and he won't resist.

But if the collateral damage to the kids of her verbal attacks on him goes above a certain level, he says one word and she stops.

He just goes, 'wife.' ('My lady' but it's just a polite term for wife.) Sort of disapproving. Same kind of way he talks to Jiang Cheng when he acts like a shithead, but without the subsequent attempt at an ethics lesson.

And bam. Momentum halted. That line of attack is out of bounds. Nobody likes this, but good god it works.

And because they both know he ultimately has all the power, that Yu Ziyuan's lifestyle of privacy and doing exactly as she pleases at all times and so forth is all something that exists by Jiang Fengmian's generosity and sufferance, and she hates it, and he's not comfortable with it either, he sets that boundary really high, and she gets away with all kinds of cruelty because it's all stuff she's strictly allowed to do, entitled to do. So he'd be abusing his authority over her, by constraining her right to exercise her power within normative bounds over the people she outranks.

Even if she's using it harmfully and in a way directed by spite, these are her rights, she's not technically abusing her power, and her primary target in all the episodes he actually witnesses is him who outranks her; she's not being one of those mistresses.

So he'd be overstepping if he tried to constrain her, he'd be one of those husbands. Just like she always accuses him of.

(This is why she keeps insisting that she's also the master of jiang sect and he's 'forgetting' that in contexts where it doesn't make a huge amount of sense.)

Anyway, the fact that it's impossible to unpick where Jiang Fengmian's moral principles stop and his conflict-avoidance kicks in with this relationship is so much more interesting than the weirdly sexist readings I keep seeing, where it's all the conflict-avoidance and he's an unmanly loser who lets Yu Ziyuan bully him and his kids without ever standing up to her, for no good reason. When actually they have a really interesting and fantastically realistic toxic relationship.

He has a good reason! His reason is he's uncomfortable with the patriarchy! And guilty that his wife is miserable! And that he doesn't love her correctly! So he gives way as often as he can, trying to fix it!

But it doesn't fix it, because no amount of giving in to her gives her cause to trust him, and if she doesn't trust him and she knows that if he actually cares about an issue her ability to get her way will disappear, she can't feel secure about any of it. And therefore everything, especially Wei Wuxian the symbol of that fact, makes her angry and Want To Punish.

[arafilez]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ▰ ▰ ✶ WØRLD EPISØDE FIN: WILL ⪨

ㅤㅤ➛ ㅤiv.ㅤ ARRIBA 𒉽 kang yeosang❛ 𓇿

🥂̸̤ㅤㅤMDNI smut e2lㅤ ✸ㅤyou are sick and tired of this mission but you will do it, you will kill himㅤㅤ───ㅤㅤ w: weapon usage, blood, extreme injuries, sex ㅤㅤ»ㅤㅤ wc: 4.5kㅤㅤ𠈔ㅤㅤ moodboard

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ❛ lacuca racha, step in step cha cha . ❜

“Oh for fuck’s sake send someone else,” you scream at your mission email and threw your head back in the chair. This is stupid, this is absolutely and horrifyingly stupid. You have done this mission two times now and failed.

And it frustrates you.

You have never failed any mission and this new one which you have tried two times in the last month has brought you nothing but failure. It also made you injure badly at your waistline which is still in its healing phase but at least you can run and combat now. But suddenly the same mission is handled to you again after four weeks of resting period.

Kill Agent ‘K.Ys’ from Ateez.

Just on the day you come back.

Terrific.

You stand up kicking the chair in rage as it slams into the wall behind you and walk towards your boss’s office. Knocking on the door, you don’t bother waiting for a ‘come in’ as you strut inside and slam the papers on his table.

Your boss doesn’t turn around and maintains a calm demeanour as if he is expecting you and it infuriates you more as he slowly turns around to see you.

“Well, I see you got your mission,” he grins and you roll your eyes visibly.

“Sir, I am obviously injured, I have failed the last two times I tried this, you should be sending someone better,” you reason calmly even though just a few seconds ago you slammed the door.

He chuckles and you shiver at the underlying sarcasm in it and you look at him as he stands up. “For an agent, you are obviously not very clever, are you y/n?”

“Sir, I don’t understand,” you stutter out getting nervous at his figure. His eyes search your face and you shiver lightly at the thoughts which you are aware he is plotting in his mind.

“You are our best agent for this, you have done it two times, so you can do it again. The third time is a charm, as they say,” his voice suddenly turns sweet and cheerful and your doubts increase at his sickly tone, why is he behaving like this?

You decide not to question and nod your head wordlessly working your way towards the door as your hand lingers over the knob.

He was just being nice, right? Even though he did say you are stupid and suddenly changed his sentence to something better.

You turn around murmuring a quiet, “I will not disappoint you, Sir,” and leave. He is definitely up to something. And that something includes you.

You wear your tactical suit and make sure the guns and the knives are in place along with the small loop earring that acts as a laser. You carry another gun too this time because you don’t know how your meeting will go with K.Ys this time.

K.Ys and you are known for your notorious encounters. Your past meetings have been rather interesting.

Apart from your missions to kill him you have seen him multiple times in your stakeouts. The known-for-his-words seducer, the model-faced seducer of Ateez. As an enemy agent it went way beyond your ethics how the girls just lay on his feet.

K.Ys, whose real name is still unknown to you, is a man who has a way with his words. The amount of times he had tried to rope you in with his sweet words, and seductive language and the equal number of times you had almost twisted a knife in his body. Like is he hot? Yes, maybe, probably, definitely! But lying on his feet for that? Absolutely not, where are people’s dignity nowadays?

“One more sentence from that mouth of yours and I will twist you to death,” you warned him.

“I would like to see you try, my love,” he spoke with an enamouring smile that you had half the mind to slap it off.

So when you were finally assigned to eliminate him a month ago you could have never been happier. Finally you will get to see him shut up that too under your mercy. Too bad, he was actually really hard to kill.

The first time you were finally assigned to kill him you had walked past the wired barriers and quietly entered the abandoned factory you were given information as the temporary base for Ateez K.Ys. You had backup waiting out for your signal and you entered the password for the door only to be hit with an ‘Access denied.’ Your brows furrowed in confusion and you tried it again but the same red light popped up. You racked your brain and spoke through your earpiece about the problem only for your boss to yell that you were the one wrong and he should have sent someone better.

Getting annoyed at his continuous comments you yanked off your earpiece, put it in your pocket and tried again. Same result!

“What are you looking for sweetheart?” his deep voice interrupted you as your hands hovered over the lock. You turn around swiftly push him to the door and hold a knife to the person’s throat and he merely chuckles. The dim light showed off his perfect features as you tried to scan his face and there he was, in all his glory, K.Ys of Ateez.

You internally cursed yourself for tugging over your earpiece but maintained a stern stance as you spoke up, “Well, you are a lot more tolerable when under my knife, Agent K.Ys.”

He merely chuckled at your sentence and paid no heed to the knife in front of his throat as he said, “What a pleasant surprise!” His demeanour had a dangerous edge to it and you felt him scanning your face with his eyes he spoke up again, “I assume you are here to kill me?”

“Yes,” you shrugged and took out your gun to eliminate him. This was easy, your boss was worried for nothing. You hold it at his head and just as you were about to pull the trigger K.Ys vanished. You gasped out visibly confused and before you could act someone came behind your back and slashed you with a knife. The warmth oozed your skin as you groaned and turning around you saw the same man now smirking. The superficial cut was in the back of your mind now, as you ran and punched him in the face as he held your fist easily.

“Drooling over a hologram sweety? That’s how handsome I am, aren’t I?” he whispered and twisted your arm as you groaned in pain sitting on your knees. You definitely should not have pulled off that earpiece.

You slid on the ground kicked his shin and picked up your gun from the ground. “Too cocky, aren’t we?” you smirked swirling your gun in your hand.

“Oh darling, you should not try to kill me,” his voice increased in his pitch of seduction and you rolled your eyes kicking his stomach again and he groaned from the contact. Chuckling at him you aimed your gun but before you could shoot something hit the back of your head and you blacked out.

The second time, you were in disguise. You had information about the club he was going to and used his seducing skills for information and you readied yourself for it. A red sleek dress with a thigh slit, red heels, red lips, and red highlights in your hair. You put on a face mask and wore the thigh chain which would work as the recorder, hid the gun in your dress and attached a katana inside your shoe.

You walk inside the club getting induced by the smell of alcohol and sweaty bodies. Emotionless, meaningless conversation filled your ear and made you wonder why you took up a job in this dimension.

Not wanting to dwell with your thoughts you made your way towards the back room and entered it. The first scene you saw made you roll your eyes as a girl ground on K.Ys as he whispered in her ears and she repeated it.

Suddenly his gaze fell on you and dark eyes glazed your body and you tried to discard the heavy feeling under his eyes checking you out. On the good side, your plan was up and working. You smiled through your face mask and he smirked back suddenly the person in front of him was of no use anymore as he made her get off his lap. You snickered to yourself as you saw her leaving without even one release and made your way towards him rocking your hips lightly.

“Oh babygirl, you found the right person for you,” he whispers as you straddle him and he circles his hand around your hips. His heated gaze made you light-headed as you scolded yourself and you’re hormones for it but you returned it back and slowly kissed the corner of his lips.

“Teasing me now?” he voiced out as another hand caressed your waistline and you pulled your hair to the side exposing your neck area. His eyes landed on your neck as he kissed your collarbones and made his way up. You pulled up your leg and circled it around his waist and the katana was almost out. You just have to push it inside him.

“So pretty,” he kisses your jawline and starts sucking on it as you moan out a little too loud for your acting but tighten your hands around the katana. You had to kill him.

Your eyes widened as you felt a dagger pierce your waistline making you limp against his figure. It is twisted in and a strangled cry left your throat as you fell. You looked up through hazed eyes and watched him leave before backup arrived.

Your mind fills with hatred towards him and the way you felt your weaknesses emerging and you decide that this time you will do it. You will kill K.Ys.

You walk inside the alley with the white cloak wrapped around your body and head to kill K.Ys for the third time. To say you are desperate to kill him is wrong. You are more than desperate. You are sick and tired of your boss treating you like a toy, sending you on the same mission and trashing you when you return unsuccessful.

This is stupid in more ways than one.

You look around subtly keeping a watch for him and clutch the gun at your hips. You have to do it, you have to kill him. And you have to get out without getting hurt.

Yeosang knew you were coming, all courtesy of Wooyoung and his twin’s hacking skills and he smirks to himself as soon as he hears Wooyoung through his ear-piece point out which one is you. He watches carefully as you go past him and shakes his head to himself. You are subtle, he will give you that. But he was able to notice your ministrations and continuous fidgeting.

He tilts his head to his side and walks towards the end of the alley and he is aware of the subtle footsteps behind him. He confidently goes towards the storeroom and doesn’t bother to look back.

You see him not turning as you pick up your pace and walk behind him. He opens the sliding door and slowly turn around and lock your eyes with him. Your hood is down as you take in his features slowly, the mint highlights below the black hair, his sharp nose bridge, a remarkable face and the sheer suit he was wearing.

And you run.

He only watches, one eyebrow-raising at you and you take your gun and click the trigger multiple times. Yeosang simply dodges the bullets and you run faster and enter the storeroom.

The door shuts behind you and your senses click. This was a trap and you walked right into it. Nevertheless, you clutch your gun and look around.

You click on your gun lightly and discard the cloak. Crouching below you hide yourself behind the numerous boxes and your feet silently trudge the ground.

“You are the pawn again, y/n?” you hear K.Ys’s voice boom through the factory and he somehow knew your name. You resist the urge to get up and get a look at him and shoot the bullet.

Yeosang clicks his tongue and continues, “But you are too pretty to be killed.”

Your blood boils at his words and before you can think with your mind, you get up and fire a bullet in his direction. He dodges it pretty easily and chuckles saying, “Don’t use up all your bullets, babygirl.”

You walk towards him as you say, “I will if it means you will be dead for good.”

“Full of spite now, aren’t we?” he smirks tilting his head and walking towards you. Your eyes travel down the muscles twitching under his sheer sleeves and your eyes wander on them a bit before you regain your posture and cock your gun at him.

“Oh darling, you may not want to kill me,” he says his voice turning sickly sweet and you let out a sarcastic laugh and say, “Keep repeating those sentences K.Ys and-“

“My name is Kang Yeosang, love, learn it,” and as soon as he says that you push him towards the boxes as some of them tumble behind and hold the gun to his head.

“The only difference between the last times you said those sentences is that you lived and today you will die, Kang Yeosang” you reply, your eyes glazing over the man at your gunpoint, a satisfied smile tinting your lips.

Yeosang tilts his head in amusement and swiftly yanks your hand on the gun towards him making you stumble over his figure for a millisecond and suddenly you are the one pinned to the boxes. You two keep fighting with good amounts of defence. You kick him on the knees making him groan after some seconds but he quickly gets up and pushes you to the nearest wall glaring at you.

You glare back at him and as if a switch goes on inside Yeosang he says, “Are you sure you aren’t here just to have a good time? Did your boss send the good girl to have a taste of my dick?”

“Shut the fuck up, I hate you,” you grit out pushing him but to no avail and he laughs looking at you, his deep laughter echoing through the storeroom. He pins your hand behind you stands up against the wall properly and hovers over your figure.

“And I hate the way you laugh so much at your useless teammates’ lame jokes, but we are not on complaining basis now, are we?” he challenges and your eyes scan his face. In all your six months of countless encounters of his arrogance and your stubbornness you might have realise that, in fact, he really is good looking.

“Playing hard to get won’t get you anywhere, darling,” he purrs and you whimper as your mind travels places. Blame Yeosang’s seductive words, or his deep voice, or you not being able to get a good fuck for years now your mind pauses to think. You feel yourself getting lightheaded at his words.

He is a seducer for god’s sake, of course, he is good, and you are here to kill him so get your priorities straight, your mind screams at you. A pathetic whine leaves your throat when you feel Yeosang lightly kissing the skin behind your ear, his hands hovering over your waist hovering a bit.

Fuck priorities, you scream internally and your reactions amuse Yeosang as he grips your hips tighter and you moan at him whispering right into your ear, “Just as I thought, you are all talk and no bite.”

You gasp loudly and open your eyes to see him. The well-lit storeroom accentuates his features as you see his dark, lust-filled eyes boring into yours. You take in his face that looks like a sculpture and you curse the Gods for making a man this beautiful.

“I hate you so much,” you breathe heavily and watch his eyes run all over your face before grinning, “That’s not new, tell me something I don’t know.”

“You can’t get information from me, Kang,” you glare at him and you see a shift in his eyes as it locks with yours, “Are you sure you want this?” You stare at him dumbfounded, you mind clouding at the thought of his hands being pressed to your body, his mouth leaving warm, open kisses and you a whine leaves your throat. “Fuck yes,” you say.

He smirks at your answer pressing his lips at the base of your jaw. You feel his nose brushing along as his soft lips imprint on your skin and you throw your head back to the wall. Your hormones are acting up too wildly for your own good.

“Yo-You are fucking insane,” you breathe out and he merely smirks saying, “You are the one falling apart when I have barely touched you princess.”

“I need you,” you whine pathetically, the thoughts of killing him at the back of your mind. You can kill him after he fucks you for all you care. You will think about your dignity some other time too. Right now you just need him inside you.

He sucks your neck harshly at your words, his teeth clashing on your skin making you cry at the contact. He pulls back shortly admiring his work and presses his lips to yours. You kiss him back and the kiss is everything but soft, tongues fighting for dominance, teeth clashing and you groan as you fill him manoeuvre you by clutching your head and pushing it closer to his.

A string of saliva interconnects you two as he leaves your lips and presses light kisses, unsure fingers hovering over the zipper of your body suit. His breathless features and messy hair send a rush down to your core making you grow impatient by every second.

“Yeosang just take it off,” you whine and he is quick to tear it off your body and drinks in your sight. He feels himself getting hard as he slides off your panties and inserts his digits pushing them in with no mercy.

A strangled cry leaves your throat at the sudden contact while Yeosang pushes his fingers inside scissoring you open. “Fuck princess, so wet, only for me isn’t it?”

Your malicious words dry at the back of your throat and you can only mewl, he smirks at your fucked out state saying, “You were talking big a moment ago, what happened now?”

A half-whine half-gasp leaves your throat at his words and he continues, “Boys here can’t fuck you like this can they, princess?”

“N-no they can’t, oh my god,” you gasp as Yeosang’s finger hits your G-spot repeatedly making you dizzy and you hear the slick sounds of your clit filling the room. Pressure builds up in your stomach and Yeosang can feel it too with the way you are clenching around him making him pull away,

A disappointed grunt leaves your lips and you mutter, “Asshole.”

“Keep talking like that and I will leave you here to fend for yourself.”

“You are so full of yourself.”

“And you are about to be full of me but you don’t see me complaining do you?”

You shut up soon and feel your mouth watering as he takes off his suit and you stare at the bulge in front of you. He smirks at your reaction pushing you back to the wall.

You cry loudly as he pushes his cock inside you and grip his shoulders and he gives you time to adjust. As soon as you nod he thrusts into you repeatedly broken whimpers falling from your lips. He groans himself but still takes his chance as he intakes your figure and says, “I wonder what your boss’s reaction will be after he knows his ‘best agent’ got fucked senseless by K.Ys.”

Your nerves heighten at his words, at the knowledge of your boss, at the fact that you are in fact supposed to be killing and you mewl a quiet “faster” to him as he pounds into you relentlessly. Your throat feels dry and you can’t even form a proper sentence as he abuses you hole, hitting in the right place every time.

“Come on princess, don’t be so quiet now. Show some gratitude for being fucked as you deserve and moan my name,” Yeosang hoarsely speaks up and you let out broken and loud moans at his words.

“That’s right, nobody can fuck you as I do, can they babygirl?” you scream at his words saying, “No, o-only you.”

“C-close,” you mumble at him, your senses at the peak of not getting your release earlier and he pushes himself in again saying, “Yeah? Well, I don’t know if I should let you come yet.”

“Shit, Yeo please,” you cry out at his words and a teasing smile lingers on his lips at the nickname and he whispers, “Okay love, cum, let go for me.” A loud moan of his name leaves your throat as you finally get to release and he thrusts himself through it coming soon in the condom after you.

You pant heavily your legs feeling like jelly and he pulls himself out and murmurs a small “I got you”. He holds your waists, makes you sit down and kneels in front of you carefully.

“What the hell are you doing to me Kang Yeosang?” you whisper as you see him cradle you, your head falling on his shoulders as he picks up your gun, katana and suit and keeps them beside you.

“You are supposed to kill me,” you whisper but Yeosang pays no heed to your words as he scans your body for any mark that would hurt. His eyes stop on your own, and you feel delusional as his soft brown ones hold your gaze. No way in hell is he now going all soft on you!

“Why do you always let your boss treat you like a pawn?” he whispers and you rest your head on his shoulders again. Your eyebrows furrow at his sentence and ask, “What do you mean?”

“You are like a suicide bomber to them, they send you to lure me and then try to kill both of us,” he says softly, one hand caressing your hair but suddenly you hold the hand and yank him away. You glare at him, the light constriction in your throat becoming worse every second. Just the time you thought he is being nice!

“Stop with the brainwashing, if you want to kill me do it now,” you grit your teeth, eyes seething with anger and he sighs handing you your earpiece. “Listen for yourself,” he says but you ignore him. You put on your suit hurriedly and he watches you as you put on the earpiece.

Your ears feel the familiarity of the machine as you are about to pick up your gun and suddenly your boss’s voice floats in your ear.

“She is dead already I think, easier for us, you know K.Ys is in there so kill him, go.”

You stop dead on your track and suddenly everything hits. Your boss’s weird change in behaviour, his fake smiles, him handing you this mission specifically. But how did Yeosang know?

“Yeosang, h-how did you know?” you look up at him and he watches you slowly pick up your hand, clutching the gun so tight he can almost see your knuckles whitening.

“I saw them attack you both times and we saved you the second time,” he speaks nonchalantly as if saving your enemy agent is the most normal thing ever. Your eyes float with confusion and thus Yeosang explains it in short.

Yeosang saw the figure behind you hitting your head and he quickly called for their fighting team. Before the person can even touch Yeosang, San jumps in and kills him. His eyes moved to you and Yeosang shrugged confused as to why your people were trying to kill you. Seonghwa quickly pulled him out of there but his eyes lingered on your figure but left you there.

The second time Yeosang looked up in horror when the same man who slashed your waistline pounded on him. Yeosang had skills and fought the man and soon was assisted and after they made sure he was dead he looked at you.

“They keep sending her as a pawn,” Seonghwa voiced his thoughts and Yeosang contemplated sometime before saying, “Should we bring her back to base?”

“Hongjoong is gonna kill you,” San whispered but looking at your unconscious face he sighed saying, “Fine, we will treat her and then leave her at her house with a sedative.”

Your house was pretty easy to find, all courtesy to the push-and-pull couple of Yunho and Wooyoung’s twin, as they treated you fast. Hongjoong seethed with anger but got defeated when Yeosang told him the plan. He has never seen Yeosang this worked up for anyone and even though it worried him, he knew he was treading another fire himself.

Yeosang, with the help of Mingi, had dropped you off at your house, with a perfectly clean bandage and with one last lingering look your way they had gone away.

“Is that why I was at the doorstep of my house?” you ask him softly and he nods unable to meet your eyes and you exhale. You were a pawn to them, a person they would happily kill for their sake. You, their best agent, were just prey to lure the predators.

“I might have hated your guts when we met a few months ago, but I don’t let anyone get treated like a pawn, and besides, you are not a bad person,“ he says, his mind hovering over his outburst at seeing you injured. He was very close to killing everyone who tried to kill you.

“Can I join you guys, take revenge here and go back to the A-dimension?” your sudden question makes Yeosang look up at you. He didn’t question why you were here in the first place but nodded.

“You still have to meet Hongjoong though,” he trails off unsure as he steps in front of you. A mixture of his cologne and sweat hits your nose and you sigh contently. You could get used to this. You could get used to him.

“I think he will like me considering how good I am at combat,” you smile lightly looking at his face and he shrugs, a light laugh falling from his lips as you continue, “And considering his seducer actually fell for one woman.”

“That’s a lie,” he scoffs but can’t resist it when you press your lips against his encasing him in a soft kiss. He kisses you back, his hands caressing your cheeks and you smile making him smile too.

You pull back staring at his eyes, deep in affection, and say, “Right, because you wait for consent and kiss the informants like this after too?”

“Shut up,” he groans and you laugh at his shy demeanour.

Holding his hands you say, “Call your fighting team, I want to show these Z-dimension bitches what their ‘pawn’ can do.” 

✸ㅤ ara's notesㅤㅤ───ㅤㅤ yeah, this one is changed, i improved it lmao ㅤㅤ»ㅤ series mlistㅤ ateez mlist ㅤ main mlist ㅤ naviㅤㅤ𠈔

✸ㅤ taglistㅤㅤ───ㅤㅤ @haneagerr @tunaasan @evidive @huachengsbestie01 @philijack @atiny-lizbeth @chxnnii @nakiiko @therealcuppicake ㅤㅤ»ㅤㅤ comment here or in series mlist to be added or removedㅤㅤ𠈔

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[getawayfox]

My favorite reclist of the year! It’s the best excuse to reread beloved fics and shout about them again. I couldn’t wait any longer to post it, so, without further ado: here are my personal favorites from 2023 and why I love them, along with a banner I’m really pleased with. 

Thank you, sweet writers, for giving us your wonderful stories. Wishing everyone a happy December and an amazing and soft new year!

I Fall On Grass by @tackytigerfic Drarry, T, 3.1k

I adore stories with mature characters and this one is no exception. It’s so charming: gentle pining over the years, throughout the realities of life and parenthood, written with such a light hand. And lovely worldbuilding of a slow life that they built for themselves, which left me smiling the whole day after reading it. It feels like a soft caress for my soul.

It’s Me or the Peacock by harrows Drarry, T, 4.6

Do you ever feel like reading a fun, lighthearted fic that will have you grinning all day? Look no further, this is the one. Picture this: established Drarry taking the plunge to move in together, except Draco is bringing his “avian third wheel” with him, adding a feathered twist to the mix. Harry can’t quite believe what’s happening and that’s not even the half of it. This fic is a delight!

Sun Shower by @moonmanatee Drarry, T, 6k

Meet Orkie (short for Snorkel), the delightful cat who loves his boy Harry very much. They share a special bond, silently understanding not to delve into the origins of their pasts. What matters most is their companionship and the comforting routine they’ve woven together. Now, enter Draco Malfoy, a fashion icon with phenomenal outfits, his mud-loving dog, Hubert, and a dash of mouthwatering culinary creations. Your heart will grow three sizes by the time you’re done reading; mine certainly did.

Birds Behaving Badly by @peachpety Drarry, E, 10.5k

Oh, this fic!! I swear my whole body was wiggling with delight when I read it – it’s hilarious and hot and so witty. Draco has a type, which leads to a fun case of mistaken identity, all artfully resolved with the intervention of a conniving seagull, Kevin. Brace yourself for some sassy Slytherin banter, side characters so vividly portrayed they’ll steal your heart (Goyle, I’m looking at you), and the enchanting backdrop of a magical Brighton in the summer. Cue the squeals of delight! 

A Saviour’s Guide to Manners and Decorum by @wolfpants Drarry, E, 13k

I have read every fic Wolf has written this year and, let me tell you, choosing just one feels like an impossible task – I wish I could include them all. But here is my pick, and it’s not because it happened to be my birthday gift. This fic is a gem, seamlessly blending humor with a soft, wistful touch (oh, and do I need to mention it’s also incredibly hot?). It resonates because Harry just wants to be accepted for who he is, refusing to change for anyone (as he rightly shouldn't!). Enter Draco, who is here to help, and not to “fix him”. Sprinkle that with a subtle hint of D/s dynamics, a generous serving of UST, and a sensual shaving scene, and you have got the perfect fic. LOVE!

I only want the ones I envy (I envy) by @porcelainheart3 Drarry, E, 13.5k

This fic is so stunning! A coming-out story with writing so clean and sharp it made me laugh out loud through (lots of) inevitable tears. It has a very competent magical inventor Draco, who wears sock garters(!). It has Harry on a self-discovery journey that feels so very real; with a heart-wrenching childhood flashback that will leave you shattered. It has the most supportive friends. It has banter and flirting and so many wonderful details (look closely at the newspaper in the fic for an extra dose of laughter). And let's not forget the most incredibly emotional blow job; talk about smut with feelings! It’s one of those fics that made me read the rest of the author’s catalog immediately (and trust me, you should too!).

A Time, Dark and Divine by @moonflower-rose Established Drarry, Draco/Ron/Harry, E, 17k

Oh boy oh boy oh boy, this fic is so scorching hot. And their dynamic is so complex: jealousy and possessiveness wrapped up in a delicious package of a boys' trip in Thailand. A stunning Ron POV filled to the brim with complicated history and tension, incredible characterization for all three of them, culminating, inevitably, in hot-hot-hot sex. I couldn’t get this story out of my head for days. If you, like me, like feelings with your smut, this one’s for you! 

Waking Up Slow by @sweet-s0rr0w and @ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm Drarry, E, 22k

This story is so charming and whimsical! First of all, this Draco is such an utter delight that I fell in love with him right away. He’s so entertaining! The concept of Christmas in July gives the story a wonderfully atmospheric and slightly wistful tone. Add to it a very domestic and playful dynamic between Draco and Harry, top-notch dialogue, so many creative details, and an absolutely delicious and intimate sex scene. From beginning to end, this fic is so warm and touching; a gentle romance that feels as if it was enchantingly sprinkled with a cheering charm.

the first in line by @oflights Drarry, E, 29.5k

This fic is hilarious, mischievous, and sexy all at the same time. And also a little bit unhinged in the best possible way. It had me in its grip from the very first sentence: “When the clock strikes midnight on his 25th birthday, Harry is having a threesome with a werewolf and a vampire.” (chef’s kiss!) and it didn’t let me go. We have a reluctant and grumpy Veela Harry, an over-the-top Draco, summer vacation vibes, a magical yacht, wooing with a hot air balloon (and more!), plus an absolutely delightful non-monogamous background Romione. Gah!!!

Of Magical Beings Being - Magic by @rockingrobin69 Drarry, E, 30k

What’s actually magic here is Robin’s writing. It’s… wait, I don’t think I have words for how rich and full this world is, how special! There’s pining and soft angst and an unreliable narrator and exes to lovers, but somehow all that doesn’t even begin to describe what this story is. It’s witty and fascinating and soft and playful. It’s about loving the other person so much that you do the wrong thing because you think that’s what they want, even though it hurts you. It’s about manifesting them in everything you do until they come back. It’s about Love, about Happiness. It knocked the breath out of me. It’s unbearably lovely.

Winner takes it all by @skeptiquewrites Drarry, E, 41k

This fic is absolutely devastating in a sort of gentle way. My heart broke a million times for this wonderful, hardworking, cornered Draco – who’s looking after his mum – as well as for a whole bunch of beautifully written side characters. The story starts with a bet, and from there, it unravels with Tee's razor-sharp writing, infused with nuance that makes the narrative incredibly rich and undeniably real. If you're in the mood for a cathartic cry, followed by a sweet, happy ending, don't walk – run to this fic!

[akutasoda]

Hello!!! Can i request where reader (us) gets injured very badly from protecting them ^^ especially Chuuya pleasee you can also add other characters♡ Feel free to ignoreee~☆

im glad you were strong

synopsis - they'd be dammned if anything happened to you, especially right in fron of them for their sake

includes - chuuya, oda, natsume

warnings - gn!reader, fluff, angst to comfort, mentions of injury, wc - 903

chuuya nakahara ★↷

if there was one thing that you and chuuya had in common was stubbornness. noticeably he was more stubborn than you but you had your own ways of behaving in such a way. this trait paired with your love for eachother often meant it could have dire consequences that started as sweet intentions.

and that was what had occurred. a mission with your beloved, nothing seemed to be able to go wrong but there always was exceptions. something had caught you off guard and still left chuuya blindly unaware. and that something was a quick flash of what seemed to be one of the opposition's ability users.

it didn't really matter to you which one because before you knew it you had jumped in the way. red flashed in his vision as he turned around just in time to witness you get injured and all of a sudden it was like one of his worst fears come true. the enemy was crushed under the weight of gravity in a mere matter of seconds that was only intensified by his anger and panic.

simultaneously, he grabbed your body and brought it to his chest as he sat you down properly to assess the damage. it was a rather large gash that ran from your shoulder and across to your wrist. he wanted to scold you, he really did as if it were any worse you most likely would've died on the spot. but you were still here and if anything he needed to get you medical attention.

he always wanted to protect you. he wouldn't know what he would do should you leave, but he knew you'd do the same. which was what you did. and no matter how much he scolded you you could only sheepishly laugh and tell him it was worth it to keep him safe.

sakunosuke oda ★↷

he was always extremely cautious about the line of work he occupied. especially when it came to involving you. the last thing he'd ever want was for you to receive his backlash for his mafia duties and it put you in danger.

but he knew how strongly you could feel about things and protecting him was one of those things. you were both well aware that either of you would go to the ends of the earth to protect each other. and you both would stick to that.

so when you offered to meet him after he finished for the day, seeing as he got let off earlier, you didn't think much of it. you greeted him with a smile and he did the same but immediately he could tell something was going to happen. his ability activated and his mond was filled with the gruesome image of you dying before his eyes.

so before anything happened he took you in his arms and to safety of the dingy little alley between the shops. he knew as long as he could see what happened next nothing could touch you. and so he was able to successfully loose the unknown assailant and then decided to just go home with you.

but even back in the safety of your shared home, those images stuck with him. what would he do with himself if he lost you? the image of you dying before his eyes taunted him constantly, playing at the back of his mind. and as he drew you ever closer at night, all he could think about was keeping you safe. even if he had to risk his life to do so.

natsume soseki ★↷

it was rather a safe assumption to say that not many knew of his existence - or rather the ones that did, normally didn't have the friendliest intentions. it always did concern you a little but you knew he was capable and so were you! and the fact he was under witness protection for a reason you didn't know yourself.

but recently he had really worried you by arriving home later than he planned. he informed you that something occurred at the play he had set out to watch but it had been sorted and there was no worries. you hated when he did this. but you both knew by this point what that met and so you simply told him to keep safe.

but it seemed the group that was out for him this time were a bit more persistent than usual. he had left earlier the next morning and around lunch you informed him you were heading out for a shop and he offered to join you. by no surprise, he asked you to meet just neaf the bar he frequented for some reason.

you smiled upon seeing that same calico fur approach you. but something was wrong, call it intuition or call it spotting the shady figure standing not too far away. and as that figure broke into a sprint, so did you. and rightfully you sent them running but not after they landed a few hits on you. once the coast was clear, natsume shifted back and immediately took his place beside you.

you smiled at him, saying it was nothing really. but he wouldn't exactly call multiple deep slashes 'nothing'. he knew you'd do anything to protect him and he would do the same to you. doesn't mean he wont scold you when you go out of your way to protect him.

[andreal831]

I am so mad we didn’t get real mommy issues Elijah. Like we can read into it but no storyline abt him with his parents. When he went to Esther after the ball to apologise for his younger siblings’ behaviour and Esther cupped his cheek, THE FACE HE MADEEE. Like he made Esther doubt her plan for a second, he also out of all his siblings wanted to be a real family the most he wanted it to work sm. They didn’t even show us him that disappointed at Esther’s real plan.

I often wonder if Elijah's mommy issues are worse than his daddy issues. I could write a book on how badly they both messed all of their children up, but particularly Elijah.

As you said, you can tell this by his characterization, however, a lot of people overlook it because he is not as blatant with it as other's, namely Klaus. But how he interacts with everyone and even the relationships he has show just how badly these issues are.

From the flashbacks, and even his present day actions, you can tell that a lot was put on Elijah from a very young age. He feels personally responsible for his siblings. Not only their well-being but their behavior. The scene you pointed out perfectly shows this. I had to go back and make a gif of it. Esther is actively planning to kill her children and tells Elijah that she "wish[ed] the others were more like [Elijah]." Elijah doesn't fully get the gravity of it, but as the audience we do. Maybe if the others were more like Elijah, Esther wouldn't feel the need to kill them all. The pressure this simple 'compliment' puts on Elijah to keep his siblings in line is indicative of the guidance he has gotten his whole life. If he could keep his siblings well behaved, bad things would stop happening to them.

People call out his suits and his "cleanliness" but it's literally a trauma response. Esther, at one of the lowest moments in his life, used magic and told him that if he kept himself clean, everything would be okay. She then emphasizes this by coming back to life and reminding him that he is the 'moral' son, even knowing everything she knows about him.

This is reinforced when just a couple of years later, Esther imprisons and tortures Elijah, calling him a monster. She had all of the same knowledge in TVD as she did in TO. We can blame it on bad writing, but it's canon, so if we are accepting it as is, it's pure manipulation. It was a reminder from her that he allowed himself and his siblings to slip and that made him a monster.

Elijah throughout the shows struggles to connect with anyone in a meaningful way. Even those he loves outside of his family are easily discarded when necessary. While he feels guilty and lonely doing so, he does not hesitate to protect his family. The entirety of 'always and forever' is based on the fact that Esther and Mikael raised them to believe that their family was more important than anyone else. They were willing to anger nature in order to protect their family. To Elijah, that literally meant his siblings lives mattered more than anyone, including himself.

He so desperately wanted a family, wanted his family, to be happy and together. Yes, he makes plenty of mistakes along the way, but his underlying impulse is to protect his family. He wanted to make his parents proud, he wanted their love, but we never see him receive it. Even as a child, he is basically discarded. Elijah struggles with his self worth because of this. He even tells Hayley he has no purpose to his family if he isn't fighting to save them. He feels he has no worth outside of his role in saving his family.

Esther's neglect left lasting wounds in Elijah that are only brought up on occasion and then quickly glossed over. Even after he found out what he did to Tatia, we get like one episode for Elijah to grieve and then it shifts to him begging Klaus for forgiveness for some reason. Elijah never has a moment to just feel. His pain is always deprioritized in order to support his family.

Thanks for the ask!

[babydollmarauders]

MEDIA MANAGEMENT — JACK HUGHES (23-24 SZN PART 11)

au masterlist

y/ndevils00

liked by jackhughes, nicohischier, and 251,869 others

y/ndevils00 well… that was painful

welcome back to my post-game recap! if you don’t know who i am because you’ve been living under a rock, or you’ve been in jail (don’t do crimes unless you can get away with them), i’m y/n! or as my boyfriend calls me, ‘dove’! i work as the social media manager for one of the sluttiest teams (and maybe the worst this season…) in the National Hockey League: the New Jersey Devils!

let get into it! your favorite (or maybe least favorite. i wouldn’t blame you!) men from hell lost 4-6 against the patriotic old guys tonight…. i can’t say i wasn’t surprised

we had an absolutely scoreless (and sinless) first period on our end, transitioning into intermission down by 3!

but second period is when we really started heating up! we got FOUR lovely goals by THREE lovely people!!

starting with uncle Toffee!! who scored our first AND our fourth goal!! he’s been so queen girlboss slay recently! who knew he would be this good?! not me! i doubted him severely! (i cannot apologize for my previous thoughts about you uncle, i can only ask you to forgive me anyways because you took my DILH and i’m still recovering)

Timo the absolute Tank Engine got us our second goal of the night with his first goal of the season! and no penalties!! i feel like a proud mother to a usually extremely horribly behaved little boy 🥹

and of course, my favorite whore, my very best swiss, my least favorite kind of cheese; captain slut got our third goal of the night!! THAT’S MY HOE!! POP OFF! (he also got a penalty tonight but i’ve opted not to show that because he paid me $20)

and i could never forget to mention that my beautiful angel of a bad bitch, Rowdy, got an assist on THREE out of four of our goals tonight!! he’s only 3 points away from 20 points already!! THAT’S MY (baby)GIRL!

and third period is when we immediately went as cool as the ice they skate on… giving up three goals (including an empty netter to the oldest looking man alive)… we got no goals of our own and my sweet baby angel face bestie number 1 got a penalty for being too perfect 😔

all-in-all, let’s wish the boys luck against the sabres on friday because apparently they need it! i think friday’s enemy gave them some pretty good advice though and they should put it to use!

p.s. ikea baby and merc-dog are my exact reactions to how badly we played in the third

p.p.s. ovi… when i catch you ovi 🥊😑

tagged john.marino97, tofff73, tmeier96, nicohischier, jackhughes, lhughes_06, jesperbratt, and dawson1417

Load more comments

jackhughes dove, baby, what is that abomination of a 5th photo?

y/ndevils00 my camera wouldn’t focus :(

jackhughes so why post it?

y/ndevils00 you don’t appreciate my talents

jackhughes i can assure you, i appreciate your talents plenty. photo taking is just usually not one of them

lhughes_06 gross

user29 did she just threaten OVECHKIN?! 😭

user17 i fear we may lose these updates after this threat 😪

jesperbratt what was i 😦 at?

y/ndevils00 i honestly couldn’t tell you— i was too busy wondering the best way to fit you in my pocket

john.marino97 i got a picture?!

y/ndevils00 you got an assist and no penalties!

john.marino97 but dawson got a penalty and no assists and still got a picture?

y/ndevils00 you’re not dawson, the standards for you are different

john.marino97 i’ve known you for 4 years and this is how i get treated? DAWSON HAS ONLY KNOWN YOU FOR 2!

y/ndevils00 you tattle on me, you deserve your treatment

dawson1417 she’s got you there, bud

tofff73 you doubted me?!

y/ndevils00 in my defense, i didn’t know you were chill like that

tofff73 jack has informed me that you cried at the trade, i forgive your doubts

y/ndevils00 @/jackhughes YOU’RE TELLING HIM MY SECRETS?!

jackhughes @/y/ndevils00 i wasn’t aware that you usually blast your “secrets” on your instagram story

user81 the random luke picture… y/n loves her smush 🥹

tmeier96 did you just call me a tank engine?

tmeier96 also, i’m OLDER than you!

y/ndevils00 that was a compliment! i’m saying you’re built!

tmeier96 you’re a funny little thing

y/ndevils00 also yes you are older— i said i FELT like a proud mother, not that i AM one. i already have one reckless child at home, i don’t want another

jackhughes @/y/ndevils00 she’s a cat.

y/ndevils00 @/jackhughes SHE IS OUR BABY

trevorzegras you love testing how far you can push before you get a warning for your behavior, don’t you?

y/ndevils00 i learned from you 🫶

trevorzegras you’re a cockroach

y/ndevils00 all i’m hearing is that i’m resilient and can live through anything

trevorzegras i hate you

y/ndevils00 you WISH you hated me— if you really did then you wouldn’t facetime me twice a week

nicohischier there are so many things i take issue with about my paragraph

y/ndevils00 is it that it’s not long enough? i’m sorry, i’ll make it longer next time!

nicohischier please DON’T.

lhughes_06 ya know, you were a lot nicer before i joined the team

y/ndevils00 oh good! that means i’m doing this right!

lhughes_06 doing what right?

y/ndevils00 tough love!

dawson1417 i didn’t do anything :(

y/ndevils00 i know, sugarplum!

dawson1417 they jailed me…

y/ndevils00 i can’t imagine how traumatic that must’ve been for you

dawson1417 oh it wasn’t that bad, you were in there too

y/ndevils00 yeah…. lindy put me there in 2nd intermission. he said if i wouldn’t stop chirping the capitals as though i was a player, then i needed to be treated like a player and get a penalty…. then i couldn’t get out because the game started again

dawson1417 you can’t skate, how did you get in?

y/ndevils00 i was betrayed

nicohischier @/y/ndevils00 i stand by it.

y/ndevils00 @/nicohischier YOU ALMOST DROPPED ME TWICE

nicohischier those were on purpose.

dawson1417 and how did you get out?

y/ndevils00 my knight in shining armor!

jackhughes @/y/ndevils00 i didn’t get you out?

jesperbratt i did!

jackhughes oh, yeah, that makes sense

[theworldendswithsho]

OKAY can you please hit me with some nanami wherein he is pinning for the reader? She’s insecure because the higher ups prefer her ex 💔

ALRIGHT here's my very first fanfiction in AGES! Sorry if its not great, I'm definitely rusty! I wasn't sure who to put in as the ex so I chose Kusakabe lol, hopefully that doesn't ruin it for ya. Enjoy!

warnings: very slight nsfw, mentions of sex, some angst

His Life's Work, Reimagined

Kento Nanami was a man dedicated to his life’s work. At least, that’s what he told himself after dropping out of life as a Tokyo businessman and returning to Jujutsu High as a teacher. He had nothing and no one else to dedicate himself to, after all. He was a sorcerer of immense talent, though he was humble and stoic. Though reserved and a bit stern at times, his students loved and respected him.

You, on the other hand, were having a hard time settling in as a teacher. Here you were, brand new to a job you loved, but you behaved so youthfully that your students had a hard time taking you seriously. Hell, you’d have a hard time taking you seriously. To make matters worse, you’re teaching alongside your ex-boyfriend, Atsuya Kusakabe. Before you’d landed the job at Jujutsu High, you had met him at a bar. You were there with a couple of friends from college, and he was there to have a drink after work with Nanami, the only teacher he really got along with at Jujutsu High. Nanami, being the responsible man he was, left after two drinks and got a taxi home. Your friends ran off with some guys they met at the bar, and there you were, alone, and there Kusakabe was, alone. A few drinks later, you went home together in the back of a taxi cab and the rest was history. 

He was handsome, but he was a fucking coward. He ran away with his tail between his legs, afraid of committing to you the way you wanted. Everyone at work noticed a strange tension between you and Kusakabe, but no one said a word. Everyone, Principal Yaga included, seemed to respect him, and no matter how badly you hated him, you had to smile and nod whenever his praises were sung. Several times, you tried to speak with Principal Yaga about how to engage with the students, and he told you to speak with Kusakabe, that he was a master at engaging with his pupils. Needless to say, you never spoke with him, and your teaching skills haven’t gotten any better.

Word gets out about a Special Grade curse in Shinjuku, and a meeting is called for all of the Jujutsu High teachers. When you enter the room, you expect to be struggling to keep your piercing eyes off of Kusakabe, but when Nanami walks in, you find your eyes have a new target. He was stony-faced, but awfully handsome, and his body seemed well defined, despite being hidden underneath his suit. Briefly, Nanami looks over his glasses at you and you suddenly look down, feeling your face go red. Did he catch you? What must he be thinking right now?

Principal Yaga assigns Nanami to the mission, and tells him he can pick any other teacher to bring with him as his partner. You look up, and Nanami’s gaze is steady on you. “Y/N will come with me,” he says with unwavering confidence. Your mouth falls open, and then closes again, before you nod your head. The meeting is adjourned and the teachers file out one by one, leaving you and Nanami alone to walk out together.

“Hello, Y/N. I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Kento Nanami,” he says cordially, extending a hand.

You take his hand and shake it. “I’m Y/N L/N, nice to meet you.”

~~~~~

You leave Jujutsu High late in the day. The mission goes off without a hitch. The curse is exorcized, and the city of Shinjuku is safe again (for now). You yawn, and Nanami looks up, noticing the bags under your eyes. He feels his heart tug upon seeing you look so exhausted. He quickly shakes his head, thinking to himself that he cannot let himself feel for a coworker. To do so would be unprofessional. And yet…

“You look tired. We should get you some coffee before we head back to campus,” he says, motioning with his chin in the direction of a cafe. You nod, and he straightens his tie before walking silently with you to the cafe.

It is there, over coffee, that he gives you advice on teaching. For someone so stoic, he was surprisingly caring and ready to engage in conversation. Sitting across from him at the small table and sipping your cappuccino while he had his black coffee, you began to realize he was even more handsome than you’d thought. His hair was neatly kept, his face was chiseled and strong, yet possessed a kind of grace that was uncharacteristic of such strength. His normally downturned lips would quirk upwards sometimes during conversation, or when he had a particularly delightful sip of his coffee.

You both stood up from the table after finishing your coffee, you stretching your arms over your head and Nanami straightening his suit jacket. He held the door for you as you left the cafe, and you made your way back to Jujutsu High without a problem. You found yourself thinking about him, and how truly mature and responsible he was. You felt your heart flutter, and then you squeezed your eyes shut. I can’t fall in love with another teacher again. If this goes badly, my job will be twice as hellish as it is now.

Little did you know, Nanami was in the dark of his room on campus thinking about you, too. Thinking about your dainty hands around your coffee cup, and then around your weapon, and then around him. Suddenly, he had a new reason to go teach every day, and it wasn’t that he was dedicated to his life’s work.

~~~~~

During a lunch break, you observe Nanami and Kusakabe sitting together and chatting. You feel your stomach clench nervously. How could I have forgotten they were friends? They were at the bar together that night, weren’t they? You noticed Kusakabe’s eyes flicker behind Nanami and land on you, and you squeeze your lunch box a little tighter. Nanami, whose back is currently to you, follows Kusakabe’s gaze, and his lips upturn slightly upon seeing you.

“L/N, come sit with us. We were just talking about the mission last evening,” Nanami says.

I offer a fake smile and apologize. “Sorry, I was just about to take my lunch back to my classroom. I’ve got some lesson planning to do,” you say, and with that, you scurry out of the faculty room and back to your classroom. Nanami’s slight smile drops, and Kusakabe shakes his head. “If she wants to keep her job here, she’ll have to be a little friendlier than that,” Kusakabe mutters. Nanami looks confusedly at Kusakabe, who then explains that you used to date. Nanami feels a pang of jealousy in his chest upon hearing Kusakabe joke, “She must still be in love with me or something.”

The next few days at lunch, Kusakabe continues talking with Nanami about you. He always makes snide comments about your abilities as a sorcerer and as a teacher, and of course, your relationship together. Nanami senses your presence in the lunch room, and though Kusakabe is speaking quietly, Nanami decides to speak up so you know he was talking about you.

“Actually, L/N’s a pretty good teacher. I think she just needed time to settle in, is all,” Nanami says loudly. Kusakabe’s face drops and he shushes Nanami. “Kento, she’s in the room. Don’t need her knowing I’m talking about her.” Nanami nods in false agreement, and turns to you and gives you a slight smile when Kusakabe looks away.

You feel pride swell in your chest knowing that Nanami thinks highly of you. Who cares what your ex says, right? Nanami believes in you. The feeling of pride ebbs away as your thoughts run wild, and you begin to wonder if Nanami was just trying to save face. How much have they said about me when I wasn’t there? Does Nanami think I’m easy for dating Kusakabe?

You don’t know that Nanami thinks about you every morning when he combs his hair and puts on his cologne. You don’t know that he wishes he was waking up next to you in the morning, or cooking meals for you when he’s cooking for himself. You don’t know the way your name falls from his lips when his hands roam his body in the shower at night, after a long day of work.

~~~~~

You’re sitting at the your desk in your empty classroom, mulling over the lesson plans in your binder. You look up at the clock. Its 2:27, and Nanami is supposed to be here at 2:30. You feel your palms begin to sweat at the thought of being alone in an empty classroom with him, but wipe the sweat off on your skirt and resume mulling through your lesson plans. The door to your classroom is open, but there’s a knock. You look up, pleasantly surprised that Nanami is early, only to find Kusakabe leaning in the doorframe, looking at you with a smirk.

“What are you doing here?” You say, disgust clear in your voice.

“Now, now, Y/N… You’re really going to have to be nicer to me than that. I’ve got a meeting with Yaga and some of the other teachers today to discuss your performance… and your behavior.”

Your eyes widen. Was he seriously blackmailing you right now?

“What do you want?”

“I want those teaching the next generation of Jujutsu sorcerers to actually be worth their salt,” he retorts. “Your performance has been lackluster, to say the least. Nanami’s the only reason Yaga hasn’t put you on administrative leave, yet.”

Kusakabe saunters over from the door frame, putting his hands on your desk and leaning over you.

“Nanami speaks real highly of you, y’know. You fuckin’ him?” he says in a low voice, leaning in close to you.

In the uncomfortable silence following that statement, you hear Nanami clear his throat. You look towards the doorway, and Kusakabe whips around and stands up straight. “Oh hey, Ken-”

“Save it, Atsuya. There’s nothing going on with me and L/N. I’ve been mentoring her in her teaching skills and I have seen genuine improvement. She is more than worth her salt, and she is more than capable of teaching the next generation. I advise you leave so I can go over lesson plans with her. And be very sure Principal Yaga will be hearing about this at the faculty meeting later,” Nanami says, his voice stern and low, a near growl.

Kusakabe rolls his eyes and stalks out of the classroom.

The air in the room suddenly feels very hot as Nanami pulls a chair over to your desk and sits next to you, looking towards the binder full of lesson plans on the desk. 

“Thank you, Nanami. For standing up for me.”

“Please, call me Kento,” he says in a honeyed voice, his eyes meeting yours and softening.

“Nan- I mean Kento,” you start, not yet used to the name change. “About what Kusakabe was saying… I know you said there’s nothing going on between us, but to be honest, I kind of wish there was.”

Your words hang in the air, and your face flushes. You expect Nanami to push his chair back, to tell you its unprofessional, to shake his head and pretend it didn’t happen. But instead, he smiles, a real genuine smile, and leans closer to you.

“I’ve been wishing there was something going on between us since I first met you at the mission briefing,” he practically whispers. His voice is steady, but it cannot conceal his longing for you. “Is this okay?” Kento asks, bringing his hand up to brush a piece of hair behind your ear. You nod once, and that is all it takes for him to press his lips to yours.

[eyeofnewtblog]

So we have this adorable tiny blonde goth (under age) teenager who is part time. She’s super sweet and loves to joke around and actually shoots me back with the rubber bands. She has a water bottle completely covered in cat stickers.

So she comes up to me today and tells me a story about how some older gentleman called her beautiful, to which she responded “thanks? I guess?” And he apparently asked her why she was guessing about the compliment, to which she replied very firmly “I’m a minor.” The gentleman in question apparently tried to verbally backtrack with a statement that included his current happiness in holy matrimony.

I just. Look, most customers are just normal people living their lives and you as a service worker aren’t even a blip on their radar. That’s fine. That’s literally everywhere you go. People who work at AutoZone aren’t going to remember the name of the cashier from yesterday at the grocery store.

And as much as I’d like to rant about how “men need to do better” quite frankly it’s not men in general, it’s everyone calling out specific men when they’re behaving badly, in the moment when those specific men are behaving poorly.

It’s more a like constantly telling a puppy to not chew on things. If you don’t start curbing the behavior at a young age, the idea to not hit on front line customer service people, there’s a chance that basic customer service could potentially mean “I’m interested” when in reality it’s “I’m being friendly and nice and laughing at jokes I think are mediocre at best because I’m being paid to be nice”

The reality is that Viv did a phenomenal job standing up for herself in an awkward situation, and yes I’m going to adopt her and have several long talks about exactly how unpleasant and uncomfortable and unprofessional customers can be, but the reality is that we as a society need to do better about training men about what is and is not acceptable in social situations.

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

Hi admin. I really don’t want this posted unless you think it’s for the best. I’m extremely anxious right now. I don’t even know what to say. I’m the one who took the pic yesterday at the airport. I bought the event tickets and booked flights a month ago. I didn’t expect to ever see him outside of a public event like at an airport. I didn’t know what to do. Should I bug him and try to talk to him? Or not bother him? I’m too shy and anxious to talk and I’ve seen so many pics of him at airports and coffee shops and I thought Evan fans would like another. I completely regret posting it let alone taking it or even going near him even though I planned on sitting in that area before I even recognized him. I feel terrible that I invaded his privacy and I never had any bad intentions and never would want to upset him. It kills me most that he might be upset right now. I never thought it would blow up like this since others have done the same, but it did. I guess it’s because all I ever posted on Twitter was Evan stuff and nothing personal. That’s because I’m terrified of criticism and too scared to post things. But Evan stuff made me happy so I’d risk any negativity. I went up to watch them film Tron. The outdoor filming locations were public knowledge posted on Twitter and I don’t live far from there. I am weird like you said (the good weird) but I promise I’m not a stalker. I’m sorry to Evan if I offended or hurt him. Hindsight is 20/20 and I would do it all differently if I could. The account is deleted. I will never post or talk about Evan again. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I love your blog. And again, Evan, if you ever read this, I’m sorry.

i am posting this just because i actually do believe it's important for some of our twitter friends who may be reading my blog to get a reality check about this situation. i can promise you, the very same fans who are acting aghast at your airport photo regularly reblog/retweet/post and save photos taken over the past 10+ years of evan at airports, at restaurants, in all sorts of public places.. without his knowledge or consent, including countless paparazzi photos, which seem far more intrusive and inappropriate than a single airport shot. they do it without a second thought or any sort of guilt, but because you had a face and name they could attach to that one particular shot, and it was easy for people to click on your profile and see you had met evan previously and are a big fan of his, unfortunately some people have created a narrative and ran with it. ironic but… doesn't that sound familiar?

i'm not going to let people do this on my blog. you did absolutely nothing wrong or anything that you should be feeling badly about. i know i get on here and unload PLENTY of criticism for the fans who cross boundaries, disrespect evan as a human, and display unstable behavior but this is not one of them. this is about people being ugly and judgmental over someone, you, who paid for tickets to events and behaved as a fan. going to meet & greets you paid for does not make you a stalker. going to a movie set like tons of other people do every day does not make you a stalker. observing an awards show does not make you a stalker. none of these things are indicative of someone who is acting inappropriately or has some sort of delusions they're going to capture evan peters or find a way to enter into his life. and if you're someone outside of fandom, i don't expect you to understand that these things i just named off are extremely common and not some sign that you're going to kidnap your favorite celebrity. but if you're on my blog, i do sort of expect you to understand that people who engage in fandom routinely do meet their favorite celebrities and go to events to see them, and that isn't automatically indicative of anything nefarious. for instance: you know i have been very vocal in my criticism of the weird behavior jackie has exhibited online, but i didn't post any of the numerous messages from people who were speaking about her at the M&G because she paid to be there, and i have not heard she did anything questionable in his presence.. so why should i give a fuck that she stood in line and took photos just like the other tons of fans who did the same? that's an appropriate way to meet a celebrity you admire.

this will make some of you mad, but you need to hear it regardless: evan peters is not our personal friend from missouri. evan peters is a multi-millionaire actor, celebrity and public figure who is not entitled to the same privacy you and i are. no celebrity is - the very concept is contradictory. if you want discretion and privacy, you're not going to get it as a celebrity. period. argue with your mother.

if you believe evan peters is somewhere trembling, deeply traumatized because the 12 millionth candid photo of him has been released to the internet, i'm going to need for you (not literally you) to come to reality with me. he is most certainly fine even if he finds the concept of being photographed in public bothersome. and even as someone who is deeply sensitive to the fact that social anxiety and discomfort can be crippling, please remember that the man is damn near 40 years old and been in this industry for the majority of his life. he knows how to deal with it. i've said this multiple times already, but anyone reading this who disagrees and thinks a celebrity shouldn't be photographed without their knowledge and consent: you're absolutely entitled to your opinion and i respect that. but i'd be a total and complete hypocrite to sit here and tell you, while i'm running an evan peters tea and discussion blog, that i'm just outraged that a fan took a photo in an airport. i am not. we regularly engage in conversation about the darkest, most painful aspects of evan's life while we are actually strangers. why do we even know any of the things that we know? because he is a celebrity, not a private citizen.

please don't beat yourself up over this. even if you are regretful, at the end of the day, it seems like you had absolutely zero ill intentions and did nothing to bother him, or attempt to cross boundaries to be close to him in an inappropriate fashion. i'm sorry that people have taken something that made you happy and hurt no one, and turned it into something ugly. that wasn't necessary. quite frankly, within the fandom i think there are some people who feel envy that you got ''lucky'' and met evan, and that you've met him multiple times, in legitimate ways. people need to save their outrage for the ''fans'' who are quite literally acting atrociously these days and largely going unchecked. this is the last message i'm posting about this incident.

[velvetvexations]

Ppl act like gender essentialism (the man/beard brand) is necessary to keep women safe but even that scenario could actually make them less safe bc it downplays the danger of bears, which I think also illustrates the issue I have with true crime. When you're taught as a woman that there are certain dangers that are the worst (be it men or serial killers or rape as the very worst thing that could possibly happen to you), you might underestimate dangers that appear less obvious to you like wild animals, unpreparedness, inappropriate equipment, lack of spatial awareness, going alone when you're inexperienced, heat exhaustion bc, dangers from other animals or bugs bugs (where I'm from in Europe we need to get vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis, my father didn't, got it & almost died).

I'm from a culture that's big on hiking & hiked a lot pre-transition, mostly with a cis male best friend, and I never had a bad experience with other ppl (except maybe when someone didn't say hello, very impolite) but we did get lost pretty badly once on a new trail with no phone signal & that was scary. I was always safer in the woods with men around bc if there are ppl, you know you're on the right path & won't get lost! Also it you get injured & can't walk or god forbid lose consciousness, you want other ppl there to help you. I also worked at a homeless shelter (pre-transition as well, they all knew me as a short, not at all threatening looking woman) and that taught me to shake off the fear I had of homeless people, men especially, because they too are just ppl & it was bigoted of me to have my gut instinct tell me I was in danger when I saw a homeeles man just existing or behaving erratically in public. It was classist, ableist & was not in fact justified just bc I was navigating the world as a woman.

Yes, keep yourself safe, but actually learn to recognize potential dangers & how to handle dangerous situations, don't just rely on your gut instinct.

I also think we can absolutely teach ppl how to keep themselves safe around other folks without resorting to gender essentialism & sex profiling simply by focusing on behaviors instead of gender presentation.

This would serve to protect trans & queer ppl with a masc appearance/presentation including non cispassing trans fems/women, trans mascs/men, non-binary & multigender ppl, intersex folks, even cis gay men, who are also at a higher risk of being assaulted than cis straight men and yes, even straight men, who are also capable of being victimized. Because nobody is truly safe from violence & abuse, we all need to know how about dangers & be able to get protection from others in our communities!

That reminds me of what I've been talking about recently where someone blamed a fixation on punitive justice on people being tricked into it by white supremacist background radiation in Western culture when it's actually just an apolitical fault of the way human brains are wired that goes back to the earliest human civilizations. And like, granted, this is the third time I'm bringing that post specifically up so maybe I'm overexaggerating the issue because I don't follow that kinna discourse closely, but especially in conjunction with transandrophobia discourse I feel like there's this trap of viewing the things you face as cosmic forces rather than mere sociology, you know?

[nalyra-dreaming]

COMMENTS on 2x06 - SPOILERS ahead!!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *FIRST OFF:OH FUCKING SHIT

Not sure I breathed . . . . . . .

Rashid and Daniel, eating sushi. Weird, but not-conclusive. Love Daniel noticed the lacking postage, because yes. And Rashid... behaves weirdly.

“Raglan” coming when called. HOW did Daniel call him in? And while the observation re Louis is valid… that comment re the “body switching”?? Almost… clumsy.. this show is not clumsy. Massive red flag, imho. Also, the Talamasca wanting to ask questions??? That’s … hmmmm. More like him, if he is really Raglan.

Armand and Louis passive aggressively arguing about potential wall decoration. Delicious. “Wait for revelation to enter the room”. OUCH

Loved Daniel and Rashid covering each other.

THEY ARE BUILDING THEIR LITTLE SCRIPTED PLAY BASED ON CLAUDIA’S DIARIES!!! MOCKING THEM AND THEIR EXPERIENCE! HOLY HELL.

Louis and Daniel are so done with the shit, lol

That visit to Roget’s… the music… the foreshadowing

The juxtaposition of Armand pretending to not have known and clearly commenting on and directing the play in Paris…

Armand going off at “love” at Daniel

“Fuck these vampires” - seems Daniel has read the removed pages???

Oof that … sexual assault. Hard to stomach. And Claudia… you go girl. Loved Madeleine there, top notch acting from everyone

God. Louis all riled up, telling Armand “clothes off, face down in the coffin, can read them to me while I fuck you”. Erm. Holy shit. Holy… fucking shit. Like… that’s… I don’t even have words.

I must say, and this is independent from Louis himself here (!)- but art dealers only speculating on the price of art… sits so unwell with me. Like… only the monetary value matters. It’s… IDK. I hate it with a passion.

Also the coven more or less watching while Louis fumbles Armand… like…

Claudia and Madeleine are everything. I LOVE their dynamic

Louis arguing with Claudia, god, please just… 😭

“Or Armand is mine” 💀

Armand calling her “Claudia de Lioncourt”… because she is his by blood!!! I been sayin’!!

The discussion of Armand with Madeleine was so intimate… I loved how they did it

Does it matter if it was the truth that Claudia is a burden??? YES LOUIS IT DOES

Also breathtaking bitter that Louis was sooooooo convinced he had convinced Armand

The body language in Dubai - and the reveal of never having made a vampire. “Fuck these vampires”!!! The expressions!

The strange crimes… including color film stock????????? Ohhhhhhhhh I have a GUT FEELING

And them calling out into a certain direction hanging off the Eiffel tower??? TO WHOM?!

That discussion between Armand and Louis. I must say… their relationship is even more fucked up than I had thought they would portray it. WAY WAY MORE FUCKED UP. Like… that’s not even funny even more, the way that they shift into those … bitter dynamics. Bitter, so very, very bitter. And the way both their voices shift. Ugh.

Madeleine’s turning was beautiful. And her seeing Claudia like that… made me cry. It was so fitting that they both turned her. Madeleine’s life, flashing by. Lovely.

And god, Louis… reopening the wound. Trying to let the blood bleed out. Hating himself not caring sooooooo much. And that little tidbit re the bond, the fact that there is a feeling for each other there, even if there is no coercion. FORESHADOWING OH GOD

And Armand … pretending he had chosen Louis. God. Fucking shit.

“Games”.

I do believe that Louis might have asked initially for his memories to be erased. I’ve theorized that before and I can see it, because Louis would feel guilty and he would hurting… badly.

Also… Armand saying the “series of abhorrent consequences that followed”… and then “three days after we abandoned him”… there is no saying what timeframe was between the interview and that… shower outs came out of.😏

Bittersweet drinks. The discussion of the bond, the feelings… Louis putting his fingers into wounds. Armand… hurting so much. Louis withholding again, ugh… and…. The Judas’ kiss. And standing by. He… stands by. He lets it happen. Brutal. The way the smile drains from Louis’ face.

The intercuts to Dubai. Holy shit.

“They gave him a choice. He chose”. FUUUUUUCCCKKKKKK

Santiago’s speech.

“fuck your mother”?????? Oh, are we jabbing already???

the music

And there he is. THERE HE IS. 10 Minutes. Okay. Okay.

He looks weird. Acts weird, too. Whose POV are we on there????

HE’S COMING… indeed.

EPISODE INSIDER

not only the stakes for Daniel are ramping up, lol

Tightrope indeed

Jacob: “There’s a lie being told and that Dubai penthouse is a bit of a prison” 💀

And yes Claudia and Madeleine are magnetic

Oh that was improvised?????

“Pissed doesn’t quite cover what Louis feels at the trial”… yeah, no, no shit.

Sam: “He’s back in al his hectic, complicated glory”… that’s one way to put it, lol

Sooooo. I’m kinda afraid. Because I know what will follow, lol, yes, but… Santiago emphasizing the daylight on the stage??? Them stealing color films??? Who were they contacting? Why are Louis, Claudia and Madeleine just sitting there like that. And god the relationship between Armand and Louis??? NGL, when I pointed out it would not be the wholesome romance that some were expecting… >I< did NOT expect it to be this. Did. Not. Because this is several thousand ways of fucked up. Not only for Louis to absolutely fall into this part but also the dynamics wrt to the coven, and Armand’s vulnerability there, and willingness to submit, to just get an OUNCE of affection, FFS. So, so fucked up. Did not see THAT coming. God. It makes me wonder what else we’ll learn in the next two episodes, lol.

I’m not ready to let them go. 😭

[kjthenbee]

On the lack of major "heart eyes" moments from Ed this season

So one thing that I've been noticing this season that kind of bothered me at first, but that I now think may be intentional acting on Taika's part, is that something about the way Edward has been behaving around Stede since they reunited strikes me as being much more distant compared to S1 Ed. Like Rhys is out here playing Stede as the most genuinely head-over-heels in love we've ever seen him, meanwhile Edward "Heart Eyes" Teach seems very emotionally reserved around Stede, and you can see it in his face.

Like yes, Ed still clearly gives Stede affectionate looks, but he isn't giving him those blatant heart eyes like he did all of S1. Like I especially don't think we've seen him look at Stede in the same way he did post-S1E9 beach kiss yet. We've gotten some moments close to it, such as after the "I love everything about you" conversation in S2E4, and when Ed is watching Stede run into the forest in that same episode. But during the moonlight kiss in S2E5, he seems pretty reserved emotionally, and when you see that last shot of Ed before Stede closes the curtains in S2E6, he doesn't look very thrilled.

Interestingly, the one time I noticed where Ed did give off a very similar "god I genuinely love you so much" look was not even with actual Stede - it was when he saw MerStede in the gravy basket.

Overall, this lack of Edward "heart eyes" moments has made a lot of the romantic scenes post-S2E4 feel just a tiny bit off to me, and I think that's the point. It makes sense that Edward still seems distant and guarded around Stede. He was hurt very badly when Stede left him, and he still needs time to truly trust him again (hence "taking things slow").

Another thing I'd like to add is that in both S2E6 and S2E7, Stede and Ed refer to each another as "my friend" (Stede to Ned Low, Ed to the people at the crab shack). Sure, other people refer to them as boyfriends, but they don't refer to each other as boyfriends. My husband and I were just talking about this, and he thinks that this is one hundred percent intentional on the writers' end. Stede and Ed may have talked in S2E4, but they still haven't talked enough. They're still not being mature about their relationship. They were "together" again for a bit, yes, but were they ever actually together? Like did they ever have a conversation to establish the nature of their relationship? Stede even said that their relationship could be "whatever they want it to be" during that last argument in S2E7, which struck me as odd, because it just makes their entire relationship sound very vague.

They both need to come together, talk, and be honest with each other. They love each other deeply, yes, but Edward has been hurt and is still recovering, while Stede is focusing on becoming the badass pirate that he thinks everyone (including Ed, as we saw from Stede's dream in S2E1) wants him to be, even though it's not who he really is at all, nor is it the person who Edward originally fell in love with. They need to come to an agreement that their relationship is a committed one, and they need to recognize that true love requires compromise, communication, and listening to your partner to truly stand the test of time.

SPOILERS FOR S2E8 (talking about brief clips shown in the teaser + clips seen in some BTS ads)

The heart eyes actually do seem like they are going to make a reappearance in the season finale based on some of the clips of Ed and Stede we've seen from S2E8 - particularly the ones where Ed and Stede are holding each other on the beach. The way Edward is looking at Stede in this scene actually does look like a genuine Edward "Heart Eyes" Teach moment to me. Just something I thought was interesting.

[turneradora]

Here are the press article from the Radio Times magazine.

Thanks again to Emma Jones for the written version ! 🙏🥰

Rutting in Rutshire!

Bouffants, bounders and creaking beds… Jilly Cooper reveals why Rivals is her favourite book (and shares the secret of a happy marriage)

‘Buckets of electric blue eye shadow, heaving shoulder pads atop polka dot and pinstripe suits, haystacks of bouncy hair, kept in place by enough lacquer to fuel a rocket – it feels like I’m back at school getting ready for the end-of-term disco. In fact, I’ve walked onto the set of Rivals, Disney+’s big-budget adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s 1988 bestselling bonkbuster.

We’re inside a huge restaurant in Gloucester, which is doubling up for a posh eaterie in the novel’s fictional Rutshire of 1986. Waiting to make his entrance is Aidan Turner, sporting a moustache to make Tom Selleck proud, in the role of TV chat show host Declan O’Hara. Other names on the call sheet include David Tennant as the cartoonishly named Lord Baddingham, Danny Dyer as big-of-heart, bigger-of-wallet Freddie Jones, and Alex Hassell as the polo player-turned-Tory minister and one-man shagathon, Rupert Campbell-Black. It’s quite the starry cast, but despite all the familiar faces in the room, there is an audible hush upon the arrival of one small, smiling figure through the door – Dame Jilly herself is in the building.

Later, in a quiet corner, she expresses her enthusiasm for the project in exactly the selfeffacing, giggly and gushing style you would expect from the creator of such scrumptious literary – and now TV – fare: “It’s miraculous!” What about the producers? “They’re brilliant, they don’t really need me.” This is clearly not true. With 45 titles to her name since her light-hearted guide to wedlock How to Stay Married debuted in 1969 and 11 million books sold in the UK alone, Cooper is best known for her Rutshire Chronicles, an 11-strong set of door-stopping tomes that began in 1985 with Riders and follow the antics of the horsey set in bedrooms and boardrooms, stables and swimming pools. Rivals, the second in the series, focuses on the very 1980s idea of a battle to secure a regional TV franchise. “I think of all the books I’ve written,” says Cooper, “Rivals is my favourite. The battle for franchises in those days was so strong. And people made absolute fortunes."

The ideas he presented were lovely and he was lovely. It just happened.” She grins. “Plus, the fact that he is double-barrelled, that’s nice.”

As is her priapic protagonist. Rupert Campbell-Black is at the centre of the new drama, as he is in the books, and was the one bit of casting over which Cooper exercised her veto. “I thought Alex (Hassell) wouldn’t be right, he wasn’t blond, but then I met him and… he is very attractive.” Campbell-Black is a composite of two real-life, double-barrelled men, Rupert Lycett Green and Andrew Parker Bowles, as well as the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, all of whom the author met soon after she and her husband Leo moved to the Cotswolds in 1982.

“I’d just moved to the country and met these heavenly men, they became great friends and and I was able to study how an upper-class man would behave there.” Do her friends mind appearing in her novels? “Oh no, they love it.”

Campbell-Black may have wall-bouncing charisma, but he’s not entirely chivalrous with its deployment. Is that OK? “People do behave badly,” says Cooper. “They certainly did in the 1980s. Rupert has good qualities. He’s lovely to his dogs, he’s a good MP and he adores his wife. They fall madly in love with each other. Lots of men are frightfully promiscuous until they find their true love.”

Does she believe men like Campbell-Black are at risk of being squashed out of society today? “Yes. When did you last see a fantastically attractive man on television in drama recently?” Hmm, Poldark? Another grin. “He’s in my story. I love good-looking, glamorous, funny, macho men.”

Cooper’s own great romance was with Leo, her publisher husband of 52 years until his death in 2013. She says: “Happiness in marriage comes from creaking bed springs, not so much from sex but from laughter. Well, a bit of both, but definitely laughter. He was lovely, funny, clever, full of military history and kind. He loved cats and I loved dogs, so we worked that out.” She is perhaps referring to his well-documented 1980s affair that rocked, but didn’t ruin, their marriage when she says, “Obviously ups and downs, but when you go through a down, you just hang on and hope it gets better”.

Cooper’s stories are all as raunchy as they are romantic – “I just like people to be happy,” she smiles – but in between all the muddy boots, labradors on mats and shepherd’s pies on kitchen tables, there are progressive layers to be found in both the books and now the TV adaptation. The female characters are strong and self-determining. “The women in those days were seduced, and were seductive,” Cooper says, before adding wistfully, “Beautiful men and women… and they didn’t fight so much.”

Have love and romance changed in the 30 years since the book came out? She sighs. “Half of teenage children are brought up without their parents staying together. It’s so sad. Happy marriage is the best recipe for life and if people can try to stay together, they should try to make it work. The world is very frightening now. Don’t give up on things easily.”

In real life, Cooper counts among her set Andrew Parker Bowles’s first wife Camilla, now better known as Her Majesty, of whom the author can’t say enough good things. “She’s a friend of mine. I adore her and I think she’s going to be a wonderful queen. She looks beautiful at the moment, she’s become very glamorous.” And, of course, a real-life totem of Cooper’s favourite thing, a happy ending.

”‘FOR JILLY TO APPROVE MY RUPERT WAS IMPORTANT’

ALEX HASSELL PLAYS RupeRt Campbell-blaCk

You were chosen from hundreds of possible actors to play Jilly Cooper’s romantic lead. Did you feel the pressure of expectation?

Initially, I wasn’t sure I’d get the part, I’m not blond or blue-eyed and I’m not from that world, but it’s important to me to live up to a certain Rupert-ness. To have Jilly’s seal of approval was very important.

Where did you go for inspiration?

I’ve met two of the men she based him on, which was helpful. But once on set, you put on your costume and start to feel it.

Or take your costume off…

How did you prepare for that naked tennis scene?

By trying not to get intimidated! If I did have nerves, that day was important as I had nothing to hide behind and it was a naked crucible through which to believe myself as Rupert.

With his arrogance and privilege, is Rupert a force for good?

It depends… He’s reaching middle age and rattling around in his house with just dogs and horses for company, and he’s realising that past choices aren’t going to end well for him. But there is a core of goodness there.

IT’S A PERIOD PIECE LIKE DICKENS’ DAVID TENNANT PLAYS

Lord Tony Baddingham

What was the appeal of Rivals? Before I’d even opened the script, my wife Georgia saw the title and told me I was going to be in it, so any element of choice was taken away from me. She had quite a visceral reaction to it and has been a champion of the whole thing. Did a little part of you want to play Rupert Campbell-Black? It didn’t really matter who I played. But I couldn’t compete with Alex for Rupert. I think Lord Tony Baddingham is a more natural fit for me.

Tony is the resident baddie. Do you have any sympathy for him?

He doesn’t see it that way, he’s just doing what he needs to do in order to survive. Objectively, I can see that some of the things he does aren’t particularly morally robust. It’s all Daddy issues. I don’t think Tony is difficult to make sense of, he’s very plausible. The characters all have drama to them, but they’re nuanced and make sense. You’re not struggling to join the dots, they’re well-crafted and that’s why Jilly’s books have survived. There is a quality in this work that makes it timeless.

Would these characters be believable in a more modern setting?

No, they are entrenched in the politics and mores of that era. It was such a specific moment in time – all that excess; Margaret Thatcher saying there was “no such thing as society”. It changed how people were allowed to think and certain people grabbed it, ran with it and wallowed in it. These characters all swim in that swamp.

The big battle in Rivals is to win a TV franchise. Is the story still relevant?

It’s not something we really have an understanding of now. When I first read the scripts, I thought, “Are the stakes of this going to make sense?” But it doesn’t matter what they’re competing over, it’s just who they are and that’s what drives them and that feels very alive and human.

What kind of portrait of 1980s England do we see in Rivals?

Jilly Cooper is a great chronicler of the human condition. It’s a period piece like a Dickens drama. You can marvel at how different some things were and how similar other things were. That’s part of the joy.

What did you love most about the 1980s?

I’ve loved rediscovering the music. I was a teenager during those years, so there was a lot of music it wasn’t cool to like. But some of these tunes are banging.

‘A WOMAN WITH RED LIPS KNOWS HER BUSINESS’

NAFESSA WILLIAMS PLAYS Cameron Cook

You were born and raised in West Philadelphia, a long way from Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire. What drew you to the role of TV producer Cameron Cook?

It was the script, plus how smart Cameron is. You have this black woman in a white man’s world in the 1980s, being able to run a company. She’s very fashionable, very strong, very grounded in who she is — and very comfortable in her sexuality.

She’s very distinctive. Did you have a particular style influence?

The singer Sade was a big inspiration for how Cameron looked, with the flicked back ponytail and the long braids.

Would you resurrect any of that era’s distinctive fashion?

I loved the high waists, the belts, the hair. It was all bigger, bolder, brighter. We don’t see as many red lips and nails now as we did back then — that speaks of a lot of confidence and sexiness, and being bold. A woman with red lips and red nails knows her business. Bring some of that back!

‘THERE WAS AN INSTANT TRUST WITH AIDAN’ VICTORIA SMURFIT PLAYS

Maud O’Hara

Maud doesn’t seem very satisfied with her lot as Declan’s wife and is very open to temptation… She is a very complicated, insecure, broken butterfly who exists on validation. She’s feeling down, she wants every man to fancy her, and her selfishness drives her to where she wants to go.

Had you met Aidan Turner, who plays your screen husband, before?

I didn’t know Aidan, but there was an instant trust. We barely talked about how our characters operated, we just knew they were existing in an English hierarchy, as this scrappy, passionate Irish family. We instantly knew where we were at.

Does Jilly Cooper treat her female characters well?

When you watch the whole arc of all the different women, by the time you get to the end, it feels like a feminist piece. All of the female characters play their politics out the way they want to — some get what they want and some get what they need.

Maud is very colourful in her mood and clothes. Did you have fun with your costumes?

Maud is more boho 70s than the others. The costumes did a lot of the work for us. As soon as we put on our clothes, it felt like we knew who our characters were.

I BASED DECLAN ON MY DAD’

AIDAN TURNER PLAYS Declan O’Hara

When you got the script for Rivals, did a little part of you want to play romantic rogue Rupert Campbell-Black, as opposed to Irish chat show host Declan O’Hara?

No, not one single bit. Alex [Hassell] does it better. It’s a best person for the role thing. There are very few Irish actors who can do Declan O’Hara as well as me, know what I’m saying? My eyes were always on the O’Hara prize.

How familiar were you with Jilly Cooper’s books before you were cast?

I remember dating an Irish girl who loved Jilly Cooper. She was in the atmosphere, but I hadn’t read the books until I started shooting. On the first day of filming, I got into the trailer and there was a copy of Rivals. We already had all the scripts, but we could use the book as a reference for tone. It was great to have it there.

Declan has quite a distinctive look. Where did you go for inspiration?

There’s something of my dad, who had a moustache all through the 1980s and 1990s. I lightly based a lot of Declan’s character on my dad — he sounds like him and has his physicality. Plus Declan is a dad, and I’m a father now, too. I felt I made a lot of connections.

Was there a TV interviewer or chat show host you studied beforehand?

Declan’s an amalgamation. There are some modern British presenters, but someone I went to a lot was the host of the American debate show Firing Line, William F Buckley. His show was political, smoky, quite serious, slow-paced and high-brow — all the things Declan would love.

You’ve been interviewed many times before. What did you discover about life on the other side of the microphone?

When you’re interviewing someone, there’s power because you can ask what you want, but it’s about building up the trust. If you just lambast people, you won’t get to a second season — people have to respect you.

These things are important to Declan. Even the word “chat” irks him slightly. Rivals is set firmly in the 1980s. What would you like to bring back from that decade?

The lack of telecommunications and mobile phones. As we see in the show, it forces people into situations that could be easily solved with a phone call. The characters can’t contact someone on the other side of the county, they have to show up unannounced at their house. There’s a lawlessness, a looseness, an unpredictability.

‘I MISS THE SHOULDER PADS’

KATHERINE PARKINSON PLAYS Lizzie Vereker

Lizzie is the sweetest of the local women, but she can be easily led by her Rutshire neighbours… Lizzie gets caught up with the snobbery of the world she’s in, and she does that thing of joining in with the crowd for survival. Then when Freddie Jones [Danny Dyer] arrives and they mock him, she’s chastened.

It takes an outsider to come in and hold a mirror up to these people. The married but neglected Lizzie embarks on an affair with Freddie. Did you approve?

They are both quite pure and drawn to each other for the right reasons, so it’s actually a positive thing. You want these characters to find themselves again.

Rivals is set in 1986. Have things got better for women since then?

My mother’s generation were more likely to sacrifice their talents for the sake of their husbands. I think that’s definitely evolved since the time Jilly Cooper was writing about, but it’s helpful to look back and see what still needs to change.

In your opinion, what was better about the 1980s?

The earrings… and the shoulder pads.

‘I’VE NEVER CLAIMED TO BE A HARD MAN’

DANNY DYER PLAYS Freddie Jones

Tech millionaire Freddie Jones is a lot softer than the “hard” men you usually play?

I don’t know where that comes from. I know I’m a working-class actor, I swear a bit and walk like a duck with a swagger, but I’ve never claimed to be a hard man. When I was in EastEnders, I wore a pink dressing gown. But this is something different and, for me as an actor, I needed an opportunity to look different. I don’t get many opportunities to do that. Even my biggest haters through their gritted teeth might have to accept that Freddie is a nice, watchable character.

Was that your real hair?

I wish. I had it all clipped on. What a bouffant it is! I’ll cling on to what I have for dear life, but I accept it. I’m a grandfather now, I’m allowed to go bald.

Freddie is the richest of all the characters, but an outsider in Rutshire. Is he the real top dog?

There’s a kindness behind the eyes of Freddie, but he’s a teddy bear with a bite. He has no desire to be top dog, but when he needs to put his foot down, he does. I fell in love with him when I read the script.

One scene, where Freddie and his wife are mocked by the Rutshire set, makes for uncomfortable viewing...

There’s an element of classism and other -isms in the show. As much as they want Freddie and his money around, they also look down their noses at him.

In 2018, you accused David Cameron of “putting his trotters up” instead of working hard. How did it feel going to Gloucestershire, the stomping ground of Cameron and his pals?

It’s not the world I come from. But this is set in the 1980s, we’re in a different era and environment now, but we’re true to how it was.

Freddie also develops a slowburn, hard-earned romance with Lizzie Vereker…

They’re both in marriages where they feel suppressed and don’t feel seen. Hopefully, the audience will root for us to have an affair, which is a strange thing as it sounds awful.

Do Freddie and Lizzie get a suitably Cooper-esque sex scene?

You’ll have to keep watching. Things take a surreal turn.

What was the best aspect of the 1980s? Anything you miss?

I think we have far too much technology now. I have children who can’t understand how we survived without mobile phones. I feel it was slightly less complicated in the way we engaged with each other: sitting down, making eye contact.

EMILY ATACK PLAYS

SARAH STRATTON

Your character, the wife of the Tory deputy Prime Minister, appears very manipulative and conniving. Did you enjoy playing her?

She’s a car crash, but she’s ambitious, smart and a bit sick of being told all her life she’s a ditzy blonde. Particularly at the time this is set, women felt there was little other option for them but to use their sexuality to get what they wanted. Characters like her are often written as unlikeable, but there are lots of hidden layers and vulnerabilities.

Her look is very much of her time. How did you go about creating it?

My morning pick-up times were the earliest of the entire cast. Hours and hours in hair and make-up — so much hairspray and backcombing. At my first fitting for costume, I thought, “I’m never going to fit into that,” but with a pair of Spanx we were good to go. And I bought some cheap 80s perfume, which I wore every day.

For one famous scene of naked tennis with Rupert Campbell Black, there are no clothes at all. How did that feel?

The whole cast were warned early on that there would be nudity and sex scenes, so you knew what you were getting into. The sex is integral to the scenes and the characters, and the tennis scene is very famous, so I wanted to get it right. Alex [Hassell] and I talked it through with the director, to make sure we felt comfortable. It was a closed set. I felt very safe, and I had a great spray tan.

Last year you made a documentary about the sexual harassment you’ve received for several years. Did you hesitate to take this role, or did you feel defiant?

You can’t win whatever you do. If you keep your clothes on you’re a frigid nun, if you take your clothes off you’re a tart. But I love my job and if a role I’m playing requires nudity and it’s integral to the story and I’m safe, I’m exactly where I should be. I’ve learnt it’s not my behaviour that needs to be looked at and changed, it’s other people’s. I’ve learned to take back the narrative that was taken from me — my sexuality, my body. These kinds of roles are fun. I’m still young and it’s OK to feel liberated. I enjoy what I do. And it’s Jilly Cooper – it’s an honour to do it!

Since filming, you’ve had a baby. Are you thinking about work again yet?

For nine months solid, I sat on my arse, ate peanut butter sandwiches and watched all of Downton Abbey. So I’ve had my time off, and now I’m back

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Why the “Josh was misdiagnosed” theory is very likely incorrect. (Reworded)

Yeah, I know I did a post on this, but I liked my articulation of it better on Reddit, so I’m reposting.

Josh being misdiagnosed has been one of the most popular fan-canons since 2015, but way more indicates that the schizophrenic behavior was caused by Phenelzine withdrawal.

I think the misdiagnosis theory is popular because it’s so tragic and unfair (not that Josh’s story isn’t tragic already). It also allows us to feel more sympathy for Josh while placing some blame on outside characters (the failure of five doctors!)… But the misdiagnosis theory doesn’t have nearly as much supporting it as the withdrawal theory does. All the details we get are telling us that Josh has been depressed since childhood, but developed the schizophrenic symptoms much more recently.

Breakdown

The last drug Josh was on was Phenelzine. The story indicates, from Hill’s text messages (and from a line Chris says about Josh being off his meds) that Josh suddenly stopped taking this medication. Here are some relevant details:

1. BAD HISTORY WITH TAPERING— Josh has a bad history with drug tapering: (Referred on 11/29/2013 after patient's response to drugs tapered badly). The report also mentions that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) was considered due to Josh’s history with tapering.

2. POSITIVE FINAL CONSULTATION— The end of Josh’s report shows that the Phenelzine worked. Josh said that he was doing better, and Hill decided Josh could be discharged. I think this detail is important because— unless Josh was lying— it indicates that the Phenelzine was affective for the condition he had. But it ALSO gives us a reason for Josh to have stopped taking his meds.

The report lists the Phenelzine‘s withdrawal symptoms.

Nightmares

Hallucinations

Catatonia

Shocks

Agitation

Aggression

Slurred speech

Ataxia

Paranoia

Insomnia

Many of these side effects are linked. Hallucinations and catatonia can go hand-in-hand, for example. The scene when Josh is dazed in front of Mike and Sam has some elements of both schizophrenia and catatonia in it. Slurred speech and ataxia are both on here, and Josh definitely shows odd, erratic, and slurred speech patterns. (I think ataxia is more about coordination? But it can affect speech). To be honest, you can point out moments in-game that are symptomatic of most of these.

Finally, we get dialogue that suggests that Josh’s really schizophrenic behavior is new. For example, Mike asks Chris if he’s ever seen Josh behave this way. Chris says he never has. Because Chris and Josh have known each other for around ten years, this question and answer stands out.

Conclusion (TL;DR)

I can’t speak to the accuracy of all the medical stuff in here; that’s a different can of worms. I am just saying the writers did all the following— A) gave a list of drug withdrawal symptoms, B) told us that Josh might have stopped taking his meds, C) made sure to show Josh exhibiting the withdrawal symptoms they already mentioned, D) explained that some of this behavior feels new. Conversely, there’s not much included to show that he was misdiagnosed. We have one doctor disagreeing with Josh on treatment. But we don’t have the same story-in-the-details that we do for the withdrawal theory.

Hill medicated correctly, for what Josh had at the time: depression. The schizophrenic-like behavior only started after the depression meds weren’t tapered correctly.

[sophisticatedgia]

Change is coming. I can handle it.

I've reached my goal weight of 139-140 lbs. I am 5'7. That is the lowest I'm going to go. Ideally I would love to be 129 but I'm not 25 anymore. In the past, anti psychotics made me gain a lot of weight. I got up to 181 pounds on risperidone. Abilify has helped me lose some of the weight gained on anti psychotics. My beginning weight, before anti psychotics, was 134. That's ok. I don't need to go that low. I am happy. Now, I must maintain this weight. I am ok and positive with being anything under 144. This is my sensation of myself and comfort within my own body. I am not saying one cannot be comfortable or happy with themselves at higher weights.

Lately I've been eating broccoli, copious amounts of protein bars and bananas, once regular Mac and cheese, occasionally sweets but in small portion, and "Amy's" vegan tv dinners.

The foods I've dropped are oatmeal, taco bell, and chips w cheese and sour cream. I used to eat tons of chips cheese n sour cream. And tons of bean and cheesy rice burritos extra jalapeno sauce. My unsafe foods are noodles and chips, burritos and French fries. And Im wondering if oatmeal provides me with too much fiber tho it's incredibly wholesome and comforting.

Lately I've been highly caffeinated. Tomorrow is day one, one caffeinated beverage per day. Tomorrow is going to be day two of me not picking and peeling my hands and fingers. I am looking to God to help me with all this and more, and to maintain my goal weight. Our Heavenly Father can feed my appetite with his loving solace when I want to binge and purge. I am recovering from bulimia and binge eating disorder. Was anorexic in my younger years.

I luckily haven't had an oculogyric crisis in about a month or so. Thank you God for this peace you've bestowed upon me. I know there may be battles yet to come, that I will endure and overcome.

I am wearing my white touch screen gloves in picture. It is polite to do so and soothing for my hands. An anon message told me that I was disgusting for not taking precautions with my hand issues. I am now taking anons advice and doing the best I can.

I walk with my backpack everywhere I go because I'm prescribed Benadryl and hydroxyzine for when I have oculogyric crisis, and never know when one may happen. I keep my sparkly gold wallet in there and a few rose quartz. My sleep schedule is so good, and oculogyric crisis is something I can handle, so I don't believe I will be switching to vraylar(a more expensive new anti psychotic) I don't like change, especially if it includes insomnia.

My boyfriends been very sweet and manning up. What I mean by that is he is doing what he said he would do, giving me a deep tissue massage every other night. He has begun to cease his irritations and behaves more enduring and patient with me. We love each other very much.

I thought to myself , oh October first, it's my chance to escape him! Every beginning of the month is a possible plan to leave him. But I don't want to. The tenderness between us is holy.

I may keep reblogging some quote on here about hands gentle as snow. Because I'm trying to have compassion towards myself and heal my hands. I'm trying to see myself as somebody worth taking care of properly, in a mature and healthy-not scary-manner. Gentle , tender , sacred .

I know it's rude of me to say I may leave him, but if push comes to shove i shall. I don't want to though. I want to be with him forever.

Ok so I saw my parents the other day and brother and dog. It was a good visit. I got the 🦇 bat 🦇 leggings as previously pictured from mom. They are super soft. I helped wash my dad's bedding, did the dishes, took out recycling, threw away trash around the house, swept the kitchen. And spent quality time with my dog, buddy. It was a nice visit tho short.

I wish I could be a good daughter so badly. They think good of me. But if I were truly good I would move back in with them and help them everyday. I chose my mate. Like I said he recently got a Mohawk and that's my fave haircut on men. He looks so sultry. Can sultry be used to describe a man? I mean he's smokin hot!

Ok. I am fearing the change ahead of me, but with faith in my own goodness and Gods love for me, I shall do what Im able.

I want to say if my relationship gets worse, I will try therapy again. If I keep picking my hands, I will try therapy again.

I am going to be a healthy , humble , sophisticated , imperfect woman. I believe I am ADHD autistic. My psychiatrist says that I very well may be autistic. But they don't do tests for that there. Tests are overstimulating or nerve-wracking for me anyway.

Sorry for writing so much but two mutuals seemed to miss my writing.

Today my walk to the vape shop was so nice. The clouds swirling white and blue in tender waves of slow motion. I think my fave colors are truly white and blue. And grey, black, brown. I'm getting a pink neck scarf though. Cus princesses wear pink. 🩷

Thanks for reading or jus looking at da pix. Love yall. You are precious. You are sacred. Never give up on yourself.

[nokingsonlyfooles]

The Dark Secret of Kung Fu Panda, Part 2...

...if you're coming from a place of Western tropes and values, you need to read Shifu as a shitty teacher, or the story doesn't scan.

Oh, and also a shitty parent, a shitty student of kung fu, and a shitty student of Buddhism.

(Sorry, little dude.)

I've already unpacked the teacher part, but all these things are a result of trying to write a story set in China, that both Chinese and Western audiences will understand. They did very well! But there's always a few folks who aren't able to keep up with a complex read like this - and they don't go, "Oh well, this story wasn't for me," they get mad at the characters and the writers.

So! Let's talk more about kung fu, Buddhism, child development, tropes and subversions - and whether that shiny piece of paper Tai Lung was after actually meant something or was just an elaborate troll.

I like to go to TVTropes and read the Headscratchers. For a storyteller like me, it's like playing Narrative Minesweeper. Let's see, did anyone have trouble with this plot point? (click) Ah, not too bad. What about this one? (click)

(Check that link! This is the page for Kung Fu Panda 2! People are really upset about this!)

KABOOM! Oh, man. Okay. Let's plant a flag in that and try to figure out why it blew up so bad.

Something I've seen across stories is that audiences have a really hard time noticing that they are being lied to when characters or narrators say one thing and do another. I think it's a mirage coughed up by the suspension of disbelief required to consume a story in the first place. We see a lot of villains who are supposed to be criminal masterminds, yet to make the plot go they have to behave like utter idiots. We're willing to put up with that, as long as it seems like they're supposed to be brilliant in-universe.

Then Rian Johnson throws a character like Miles Bron at us. The whole point of Miles is we're supposed to roll with the "in-universe mastermind" tropes, but only up to a point. The message of the film rests on the audience's ability to snap out of it, pick up their critical thinking skills and go, "Yeah, this guy never did one smart thing. Just a lot of audacious things, because he's too sheltered and dumb to understand the consequences."

But if you check the Headscrachers for Glass Onion (and if you care to look at any right-wing critiques of the film), you'll find a lot of people groping for reasons Miles is smart, actually. Maybe Blanc just called him dumb to get a rise out of him! Maybe he's smart socially but dumb with business! Or vice-versa! Maybe the film is badly-written!

No, he is very dumb. Truly. And I don't think the film is badly-written. But some people just blow right trough a sign reading "STOP RIGHT HERE, THIS TROPE IS BEING SUBVERTED, THE DETOUR IS THIS WAY" stagger off the path, and wind up dead in a ditch. Metaphorically speaking.

The above Troper - who is upset by Tai Lung's lack of a redemption arc, while expecting a nuanced story where the bad guys aren't all bad - has failed to detect a nuanced story where the good guys aren't all good.

In China, audiences need a stop sign that reads "Actually, the brilliant teacher is still learning and can do even better." This isn't too jarring, especially given the relationship between Oogway and Shifu. Shifu admits Oogway is a better teacher than him, and smarter than him. Even when he doesn't understand the lesson and loses hope of ever understanding it, he doesn't blame the turtle, he blames himself for just not getting it, and prepares to clean up his mess the best way he knows how. For his part, Oogway was clearly trying to get some hard lessons into Shifu's head - up to and including, "You don't actually need me to guide you down the path, you need to start looking around and trying to understand it for yourself..."

"Bye-eeee!"

Oogway is teaching in accordance with Theravada Buddhism, which is basically the philosophical equivalent of trying to get the dog to notice you've dropped the bacon on the ground and he's not gonna get anything by sniffing your fingers.

Tai Lung's return is an emergency situation, and if Shifu's not careful he'll be trying to reach enlightenment from the Spirit Realm (which does seem doable, given that Oogway continues to train and meditate himself). So Oogway leaves Shifu a $50, says, "You will have to find bacon without me," and buggers off. Permanently. And you know what? After three films, it works!

"Ah, you have finally mastered your Pride. Never stop learning, my most stubborn student!"

On the other hand, a Western audience has much less patience for jerk-ass teachers - and while they do have experience with Trickster mentors, it's much harder for them to see where Oogway is coming from, and why he nopes out instead of just being honest when it's important! They need a much bigger stop sign that says, "SHIFU IS ACTUALLY A SLOW STUDENT AND A BAD TEACHER AND OOGWAY HAS BEEN DESPERATELY TRYING, AND FAILING, TO CORRECT THIS PROBLEM FOR DECADES." But that's unnecessary and nonsensical in China. What we ended up with is much more subtle and open to interpretation. Some people decided to interpret it as, "Oogway's a troll, Shifu's an idiot, Tai Lung got a raw deal, nobody ever admits any of this, and this movie is stupid."

It's true, nobody ever gets called a troll or an idiot - that would be incredibly disrespectful in China, so that's a nonstarter - so you have to draw your own conclusions based on what they do. We see Shifu having a lot of difficulty in picking up what Oogway is laying down. He trusts Oogway implicity and knows there is always some kind of wisdom being imparted, but he gets impatient and tries to speed up the lesson, or he grabs for the most obvious interpretation and runs, or he just gives up and falls back to something he understands a little better.

Like when he gets sick of waiting for Oogway to blow out the candles and get to the point and he douses all of them with a cool move. Oogway is modeling the behaviour he'd like to see - Shifu really needs to slow down and learn patience. But Shifu responds as if the lesson is, "My Master needs help blowing out candles!" which is just silly, but he's going too fast and not paying attention.

Now watch Po listen to Oogway... and watch Oogway listen to Po! Oogay doesn't run in and go, "We don't have time for this! Tai Lung's coming! Get your shit together!" He lets Po set the pace, reflects back his feelings, and offers a little nudge. Which Po absorbs and thinks about at his own pace, instead of pushing to understand everything as fast as possible right now. Ideally, that's how it should go, but with Shifu this approach has about as much impact as boinking croutons off a brick wall.

So it's not too difficult to imagine that Shifu let his pride get the better of him in educating Tai Lung, while ignoring multiple nudges from his own teacher, because he was just too focused on his ultimate goal and going too fast.

In this case, his ultimate goal was a shiny piece of paper his Master rolled up and stuck in a cool-looking temple, all to give some future student a nudge to help them understand, "Self-worth isn't earned or bestowed in this way, it is intrinsic." And Shifu focused on proving his worth as a teacher by trying to turn out a student who was worthy of the scroll!

"Son, I am beginning to suspect you just ain't right in the head."

How can a friend and teacher manage this without stepping off the path of Theravada Buddhism, which a Chinese audience will recognize and expect to remain consistent? The only thing to do is back off, give your student some room to screw up, and nudge him again when he's open to listening.

Unfortunately, that took a very long time. Decades. In the meantime, Tai Lung grew up expecting to make his father proud by earning the scroll.

"What do you MEAN I spent my whole life training and I'm STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH?"

There is something that I was taught explicitly, because I learned how to teach preschoolers: it is super easy to get kids to believe your love is conditional and dependent on their ability to get good grades and perform. Like, you can swear up and down that you love your child no matter what, but if you lose your shit and take them to Disneyland when they make Student of the Month, the kid is going to draw their own conclusions. You know how Tai Lung complains about how hard Shifu drove him to train? You can do that with praise just as easily as with discipline. More easily, sometimes.

In China, that's a perfectly acceptable way to teach a child, no further explanation necessary. In the West, not so much, but the writers can't hit us over the head with how wrong it is because in China, it's fine. So we have to watch and pay attention to how they act.

In the flashbacks, we never see Shifu being anything but loving and supportive, even when Tai Lung rips off a piece of his moustache and causes him obvious pain.

We never see the leopard boy eat all of his dad's bamboo furniture and cause a freakout (presumably followed by apologies on both sides). Young Shifu seems to have two modes of parenting and teaching: "I'm proud of you" and "Wow! Great job! I'm extra proud of you!" the second of which is reserved for punching and kicking real good. If that's all his dad seems to want from him, and the solution to every problem is to train harder and punch and kick better, it's possible Tai Lung's first experience with real failure is not getting the Dragon Scroll. You know, the thing his dad named him after.

His lack of experience with failure is evident in his reaction; he has no emotional maturity, he's like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Shifu taught him how to punch and kick real good, and did not teach him how to deal with failure, frustration, and a lack of outside validation. That's because Shifu himself is super bad at all those things!

Kung fu is not just punching and kicking and going as hard as you can, it is listening and adapting and approaching situations with open-minded humility. When Shifu rolls up and presents his first student like an art project to be graded, Oogway knows he done messed up. All he can do is nudge them away from a lesson neither one of them is ready to learn yet, and back off.

"Ultimately, my stubborn student, this is my failure, but I'm not sure how to resolve this situation. And your kid is a ticking time bomb, do you not even see that?"

Unfortunately, Shifu's flawed teaching method has resulted in a student who knows nothing but punching and kicking, so all he can do is punch and kick. Real good. "Laying waste" to the village was a late add, to help the audience understand how badly Tai Lung melted down, but it makes perfect sense in this context. If he's not getting the validation he needs for his skill, he'll beat up the whole Valley trying to prove he's the best. And when he gets back to the Jade Palace, no, somehow he has still not punched and kicked hard enough to get what he's after, so he tries to beat up the people standing in his way. Maybe that's how you prove yourself worthy of the scroll!

Alas, it was not. And with a student too misguided and dangerous to teach - yet who still might be able to learn, and help Shifu learn - pausing his rampage for a few decades to allow Shifu some more time to get a clue was the best option Oogway had.

Thank heaven for plot devices!

It turns out, Shifu is capable of improving, through immense pain and suffering. After his failure with Tai Lung, Shifu's despair leads him to fall face first into teaching Tigress with Oogway's method...

...That is, at least he backs off and lets her learn she's going to get no validation from the outside, so she stops looking for it. That's enough to keep her from having a total meltdown when she doesn't get what she wants - it's not a betrayal, it's just par for the course. She goes off by herself, because she's learned to solve her own damn problems (as have the rest of the Five, who follow her), and she almost gets them all killed, 'cos Shifu still doesn't know how to teach humility.

It takes him a few movies - he expects to learn everything through hard work and suffering and so, inevitably, he does.

Just to hammer home how badly Shifu messed up, and how fundamentally flawed Tai Lung's understanding of kung fu is, when Po just hands him the scroll, Tai Lung doesn't get it.

Po is a Mahayana Buddhist. He always tries to enlighten his enemies. When they make it clear they're not ready for it, he'll do what he can to keep them from screwing up everyone else's chance to learn.

So Tai Lung gets yeeted direct to the Spirit Realm. But, it is possible to keep learning in the Spirit Realm, as Oogway and Kai show us in the third film. We just don't see Tai Lung again until the animated series, 'cos no matter how cute he is, he's not the protagonist.

Also, I think the writers can't help but noticed how badly Tai Lung's arc landed with some audience members. There is no good way to address that in under two hours of film. Look how long it took me to unpack it in text!

In the end, the Dragon Scroll isn't meant to be useless, or an elaborate troll from a Trickster archetype. It's a nudge in the right direction. For Po and Shifu, once they slowed down and thought about it, it landed. Tai Lung just wasn't there yet, and showing him that the scroll was nothing but a shiny piece of paper wouldn't have gotten him there, no matter when it happened. But respect to the Dragon Warrior for trying, that's just how he rolls. He's not wrong to try, but Oogway's also not wrong about enlightenment not being a thing to teach.

That's why ya boi gets Oogway's staff, and Shifu ends the film series still needing a little more time to learn.