#that was incoherently said

[always-a-joyful-note]

To be honest, I see "Riku as a politician would be dangerous because of his monster appeal powers" and raise you "maybe Riku has that much appeal and ability to get people to side with him because he's fundamentally a good person who wouldn't ask anything that outlandish, and that his being just a genuinely sincere person is what contributes to his appeal powers actually working"

[katebeckets]

how to say "I love you" in x-files [77/?] ⤷ 7.13 — “First Person Shooter”

Her partner's lost in the game.

[saywhatyouwillbut]

nora going from writing an ace-spec main to a (probably allosexual) bi main, and the difference is so chef's kiss. they're both disasters don't get me wrong, but jean having attraction in his inner monologue even with the trauma he's been through implies to me that neil's demisexuality has absolutely nothing to do with his trauma. hilarious in retrospect because, if i remember correctly, neil in his inner monologue basically blames his lack of sexual attraction on his mother's abuse the few times he kissed girls when he was on the run, but he doesn't have a single sexual thought until andrew lets him in on his feelings in book three,,, meanwhile jean's out here actively fighting his bisexuality like his life depends on it (he thinks it does) (he'll learn it doesn't eventually)

[takemeinyrarmy]

"hey OP what the fuck does this mean?" and it will always be under the most coherent easy to understand correctly worded post you have ever made

[thehotpilot]

every day i wake up and i am so thankful 911 let bucktommy develop after the failed first date…like it wasn’t just a plot device for bucks bi awakening but also a lesson in how real adults communicate and treat each other in relationships and it’s not just about buck it’s about tommy too!! like that date was about him and his right to be treated with respect as much as it was about a first for buck!! and we know tommy can be dead pan and kind of a bitch (so affectionately) but he is also so very kind in the way he lets buck down. and abc could have just left it there but instead they brought him back!! and i think just as much as the bi awakening the lesson buck learns this season (or gets to exercise at least) is that even as an adult you will inevitably behave and treat people in ways that you are decidedly not proud of (i am also looking at you basketball!buck) and you have so much power to let the communication and discussion that follows strengthen your relationship with that person but you have to work for it. and sometimes you will be treated poorly and you have to remain kind in the face of that and all of it also takes so much work but the work MEANS so much.

but yeah tldr i’m so glad 911 brought tommy back for that follow up coffee date bc it was such a good example of how real life communication and apology works and can lead to something more even (especially) if you’re feeling embarrassed and vulnerable!!

[townofcrosshollow]

Polite ways to ask somebody why they use a cane:

Don't. Why is it your business?

"I'm curious why you use a cane. Are you comfortable sharing?"

Impolite ways to ask somebody why they use a cane:

"What happened to you?"

"What did you do?"

"What's wrong with you?"

[kacievvbbbb]

But what if I said Mihawk

*puts my hand on your back as I lead you down an endless hallway* walk with me.

Mihawk not wanting shanks to know how much he means to him. How he was the only barrier between Mihawk and and an all consuming nihilistic loneliness. How he hides himself so thoroughly that he feels he needs an excuse to be around shanks. If it’s not dueling then it’s bringing him a wanted poster Mihawk can’t just see Shanks because then he’ll know! He’ll know that he is all Mihawk has and that sometimes the loneliness he’s surrounded himself in suffocated him threatens to swallow him whole.

That he knows Shanks loves him has no doubt about it Shanks is incapable of not loving the people around him. And Mihawk doesn’t know what to dj with it. Doesn’t know how to love him back. Doesn’t know how to love without the weight of expectation . Doesn’t know how to stay without feeling restlessness settle in his skin. Doesn’t know how to be bad at something and so he avoids it. Let’s himself get swept up in Shanks love and never think about what it might mean to love him back whole heartedly (because he does he always has he always will even when they were ten years apart the only face he ever wanted to see at the end of a blade was shanks this is the only way Mihawk knows how to love)

Mihawk by his nature is casually cruel. He’s callous with people and capricious.Mihawk is terrible at making friends in the way all lonely people are. Doesn’t even know he needs friends. He places to much on shanks. Revolved his life wholly around the expectations on him. He said a lot of things he regrets that day. Some part of him still desperately wishes to see that smiling boy with the straw hat and 2 arms again live and in motion. He doesn’t know how to be sorry for this. Doesn’t know how to apologize at all. Doesn’t know what the weight of guilt is supposed to feel like. But Mihawk is sorry for the words he said that night, he didn’t mean them. He’ll never say that tho. But he will show up with a wanted poster and takes of the exploits of a smiling young boy with a straw hat and a body nit made of rubber. (It’s not the same but he’s glad that boy wasn’t gone forever that he gets to live on in color and motion)

There is a green haired swordsman that has changed the trajectory of Mihawks life. And a pink haired ghost girl that’s complicated his entire philosophy and the red headed man that is the catalyst that started it all. Mihawk has changed in the 2 years of having known these 2 kids more than in his 41 past years of being alive. There is nothing as undoing as a child. Maybe Mihawk can just love for the sake of it no expectations, no requirements, no guilt

[mcytegg]

i was gonna sleep but no i cant stop agonizing over how jumper's deep attachment and loyalty to her teammates makes complete sense when you consider everything she did and experienced in s5— especially in regards to vitalasy and the abyss. and how her wanting to be completely uninvolved in the conflicts of the server this season is also connected to this.

bc like okay so jumper is obviously incredibly attached to ro and rek. she has made it abundantly clear that they are her priority. they are the only people who matter to her at the end of the day; the people she will do anything for on the server. there is nobody in the server she would choose over them. no matter what rek does in his own time, or how inactive ro is, jumper ALWAYS considers both of them and has them in mind w everything she does.

which i find interesting bc at this point, rek almost exclusively refers to jumper and her alone as his teammate when his team is brought up simply bc ro is never here. they havent seen each other in months and i can count the amt of times rek and ro have been on the server together on one hand, so obviously rek doesnt seem to feel that same attachment to ro that jumper does.

which is very understandable but very interesting in how it contrasts to the way jumper seems to almost cling to that day 1 team up she had w ro. how she continues to include him in everything, and does her best to ensure he will be well taken care of should he choose to login at any point while shes offline.

and i...cannot help but feel that a very big part of jumpers fierce loyalty is her experience w vi. of him being gone. of her choice to not be alone, while he was gone. and her losing him in the end. like ro's absence almost feels like salt in the wound, but it also feels like its her getting a second chance to choose the other option— to wait for ro, to be loyal to him and rek, and to choose them and to continue to choose them no matter what happens.

which brings me to jumper's refusal to involve herself in conflict unless she NEEDS to be involved. i think her refusal to be loyal to anyone except ro and rek ties into this, actually!!! although part of her neutrality may be self interest, i dont actually agree w derap in saying its entirely out of pure selfishness. bc i actually think a large part of it is jumper continuing to choose ro and rek, and refusing to even consider putting herself into a position where she could ever be prioritizing anyone who isnt them. ally or enemy alike.

bc like yes. she is allies w minute. she considers (considered? idk anymore since chief tried to kill her LOL) the empire her allies, and once expressed that she would happily help them kill people and assist them w their schemes when it is requested of her, but i feel like that is as far as she is willing to toe the line of involving herself in conflict and any sort of loyalty to anyone who isnt her team bc shes already played that game before.

rek is always doing his own thing and ro is IA, but this time around jumper isnt looking for anyone else, another connection, or anybody to fight w. shes building a base for her team, supporting reks projects even if she doesnt understand, and she is waiting for ro. there was nothing she couldve done to ever not lose vi; he was always going to part ways w her no matter what decision she made, but she was never able to fully heal or come to terms w losing him in the way she did and mourn all of the time they never had so this time she is making the decision to hold onto rek and ro as tightly as she can, and to cherish every moment she is able to have them as long as she can in the hopes that she will never have to lose them like she lost vi. that she can have the memories w them that she was never able to have w vi.

[letsbesharkfriends]

wait. hold on. wait a minute. I think I need a minute. I only just realised that after Luke said "let's get married" and they ended the scene, Tom said yes—as in yes, let's get married 😭

[joejhang]

no cos if casual by chappell roan was ever gonna be used for andreil it would be from andrew's pov NOT neil's do you understand because andrew never even said it was casual between them (much as i think neil is really smart he was pretty blind to andrew's feelings for him during their little nothing) it was always neil who thought it was casual between them (lbr it NEVER was). if u recall he justified the relationship to himself because he thought andrew felt nothing for him and so it wouldn't really mean anything to either of them, and it wasn't until after baltimore when neil realised it was more than that. andrew knew that his feelings for neil were more than just physical attraction since their little confrontation in exites before they went to the hemmicks' house, but neil (i think purposefully) remained blind to it. you said we're not together, so now when we kiss i have anger issues is so much more of an andrew line than it is for neil cos neil was always under the impression that it was casual and was fine with it (until he wasn't) but andrew knew it wasn't casual and didn't bother to correct neil but HOW WAS HE FEELING.

[doomdoomofdoom]

If nothing else, I want you to take this away from yesterday's presidential debate:

This is a literal, actual, verbatim quote.

[tuesdaygray]

thinking about. the consistent thread in challengers (2024) of wanting your life to be about more than "hitting a ball with a racket."

how tashi is the first character to bring this up and whether or not she means it (she's really only planning to do a year of college) she knows inherently that being well rounded is practical. that she's not from the same place as the country club, tennis academy, daddy's money kids. this should be an unattainable dream for most, but it's hers and she has it and it's terribly ingrained into her life but "what if this doesn't work out?" and then it doesn't. she gets injured and she gets stuck in this loop of the past, in her own potential, in what could have been. when it feels like everyone is counting on you to do and succeed at one thing ("she's going to make her family millionaires"), the one thing that is the framework and catalyst for everything you know, how do you come back from that? her life could now, realistically, become about something else because she actually can't have her dream anymore, but she becomes obsessed, holding on with white knuckles and performing alterations because she can't let it go, until she admits sardonically in a mostly abandoned applebees that her life really has only been about one thing.

and patrick. who challenges tashi's original statement. who has no problem devoting his life to tennis because it's a "good way to avoid having a job." who never had any dreams beyond playing the sport he's always had a knack for, coasting by on natural talent, never having to try. realizing too late that what really made it worth it was tennis as a relationship, not the selfish ego stroke it had been when he was good enough to win tashi's number. and he's stuck in arrested development, just like her. he never grew up, he never let go of the past, of what it felt like to play doubles with his best friend, of what it felt like to watch tashi at the top of her game. but he's painfully aware. he's made his bed and he's tangled in the sheets and he loves it and he hates it and above all else, he misses the way it used to be.

then there's art. whose decision to go to stanford is never questioned because it's unspoken general knowledge that he couldn't have gone pro right away. he never expected to be this big time professional player, he was always just concerned with doing a "really good job." and because of this, art's life is the one that probably should have been about more, the foundation was laid for it. but he's stuck too, a passive actor in a life he chose and was probably never meant to have. the holder of and heir to tashi's and patrick's unrealized dreams. (was it ever his dream?) and after eight years, after attaining it and living it without a real passion for it, he's ready to give it up because, out of the three of them, he wants his life to be about more than "hitting a ball with a racket" because it's "embarrassing to be doing this shit when you're 40." but he's the one who bears the weight of success, alone at the top, where the people he loves can only dream of knocking him off. so shouldn't he be grateful for it?

[flossthecryptid]

HEY WHAT THE FUCK

why do the guys in miraculous ladybug just have weird little creatures instead just the animal????

What the hell?

Like Marinette could just have a ladybug she speaks too

Adrian just has a little kitty

They still magic and stuff? But they blend in better? And more easily explained?

You can still have “who are you talking to?” but now you also get “your talking to ladybug? damn weird. typical Marinette i guess”

You have Adrian sneaking his stray cat into the mansion vibes- Plagg would totally fake not being able to walk through walls and shit to fuck with Adrian

Then with those other guys, they don’t keep the miraculous and the villain is secrety about it so it’s chill

or at least the little guys should be able to switch between weird boy form and animal girl form right?

[poisoned-pearls]

Because Jamil and Azul wanted Nami to know both of their own languages, after she had started speaking they adopted the “one parent, one language” model for bilingual children (and eventually adding ‘English/standard common language in twst which for me would be English’ at school and other places)

This did however lead to an era where Nami had absolutely NO CLUE that her parents could actually speak to each other. She’d grown up hearing abt the mermaid princess SHE got a husband without saying a word it made perfect logical sense that her parents were together despite being unable to speak to each other as well.

So for the longest of time, whenever one would give her a little test (like Jamil asking her to bring Azul a folder he left in the living room to his office) she took it with GREAT importance, because SHE was their only lifeline!! Only She could foster the communication between them, so she had to make sure it was perfect!!!

Genuinely she believed 100% her dads had never spoken a word to each other. There was one time specifically where Jamil was leaving to go hang out with ruggie, and she ran off to go say goodbye at the door. Azul absentmindedly just went “tell your baba I love him!” As she scurried off and her little brain just exploded.

Bc that was also the first time she had ever been told that! To her this was the first time Azul had EVER said I love you to Jamil. She fucking RAN to Jamil and just jumped while going “papa said he loves you!!!1!1!1!!1” bc to her this was like. The BIGGEST moment ever.

(Of course Jamil was not entirely aware of her thought process at that moment, and simply kissed her on the forehead before saying “goodbye dear. Could you tell him I love him too?” Which lead to little Nami freaking out more and like. Basically jumping Azul on the couch. That is when Azul REALIZED that she thought they just spoke their one language-)

@ghostiidasponk @stormyscrapez @squishosaur @snowwhite0430 @inotonline

@mello-bee @thehollowwriter @meowbyul @lowcallyfruity @saneriddlefan67 

@driedupeyeballs @shadowy-skies

[disarmd]

okay this is not cleanly any of the prompts from the fic ask game? but my proposal for how I'd identify your anon fic. I think a disarmd hallmark is really living in the tension between instinctive kinky impulse and metacognition/potentially unpleasant self-awareness? I think there's a line somewhere in Dwelling that's like "sex usually felt regular to do but then excruciating to talk about," and, yeah. yeah! the potential gap between what kink feels like to do and to define!!

so like, the pov character stuttering between hornily subsumed and uncomfortably lucid? zooming in to all sensation and desire and then right back out to idle observation about the room or a numb body part or somebody else's weird expression? Anyway it's the realest thing in the world and I'm obsessed w it.

if there's a question in here it's maybe about contrasting Dwelling with Monaco LN Bodyworks which both have so much kink-you're-not-talking-about and intimacy without security (huh maybe THAT'S the de-anon clue, I also said that about Shiny and New), but with background radiation shame vs nuclear meltdown levels. Do those fics feel linked to you? xoxox

[fic ask game] this is the most interesting message in the world, i've been thinking about it all morning and i almost don't want to reply right now because i just want to keep chewing on it forever. god damn!!! the way you've read me to absolute rights but also articulated everything in the most brilliant way and put words to things that are extremely accurate but i wouldn't have been able to describe myself.

living in the tension between instinctive kinky impulse and metacognition/potentially unpleasant self-awareness this is so so so so so so interesting, and you're right, that's absolutely how i write. i have read stories or blog posts or whatever by authors who really enjoy the intellectualization of kink - and in what is entirely uncharacteristic of me, because i like intellectualzing absolutely everything else, i just never have any interest in trying to apply reason or causality to things involving sex or kink. i don't know if this came through at all, but one thing i thought about when writing bodyworks was never having the story/narrative suggest that carlos "needed" to be spanked - but that's a whole other topic so i won't start rambling about it now. the point is, yes, exactly what you've said, i totally do write kink coming from the instinctive horny place contrasted with moments of uncomfortable lucidity. i feel like you've given me such a gift with this ask, because i've often wondered if there are strong themes that come through in my writing and i genuinely feel like i've learned new things from you, <3

re the section in dwelling:

The thing about doing kinky things was that they didn’t really feel that kinky at the time, usually. Like Dylan had wore all of his ex-girlfriend’s clothes once, including her panties and bra, and it hadn’t really felt like much at the time, just kind of a funny thing to do, but then way afterward, one night when he was at a party, someone said something about crossdressing and he realized that he had done that. Technically, that’s what he’d done. But it hadn’t felt like that at the time. Things usually felt normal to do and excruciating to talk about.

i love that you pointed that out because i really do think that's my actual thesis statement on kink, and as you've said it's shown up a lot of times in various things i've written. (also, i ended up rereading some, and i really do love that story. i was actually thinking last month about how much fun i had writing absolute idiots in hprf and that's what inspired the lando pov in taking care, haha, i was like, oh, i wouldn't mind playing around in the mind of an idiot again.) although i obviously talk and write about kink and sex a lot, so not something i actually find excruciating.

so i completely agree with everything you've said and will start off by saying, yes, for sure, you're absolutely correct. For me, the story i actually thought of as being like Dwelling was Green Thumb. In that -- so for Dwelling, my premise was what if the ot3 had the failiest kinky sex, like originally i had imagined them doing like full suspension bondage and being the worst you can be while not actually putting anyone's life at risk. like just endless of dylan and mitch bickering while connor is in a situation. so in my head, that was in the domestic-flavoured kink realm, like obviously dwelling was literally curtain fic (god i love tropes so much) just written insanely because that was fun for me. and i had Green Thumb in my head in the similar category of domestic-flavoured kink. humans in their homes doing fun weird stuff in fun weird ways. Perhaps a garnish of dynamic play, but you'd probably call the "active" characters tops as opposed to doms.

Whereas in Monaco LN Bodyworks, i thought of it instead as kink-flavoured kink and the dynamic aspect was the primary thing i was thinking about/orienting the fic around. my dom lando agenda, let me tell you all about it. where dwelling was about relational security, to me lando and carlos already had such a strong foundation to their friendship that bodyworks kind jumped in with that already established and was then more about carlos's journey of self-awareness/self-acceptance with a lens or commentary more on masculinity/stereotypical gender roles. so like security in self, about self. (vs. the idiot op3 being actually very capable of doing weird sex stuff, happily, but not being able to talk about where they were going to put their clothes WHEN THEY ALREADY LIVED TOGETHER).

As well, though, all the other things you've mentioned - intimacy without security (and vulnerability in general), not-talking, shame either as background radiation or full nuclear meltdown (oh my god i'm so obsessed with how you framed that, YOUR INSIGHT) are all my favourite things to play around. so i totally see what you're saying in terms of the linkages!!!

[rervraiilstew]

there's really one part of the chapter that I'm just very VERY stuck on that I haven't seen discussed as much(partly because I'm just very obsessive over how absurdism is portrayed in bsd—particularly with Fyodor and Dazai)

Like I am so hung up on this line specifically and have been for a couple days. I can't stop thinking about it.

"It had been ages since I was able to forget about orders or plans and simply enjoy myself."

Emphasis on "forget about plans." Because I had genuinely nearly started cursing and screaming at my phone in public while reading that. And that's because that line goes against a lot of the analysis I've already done one Fyodor, again, particularly relating to absurdism.

And a summary for the difference in philosophy between Fyodor and Dazai:

Dazai is an absurdist. It's very clearly noted in the manga AND anime. Even the anime was able to portray it well enough that it could be picked up pretty easily if you know what you're looking for.

Fyodor is not an absurdist. He embodies three of the reactions to the absurd apart from acceptance. That being suicide, religion, and ignorance. And also, as a whole, his fear of death/evasion of death.

He's very much not an absurdist, as basically pointed out by Dazai before his "death" in the helicopter. The whole thing about him having to have control over all variables.

That's how Fyodor's ignorance to the absurd is depicted. His unwillingness to just let things happen and to have to have control over every single variable in his plans.

Which is why it surprised me SO much that he was just like "oh yeah I was able to just forget about plans." BECAUSE WHAT. That goes against so much of his characterization and I haven't seen it talked about.

Fyodor doesn't just go with the flow. The only reason for that would be if he had no back-up plan in the first place OR if all his back-up plans weren't viable after his main plan. And as Fyodor can't stop bringing up, Dazai did a damn-well good job at going up against him.

And I wonder if his "not worrying about plans" statement was not meant by him as "leisure time." No, it could have genuinely been a source of him freaking out over Dazai being such a good opponent against him that he threw him off course.

I literally cannot imagine a scenario where Fyodor wouldn't have at least one thing planned out. Therefore for a while, he was ACTUALLY outsmarted by Dazai(something that I feel like is overlooked. Their whole battle in Meursault wasn't just a rigid "__ was smarter than __, but then actually __ was smarter than __ ,, and so on. They both won and lost in some aspects.). He had to go against Dazai without a plan or allies, and likely only pulled through only because he had the vampires in the first place.